I have talked about the virgin birth in both Matthew and Luke, and noted its absence from the earlier Gospel, Mark.  In response, I have been asked about its presence/status in the last canonical Gospel, John.  I've posted on this before, even within living memory, but maybe to round out the presentation, it would be good to deal with it again.  Here is the original post from years ago. ********************************************************************************************** I have pointed out that our earliest Gospel, Mark, not only is lacking a story of the virgin birth but also tells a story that seems to run precisely counter to the idea that Jesus’ mother knew that his birth was miraculous, unlike the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  It is striking to note that even though these two later Gospels know about a virgin birth,  our latest canonical Gospel, John, does not know about it.   This was not a doctrine that everyone knew about – even toward the end of the first century. Casual readers of John often assume that it presupposes the [...]

We are moving beyond the Christmas season, but I did think it would be worthwhile responding to a couple of queries I've received about the stories of Jesus' virgin birth -- found only in Matthew and Luke.  What did Mark think about it?  Here, in a post from years ago, I delve into the matter, suggesting some conclusions that are, admittedly, a bit unexpected by most readers of the Bible.   ****************************************************************************   It is interesting that our first canonical Gospel (which is our first Gospel, whether canonical or noncanonical), Mark, does not have the story of the Virgin birth and in fact shows no clue that it is familiar with the stories of the Virgin birth.  On the contrary, there are passages in Mark that appear to work *against* the idea that Jesus’ mother knew anything about his having had an extraordinary birth. There is a complicated little passage in Mark 3:20-21 about Jesus’ family coming to take him out of the public eye because they thought he was crazy.   It is a difficult [...]

In my previous post, ostensibly on the genealogy of Luke, I pointed out that there are good reasons for thinking that the Gospel originally was published – in a kind of “first edition” – without what are now the first two chapters, so that the very beginning was what is now 3:1 (this is many centuries, of course, before anyone started using chapters and verses.) If that’s the case, Luke was originally a Gospel like Mark’s that did not have a birth and infancy narratives. These were added later, in a second edition (either by the same author or by someone else). If that’s the case then the Gospel began with John the Baptist and his baptism of Jesus, followed by the genealogy which makes better sense here, at the beginning, than it does in the third chapter once the first two are added. But is there any hard evidence that a first edition began without the first two chapters? One of the reasons it is so hard to say is because we simply don’t [...]

Over the past couple of weeks I've been asked by readers if I think the birth stories of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 were original to those Gospels (they are the only two sets of stories of Jesus' birth we have; all subsequent retellings -- even in modern times -- go back to one or both of them).   My view is that there is little reason to doubt that Matthew began originally as it does now, with the stories of chs. 1-2 (though I'm open to persuasion otherwise).  But I do have questions about Luke 1-2.  I suspect they were added later, after the Gospel was first published.  I've talked about the issue before, including in a couple of posts from six, count them, six years ago.  I still think pretty much the same thing.  Here is the first of the two posts.  It begins with some reflections on Luke's version of Jesus' genealogy: ****************************************************************************** In my previous posts I have already said a number of things about the genealogy in Luke – possibly most [...]

Christmas is virtually upon us.  I've decided to return to a few posts I've given in years past, lost in the archives here or there, of particular relevance to the season.  This one continues a bit on the theme of the relation of our (only!) two birth narratives in the New Testament, reflecting on the significance of Jesus being born precisely to a *virgin* in Matthew and Luke.  As it turns out, they see the significance differently. ************************************************************ Occasionaly I have raised the question of why anyone should think that you have to believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be a Christian.  The reality is, of course, that many Christians do not believe in it, but recognize that it is a story meant to convey an important theological point – a point that could be true whether or not the story happened – that Jesus was uniquely special in this world, not like us other humans, but in some sense the unique Son of God.   Just as the moral of a fairy tale [...]

In two previous posts I’ve detailed what happens in Luke’s version of Jesus’ birth and then in Matthew’s.  I will assume those two previous posts in the comments that I want to make in this one.  The problem people have with reading these two accounts, usually, is the problem they have reading the Gospels (and the Bible as a whole) generally.  Or at least this has been my experience.  It’s the problem of assuming that one account is basically saying the same thing as some other account. People do that with the Bible all the time.   With the New Testament, people tend to read Matthew as if he’s saying the same thing as Mark; John as if it’s the same thing as Luke; Paul’s letters as if, at heart, they’re the same thing as James; Revelation as if it’s the same thing as John.  And on and on and on. One of the most important tasks I have as an undergraduate teacher of the New Testament is to get students to see that each of [...]

Here I continue my reflections on the birth narratives in the New Testament, with a post on an important aspect of Matthew's account, central to its claims. One of the most distinctive aspects of Matthew’s infancy narrative is his insistence that everything that happened was a “fulfillment” of Scripture. Why was Jesus’ mother a virgin? To fulfill what the prophet said (he quotes Isaiah 7:14: “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son”) Why was he born in Bethlehem? To fulfill what the prophet said (he quotes Micah 5:2: “And you, Bethlehem…from you shall come a ruler” Why did Joseph and the family escape to Egypt? To fulfill what the prophet said (he quotes Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt I have called my son”) Why did Herod have the boys two years and under killed? To fulfill what the prophet said (he quotes Jeremiah 31.15 “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation”) Why did Joseph and family relocate to Nazareth? To fulfill what the prophet said (he quotes … well what does [...]

Yet another “box” in the new edition of my textbook on the New Testament, this one a rather factual reflection dealing with the heightened apocalypticism found in the Gospel of Matthew. *********************************************************************** Another Glimpse Into the Past Box 8.3  Jesus’ Apocalyptic Message in Matthew As we will see in greater detail in Chapter 16, apocalypticism was a popular worldview among Jews in the first century. Apocalyptic Jews maintained that... The rest of this post is for blog members only.  If you don't belong yet, now's your chance!  Join! Apocalyptic Jews maintained that the world was controlled by unseen forces of evil but that God was soon going to intervene in history to overthrow these forces and bring his good Kingdom to earth. Such Jews believed that they were living at the end of time; the new age was soon to appear. We have already seen elements of this worldview in the Gospel according to Mark, especially in Jesus’ lengthy discourse in chapter 13, in which he describes the cosmic upheavals that are to transpire when [...]

Another box in my upcoming new edition of my textbook.   ********************************   Something to Think About Box 5.3  How Reliable Are Oral Traditions? If stories of Jesus’ words and deeds were in oral circulation year after year before being written down, how do we know whether they were changed significantly over time?  One way to answer the question is to see how “oral cultures” preserve their traditions generally. In written cultures, such as ours... The rest of this post is for blog members only.  If you don't belong yet, now's your big chance! In written cultures, such as ours the idea of preserving a tradition means keeping it intact, verbatim the same, from one telling to the next.   An “accurate” retelling of a story, a poem, or a saying, for most of us, is one that does not vary at all from the way it was told earlier.   But the reason we insist on verbatim accuracy is that we have ways of checking to see whether it is the same tradition or not.   Oral [...]