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Loading...As we move to the Christmas season, I thought it would be interesting to post some extracts on one of the most popular Gospels in the Middle Ages, an account of Jesus’ birth – and before that, his mother Mary’s birth – and what happened in the aftermath. It is called the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, because modern scholars once thought that it had claimed to be written by Matthew (the author of the first canonical Gospel); but in fact, as you will see, it claims to be written by Jesus’ brother James.
The Gospel comes to us in Latin and was probably produced in the early 7th century. Some of you may know, from the blog or elsewhere, a Greek Gospel of this description from the 2nd century, the Proto-Gospel of James. This later Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is a kind of reworking and expansion of the Proto-Gospel, with some parts removed, lots more added, and others simply altered. It may be that its unknown author wanted to propagate the stories of the Proto-Gospel in the western part of Christianity, where Latin was the main language. The Proto-Gospel itself had been condemned as heretical by Jerome, and so after the early fifth century, it was not read much. The later Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew was read a *lot*. Many of its stories come to be featured in Medieval art.
I won’t be giving the whole Gospel here, just some of the interesting bits connected with the Christmas story. The first seven chapters deal with the miraculous birth of Mary: in them we learn that her mother Anna was not a virgin, but God miraculously allowed her to become pregnant.
(SIDE NOTE: In Catholic doctrine, the miracle allowed Mary to be born without a sin nature, so that when she bore Jesus later in life, he would not inherit one. It is the birth of *Mary* — not of Jesus — that is called the “immaculate conception.” Her mother Anna conceived a child without a sin nature, hence it was an “immaculate” conception. )
These opening chapters are terrifically interesting, but I’m going to skip over them to get to the part that has similarities with the stories of the Matthew and Luke, which, of course, the author knew very well. His work answers lots of questions, such as: How did Joseph and Mary meet? How did Mary become pregnant? What did Joseph make of that? Etc.
Now HERE you will find some stories you haven’t heard before!
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“a lot was cast by the priests over the twelve tribes” – the author seems to have forgotten that ten tribes were lost to history. Would have been embarrassing if the lot had fallen to one of those who had disappeared.
In this post two people are mentioned as high priest – Issachar and Abiathar. As I understand it both these people figured in the Old Testament. How is it that they appear as the high priest at the time of Mary’s sojourn in the Temple and the events portrayed in the Pseudo-gospel? Who would have been the high priest around the time of Mary and Joseph, please?
I don’t recall who was the high priest at the time, but you’re right, there would have been only one of them.
I believe it was Caiaphas.
Not at the time of Jesus’ birth, I think?
Joshua ben Sie (3 BCE – ?) or it may have been, Joazar ben Boethus (? – 6 CE). The end and beginning dates are unclear. Maybe, Prof. Ehrman you may have a more precise research on these two High Priests.
I certainly *should* have, but alas I don’t….
This is fascinating! It’s a charming story, especially the part about the distinguished women having lived in the temple. The story makes it sound like this was common knowledge to the audience, and I wonder if there was ever any truth to it? Or could it have possibly been written by a woman ??
Well, now I will have to read the whole book:).
P.S. Just finished Heaven & Hell. It made me wonder why it had never occurred to me to ask where those ideas came from in the first place. I’m pretty much a life-long unbeliever (raised Catholic but always had my doubts). Since I had no belief in God/Satan, Heaven/Hell, I suppose I never thought much about how those ideas had arisen – or what our world would be like if they hadn’t. You have given us a lot to think about!
WE don’t know how widely spread this kind of story was, and it *could* have been written by a woman, but it’s statistically unlikely, since by far most of the few people who could write were men.
I am reading through your book, The Other Gospels. Did these people seriously just write these things down and then pull them out the following Sunday morning and say, “I ran across this ancient scroll while preparing for this morning’s sermon.” And everyone just buys into it? I’m in the process of deconstructing my faith and am realizing that I have done the same thing. I’ve never thought about what I believe. I just accepted received information as truth. It hasn’t been a liberating process for me, yet. It is turmoil.
Yeah, it seems a bit far-fetched, I know. I actually don’t think it worked that way. People believe things all the time that just aren’t historically true — about modern figures that we can look into and find evidence for and … and most people simply don’t care about evidence. They hear something and believe it. Same in the ancient world. Rumors fly, stories circulate, people say things — most of the time no one’s lying about it per se: they’ve just heard and said something, it catches on, and people believe it. If you don’t want to be that way (I for one don’t!) you have to look into it, even if it involves something you really would prefer thinking is true.
Thank you for responding and for giving me permission to think about what I believe.
Yes. That makes more sense. The authors were probably writing down stories they had received which had evolved and grown over time. The authors likely thought they were writing down historical facts.
Man, it’s so hard to let go of something that I would prefer to think of as true.
Thanks for all your books!
Somehow this pageantry reminds me of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Though I was raised Catholic, it was never explained to me WHY the Catholic church of my mother’s day (b. 1920), at least as represented in rural Minnesota, was so convinced of sex as a base activity under all circumstances. Was this notion prevalent at the time this pseudo-Matthew gospel was written, and does it connect with the immaculate conception?
Also, I’m aware that gods were routinely born of virgins in the myths known in Jesus’ day. Do you think that, or this notion that sex=sin, contribute more to the stories of Jesus being born to a virgin?
Actually, I don’t think any of the Greek or Roman gods was born of a virgin. I”m going to be posting on that after Christmas!
I’m going through all of the Greek gods and goddesses in my mind and I can’t think of one who was born of a virgin. A couple of them committed themselves to virginity – notably Artemis. Several had odd births – Dionysius ripped from Semele’s womb and then implanted as a fetus in Zeus’ leg; Athena born of the mind of Zeus. But among the 2nd generation of the Olympians Zeus is the father, which really sets off Hera. The first generation have interesting stories, but none of them are born of virgins.
Yup, I’ll be posting on this after Christmas!
So I guess that they thought that Mary was so special that the high priest would enter the holy of holies not once a year on Yom Kippur but also to decide who should be Mary’s guardian. It seems that it trivializes the importance that the ancient Jews ascribed to the temple in Jerusalem and is kind of insulting. Do you think that this was in part due to anti-Jewish feelings by the Christians at the time? Also was 14 year girls getting married the norm in ancient Israel or was this just a misconception by the writer or maybe was the custom at the time of the writing of the gospel that was assumed to be the way that everybody has done it?
I think it was basically just ignorance of Jewish law and custom. And yes, it was the custom in almost all ancient societies for woment to marry when they were able to bear children. There are strong evolutionary reasons for that.
Having a child at 14 has medical risks that would not be present for a woman say in her 20s so bearing children at that age does not really help get the parent’s genes into the next generation. Child birth in the ancient world was dangerous enough as it was so why add more risk to the pregnancy?
That’s certainly how *I* would have thought of it, if I were in charge; but evolution didn’t look at things in a logical way. Men were driven to get women pregnant and women were driven to get pregnant. Women who got pregnant early and often had more offspring and therefore their genes survived far more broadly than those who waited. that meant that there were far more women inclined to get pregnant early. It really is a counter-cultural phenomenon I believe.
Custom, yes, for some female children (early teens), in some cultures to bear children as soon as they reach menarche but what are these strong evolutionary reasons of which you speak?
Women who bear children early and often have their genes spread andsurvive far more often than those who bear children late and infrequently. So the gene pool is dominated by genes that urge early pregnancy. It’s a world-wide phenomenon through the ages, I believe.
Girls today are able to give birth at ever younger ages than in the ancient world. They enter puberty younger due to better health and especially better nutrition. Hence a 14-year-old girl today is much better able to bear children than one in 3 B.C. The successful family in the world according to Charles Darwin is best characterized by an emaciated junkyard dog with numerous nursing pups. Everything more than that is essentially a function of religion.
That’s right. And as with most things in society, there are other things besides evolution that determine our behavior.
Ok, I’ll bite. So why did scholars think it had claimed to be written by Mathew when literally the first sentence says it is written by James?
Yeah, right! It’s thought that an earlier form of the text didn’t have that first sentence.
Thank you, Dr Ehrman. I was aware (through your books) of the Proto Gospel of James but hadn’t really heard much about this one. Would you say that it is 99% a theologically driven work (i.e. to promote the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity and therefore Joseph must be very old, plus the immaculate conception, etc etc) or did the writer consider his account to be an accurate historical recounting of events? (An impossible question I know).
Right — impossible to know! My sense is that he probably thought *both*, just as people today do when they read their religious texts that contain miracles that non-believers just roll their eyes at.
Do you have any theories on why people at these late dates Took it upon themselves to write outlandish “” gospels for example the infancy gospel of fill in the blank? Obviously one answer could be To set forth or substantiate some form of doctrine or ideology for example the perpetual virginity of Mary etc. Would it not have been considered audacious even at that time, To spend such an elaborate yarn as it were?
It’s a good question. But why do people ever say and think outlandish things. THey do all the time! And of course what seems outlandish to some people is commonsense to others, e.g., stories about Mohammed, or Buddha, or Joseph Smith. Or stories of someone being born of a virgin. Your own beliefs usually determine whether something seems outlandish or not.
Dr. Ehrman: Pardon the off-topic question, but I was wondering if you read the book Veritas, about the forged papyrus fragment called the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. You were on a panel with Karen King, the “publisher” of this fragment, in 2014, where you discussed just this issue of Jesus’s marriage, and the fragment was a major focus. Do you have any thoughts or reflections about that fragment, the issue, or the controversy surrounding the papyrus’s provenance and publication? I’m sure many here would be very interested to read them.
Yes, Ariel Sabar, the person who wrote it, sent it to me in advance and asked me to write an endoresement for it (a blurb onthe back). I was going to, but as I read it I realized that some of my friends were seriously under attack in it. I actually agreed with a lot of the book and thought it was terrific in ways. But I couldn’t publicly endorse something that made my friends look bad.
Could you please comment on the driving force behind the birth narratives? It seems clear that during the time Paul was writing, nobody (well, at least Paul) was talking about Jesus’ birth. Only when you get to Matthew and Luke do we get those cropping up in the written texts. I see that it seemed important to give Jesus a ‘virgin’ birth by say 85 CE, after Mark was written down. Do you think there was an oral birth narrative during Paul’s time?
It’s a long story, but I explain it at length in How Jesus Became God. Short version: the earliest believers in Jesus after his resurrection thought he had become the Son of God when God raised him from the dead and took him up to heaven; later some started thinking he must have been made God’s son at his baptism when the Spirit came into him; later some started thinking he was actually born the son of God, hence the birth narratives. (Some said he pre-existed as a divine being, as in John)
What is the basis for Mary’s birth as the IC?
Do you mean historical basis? There isn’t any. The theological basis is that she could not have a sin nature or else she would have passed it on to Jesus, so she must have been born without it, and that required a divine intervention.