Birth of Jesus; Christmas; Nativity Stories; Truth of Christmas; Birth of Jesus History

The Birth of Jesus:
Hype or History

by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts

Copyright © 2004 by Mark D. Roberts

Note: Some of this material appears also in the series Sharing Laity Lodge

Note: You may download this resource at no cost, for personal use or for use in a Christian ministry, as long as you are not publishing it for sale. All I ask is that you give credit where credit is due. For all other uses, please contact me at mark@markdroberts.com. Thank you.

My Various Writings on Jesus

The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?

Was Jesus Divine? The Early Christian Understanding

Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

Was Jesus Married? A Careful Look at the Real Evidence

What Was the Message of Jesus?

How Can We Know Anything about the Real Jesus?

What Languages Did Jesus Speak and Why Does It Matter?

Recovering the Scandal of the Cross?

The Passion of the Christ: An In-Depth Review

Book -- Jesus Revealed: Know Him Better to Love Him Better

The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?
Part 1 in the series “The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History”
Posted at 10:00 p.m. on  Thursday, December 9, 2004

This week both Newsweek and Time feature the birth of Jesus on their covers. Newsweek’s cover story is entitled: “The Birth of Jesus – Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be.” Time’s cover proclaims: “Secrets of the Nativity: Why the story of Jesus’ birth inspires so much scholar interest – and faith.” Both stories share many common themes. Among other things, they both argue that, although Christmas and its traditions are beloved among Christians, much if not all of the story of the birth of Jesus was an invention of the early Christian church rather than a chronicle of what really happened when Jesus was born. If you’re a fairly conservative Christian, one who believes that the stories of the Bible, including the story of Jesus’s birth, are true, then the articles in Time and Newsweek may be upsetting to you. Then again, they may not be particularly troublesome. After all, they’re mostly just retreads of old ideas. If you’ve been reading secular accounts of Christmas for as long as I have, then you’re response to Time and Newsweek may be “Been there, done that.” Although both articles have a few novel insights, for the most part they repeat the sort of thing that has been appearing in secular media for years and years. You can count on the fact that when major Christian holidays approach, secular “news” sources will publish stories that seem to undermine the whole point of the holidays. Now in fairness to the writers and publishers of such articles, I should add that they may not intend to be as corrosive of Christian faith as they seem to be at first glance. The authors, whose personal faith commitments are not obvious in their essays, are obviously at home in the worlds of secular biblical scholarship and liberal Christianity. In these worlds it’s commonplace to deny the historical accuracy of the biblical narrative without necessarily disparaging the perceived essence of Christian faith. One can believe that God truly loves humankind and has reached out to save us, it is assumed, without also believing that Jesus was actually born in a manger from a virgin mother. Whether, in the end, it makes logical sense to believe this way I’ll save for another series. My point, however, is that the people behind articles that seem to debunk Christian faith may not have this intention in mind. They may in fact see themselves as offering a genuinely faithful alternative for those who can’t quite stomach the miraculous and exclusive claims of Christian orthodoxy. As I read the articles in Time and Newsweek, this is the impression I received.
		One of the greatest things in both magazines is their use of classic Christian art, not only on the cover, but throughout the articles.

My main concern about articles such as these is that they certainly appear to undermine classic Christian belief, even though they acknowledge the pervasiveness of this belief and don’t directly condemn it. Nowhere do they actually say: “Though many Christians believe the Christmas stories are true, in fact they’ve been duped, both about the stories and about Christian faith.” But, although many believers who read these cover stories will chalk them up as “same ol’, same ol’,” others may be worried. Perhaps, some Christians may wonder, what we believe about Christmas really was made up by the early church. Perhaps the Christmas story is really nothing more than a collection of pious and propagandistic legends.

Furthermore, stories like we find in Time and Newsweek stoke the fires of unbelief. When read by a non-Christian person, they may confirm the suspicion that Christian orthodoxy has no grounding in actual historical events. Thus the story of Jesus is not the story of God’s entry into human experience, but simply one story among many religious and philosophical options. After all, if the baby Jesus was really God in the flesh, then all people ought to take him seriously whether they’d like to or not. But if the account of his miraculous birth was fabricated by early Christians to compete with Roman emperor worship, then non-Christian folk can feel free to continue to ignore Jesus.

In this post I want to begin a short series that examines the articles in Time and Newsweek, using this examination to speak more broadly on the issues of history, scholarship, faith, and Christmas. I don’t envision this series as a systematic attempt to deal with the birth of Jesus (as I have done with several other Jesus series, for example: Was Jesus Divine? The Early Christian Perspective). Rather, I want to use the recent articles as jumping off points for a more informal conversation. The form of this series will be a critical commentary on the articles themselves. I will cite various passages from the articles and then offer my critique.

Before I do this, however, I want to note that much of what is contained within these articles is both true and helpful. I haven’t actually counted the words, but I’d expect that I agree with well over eighty percent of what is found in each article. In my commentary I will note some of my agreements with the articles, but for the most part I want to focus on places where I differ from the articles. I will begin by focusing on the Newsweek piece because it is, in my opinion, less supportive of traditional Christian faith and understanding.

One final point: Though orthodox Christians believe that the accounts of Jesus’s birth are historically accurate, we don’t use these accounts as compelling arguments for Christian faith. This stands in contrast to the case for the resurrection of Jesus, for which there is strong historical evidence, and which Christians often use to persuade others of the reasonableness of Christian faith. When it comes to the Christmas stories, however, we don’t have the kind of historical data that we have for the resurrection. Thus, while many Christians can say, “The gripping evidence for the resurrection of Jesus helped me to become a believer,” virtually none would say, “The overwhelming historical proof for the virgin birth led me to faith in Jesus.” Belief in the virginal conception of Jesus comes as a result of our belief in Jesus and in the essential trustworthiness of the New Testament gospels, not the other way around. Thus most Christians would say something like this: “Because I believe Jesus is the divine Son of God, and because I believe that the gospels accurately tell the story of Jesus, therefore I accept the Christmas stories as factually true.”

Yet, as the articles in Time and Newsweek inform us, some scholars assert that the birth narratives themselves are rife with problems that demonstrate their legendary nature. To this assertion and others like it I’ll turn in future posts. Though I can’t prove that the Christmas stories really happened – which, by the way, is the case for the rest of ancient history as well – I can show that it’s reasonable to accept the biblical narratives as historically reliable accounts. Therefore, we can have confidence that the traditional celebration of Christmas is not only spiritually moving, but also grounded upon what really happened 2000 years ago.

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Colossal Controversy or a Tempest in a Teapot?
Part 2 in the series “The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?”
Posted at 10:00 p.m. on  Friday, December 10, 2004

Yesterday I began a new series, “The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?” In this series I will offer a critical response to the recent Time and Newsweek cover stories on the birth of Jesus. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll begin with the Newsweek piece because it is less supportive of Christian orthodoxy. I figure I might as well take on the toughest challenge first.

Excerpt #1 from Newsweek: Complexity and Controversy

Jon Meacham, the author of the Newsweek article “The Birth of Jesus,” begins by describing the experience of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she first heard from the angel that she would bear a child. After a brief retelling of this story from Mary’s perspective, Meacham observes:

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, some scholars treat the Christmas narratives a first-century inventions designed to strengthen the seemingly tenuous claim that Jesus was the Messiah.
     And so the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is, fittingly, as riven with complexity and controversy as Christianity itself. This month more than a billion Christians will commemorate their Lord’s Nativity. Amid candlelight, carols and the commingled smells of cedar and incense, the old tale will unfold again: Gabriel’s visitation, the journey to Bethlehem, the arrival of the baby in a stable, the glorious announcement to the shepherds in the night, the star in the East, the mission of the Magi.

My Comment: Notice carefully what Meacham claims here. First he says that “some scholars” consider the Christmas narratives to be “first-century inventions.” This is true. Yet from this observation he concludes that the story of Jesus’s birth is “as riven with complexity and controversy as Christianity itself.” Does this conclusion follow from the evidence, or is it an enormous exaggeration?

If you’ve studied much church history, you know that Christianity is filled to the brim with complexity and controversy. Yet not when it comes to the story and meaning of Christmas! The vast majority of Christians throughout the world, including thousands of Christian scholars, believe that that Christmas story is basically true. According to Meacham’s own figures, this year more than a billion Christians will celebrate the simple yet profound truth that God became human in Jesus. Believers from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, mainline Protestant, Pentecostal, and independent churches throughout the world will experience extraordinary unity in their understanding and celebration of Christmas. In fact there may be little else in Christendom upon which more Christians experience more unity than their understanding of the birth of Jesus.

So where is the Christmas “complexity and controversy” that is equal to that in all of Christianity? For Newsweek, it’s in the fact that “some scholars” treat the biblical narratives as first-century inventions. From Meacham’s perspective, the opinions of “some scholars” counterbalance the overwhelming unity of almost all Christians when it comes to Christmas. But does this make any sense? I don’t think so. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there are 1,000 scholars who actively dispute the historicity of the birth narratives. (My guess is that the actual number is far less than this.) This means that for every single disputatious scholar there are one million faithful believers. To put it differently, 99.9999% of people who care about Christmas agree on the basics, while .0001% of them hold an opposing viewpoint. Does this constitute a major controversy in Christendom, as Meacham alleges? Or is it, rather, a tempest in a teapot?

I vote for tempest in a teapot. In fact, the only place one finds much “complexity and controversy” concerning the birth of Jesus is among a certain swath of scholars, those who tend to approach the biblical records with extreme skepticism. Many highly educated biblical scholars – who happen to be orthodox Christians – recognize the complexity of the biblical narratives, but continue to accept them as basically accurate and trustworthy historical accounts. Of course Meacham doesn’t quote one of these scholars, or even acknowledge their existence.

I should mention, by the way, that I lived in Meacham’s scholarly teapot for several years while in graduate school, and I still make a return visit every now and then. The “teapot” is the world of secular or liberal biblical scholarship. I studied New Testament at Harvard, ultimately earning my Ph.D. there. Several of the scholars cited in the Newsweek and Time articles were my colleagues. We shared the same classes, libraries, teachers, and dissertation advisors. We employed – and still do employ – many of the same scholarly tools in our study of the New Testament. But we differed largely with respect to the assumptions we brought to our academic efforts, assumptions about the role of the supernatural, the nature of historical inquiry, and the extent to which extreme skepticism is warranted when dealing with canonical documents.

You may be surprised to learn that some of my doctoral classmates were both critical scholars and orthodox Christians, and they continue to teach and publish today as excellent scholars who are also faithful Christians. Yet their perspectives aren’t represented in Meacham’s article. It’s hard to know from the article whether he is ignorant of non-liberal forms of biblical scholarship, or whether he intentionally suppresses his knowledge of scholarly diversity in order to strengthen his argument. In either case, however, his perspective is unduly narrow, and gives an unbalanced picture of scholarship, not to mention Christianity in general.

Meacham would have been more accurate if he had written:

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, some scholars treat the Christmas narratives a first-century inventions designed to strengthen the seemingly tenuous claim that Jesus was the Messiah. And, at the same time, other scholars have judged these narratives to be essentially accurate as historical records of the birth of Jesus.
     And so the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is, in certain scholarly circles, riven with complexity and controversy. But most of this never impacts the vast majority of Christians, including many scholars, who are strikingly united in their understanding of the events and meaning of Christmas. [italics are my additions]

In conclusion, let me summarize:

1. Meacham vastly overstates the extent to which the story of the birth of Jesus is actually controversial among the people for whom it matters.

2. In so doing, Meacham shows his hand, as it were. He gives the opinions of non-orthodox scholars extraordinary weight, while completely ignoring the views of orthodox Christian scholars, and while minimizing the beliefs of a billion Christians. Thus Meacham’s colossal controversy is, indeed, little more than a tempest in a tiny academic teapot.

In my next post I’ll continue to examine the Newsweek article.

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Facts, Faith, and False Dilemmas
Part 3 in the series “The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?”
Posted at 10:00 p.m. on  Saturday, December 11, 2004

Yesterday I began my critical examination of the recent Newsweek cover story: “The Birth of Jesus – Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be.” I demonstrated how this article greatly exaggerates the controversy of Christmas because it gives extraordinary weight to the opinions of hypercritical biblical scholars. Today I’ll show how Jon Meacham, author of the Newsweek piece, commits a classic logical fallacy several times over, thus weakening his argument and distorting even his main thesis.

Excerpt #2 from Newsweek: Either . . . Or

This is what Meacham writes:

            Yet, as with so many other elements of faith, the Nativity narratives are the subject of ongoing scholarly debate over their historical accuracy, their theological meaning and whether some of the central images and words of the Christian religion owe as much to the pagan culture of the Roman Empire as they do to apostolic revelation.
            The clash between literalism and a more historical view of faith is also playing out in theaters and bookstores. . . .

Comment: In my last post I claimed that Meacham completely ignores the work of respected critical New Testament scholars who affirm the basic trustworthiness of the Christmas narratives. I wondered whether he is unaware of such scholarship, or knows about it but intentionally suppresses this information in order to exaggerate the “scholarship vs. faith” theme of the article. When Meacham says that “the Nativity narratives are the subject of ongoing scholarly debate over their historical accuracy,” this seems to answer my question. Yes, Meacham knows about scholarship that offers a more traditional view on the reliability of the Christmas stories, but he chooses neither to describe these scholarly views nor to quote any prominent conservative scholars. This seems more like suppression of relevant information than ignorance of that information. Meacham appears not to want the uninformed reader to know that many credible scholars see lots of history in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth. Yet you can see what Meacham actually thinks of conservative biblical scholarship if you pay close attention to what he writes. After speaking about the “ongoing scholarly debate” over the historical accuracy of the Nativity narratives, Meacham goes on to say, “The clash between literalism and a more historical view of faith is also playing out in theatres and bookstores.” Notice: “is also playing out . . . .” And where is the earlier instance of the playing out between literalism and a more historical view of faith? In context, it clearly is none other than the “ongoing scholarly debate.” In other words, from Meacham’s point of view, conservative scholars are mere literalists. Liberal scholars alone seek “a more historical view of faith.”
		In case you’re wondering, one example of a highly regarded critical scholar who takes the historicity of the birth narratives seriously is N.T. Wright. Wright is one of the most prolific and influential of biblical scholars today. You can find a short, readable account of his views on the birth of Jesus in Chapter 11 of the book, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. This book, co-written by N.T. Wright and Marcus J. Borg is an excellent introduction to current scholarly debates about Jesus. Borg is a leading member of the liberal Jesus Seminar and author of several bestselling books on Jesus. Wright is a scholar who has taught at Oxford and other universities, and has written extensively on Jesus. He is currently the Bishop of Durham.

This, I must say, is pure poppycock. If you’ve read even ten pages of N.T. Wright, not to mention other leading conservative critical scholars such as F.F. Bruce, Richard B. Hays, James Dunn, Ben Witherington, etc., you know that they take a very historical view of faith. In fact, if you compare Wright’s work on Jesus with that of Marcus Borg, you’ll find that Wright is a far more exacting historian than Borg . . . far more! Just try sometime to wade through the historical references in Wright’s endnotes. Yikes!

Lest you think I’ve exhausted my critical examination of the passage cited above from Newsweek, let me admit that I haven’t even got to my main point yet. Meacham wonders “whether some of the central images and words of the Christian religion owe as much to the pagan culture of the Roman Empire as they do to apostolic revelation.” Here he makes a classic logical mistake, employing the fallacy of the False Dilemma. According to Meacham, the elements of early Christian thought must derive either from pagan Roman culture or from apostolic revelation. In his mind, cultural engagement and revelation are distinct. You must choose one or the other. 

But this is a false dilemma. It could very well be the early accounts of Jesus’s birth are simultaneously a product of Roman cultural engagement and divine revelation. Revelation, you see, doesn’t come outside of culture. It happens within culture, using the language and thought forms of a given culture.

I would argue that Matthew and Luke, for example, were fully inspired by God and, at the same time fully engaged with the cultures in which they lived. Consider the analogy of preaching. When I preach, I try to connect the truth I convey with the concerns and values of the culture in which I live. I’m only successful when I communicate God’s truth in a way that makes sense in my culture. So, if Luke’s account of Jesus’s birth seems to use some of the images and terms that can be found in Roman biographies, this doesn’t tell us anything about whether Luke was relating what really happened or not. But it does tell us that Luke was a careful writer and an effective communicator.

One further example of Meacham’s fallacious framing of the debate: he writes, “The clash between literalism and a more historical view of faith . . . .” Stop! Notice the assumption here. One who takes the biblical narratives at face value is not being historical. One who doubts the literal facts of the narratives, however, is being more historical. But these statements are only true if one assumes that the narratives are, in fact, unhistorical. Meacham hasn’t even begun to argue this point yet. He simply establishes another false dilemma, this time between “literalism” and “historicism.”

Clearly there are other alternatives that Meacham should have considered. If a text intends to relate what really happened, even if the text shapes that event in terms of the author’s perspective, then a literal reading of the text might in fact be the most historical reading. When I read an account of the latest Dodger game in the newspaper, am I being unhistorical if I take it literally? No. (Unless of course I know that it was written by a Giant fan. Then extreme skepticism is warranted.)

Finally we get to the most fundamental mistake in Meacham’s whole approach to the Nativity narratives. You can see it right there in his subtitle: “From Mary to the manger, how the Gospels mix faith and history to tell the Christmas story and make the case for Christ.” Notice: “how the Gospels mix faith and history.” Faith and history are, for Meacham, two distinct realities. Frequently in his article they stand in contradiction to each other, and the faithful Christian ends up choosing faith over the hard facts of history.

But this is greatly to oversimplify matters. Faith and history are not separate or conflicting realities, but overlapping and symbiotic aspects of Christian theology. Faith doesn’t stand apart from history, but takes shape within history and is shaped by history. History doesn’t enjoy some privileged position of objective authority over faith because all scholars, no matter what they believe, are influenced by their fundamental beliefs as they spin their historical webs.

The multiple false dilemmas in Meacham’s article (there are more than I have noted here) not only invalidate his argument, but they keep him from discussing the birth narratives with the kind of precision and insight that would have been much more illuminating.

In my next post I’ll continue my analysis of the Newsweek article.

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A Telling “Perhaps” and the Jesus Seminar
Part 4 in the series “The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?”
Posted at 11:00 p.m. on  Sunday, December 12, 2004

Today I continue my critical examination of the recent Newsweek cover story: “The Birth of Jesus – Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be.”

Excerpt #3 from Newsweek: “Perhaps” and Jesus Seminar

A NEWSWEEK Poll found that 84 percent of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, and 67 percent think the Christmas story – from the angels’ appearance to the Star of Bethlehem – is historically accurate.
         Others, though perhaps fewer in number, are equally passionate about their critical understanding of the faith. The Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars devoted to recovering the Jesus of history, is a battalion in this long-running culture war.

Comment: First of all, let me note one more instance of the logical fallacy of the False Dilemma. From Meacham’s point of view, the vast majority of American believe the biblical story of Jesus, including Nativity narratives. Then there are “others” who are passionate about their critical understanding of the faith. So you must choose between traditional belief about Jesus and a critical understanding of the faith. But this is a false dilemma. I would claim to believe that the biblical story of Jesus is true. And, at the same time, I am passionate about a critical understanding of the faith. By “critical” I don’t mean that I am judging Christianity negatively. Rather, I mean that I use critical, rational, scholarly tools to examine the faith. I have spent much of my life developing and using those tools. And, lo and behold, these tools have strengthened my commitment to orthodox Christian faith. Go figure!

To Meacham’s credit, he faithfully recounts the extent to which most Americans believe, not only in Jesus, but also in his virgin birth. If you take the current population of the United States (294 million), the numbers are impressive:

246 million Americans claim to be Christian
241 million Americans view Jesus as God or the son of God
232 million American believe Jesus was born of a virgin
196 million Americans accept the Christmas story as history

But, once again, watch closely how Meacham continues. “Others, though perhaps fewer in number, are equally passionate about their critical understanding of the faith.” Stop. This is a telling statement in which Meacham once again shows his unbalanced bias. For one thing, if the vast majority of Americans believe what Meacham has just said they believe, then it’s disingenuous to say “perhaps fewer in number” are passionate about their critical understanding of the faith. There’s no perhaps about it. Even if every single person in American who doubts the historicity of the Christmas story were passionate about this doubt – which is highly unlikely – they would still be outnumbered by over 100 million!

Am I’m being too picky about Meacham’s words here? No, I don’t think so. Someone who writes a cover story for a magazine such as Newsweek ought to pay close attention to every word. (Moreover, Meacham’s article was surely edited by several top editors who should have caught his biased statements.) I’m paying close attention to Meacham’s words because here you can find his bias, his unexpressed assumptions. When he writes that there are perhaps fewer who are passionate about their critical understanding of the faith, he shows that he is, once again, wildly exaggerating the significance of the opinions of those who doubt the Christmas story. He’s trying once more to turn the Christmas controversy into a national hurricane when it really is, as I said two posts ago, just a tempest in a teapot.

Meacham correctly makes a connection between the Jesus Seminar and those who do not buy into the historicity of the birth narratives (though a small minority of fellows of this seminar are conservative scholars). But his description of the Jesus Seminar perpetuates the myth of its objectivity. Meacham calls the Seminar “a group of scholars devoted to recovering the Jesus of history.” This is what the Jesus Seminar has promoted itself to be. But the truth lies elsewhere.

I don’t have time to lay out in depth the true mission of the Jesus Seminar. But let me simply say that it was founded by Robert Funk with a specific purpose, to rewrite the story of Jesus. This new story would be stripped of its biblical moorings: a God who creates the universe and who brings all things to conclusion at some time in the future. Moreover, no longer would the story of Jesus be tied to the idea of divine revelation. If you don’t believe me, let me quote from Robert Funk’s opening remarks at the first meeting of the Jesus Seminar in 1985:

What we need is a new fiction that takes as its starting point the central event in the Judeo-Christian drama [Jesus] and reconciles that middle with a new story that reaches beyond old beginnings and endings [creation and eschatology]. In sum, we need a new narrative of Jesus, a new gospel, if you will, that places Jesus differently in the grand scheme, the epic story.

    Not any fiction will do. . . . The fiction of Revelation keeps many common folk in bondage to ignorance and fear. We require a new, liberating fiction, one that squares with the best knowledge we can now accumulate and one that transcends self-serving ideologies.

This doesn’t exactly sound like the beginning of an objective quest for the historical Jesus, does it? In fact in that same lecture Funk said this about what his Seminar fellows would experience:

What we are about takes courage, as I said. We are probing what is most sacred to millions, and hence we will constantly border on blasphemy. We must be prepared to forebear the hostility we shall provoke.

Even before the Jesus Seminar examined one saying of Jesus, Funk already knew that its findings would “border on blasphemy” and provoke hostility from believing Christians. How did Funk already know that the “objective” conclusions of the Seminar would be so hostile to traditional faith? Because he stacked the deck from the beginning. Funk filled the Seminar with hyper-skeptical scholars who shared both his scholarly and his theological biases. So even before the Seminar began its work, Funk was assured of the results he wanted. In case you’re wondering about Funk’s own theology (if you can call it that), let me quote a few of his theses from an article called “The Coming Radical Reformation”: The God of the metaphysical age is dead. There is not a personal god out there external to human beings and the material world. The deliteralization of the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis brought an end to the dogma of original sin as something inherited from the first human being. Death is not punishment for sin, but is entirely natural.
		If you're looking for an critical analysis of the Jesus Seminar from a top-notch New Testament scholar, you'll find it in The Real Jesus by Luke Timothy Johnson. Johnson is a highly regarded academic who teaches at Emory University, having once been on the faculty at Yale.

Prayer is meaningless when understood as requests addressed to an external God for favor or forgiveness and meaningless if God does not interfere with the laws of nature. Prayer as praise is a remnant of the age of kingship in the ancient Near East and is beneath the dignity of deity.

We should give Jesus a demotion. It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine. Jesus' divinity goes together with the old theistic way of thinking about God.

The virgin birth of Jesus is an insult to modern intelligence and should be abandoned. In addition, it is a pernicious doctrine that denigrates women.

This is what Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar, believes. He convened the seminar to “give Jesus a demotion” and he formed its membership and method to guarantee this result.

In fairness to Meacham, his statement that the Jesus Seminar is “a group of scholars devoted to recovering the Jesus of history” is not unusual. It’s typical of things said by the secular media when reporting on the Seminar. Meacham, like so many other reporters, bought the Seminar’s spin hook, line, and sinker, never bothering to investigate its true purpose.

Actually, however, Meacham adds a truly insightful comment when he notes that the Jesus Seminar “is a battalion in this long-running culture war.” Here is a helpful way to view this Seminar, not as a group of objective scholars seeking truth about Jesus, but as a brigade in the cultural battle raging in our society today. The Jesus Seminar folk are fighting against the values and morals of traditional, orthodox Christianity. According to founder Robert Funk in “The Coming Radical Reformation,” “The Bible does not contain fixed, objective standards of behavior that should govern human behavior for all time. This includes the ten commandments as well as the admonitions of Jesus.” So he and his Seminar are seeking to set us free from the constraints of biblical ethics and orthodoxy. Let me quote a bit more of a passage I cited earlier from Funk’s inaugural address to the Seminar: “We are probing what is most sacred to millions, and hence we will constantly border on blasphemy. We must be prepared to forebear the hostility we shall provoke. At the same time, our work, if carefully and thoughtfully wrought, will spell liberty for other millions. It is for the latter that we labor.” Liberty? From what? Funk supplies the answer: From a sovereign, personal God who guides our lives through revealed truth, and who was incarnate in Jesus Christ. Liberty from the theology and ethics of Scripture. Liberty from orthodox Christianity and all that it entails.

Given the cultural and theological agenda of the Jesus Seminar, is it any wonder that the majority of its scholars undermine the credibility of the biblical narratives? Is it a surprise that their Jesus turns out to be, not God incarnate, but simply a man who was dressed up by the early church in the costume of a pagan god-man?

I have spent so much time on the Jesus Seminar because it’s obvious that Meacham has been enchanted by the views of its fellows (and like-minded skeptical scholars). The basic direction of the Newsweek article mirrors the trajectory of Jesus Seminar thinking. In my next post I’ll examine further Meacham’s claims about how the birth narratives came into existence, and explain why a reasonable person can consider these narratives as historically trustworthy.

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Are the Birth Narratives Historical? Section A
Part 5 in the series “The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?”
Posted at 11:00 p.m. on  Monday, December 13, 2004

Today I continue my critical examination of the recent Newsweek cover story: “The Birth of Jesus – Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be.” Throughout the Newsweek article, author John Meacham refuses to regard the New Testament gospels as historical sources for information about the birth of Jesus. Though he acknowledges that “the Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology,” in fact Meacham leans strongly in the “mostly fanciful, minimally factual” direction. When discussing the visit of the Magi in Matthew 2, for example, Meacham states, “There is no historical evidence of such a visit.” No historical evidence? Doesn’t this negatively beg the question of Matthew’s historical reliability? It would be correct to say, “There is no historical evidence outside of Matthew of such a visit.” But, obviously Meacham has so little regard for the historical reliability of Matthew that he doesn’t even have to qualify his statement about the Matthew and the Magi.

Why does he view Matthew as unhistorical? In fact, Meacham makes almost no argument for his thesis. He doesn’t show where Matthew makes historical errors or simply makes things up. He does seem to take the fact that Matthew’s story of Jesus’s birth has unusual features, like the visit of the Magi, as evidence for its unhistorical character. But this is a peculiar perspective, indeed. The fact that Matthew alone tells us about the Magi does mean that we can’t test his story against other evidence. But it doesn’t in any way imply that Matthew has made up the story. Throughout ancient history we are often confronted with events that are narrative in only one source. Yet classical historians don’t summarily reject single sources as fictitious. Hyper-critical biblical scholars do, however, without apology.

Once more, Meacham seems to have fallen into the fallacy of the False Dilemma. Again and again in his article he shows (rightly, I might add) that the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke reflect themes and passages from the Hebrew Scriptures. From this insight he infers that the elements of the narratives were made up to conform to the Old Testament. But he never shows why we should think they were actually made up. Wouldn’t it make just as much if not more sense to believe that the early Christians mined the Old Testament for passages that connected thematically with what they believed actually happened in the life of Jesus?

Meacham does provide an argument from analogy to explain why he believes the gospel writers invented stories about Jesus. In this analogy, the gospels are like classical biographies. “Writers like Plutarch invented details or embellished traditions when they were reconstructing the lives of the famous,” Meacham writes, “and the Christmas saga features miraculous births, supernatural signs and harbingers of ultimate greatness similar to those found in pagan works. If we examine the Nativity narratives as classical biographies, then the evangelists’ means and mission – to convey theological truths about salvation, not to record just-the-facts history – become much clearer.”

I actually think the analogy between the gospels and ancient biographies has much to commend it. But, yet again, Meacham sees an unwarranted chasm between theology and history. No biblical scholar I know, conservative, liberal, or otherwise, believes that the gospel writers were intending to “record just-the-facts history.” The gospel writers themselves make their pastoral and theological intentions quite clear (see, for example, Luke 1:1-4). But it’s also clear that they intend to relate, not made up fictions, but events that really happened, from their point of view. Luke claims to have carefully sifted through both written sources and oral testimonies as he prepared to write his gospel (1:1-4). Thus we aren’t faced with a choice between history and theology, as Meacham assumes. Rather, the gospels give us history that is shaped – but not made up – in light of the writer’s theological purpose. And part of that purpose, let’s be clear, is to tell the story of how God really entered human history through the baby Jesus. If Meacham merely infers without direct statement that Matthew is not a reliable historical source, he is even blunter when it comes to Luke. “Almost nothing in Luke’s story,” he claims, “stands up to close historical scrutiny.”
		For an in-depth study of the similarities between the biblical gospels and Roman biography, see the excellent book by Richard A. Burridge, What Are The Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-roman Biography.

What is Meacham’s evidence for this claim? He cites a negative comment by the critical scholar Raymond Brown and then adds, “Augustus conducted no global census, and no more local one makes sense in Luke’s time frame.” Period. That’s all the evidence against Luke’s historical reliability that Meacham can muster. Now I’ll freely admit that Luke’s discussion in 2:1-2 of Augustus, Quirinius, and the worldwide registration does not obviously fit with what we know from other historical sources. There was a governor of Syria named Quirinius who conducted a census about a decade after the birth of Jesus. The historical record outside of Luke is silent about another census ten years earlier. Skeptical scholars are quick to accuse Luke of confusing the facts. But scholars who don’t jump to negative conclusions have found several ways to make good historical sense of Luke’s narrative. The original Greek of Luke 2:2 might very well mean that Jesus