Christmas: What’s actually within the Bible – and what’s not | EUROtoday

Despite all of the cultural pessimism: the Christmas story continues to be a part of the frequent data in Germany. How Mary and Joseph seemed for a spot to remain in Bethlehem, how they laid little Jesus in a manger in a steady, how an ox and a donkey seemed down on him. How then the shepherds and the three kings got here by to pay homage to the new child Messiah. And how Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their youngster as a result of King Herod had all of the infants killed.

But the circumstances of Christ’s beginning should not precisely said wherever within the Bible. Rather, the well-known Christmas story combines a number of passages from numerous books of the New Testament with different sources and centuries-old traditions. At the identical time, there are a lot of contradictions in Holy Scripture that make the standard Christmas story appear unbelievable.

It begins with the birthplace of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew and Luke say that Mary gave beginning in Bethlehem. But there is no such thing as a hint of this within the different two evangelists, Mark and John, or in the remainder of the New Testament. There it is just hinted many times that Jesus got here from Nazareth, his father’s homeland. In the Old Testament, alternatively, it says (Mic 5.1): “And you, Bethlehem, from you shall come to me the Lord of Israel.”

The Heidelberg theologian Gerd Theißen concludes in his guide “The Historical Jesus. A textbook” (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen 2023. 570 pages, 50 euros): “Jesus comes from Nazareth. The shifting of the birthplace to Bethlehem is a result of religious fantasy and imagination: Because the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem according to the Scripture, Jesus’ birth was moved there.”

The birthday was certainly not on December 24th. The evangelist Luke says (Luke 2:8): “That same night there were shepherds in the field, looking after their flock.” Therefore, Jesus will need to have been born between March and November, as a result of in addition they spent the winter in heat Palestine Shepherds didn’t spend the evening within the fields, however stored their animals in stables.

The circumstances of Jesus’ birth are the next inconsistency in the Christmas story. In many Western depictions, Mary’s birth takes place in a stable. This goes back to a note in Luke according to which Mary placed her child in a manger because she could find no other place in the inn (Luke 2:7). However, a stable is not explicitly mentioned in the biblical story of the birth.

For this reason, Eastern Christians often depict the birth of Jesus in a cave. This presentation follows the detailed description in the so-called Proto-Gospel of James. This text, which was written around the year 150 and is not part of the official canon of the New Testament, primarily glorifies Mary and revolves around the proof of the virgin birth of Christ.

Nowhere in the New Testament are the ox and the donkey to be found, which in many depictions of the birth story look down on the child in the manger. Their presence perhaps goes back to the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah (Is 1:3): “An ox knows its master, and a donkey knows its master’s manger.” According to another interpretation, the ox and the donkey represent Judaism and paganism . The child Jesus lying between them is supposed to free them from their respective yokes: the ox from Jewish law, the donkey from the burden of idolatry.

The motif of the three kings is also not found in the actual birth stories. The evangelist Luke knows nothing about their visit, and in Matthew’s detailed description there is only mention of “magicians”, which correctly translated means astrologers. Later they became the “Wise Men from the Orient”.

The fact that there were three visitors is a conclusion from the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh that were presented. “Pope Leo I (440 to 461) came up with it,” wrote the journalist Hartmut Schickert (1950–2008) in his “Little Scientific Christmas Companion” (Piper-Verlag Munich 2003): “And they probably became kings because An Old Testament Messiah prophecy talks about kings bringing gifts to Christ – and biblical prophecies After all, they have to come true.”

Ultimately, the kid homicide can be a legend. Firstly, there is no such thing as a hint of this crime described by the evangelist Matthew (Mt 2:16 to 18) wherever within the modern texts. This even if Herod’s crimes had been usually reported.

Second, the story is constructed as a parallel to the beginning of Moses, which casts severe doubt on its historic reliability. The conventional Christmas story doesn’t stand as much as the strict scientific gaze. Of course, that’s no cause to not inform them anymore. Because the report of Christ’s incarnation is much too lovely for that.

WORLDHistory editor Sven Felix Kellerhoff At the tip of the Eighties, as a highschool pupil, he recited the Christmas story in line with Luke within the unique historic Greek textual content.