The X-mas factor

Christmas! Hurrah! Huzzah! And we SHALL have one... but of course it's not all about conspicuous consumption and boozing... what we are constantly reminded at the traditional annual church attendance is that we should take time and examine the true message of Christmas.

And what message is that? Well it's the nicer end of the whole story isn't it? The donkey and what have you... the 'star'... the bit of the bible that's for kids.

We have Angels and Shepherds and Stables and Stars in the Sky and expensive presents from people we never normally hear from.
Sounds like Christmas to me...these are all elements of the story we recognise and understand as proper yuletide, and what's a nativity play without them? And what's Christmas without a nativity play? Why it's nothing more than an updated pagan festival of gluttony designed to give us something to look forward to in the depths of winter, isn't it? ; we cant be having that.

So let's take our cue from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and be all about 'the message'.

Jesus's biography comes to us via the four books of the good news/gospel(good shpeil?) of Matthew, Mark Luke and John. (Yes I'm getting a bit theological on your ass but BEAR WITH ME PEOPLE) It's estimated that these books were written a while after Christ's "death" about the time that early Christians figured out that the Judgement day wouldn't be happening any time soon:

Mark says that Jesus said to his disciples:
"Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power,"
- so you can see where they might've got the impression that the kingdom of heaven was only 'round the corner.

Of course, after a while, the early Christians copped it that maybe they weren't lucky witnesses on the fast-track to salvation after all, but instead they might be guardians of a message that had to be written down and passed on and spread.

'He won't be along for a while Lads, so out with the foolscap'.

Because it's Christmas, we'll only bother with Luke and Matthew because the other two have nothing to say on the subject (Mark only starts when Jesus is baptised by John the Bap and John has him flame into being with the beginning of the universe). We don't know for certain, but most Biblical scholars agree that the books of Matthew and Luke were written sometime between AD60 and AD90. We're not talking about eye-witness accounts anyway.

Neither Matthew nor Luke suggest sources either, so we don't know if these stories of the nativity are attributed to Joseph or Mary or Jesus himself. If you consider the stories as 'gospel', then essentially it doesn't matter, but if you consider them as stories or even historical accounts then it does become relevant where all this information about the circumstances of Jesus's birth came from, why? Well because they contradict each other:

Matthew says Joseph and Mary were residents of Bethlehem who had to flee to Egypt because Evil Herod had ordered the destruction of every boy child living there (in a chilling echo of 'Passover'). Joseph and Mary were able to avoid the infanticide because an angel appeared unto them and gave them a 'heads up' (it's all about 'who you know' isn't it?) to quit town pronto .

Luke, on the other hand, says Joseph and Mary were residents of Nazareth, but the Emperor of Rome decreed a Census. This Census demanded the return of Jews to their ancestral homes so they could be counted there instead of where they happened to be living. Which is why the tourist industry in Bethlehem enjoyed a brief bonanza and there wasn't a bed and breakfast to be had for love nor money by the time they made it.

To me,these seem like pretty big events. They seem like big events in terms of Jewish/Roman history, and they seem like big events in the life of a special baby destined to be the saviour of mankind. Is it just me, or is it not a bit mad that they both differ so much? And is it not a bit mad that neither account refers any of the amazing and unprecedented elements of the other? What can be the possible reason for it?

I think there are four options:

possible reason 1. Matthew is lying and Luke is telling the truth.
possible reason 2. Luke is lying and Matthew is telling the truth.
possible reason 3. they're both telling the truth.
possible reason 4. they're both lying.

Now for a believer who takes the Gospel, well.. 'as Gospel' reason number 3 is the only option and a person who honestly believes 3 might as well stop reading now, But; if you're a faithless fecker, such as meself,who's had their doubts ever since they found about Santy, then number 3 simply wont wash.

The traditional response has been to marry the two into one story. They are both 'Gospels' and, in christian orthodoxy, both represent unassailable truths so therefore all the things that both guys said happened, happened.

This, to me, is crazy talk.
To really believe it you'd have to believe that Matthew's bits: the flight to Egypt, the star, the magi and the massacre of the innocents, were all elements that Luke was aware of, when he wrote his version, and decided to leave out.

You'd also have to believe that the strange Roman census and the subsequent 'no-room at the inn' birth and the visitation to the shepherds by angels-with-trumpets were all elements that Matthew was also aware of but decided to leave out of his version.

INTERIOR : EARLY CHRISTIAN H.Q:

MATT:
Whaddya up to Luke?

LUKE:
Oh y'know... Stuff.

MATT:
Gospel Stuff?

LUKE:
Yeah Gospel Stuff,

MATT:
What kinda Gospel stuff?

LUKE:
Oh same old, same old, Gospel stuff, -Y'know yourself...

MATT:
Yeah?

LUKE:
Yeah, I thought I'd do the early days, y'know with the angels and the flight to egypt and all that... some great material...

MATT:
You bastard!

LUKE:
What?

MATT:
I was going to do the early days!

LUKE:
So?

MATT:
So? So it's already ridiculous, there's you, me, Mark and John and we're all basically writing the same story! I was planning on my Gospel covering the whole early days thing!I mean, look if we just have the same thing four time's in a row who's gonna bother finishing the second one?

LUKE:
I 'spose you have a point... They are all a bit 'samey'...

MATT:
My point exactly. And the early days is the best stuff! Nazareth and Bethlehem and the flight to Egypt...

LUKE:
Fairly action-packed alright.

(PAUSE)

LUKE:
Tell you what; there's plenty of stuff there, why don't we split it?

MATT:
Split it?

LUKE:
Yeah, I'll take the Shepherds and the Inn and the Census of Rome bit, and you can do the magi and the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the infants...

MATT:
The massacre, you mean it? Because I always thought the Census was a bit boring...

LUKE:
I don't mind, I kinda like it.

MATT:
So it's a deal?

LUKE:
Deal.

MATT:
And you wont even mention..

LUKE:
What did I just say?

MATT:
You're a saint.

LUKE:
Go way out of that and just get writing, it's almost AD90 y'know...

MATT:
I better get started.

LUKE:
Yeah :And Matt..

MATT:
What?

LUKE:
You cant use any of my bits either now, Not a mention, is that understood?

MATT:
Janey, who'd you think I am?

LUKE:
Just so long as we're clear
PAUSE (They're writing).

MATT:
Luke?

LUKE:
Oh what is it now?

MATT:
I was thinkin; If I just write my bits and leave out your bits and you just write your bits and leave out my bits,-wont that seem weird?
I mean people might not believe it.

LUKE:
You don't have to worry about anyone who doesn't believe it.

MATT:
I don't?

LUKE:
Nah, anyone who doesn't believe it is going to hell.

MATT:
Oh.

PAUSE

MATT:
Cool.

If you believe both then you'd have to believe that something like this happened:
Either you believe that they made a pact together to tell different parts of the story or else you believe that somehow Matthew knew all of these significant details while at the same time being completely unaware of the details Luke was privy to, and vice-versa.

A faithless fecker has got to go for number 4.

How dare you! you faithless fecker!- Explain to me now, what possible reason two faithful holy men would have for lying about something as important as the circumstances of our Lord and Saviour's birth!

Well okay, seeing as you ask.

Both of these stories solve a prophetical stumbling block that must have been real thorn in the side of the early church and that's geography.
It wasn't enough that the message of Jesus was ethically superior to anything we'd heard before in the Old testament, the man was simply not palatable as the messiah mentioned in the prophecies of Isiah if he wasn't born in Bethlehem. The 'of Nazareth' element of 'Jesus of Nazareth' was a deal-breaker.
And, to my mind, Matthew and Luke represent two equally convoluted and equally fictitious solutions.

Luke can't be telling the truth (solution 1) because the Emperor of Rome simply didn't decree a Census. There was a lot of paperwork involved in such an action and there's no record of it. Also it's simply bizarre to imagine that the Roman state gave a flying continental what house of David its' citizens were from for the purpose of Census taking. It puts the baby where he needs to be for the purposes of Isiah's prophecy and provides a nice counterbalance between the powerful earthly ruler and the defenceless child at the beginning of our story, but well-told fiction is still fiction.

Matthew can't be telling the truth( solution 2) because, well because Herod, even though he was a vicious and cruel ruler, wasn't alive at the purported birth of Christ. And all over the world, not least of all Rome itself, people were staring at the heavens and trying to make sense of it. All over the world people kept records and nobody noticed a new star (if it's supposed to be Halley's Comet then he's out by at least twelve years). The massacre of the innocents is a nice literal echo from the passover and the flight from Egypt, but because something works so well in terms of a story is no reason to believe it; In fact, it's a good reason to believe the opposite.

All a bit glib I know, but I feel glib about it. I mean : I don't believe it. A word of it. I'm not sure that the people who take it seriously pay that much attention, most of 'em. If you think I'm smug then just imagine how smug a person with an invisible best friend who can make them live forever seems to me.
Anyway, I imagine this is one of those posts that those who agree with me won't bother finishing and those that don't agree with me wont bother finishing either. But still, surrounded, as I am annually, by all this usual Christmas crap, it was a real pleasure to get this off my chest.

######DISCLAIMER#####

In ancient Greek, the word 'heresy' means 'choice' and so I will say, in defence of this heretical text, that I respect the 'heresy' of others; to think otherwise , and to approach these questions from a different angle, even if that is the obedient 'bet-into-you' unthinking uncritical slavish angle.  In other words, please don't burn down my house or stone me in the street just because we see things differently.  
If you wanna be Christian about things: forgive me. Merry Christmas.