Thread: Kerygmania: Length of Mary's pregnancy Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Aristotle's Child (# 18498) on
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Luke 1:5, 41-43 In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah; his wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth……….When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit,she cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.43 And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord* should come to me?….
Luke 2:2-7 This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.4 And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David,a5to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child,7and she gave birth to her firstborn son.*
King Herod died in 4 BC and Quirinius was governor of Syria from 6-8 AD.
Did Mary’s pregnancy really last 10 years?
[ 28. May 2016, 02:08: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
No. The timing of events described in Luke's nativity story are just screwy. Not that important unless a literalist gets into it with a Jesus Seminar adherent.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Is there a question here?
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Is there a question here?
"Did Mary’s pregnancy really last 10 years? "
As Lyda said, only if you believe Luke got his history spot on.
Otherwise, I would say nine months, give or take a few weeks, same as any other human pregnancy.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Is there a question here?
"Did Mary’s pregnancy really last 10 years? "
Sorry, I meant is there a discussion here.
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on
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There is a discussion, but of course it's not really about Mary's pregnancy, it's about the accuracy of Luke's dates. We've discussed this here before, but it seems 'tis the season to do it again. (You can read a previous thread here on a similar topic, but it's more to do with the accuracy of the census story than with the dating of the event).
It's always struck me as a bit odd that Luke would go to such great lengths to tie his narrative in to specific historical dates, characters and events -- something most Biblical writers, including the other gospel writers, don't bother to do -- and write a preface telling us that he's a careful historian who did his research, only to get the dates all wrong. I'm not entirely sure what this suggests, but it seems to undercut the argument that "Oh well, the accuracy of the dates/events doesn't matter because ancient people didn't see history and mythology the same way we do, the Bible writers didn't think of themselves as writing history texts." ISTM from the prologue of Luke and the details given in the birth narrative that Luke very much DID think of himself as writing a history text, which makes it all the stranger that the dates don't seem to line up with history as we know it.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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Assuming that our historical dating is correct (and I would guess they draw on Roman governmental documents or inscriptions, saying who was in charge when) then I would suggest that Luke's sources were muddled. You are only as good as your data. And they were using Roman numerals, weren't they? It's easy to slip with all those Xs and Ls.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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Apparently it would be perfectly respectable, and make historical sense, to translate Luke as saying this was the census before Quirinius was governor of Syria. Maybe our growing historical knowledge shows the need to re-examine a translational decision, rather than to conclude that Luke is wrong.
Posted by Aristotle's Child (# 18498) on
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Weren't the Gospels written in Koine Greek? And did Luke use or understand Latin??
Posted by Aristotle's Child (# 18498) on
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The" before" translaton isn't too credible if one recalls that from the Jewish historian Josephus, we know that the census was conducted under Quirinius following the Roman exile of Archelaus in 6 AD, who ruled Judea from 4 BC (King Herod's death) until 6 AD. Then the census was conducted and was the cause of a rebellian by Judas the Galileen mentioned in Acts.
Thus this would have been 10 years after the birth of Jesus as reported by Matthew and alluded to by Luke 2.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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We know that a census was conducted under Quirinius which was famous for giving rise to a revolt (because it marked the start of direct Roman rule). We have (outside Luke's gospel) no direct reference to a census or registration carried out before Quirinius was governor of Syria, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one - see the last two paragraphs quoted from N T Wright's comments on the census.
Posted by Jack o' the Green (# 11091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
King Herod died in 4 BC and Quirinius was governor of Syria from 6-8 AD.
Did Mary’s pregnancy really last 10 years?
Three articles from last year from the 'Strange Notions' website which I found interesting.
http://www.strangenotions.com/the-100-year-old-mistake-about-the-birth-of-jesus/
http://www.strangenotions.com/jesus-birth-and-when-herod-the-great-really-died/
http://www.strangenotions.com/does-luke-contradict-himself-on-when-jesus-was-born-2/
Posted by Aristotle's Child (# 18498) on
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Bro James posted:
"We know that a census was conducted under Quirinius which was famous for giving rise to a revolt (because it marked the start of direct Roman rule). We have (outside Luke's gospel) no direct reference to a census or registration carried out before Quirinius was governor of Syria, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one - see the last two paragraphs quoted from N T Wright's comments on the census."
RESPONSE: On the contrary, we know exactly the census being referred to.
Luke2:2 "This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria."
Quirinius became governor of Syria in 6 AD. See Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, chapter 18
"Moreover, Cyrenius (aka Quirinius - Latin)came himself into Judea, which was now added to the province of Syria, to take an account of their substance, and to dispose of Archelaus's money"
This followed Archelaus's being exiled in 6 AD
so we know just when that census was taken. It was Quirinius' first enrollment or census of Judea as governor (or ruler).
[ 12. November 2015, 23:30: Message edited by: Aristotle's Child ]
Posted by Aristotle's Child (# 18498) on
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With all due respect to Jimmie Akins (of Catholic Answers), I prefer to go by the statements of the scripture scholars of the New American Bible usually affiliated with the Catholic Biblical Association and sometimes Catholic University of America.
NAB footnote to Luke 5-2
"...Moreover, there are notorious historical problems connected with Luke’s dating the census when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and the various attempts to resolve the difficulties have proved unsuccessful. P. Sulpicius Quirinius became legate of the province of Syria in A.D. 6–7 when Judea was annexed to the province of Syria. At that time, a provincial census of Judea was taken up. If Quirinius had been legate of Syria previously, it would have to have been before 10 B.C. because the various legates of Syria from 10 B.C. to 4 B.C. (the death of Herod) are known, and such a dating for an earlier census under Quirinius would create additional problems for dating the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (Lk 3:1, 23). A previous legateship after 4 B.C. (and before A.D. 6) would not fit with the dating of Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod (Lk 1:5; Mt 2:1)....
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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I think the point of references to an earlier census is that there might have been one before 6AD, but obviously not under the authority of Quirinius. Possibly one was taken when Archelaus was given control of Judea, though we don't have any record of one. In which case, Luke has confused this census with the better known 6AD census under Quirinius.
Ultimately, I think it's just an example of Luke not being historically accurate, at least in relation to the birth of Jesus.
Matthew and Luke both faced a problem in writing their birth narratives. At a time when it was uncommon for families to move between towns, with most people born in the same town as they lived, and for their parents and grandparents to also be from the same town they had a dilemma. They had a tradition that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, yet there was no doubt that Jesus was from Nazareth in Galilee. How to account for this discrepancy?
Matthew solves the problem by having Mary and Joseph as residents of Bethlehem, so naturally having their son born there. Then with the slaughter of the innocents, a flight to Egypt and eventually a return to Galilee to settle down (where they would be unknown, they wouldn't be associated with the people Herod wanted killed, and presumably felt safer under Antipas than Archelaus).
Luke solves the problem by having Mary and Joseph as residents of Nazareth, so naturally raising their son there. But, he then needs a reason for a man to take his heavily pregnant with to Bethlehem to give birth. Hence a census with the unique requirement of people registering in their ancestral home town, forcing Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. Placing that census more than 10 years too late is by no means the only problem with the narrative. As mentioned, there's no other record of any census where there was a requirement to register anywhere other than where you were living at the time (to my knowledge). And, there's no record of any other census which required registration of anyone other than men (and, quite often only those of the right age to join the army), which would mean even if he had to go to Bethlehem there was no reason to take Mary on that long and hazardous journey - she would have stayed safely in Nazareth with family there.
Posted by Adam. (# 4991) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Matthew and Luke both faced a problem in writing their birth narratives. At a time when it was uncommon for families to move between towns, with most people born in the same town as they lived, and for their parents and grandparents to also be from the same town they had a dilemma. They had a tradition that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, yet there was no doubt that Jesus was from Nazareth in Galilee. How to account for this discrepancy?
I agree with you about the problem Matthew and Luke are trying to solve, but I'm not sure how rare this kind of mobility really was. I've certainly heard it claimed that it was by other people too. But, I've also heard figures of huge numbers of miles of road per year being built by the Roman Army at this time, and almost every famous Ancient seems to have been pretty mobile. Paul was born in Tarsus, but educated in Jerusalem. Galen was born in Pergamum, but moved to Alexandria. Cicero was born in Arpinum, but moved to Rome.
Maybe there's a correlation between being famous and having moved in your youth, but I wonder if it's quite as rare as people make out.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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Of course, the Romans built their roads primarily so they could quickly move the legions to where they were needed to keep the locals in line, and for messengers to quickly reach the nearest garrison to deliver the "we need help with the rebellious locals" messages.
There probably is a correlation between mobility and privilage. The rich were more likely to be engaged in trade between cities (it may be why they were rich in the first place). The wealthy would be able to send their children to school, and following an educational path almost always involves travel to centres of learning. It was, and still is, very common for those being groomed for positions of civic leadership to spend time with the civic leaders of other locations to learn from how others deal with their situations.
Whether a peasant couple in a backwater province of the Empire, even where the husband is a craftsman, would have the opportunity to travel is a different question - beyond the pilgrimages to Jerusalem for festivals that is.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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You know, if you're dealing with Jews, particularly devout ones, the travel thing is easy to cope with--much easier than if you were dealing with a different culture. The Torah demanded that every man visit Jerusalem on the three great feasts of the year. I suspect that was considerably loosened by the time of Christ, but the idea of pilgrimage to Jerusalem (with Bethlehem a mere morning's walk away) meant that travel--even yearly travel!--between Nazareth and the neighborhood of Jerusalem was not a rare occurrence.
As for Mary's presence, it is nowhere stated AFAIK that she herself, in particular, was required to be registered. In the line "to be registered with Mary..." the bit "to be registered" is an aorist infinitive--it doesn't come in singular or plural. And the "with Mary" bit could just as logically refer to the whole preceding clause "And Joseph went up" etc. etc. There is no punctuation to clarify matters for us. Lacking any other indication, I would assume that the registration applied to Joseph only, in his role as head of household. He doubtless took Mary along for practical reasons--I imagine everyone in Nazareth was counting on their fingers, and giving birth away from home is an easy way to obscure the actual birthdate (and hence likely conception date) of a child.
[ 13. November 2015, 03:52: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
Bro James posted:
"We know that a census was conducted under Quirinius which was famous for giving rise to a revolt (because it marked the start of direct Roman rule). We have (outside Luke's gospel) no direct reference to a census or registration carried out before Quirinius was governor of Syria, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one - see the last two paragraphs quoted from N T Wright's comments on the census."
RESPONSE: On the contrary, we know exactly the census being referred to.
Luke2:2 "This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria."
That is to assume that that translational decision is correct. As I pointed out above quote:
it would be perfectly respectable, and make historical sense, to translate Luke as saying this was the census before Quirinius was governor of Syria. Maybe our growing historical knowledge shows the need to re-examine a translational decision…
AS N.T. Wright comments quote:
This solves an otherwise odd problem: why should Luke say that Quirinius' census was the first? Which later ones was he thinking of? This reading, of course, does not resolve all the difficulties. We don't know, from other sources, of a census earlier than Quirinius'. But there are a great many things that we don't know in ancient history. There are huge gaps in our records all over the place. Only those who imagine that one can study history by looking up back copies of the London Times or the Washington Post in a convenient library can make the mistake of arguing from silence in matters relating to the first century.
My guess is that Luke knew a tradition in which Jesus was born during some sort of census, and that Luke knew as well as we do that it couldn't have been the one conducted under Quirinius, because by then Jesus was about ten years old. That is why he wrote that the census was the one before that conducted by Quirinius.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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With BroJames, I think Luke's dating of the nativity has suffered from something of a mistranslation – or a leap of logic that isn't really founded on the linguistic evidence.
The English Bible versions have been accustomed to using the term “governor” to translate the Greek word ἡγεμονεύοντος (= hegemoneuontos) in Luke 2:2, and this is then assumed to mean a reference to Quirinius' Legateship in Syria, beginning in AD 6.
That's a strange jump to make, because hegemoneuontos doesn't map in a 1:1 way to the office of Legate. It denotes a wider sense of holding administrative responsibility.
Quirinius could have 'ruled' in another capacity earlier than AD 6. The Tiburtine Inscription, a Roman inscription discovered in 1746, refers to someone who had twice been 'ruler' of Syria. Quirinius himself led a military campaign against the Homonadensian tribes in Cilicia between 9 BC and 2 BC. To do so he would have had to have access to the Syrian legions, which implies some degree of authority in the relevant area before AD 6.
It's also interesting to see how Luke's describes the enrolment in 2:1-2. Why does he bother to define it as the first enrolment (the question Wright asks)? I think he feels it necessary to add this little piece of detail because he was aware that there was another, later, enrolment and didn't want his audience to be confused over the dating. We are helped here by Josephus who, in his Antiquities Book XVIII and chapter 1, refers to one Cyrenius (the Greek spelling of 'Quirinius') who undertook an enrolment in Judea and to determine what to do with Archelaus' money. This presumably determines the date of the event to the end of Archelaus' reign in AD 6. Josephus also makes the point that these enrolments caused disruption to people's lives. Luke makes another reference to an enrolment in Acts 5:37 which is a closer fit with Josephus (both mention one Judas as a rebel). If Luke was aware of this possible more disruptive AD 6 enrolment, then this nicely explains his statement in Luke 1:2 in these terms - “By the way, the enrolment I'm talking about here is not the better known one in AD 6; I'm talking about an earlier one...”
So I'm not convinced that Luke was incorrect in his dating. It may be somewhat ironic that Luke, in his desire to avoid confusion over dates among his audience, ended up causing confusion among later commentators who were not privy to the information Luke and his original audience had to hand.
Posted by Aristotle's Child (# 18498) on
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Alan Cressfell posted:
“I think the point of references to an earlier census is that there might have been one before 6AD, but obviously not under the authority of Quirinius. Possibly one was taken when Archelaus was given control of Judea, though we don't have any record of one. In which case, Luke has confused this census with the better known 6AD census under Quirinius.”
RESPONSE: Actually, Archelaus was not given control. He inherited it from King Herod his father. The Jews very strongly objected to a census, but no doubt Herod maintained some kind of tally of who owned what so he could collect taxes.
“Ultimately, I think it's just an example of Luke not being historically accurate, at least in relation to the birth of Jesus.”
RESPONSE: What about the Church’s position that scripture cannot contain even the slightest error since it is all inspired by God. Or is “God breathed”? See Providentissimus Deus, 20, and other related encyclicals.
“As mentioned, there's no other record of any census where there was a requirement to register anywhere other than where you were living at the time (to my knowledge). And, there's no record of any other census which required registration of anyone other than men “
RESPONSE:
As a New American Bible Revised Edition admits in its footnotes to Luke 2:
* [2:1–2] Although universal registrations of Roman citizens are attested in 28 B.C., 8 B.C., and A.D. 14 and enrollments in individual provinces of those who are not Roman citizens are also attested, such a universal census of the Roman world under Caesar Augustus is unknown outside the New Testament.
[ 13. November 2015, 13:13: Message edited by: Aristotle's Child ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
RESPONSE: What about the Church’s position that scripture cannot contain even the slightest error since it is all inspired by God. Or is “God breathed”? See Providentissimus Deus, 20, and other related encyclicals.
What about it? Who actually believes that the bible can contain no error otherwise it is completely useless?
Also would you mind using the correct code (see the buttons below the box where you enter a reply)? It is very hard to read your posts (and you might well make a grave error like spelling the ADMIN's name wrongly) if you keep doing it like this.
Help is available in the UBB practice thread in Styx.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
RESPONSE: Actually, Archelaus was not given control. He inherited it from King Herod his father. The Jews very strongly objected to a census, but no doubt Herod maintained some kind of tally of who owned what so he could collect taxes.
This is rather tangential to the main thrust of the thread, but…
Herod Archelaus, according to Britannica quote:
was named in his father's will as ruler of the largest part of the Judaean kingdom—Judaea proper, Idumaea, and Samaria—Archelaus went to Rome (4 bc) to defend his title against the claims of his brothers Philip and Antipas before the emperor Augustus. Augustus confirmed him in possession of the largest portion but did not recognize him as king, giving him instead the lesser title of ethnarch to emphasize his dependence on Rome.
It is perfectly reasonable to regard him as having been 'given' control - both by his father's will, and by Caesar.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
Alan Cressfell posted:
“I think the point of references to an earlier census is that there might have been one before 6AD, but obviously not under the authority of Quirinius. Possibly one was taken when Archelaus was given control of Judea, though we don't have any record of one. In which case, Luke has confused this census with the better known 6AD census under Quirinius.”
RESPONSE: Actually, Archelaus was not given control. He inherited it from King Herod his father.
A minor quibble, but Archelaus was actually "given control". Augustus Cæsar was the executor of Herod the Great's will and had considerable latitude in the disposal of the kingdom. Augustus actually modified the terms of the will granting Archelaus considerably less than the whole kingdom and disposing the rest amongst various other descendants of Herod. The details are available in Josephus.
Interestingly, this bit of history may be embedded in one of Jesus' parables, which begins:
quote:
He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return."
This is not the usual way someone becomes a king but it's what Archelaus had to do, traveling to Rome at the same time as his scheming relations (and a delegation of Judean citizens who'd had all they could stand of the House of Herod).
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
What about the Church’s position that scripture cannot contain even the slightest error since it is all inspired by God. Or is “God breathed”? See Providentissimus Deus, 20, and other related encyclicals.
Hostly reminder
Biblical infallibility is a Dead Horse, and any discussion of it should take place on that board.
/Hostly reminder
Moo
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Alan Cresswell;
quote:
Luke solves the problem by having Mary and Joseph as residents of Nazareth, so naturally raising their son there. But, he then needs a reason for a man to take his heavily pregnant with to Bethlehem to give birth. Hence a census with the unique requirement of people registering in their ancestral home town, forcing Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. Placing that census more than 10 years too late is by no means the only problem with the narrative. As mentioned, there's no other record of any census where there was a requirement to register anywhere other than where you were living at the time (to my knowledge).
As has by now been pointed out quite a few times, Luke actually portrays Joseph as living in Bethlehem, as a member of the family of King David. Mary came from Nazareth. What would basically have happened was that Joseph was working in Galilee, probably in relation to the construction of the city of Sepporis, and the census required him to go home to Bethlehem to register. In Galilee he would have been seen as a migrant worker, akin in modern terms to a Polish worker in the UK.
The interpretation that sees Joseph forced to return to an ancestral home with which he had no current connection depends on translating 'ketalyma' as an 'inn' rather than its primary meaning of a 'guest-chamber', implying in turn that Joseph was staying in an inn rather than in his family home. Translate 'ketalyma' as 'guest-chamber' and that aspect of the problem just disappears.
As a secondary issue I understand at least one early text of Luke gives the name of the Census taker as 'Saturninus' rather than Quirinius; Does anyone out there know more about that? AIUI, 'Saturninus' rendered into Greek with 'Chronos' instead of 'Saturn' might produce a name that could be confused with the Greek version of 'Quirinius'.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
...I understand at least one early text of Luke gives the name of the Census taker as 'Saturninus' rather than Quirinius...
I think this may have come from Tertullian, rather than from any textual variant of Luke. I couldn't find any reference in the critical apparatuses to such a name.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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Thanks Nigel M. As I perhaps imperfectly recall it, Tertullian was in effect claiming to have seen a variant text containing that alternative name, which text may not have itself survived to be in modern critical sources???
Anyone else know anything?
A bit ago I saw an article in a secular astronomy magazine stating that there was a stone inscription reference to a census in Turkey, which might have been associated with Syria at that time, at the appropriate time for the dating of Jesus' birth before Herod's death.
Again, does anybody know more??
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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There having been an alternate text that has failed to be retained in any copies of the text we have is, of course, possible. We know that scribes occasionally made mistakes, resulting in variations in the text.
But, for the name of Quirinius to be wrong implies that Luke originally used a different name, but that the error in copying happened very early on such that the wrong name appears in all surviving versions, with the right name having been lost because of the volume of incorrect versions swamping it out. Possible, but is it a good foundation for an approach to reconcile the apparent discrepancies in the text we have?
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Alan Cresswell;
quote:
But, for the name of Quirinius to be wrong implies that Luke originally used a different name, but that the error in copying happened very early on such that the wrong name appears in all surviving versions, with the right name having been lost because of the volume of incorrect versions swamping it out. Possible, but is it a good foundation for an approach to reconcile the apparent discrepancies in the text we have?
Sort of with you, Alan. But the problem might not be quite so simple. The name 'Quirinius' appears in the NT in a Greek form as 'KurEnios'; as I understand it a Greek version of 'Saturninus' might well not be simply 'transliterated' to the Greek alphabet, but semi-translated by using the Greek form of 'Saturn', that is 'Chronos' with the 'Ch' being a 'chi' which looks like an 'X'. Such a Greek-ised version of Saturninus might be confusable with 'KurEnios/Quirinius' because of Quirinius' involvement with the later census. It wouldn't be so much that the earlier version was 'dropped out' as that it became confused with a similar name....
I wouldn't wish to make too much of this. My preferred guess in some ways would be that we're talking about a 'first census' under a Quirinius with some broad authority in the Middle East which Luke rendered as 'governing in Syria' but not necessarily the specific office of 'the governor'.
We tend not to realise how fluid things still were in the 'Augustan' period after the civil wars surrounding Caesar and Pompey and the aftermath of Caesar's assassination.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Two thoughts on this.
First, I'm fairly sure it's always been assumed Mary's pregnancy was the normal length. Why else do we think we celebrate the Annunciation on 25th March?
Second, it may not have been the Romans that required Joseph to go back to Bethlehem to be enrolled. They may have gone there because he wanted to make sure he was recorded where he regarded himself as really coming from, rather than where he just happened to be. Perhaps he thought that if they didn't go back there and get on the records there, he might lose some sort of entitlement, inheritance rights or something.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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Possibly too much of a tangent here - but I've been fascinated to hear about the cherry-tree carol, which apparently is based on some pseudo-gospel claptrap and, some say, the Koran.
Anyway, some of the many versions say that the birth happened on the 7 January. I've no idea where they got that from!
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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Ah, it looks like that's just a Julian calendar issue. Still, funny to see it in a traditional English folk carol.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Two thoughts on this.
First, I'm fairly sure it's always been assumed Mary's pregnancy was the normal length. Why else do we think we celebrate the Annunciation on 25th March?
Second, it may not have been the Romans that required Joseph to go back to Bethlehem to be enrolled. They may have gone there because he wanted to make sure he was recorded where he regarded himself as really coming from, rather than where he just happened to be. Perhaps he thought that if they didn't go back there and get on the records there, he might lose some sort of entitlement, inheritance rights or something.
It wouldn't strictly speaking have been the Romans who required the detailed aspects of the census anyway; Judea/Palestine was still a nominally independent client kingdom in Herod's day. Herod would do the census at the Romans' request to sort out the tribute he needed to pay them, in effect; but it would be a kind of 'arms-length-management' situation in relation to Rome.
As I pointed out back above, if you correct the later misunderstanding of the word 'ketaluma' as an 'inn' rather than a 'guest-chamber', the text basically says Joseph went back to Bethlehem because it was his actual home, even if his work as a 'tektOn'/builder had taken him to Galilee for much of the year.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by mr cheesy;
quote:
Anyway, some of the many versions say that the birth happened on the 7 January. I've no idea where they got that from!
The Bible doesn't specify a date - but implies a likely winter date, Joseph returning to Bethlehem during a slack period for building work.
In the early days there were several competing versions of a possible birth-date. As I understand it Dec 25th derives from some guy who had the idea that all the important events of Jesus' life would happen neatly on the same day - and on whatever info he had available, he thought the crucifixion (or possibly the resurrection) happened on March 25th. He thought the conception more important than the birth, so dated that as March 25th, and Mary would 'obviously' have a 'perfect' nine month pregnancy so the birth 'must have' been on December 25th....
Even if I accepted his logic there, I'd still be rather surprised that God apparently arranged it by the Roman solar calendar rather than the Jewish lunar calendar!!
It was the post-Constantine Roman state church which settled the date at December 25th to correspond with and take over the mid-winter Saturnalia festival.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
As I pointed out back above, if you correct the later misunderstanding of the word 'ketaluma' as an 'inn' rather than a 'guest-chamber', the text basically says Joseph went back to Bethlehem because it was his actual home, even if his work as a 'tektOn'/builder had taken him to Galilee for much of the year.
That at the most is a possible interpretation, not the only possible one. The same for your following post, about Joseph returning home during a slack part of the year.
As to 25 December - that of course is 3 days after the solstice, and in some ancient calendars the start of a new year. It may have that significance, but the truth is that we have no idea of the real date.
As an aside, when did the Incarnation occur - the conception or the birth? I can't think of anything turning on either date, but no doubt someone at some stage has thought of the answer.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Steve Langton:
As I pointed out back above, if you correct the later misunderstanding of the word 'ketaluma' as an 'inn' rather than a 'guest-chamber', the text basically says Joseph went back to Bethlehem because it was his actual home, even if his work as a 'tektOn'/builder had taken him to Galilee for much of the year.
[qb]
That at the most is a possible interpretation, not the only possible one. The same for your following post, about Joseph returning home during a slack part of the year.
Obviously the hypothesis of Joseph returning during 'a slack part of the year' is just that - a hypothesis or supposition. There could be other explanations for the return; including that to protect Mary's reputation it was a good idea that the birth took place away from Nazareth to confuse issues about the timing of the pregnancy.
On the more basic point, the word 'ketaluma' does basically mean a guest-chamber - it is used of the room of the last supper, and the other reference to an inn in Luke, in the Good Samaritan parable, uses a different word.
Luke says (I'm using my favourite Berkeley version, but I don't think it makes any difference);
quote:
They all went to be registered, each to his own city, and Joseph, too, went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, called Bethlehem, because he was of the house of David, to be registered with Mary his betrothed wife whose pregnancy was advanced
Thus far, it seems a natural reading that everybody went back 'to his own city' and that Joseph was no exception. He was in Nazareth at the time, but Bethlehem was his home city and he went back there to register. He was 'of the house of David' and the family still lived in a portion of David's family's lands in Bethlehem, albeit in 'reduced circumstances' compared to in the time of David.
The only thing which has caused an unnatural reading, with Joseph apparently going back to a Bethlehem which wasn't his current home city, but only a long ago ancestral city, is when 'ketaluma' has been read as an 'inn' rather than a guest-chamber. Restore the 'guest-chamber' interpretation, and what is implied is an entirely natural situation, which also fits with archaeological knowledge of the kind of house likely in Bethlehem.
And again, while there might be other explanations, the most likely explanation of Joseph's presence in Nazareth is the combination of on the one hand proximity to his fiancee and her family, and on the other hand the availability of building work in and around the city of Sepphoris.
I'm not saying my suggestion is the only possible explanation; just that it seems very likely and in particular resolves the apparent problem of the interpretation based on the idea of Joseph as an outsider to Bethlehem who needed to stay in an inn.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
Joseph went to a guest chamber in his own house in Bethlehem?
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
The biggest problem is that, apart from junior school nativity plays, I don't think anyone really thinks that Joseph and Mary wandered around the streets of Bethlehem looking for the local Premier Inn.
Much more likely it was a typical one-room house - a room in which the animals (at least a donkey, as we're told Mary rode one) were also housed at night. A house like any other, only lacking room because the owners (members of Josephs family) are now accommodating two more people and an extra donkey. If there were several animals there, that part of the room may have been the warmest on a cold night, where better to keep a new born child warm?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
There is always (the unknowable, in my opinion) possibility that the events were transported to Bethlehem by the gospel writers in order to make a point about prophesy. AFAIU there has never been found a recorded census in the period which required people to go to their ancestral town outwith of the gospel account.
I've been to Bethlehem, and there are not many really old buildings, so in my opinion we are all making assumptions about how the buildings were constructed, and I think these are largely influenced by the shape of the buildings which were around in the middle ages.
It would be interesting to read more detail about any archaeology about homesteads* in the region. But it is feasible to imagine that animals lived either with humans or on a floor below.
The whole notion of a "stable" seems to me to be unwarranted from the text, at best it says that the child was laid in an animal feeding trough. This could have been in the street or the countryside.
It is all supposition, of course.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Joseph went to a guest chamber in his own house in Bethlehem?
This line of argument owes a lot to Kenneth Bailey.
It was his ancestral families home, not his own home.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
leo: It was his ancestral families home, not his own home.
I guess that gives a whole new dimension to the story. In this case did his family tell him there was no place for them there? Why? Fodder for a good soap opera ISTM.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
There is always (the unknowable, in my opinion) possibility that the events were transported to Bethlehem by the gospel writers in order to make a point about prophesy. AFAIU there has never been found a recorded census in the period which required people to go to their ancestral town outwith of the gospel account.
As you say, unknowable. The challenge is ISTM, that if they were willing to transpose events at all in this way, then why does Nazareth get a look in in the first place. We can make another speculative hypothesis for that too, but then Occam's razor ought to begin to take effect. It is worth saying also that Luke doesn't say that the census required people to go to their ancestral towns - just that they did (Luke 2.3)
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I've been to Bethlehem, and there are not many really old buildings, so in my opinion we are all making assumptions about how the buildings were constructed, and I think these are largely influenced by the shape of the buildings which were around in the middle ages.
I've been to Bethlehem too. The really old stuff is mostly below ground level now. But there is archeological evidence (scroll down the page for one example - albeit not in Bethlehem). So it's a bit more than just making assumptions
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It would be interesting to read more detail about any archaeology about homesteads* in the region. But it is feasible to imagine that animals lived either with humans or on a floor below.
The whole notion of a "stable" seems to me to be unwarranted from the text, at best it says that the child was laid in an animal feeding trough. This could have been in the street or the countryside.
Here is an extended discussion of what might have happened with reference to archeological sources.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I've been to Bethlehem too. The really old stuff is mostly below ground level now. But there is archeological evidence (scroll down the page for one example - albeit not in Bethlehem). So it's a bit more than just making assumptions
Thanks, I've been brought up with photos and claims like those in my concordance and "evidence for the bible" books. These days I'm pretty skeptical about these as a reliable source of information.
quote:
Here is an extended discussion of what might have happened with reference to archeological sources.
Yes. I'd need a lot better sources than those. As far as I read and understand, there is very little architectural archaeology from the period.
[ 26. November 2015, 15:23: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I've been to Bethlehem too. The really old stuff is mostly below ground level now. But there is archeological evidence (scroll down the page for one example - albeit not in Bethlehem). So it's a bit more than just making assumptions
Thanks, I've been brought up with photos and claims like those in my concordance and "evidence for the bible" books. These days I'm pretty skeptical about these as a reliable source of information.
Yes. I know what you mean.
However, there's actually quite a lot of work been done, although principal buildings often get more attention than standard houses. Excavations at both Yodefat and Gamla give more evidence as to the nature of private housing, but very little of this sort of thing is directly available online without institutional access to academic resources. Even then, if one chooses to discount any sources associated with Christianity, the ability to read modern Hebrew is likely to be necessary. Mostly it tends to be Christian-based organisations who are interested in disseminating the information more widely - and I appreciate that from your POV these are not to be relied on. I am satisfied that respectable evidence exists as to the nature of 1st Century Palestinian housing, but unfortunately, as I have indicated, if you are going to discount what is posted on 'Christian' sites, then the internet is not a medium in which it is possible to respond to those doubts.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Ah, it looks like that's just a Julian calendar issue. Still, funny to see it in a traditional English folk carol.
Bit of a tangent, but that's quite an interesting point. Mary Hopkin - does any shipmate remember her? - sang a version with 6th January in it.
It makes one wonder whether that wording dates from shortly after 1752 when the calendar changed, though logic would suggest that should have been 5th January. There would almost inevitably have been some people who claimed that mere humans could not change God's time. I believe there was speculation among some people at the time as to which night the animals would bow, worship and briefly have the power of speech.
About thirty years ago, I was told that there was a Scottish island that still kept to the old calendar. I don't know if that's true and if so, whether it still does. In the early 1970s there were churches on a remote part of the mainland in Scotland that did not recognise summer time.
Further tangent - this is why the financial year runs from 6th April - 5th April. Before the calendar changed, the new year ran from Lady Day, but people couldn't be taxed for a whole year on a year that was 11 days short.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Le Roc;
quote:
Joseph went to a guest chamber in his own house in Bethlehem?
No, Joseph went to his family's house in Bethlehem; the original intention would have been to use the guest-chamber for the birth, for some reason that didn't work out, they used the animal area instead and Jesus was installed in a manger/feeding-trough.
This isn't a modern semi-detached, or a modern farm with the animal accommodation very much outside. It would be more like an old north of England 'bastle house', with family and animals all in the same building, a big 'daytime' room and some private-ish sleeping areas, and the animals and their provisions at one end. The animal area wouldn't be that different to the rest of the house. Such buildings were common through Europe and the Middle East for centuries before and after the 1st Century CE.
The 'big' point is that Luke's story does not imply the long traditional but rather absurd idea of Joseph going to an ancestral city with which he had no current connection, and so had to stay at an 'inn'. Like others affected by the census, he went to be registered quite logically at 'his own city', which happened to be Bethlehem because he was a descendant of David, and he stayed with his new wife in the current family home.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Steve Langton: No, Joseph went to his family's house in Bethlehem; the original intention would have been to use the guest-chamber for the birth, for some reason that didn't work out, they used the animal area instead and Jesus was installed in a manger/feeding-trough.
Still, this says something about Joseph's relationship with his family. Okay, so there is this family house in Bethlehem. According to you, Joseph lived there (not in Nazareth), but he didn't have a room there. I can get this, it's a big extended family, they don't have that many rooms, so in his absence his room was occupied by someone else. He shows up from Nazareth with his wife Mary, who's obviously about to give birth. What I would imagine is the family wanting this to happen in the best place available, with a lot of Joseph's sisters, nieces, aunts ... fussing over her. And an uncle shouting "What the devil are these shepherds doing here? Can't they see the house is full enough?"
Yet, Jesus seems to have been born in what doesn't seem the best place. And by all accounts, Joseph and Mary were alone. The only reason I can see for this is if Joseph's family didn't believe that the child was his?
[ 26. November 2015, 19:56: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
No, Joseph went to his family's house in Bethlehem; the original intention would have been to use the guest-chamber for the birth, for some reason that didn't work out, they used the animal area instead and Jesus was installed in a manger/feeding-trough.
Seriously - where are you getting this stuff from?
quote:
This isn't a modern semi-detached, or a modern farm with the animal accommodation very much outside. It would be more like an old north of England 'bastle house', with family and animals all in the same building, a big 'daytime' room and some private-ish sleeping areas, and the animals and their provisions at one end. The animal area wouldn't be that different to the rest of the house. Such buildings were common through Europe and the Middle East for centuries before and after the 1st Century CE.
I spent quite a while in academic books this afternoon looking for information about housing in first century Palestine, and nothing I've read resembles this. Just FYI.
quote:
The 'big' point is that Luke's story does not imply the long traditional but rather absurd idea of Joseph going to an ancestral city with which he had no current connection, and so had to stay at an 'inn'. Like others affected by the census, he went to be registered quite logically at 'his own city', which happened to be Bethlehem because he was a descendant of David, and he stayed with his new wife in the current family home.
As discussed before, there is no record of anyone having to go to an ancestral home for a census. If you have anything showing this practice, I'd be very interested to hear it.
[ 26. November 2015, 20:44: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Yet, Jesus seems to have been born in what doesn't seem the best place. And by all accounts, Joseph and Mary were alone. The only reason I can see for this is if Joseph's family didn't believe that the child was his?
I hadn't thought of this point before, but this flight of fantasy is impaled on this point. If Joseph had a home in Bethlehem, someone in Bethlehem would have given him a room for his wife to give birth. To not do so would surely have been shameful in that society.
The fact that no room was available suggests strongly that the pair were not well known in Bethlehem.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by mr cheesy;
quote:
As discussed before, there is no record of anyone having to go to an ancestral home for a census.
Totally agree; that's NOT what I'm saying.
There has been a traditional, but wrong, view that Joseph had to go back to Bethlehem because it was his "Ancestral Home", even though he had so little current connection with the place that he had to stay in an 'inn' when he arrived.
This view is based not on what Luke actually wrote; but on the misinterpretation that "there was no room in the INN", implying that Joseph was not a Bethlehem resident. I don't know exactly when this interpretation arose, but I am guessing that it was probably during the early translations from Greek to Latin.
Remove that misunderstanding and its implications, and Luke says quite clearly that Joseph, like everyone else affected, was registered in 'his own city' - the place where he and his family currently lived.
Because Joseph was a descendant of David, he did in fact live in what was also his ancestral city, Bethlehem, but the reason he went there to register was not because it was the ancestral home, it was because he and his family actually, in c6BCE by modern reckoning, LIVED THERE!!!
Everything else in both Luke's and Matthew's accounts is compatible with that interpretation. Yes, in the end they set up their permanent residence in Nazareth. This was for a variety of reasons including the need to keep the child who was the Messiah at some distance from the murderous Herod family, because Mary was from Nazareth, and plausibly because the Galilee had already before Jesus' birth become something of a 'home from home' for Joseph due to the availability of building work. I would expect that in the next census some ten years later Joseph would be a settled citizen of Nazareth and would register there rather than going back to Bethlehem again.
But I am NOT advocating the absurd idea of Joseph having to go to Bethlehem because it was a long ago ancestral home even though he had no current connection with the city. The whole point of my intervention on the thread was to reject that idea.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
If we take Luke's account at face value, ie: we assume that there was a census that required people to register at their home town then I agree with Steve. Bethlehem is Josephs home town because that is where he was born and raised, and the move to Nazareth is relatively recent. It doesn't mean Nazareth was just a temporary home where he worked building/repairing homes during the good weather of the summer and went home to Bethlehem in the "off season" when the weather wasn't good for house building. I would say Nazareth was where he had established his home and business, where he worked all year and where he intended to stay, taking a wife in Nazareth was part of his settling down process (and, indeed, it's likely Mary wasn't from Nazareth either - her family appear to be in Judea. My understanding is that Mary would have been known to his family, and he to hers, in order for the marriage to be arranged).
For some reason the census requires men to register in their home town, and Nazareth doesn't count for Joseph even though he's settled there with home, wife and business. So they set off to Bethlehem, where he was born, as his home town. Mary comes with him because her family is in Judea, not Nazareth, and there is no one in Nazareth to care for her. When they get to Bethlehem they need somewhere to stay.
Bethlehem is a small town. It's not Jerusalem regularly receiving pilgrims, it's not a market town regularly receiving traders, the town has no need of an "inn" to accomodate visitors. Probably a few of the larger houses had guest rooms, and if someone came to town to trade they'd stay with the merchant they were dealing with, and they may have taken payment for a stranger looking for somewhere to stay as they passed through for whatever reason. That would be as close to an "inn" as we'd understand it there would be.
Joseph had left Bethlehem, which implies that the family business was not very successful (at least at that time). So, any family he had wouldn't be living in one of those bigger homes. So, no guest room. Maybe a tent on the roof (assuming a small house wouldn't support an actual structure on the roof). Probably a single room with minimal division into chambers, almost certainly with whatever animals they have brought inside where they are safe at night. No actual room for guests. But, it would probably be expected that some of the family give up their sleeping area for the guests - but, it appears this didn't happen. His family did the least they could to accomodate him. Joseph is not an honoured guest by the way he and Mary are treated. Perhaps there's a family grievance that he left, a feeling that he'd deserted them. More likely it would be well known that he got married 6 months before and here he is with his new wife about to give birth, they could work out the maths there, disgraceful! They're family, so they can't be left on the street, but no one was making room for the man who brought shame on himself and his family.
Posted by David Goode (# 9224) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Ah, it looks like that's just a Julian calendar issue. Still, funny to see it in a traditional English folk carol.
Not really. The Cherry Tree Carol originated in the 14th century, but we didn't switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian until the middle of the 18th, in 1752.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by David Goode:
]Not really. The Cherry Tree Carol originated in the 14th century, but we didn't switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian until the middle of the 18th, in 1752.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the church ever said the birth date was in January.
When the calendar changed, December 25 was moved backwards, but the date remained the same, didn't it? It was always December 25 (as it is in places where the Julian calendar is still used) but one year that was moved a couple of weeks earlier.
As suggested above, maybe the explanation is that people thought they couldn't move such a momentous date, but that still doesn't explain the use in the song of a date in January. Well, other than pious imagining, which has been happening a lot on this thread too.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Alan Cresswell: Joseph is not an honoured guest by the way he and Mary are treated. Perhaps there's a family grievance that he left, a feeling that he'd deserted them. More likely it would be well known that he got married 6 months before and here he is with his new wife about to give birth, they could work out the maths there, disgraceful! They're family, so they can't be left on the street, but no one was making room for the man who brought shame on himself and his family.
Exactly, that's what I've been saying. If you translate κατάλυμα as a guest room in Joseph's family house and take the rest of Luke 2 more or less at face value, you end up with some kind of situation going on between Joseph and his family.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Seems to me to be far less convoluted to see Joseph as having distant relatives in Bethlehem who did not know a) about him or b) that he was coming, hence there was no space. Distant relatives turning up in a full house and finding a lack of space I can believe. Someone coming how to his own house I can't.
Otherwise you'd need a whole lot of evidence to show that workers in Bethlehem regularly worked in Nazareth, several days walk away. Does anyone have such accounts of first century housebuilder-carpenters?
Either way, this is all simple guesswork.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I've found this regarding the word κατάλυμα in Luke. According to this scholar, the implication is that the room was a marital chamber which was too small for a birth.
pdf link
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Interesting, but still pretty unsatisfying, in my opinion.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
mr cheesy: I've found this regarding the word κατάλυμα in Luke. According to this scholar, the implication is that the room was a marital chamber which was too small for a birth.
pdf link
Interesting. This points to the other option I gave before: Joseph and Mary where not alone during Jesus' birth, but they were surrounded by his family.
(PS I like the last sentence in that article.)
[ 27. November 2015, 08:59: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
Posted by Jack o' the Green (# 11091) on
:
There are some who argue that it is implausible that Mary could've made the trip to Bethlehem in the West Bank because of the distance - almost two days continuous travel - if she was nine months pregnant. The baby probably wouldn't have survived the trip. There is another Bethlehem - only eight miles from Nazareth which was in existence at the time, so it's possible that Jesus was born there, and the need to connect Jesus to David altered the tradition.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
Luke's gospel does not say how long they were in Bethlehem before the birth. Here is what it does say quote:
He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.
They could have come much earlier and decided not to subject Mary to a long trip when she was further along in her pregnancy.
Moo
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
The article cited by mr cheesy suggests that they got married in Bethlehem.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by mr cheesy;
quote:
Otherwise you'd need a whole lot of evidence to show that workers in Bethlehem regularly worked in Nazareth, several days walk away. Does anyone have such accounts of first century housebuilder-carpenters?
Is such evidence really needed? There is general evidence that quite a bit of building work was available in Galilee, in cities like Sepphoris. Joseph had a fiancee in the area (Luke says the 'Annunciation' to Mary took place in Nazareth, and as 'betrothed' rather than married she probably still lived with her family. You're looking at a respectable though far from rich home base in Bethlehem, and Joseph living as a migrant worker or 'catch hand' going where his services were needed around Galilee generally. Local bureaucracy wouldn't want to be chasing such a person, but might be troublesome if he couldn't show evidence of registration, and a solid base where, in effect, the bailiffs could be sent in if necessary.
The Bethlehem house would be a home of a somewhat extended family and probably to our eyes overcrowded. It doesn't need soap-opera ideas of difficulties in the family to see the possibility that things would get a bit stretched when Joseph came home not alone but with a pregnant wife. In a house which included animal accommodation under the same roof, clearing an animal stall and using the manger as a cradle is quite reasonable.
I get that people want to be sceptical about the story; I'm just saying don't add a problem that isn't there in the original text. As Luke says, Joseph went to his own city to be registered, as you'd expect; he had to 'go' there because at the time he was spending a lot of his time elsewhere in less settled circumstances. It's not about someone being sent to register in a long ago ancestral home where he had no current connection; it's an ancestral home he is still connected with, and quite an important ancestral connection for the birth of the Messiah.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
There is another Bethlehem - only eight miles from Nazareth which was in existence at the time, so it's possible that Jesus was born there, and the need to connect Jesus to David altered the tradition.
That's interesting - can you tell us more?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Is such evidence really needed? There is general evidence that quite a bit of building work was available in Galilee, in cities like Sepphoris.
Yes. Otherwise we can all just point to our favourite convoluted explanation and suggest that this is what must have happened without any recourse to secondary evidence. That might be good enough for you, but it isn't for me.
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
There is another Bethlehem - only eight miles from Nazareth which was in existence at the time, so it's possible that Jesus was born there, and the need to connect Jesus to David altered the tradition.
That's interesting - can you tell us more?
It is an explanation which has been around a while, and has some support by some experts - including some (who either are professional experts or have a vested interest, depending on how you perceive these things in the region.
Unfortunately it seems to me that the best explanation is that the gospel writers disagree about aspects of the nativity narrative: how and where the birth took place and why; what happened afterwards and so on. If we consider the stories in the other gospels (which did not make it into the canon), then we have a range of explanations and stories about the infant and child Christ.
Ultimately I think the gospels themselves may even point to the nativity being a fantasy. If we are saying that the magical details of the birth were remembered accurately until recorded in the gospels tens/centuries later, would they not also be remembered when Jesus Christ was past 30 and beginning his life as an itinerant rabbi and preacher? Would there not be some mention in all of the canonical gospels of this nativity birth narrative?
In Matthew 13:55 John 6:42 Mark 6:3, wouldn't someone have said "ah-ha, no, he was born under miraculous highly unusual circumstances in Bethlehem..." etc? Why wouldn't the gospel writers have included that point in the story - even if nobody actually said it at the time?
My view is that the nativity narrative is likely totally made up and added later. Fortunately nothing about the atonement is based on a superman-style birth myth.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
Even his enemies couldn't come up with the "you know his mother was pregnant before Joseph married her? Who knows who his father is, he could be the bastard child of some Roman who raped her and not even Jewish!" to slur his character.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
[QB] by mr cheesy;
[QUOTE] Otherwise you'd need a whole lot of evidence to show that workers in Bethlehem regularly worked in Nazareth, several days walk away. Does anyone have such accounts of first century housebuilder-carpenters?
Is such evidence really needed? There is general evidence that quite a bit of building work was available in Galilee, in cities like Sepphoris.
Answering the above from mr cheesy;
quote:
Yes. Otherwise we can all just point to our favourite convoluted explanation and suggest that this is what must have happened without any recourse to secondary evidence. That might be good enough for you, but it isn't for me.
I think you've slightly missed the point I was making, which is in effect "Do we need a whole lot of evidence to show that workers in Bethlehem regularly worked in Nazareth, several days walk away?"
I don't think I'm suggesting that this happened all that regularly in the first place, so we don't need a 'whole lot of evidence of it' anyway. And in the second place, how much evidence can one reasonably expect of this? I suspect that you'd be struggling to find detailed evidence of such 'catch hands' from as recently as my 1950s-60s schooldays, and the further back you go, the less evidence there will be. Back to C1 CE, and you're asking for evidence of a kind unlikely to survive - though of course there might be evidence if one of those hands had a child who became important to a lot of people, so that somebody wrote about it in a life of that son....
Or to put it another way, we have about the evidence we might reasonably expect about one case. Indeed with separate mentions in two 'gospels' we've if anything an unusual amount of evidence.... A case which includes the possibilities suggested by a man with a fiancee in the northern province, and whose descent from the family of David could mean that he wouldn't want to draw attention to himself in projects near home for cronies of a king who didn't like potential rivals.
I've come across a work by someone else taking an interest in this aspect; Kenneth E Bailey has published a nativity drama based on this revised idea of the story, and with a substantial essay explaining the background. It's published by ITV and is called "Open Hearts in Bethlehem". I'm going to try and get a copy.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
Steve, I'm certainly not saying that you're wrong, but to make your point suitable for discussion, you need to give us some material to found that discussion on. All you've done so far is make some assertions.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I spent quite a while in academic books this afternoon looking for information about housing in first century Palestine, and nothing I've read resembles this.
But you obviously didn't read Bailey.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by mr cheesy;
quote:
Otherwise you'd need a whole lot of evidence to show that workers in Bethlehem regularly worked in Nazareth, several days walk away. Does anyone have such accounts of first century housebuilder-carpenters?
I was a bit uneasy about this when I first read it, but couldn't quite work out why. Eventually I realised that the reference to 'several days walk away' suggested that you thought workers from Bethlehem would be something like 'commuting' to Galilee, regularly going to and fro.
Apologies if I've misunderstood you there, but to be clear, I wouldn't see Joseph as 'commuting'; I'd expect that he would be living up in Galilee for long spells, months at a time, but not in a 'home'. Rather he would be living, depending on the particular job, in a shelter, or some kind of shed/bothy, or if involved in a major bit of building something like the 'navvy villages' that would grow up around canal and railway construction in 18th/19thC Britain. And he would from time to time move as one job finished and another became available.
Many of the workers on such projects would I suppose be unskilled slaves. But there would also be more specialised workers, and Joseph would be, I think, in that category. Not a stonemason, but a competent 'jobbing builder' and a carpenter but not quite the 'village carpenter' we tend to imagine. He is actually described by the word 'tektOn' which has the same building-related root as the '-tect' bit of 'architect'.
I've now had time to check out the link you offered earlier, and I think it does indeed make pretty solidly the point that (a) 'kataluma' does not primarily mean an 'inn', and (b) that once you've discarded that interpretation, Joseph was clearly returning to the place he basically lived at, 'home' rather than the series of temporary accommodations he stayed in 'on the job'.
On the rest, I do of course recognise that I've been speculating - but I think these are fairly solid speculations rooted in the realities, not just 'fantasising'. As for 'convoluted', well 'convoluted' is what you get when you try to justify the idea of Joseph being sent to register for a census at a place where he needed to stay in an inn!
Among the realities I've been taking account of, and which I've read of in many sources...
Luke does say Joseph 'went up' to his own city - implying that he was initially spending time elsewhere when the time came to register.
Herodian Israel/Palestine was a place with a lot of building going on; the Jerusalem Temple being the best-known example, indeed if I remember rightly still partly 'under construction' when the Romans finally destroyed it. Sepphoris in Galilee was just one of many places with buildings going on at that period; and remained a source of work in rebuilding it after the rebellion caused by the c6CE census. A 'tektOn' like Joseph would have many options.
A fiancee in Galilee would account for Joseph spending some time there; we don't need to be fussy about whether that connection caused Joseph to work up there or whether Joseph working up there led to his bethrothal.
Another reason for Joseph going to Galilee to work would be that as a descendant of David he might be seen as a threat to Herod, and much of the work available near Jerusalem was either Herod's or close associates. Going up to Galilee would seem to offer some distance from that problem.
Gee D, I see what you mean; but I'm basically a voracious reader and 'putter-together' of what I read, but poor at taking notes as I go and at remembering exactly where a particular item came from. But I would not make up the basic info; and in fact on most of the speculations someone else was there before me.
Posted by Cherubim (# 18514) on
:
A) Mary wasn't a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. Joseph was the father. It was wholly usual for unplanned pregnancies to happen under the betrothal arrangement while two people were living under the same roof.
B) Mary had a clitoris. She was just another normal woman who had a clitoris and it beggars belief that she didn't know what it does.
C) Alongside having a clitoris and uterus, her gestation with her first child would have been the usual 9 months.
D) A lot of sentimental discredited romantic arsegravy has been written around her pregnancy and Jesus birth. There were no adoring shepherds or wise men, no stars in the sky hovering over Bethlehem, no gold frankincense and myrrh, no adoring cows sheep or other livestock. Jesus was born in Nazareth. The census was just a benign myth dreamed up to add weight to the narrative by an author keen on getting the Jewish audience on the right side.
E) Far from being sexless, Mary had at least one other child.
F) Get used to reading between the lines in the Bible from the perspective of the original author and readership and you'll get more form it, rather than reading it with the eyes of a 21st century reader. Embellishing narrative with what we would see these days as fraudulent embellishments was quite acceptable at the time the text was originally written.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cherubim:
F) Get used to reading between the lines in the Bible from the perspective of the original author and readership and you'll get more form it, rather than reading it with the eyes of a 21st century reader. Embellishing narrative with what we would see these days as fraudulent embellishments was quite acceptable at the time the text was originally written.
No, it wasn't.
Evidence?
[ 30. November 2015, 00:50: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cherubim:
A) Mary wasn't a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. Joseph was the father. It was wholly usual for unplanned pregnancies to happen under the betrothal arrangement while two people were living under the same roof.
The Biblical texts and the historical understanding of the Church says that Mary was a virgin. Also, why assume that Mary and Joseph were shacked up before they were married?
quote:
B) Mary had a clitoris. She was just another normal woman who had a clitoris and it beggars belief that she didn't know what it does.
C) Alongside having a clitoris and uterus, her gestation with her first child would have been the usual 9 months.
Which are points I don't think anyone disagrees with. Christians claim unusual circumstances for the conception, but nothing about Mary being anything other than a normal, human young woman.
quote:
D) A lot of sentimental discredited romantic arsegravy has been written around her pregnancy and Jesus birth. There were no adoring shepherds or wise men, no stars in the sky hovering over Bethlehem, no gold frankincense and myrrh, no adoring cows sheep or other livestock. Jesus was born in Nazareth. The census was just a benign myth dreamed up to add weight to the narrative by an author keen on getting the Jewish audience on the right side.
As I said way up near the start of this discussion, I think the birth narratives in both Luke and Matthew contain "pious fiction" (what you have rather charmingly called "sentimental discredited romantic arsegravy") and both authors present different solutions to the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem but Jesus is clearly from Nazareth dilemma. That doesn't automatically mean that none of the stories have any core of truth to them. The additional elements of stars, magi, shepherds etc all teach us a lot about who they authors considered Jesus to be with parallels in OT stories and midrash (especially relating to the birth of Moses for Matthew), Greek and Roman stories, and titles routinely used for Caesar all making an appearance in the birth narratives.
quote:
E) Far from being sexless, Mary had at least one other child.
There is potential for entire threads discussing whether the English translation which talks of Jesus' "brothers" refers to brothers, half-brothers or cousins (I know, because we've had lots of those discussions over the years).
Though I would agree with you that Mary did not remain a virgin after Jesus was born, and that she had other children, there is actually no conclusive evidence to support that.
quote:
F) Get used to reading between the lines in the Bible from the perspective of the original author and readership and you'll get more form it, rather than reading it with the eyes of a 21st century reader. Embellishing narrative with what we would see these days as fraudulent embellishments was quite acceptable at the time the text was originally written.
Of course, we've not just got to deal with 21st century readers. There is a massive body of Christian literature that also takes the same essential details from the stories - Mary was a virgin, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born in Bethlehem to fulfill Messianic prophecy. The "embellishments" in the original narratives serve a purpose, and as 1st/2nd century accounts (depending on when you consider them to have been written and whether they were in circulation in the Church prior to that) carry with them the expectations of that culture - which include a reduced expectation of them being "literal history" in the way we might expect a biography to be.
Of course, popular culture has both emphasised and expanded upon those "embellishments". There are times when we may need to remind people that the "star" was not something bright and obvious (why then would Herod need to find out when it appeared?) but more likely an astrological sign that only held meaning to the eastern astrologers, as just one example of a popular embellishment of the actual narrative.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
As I said way up near the start of this discussion, I think the birth narratives in both Luke and Matthew contain "pious fiction" (what you have rather charmingly called "sentimental discredited romantic arsegravy") and both authors present different solutions to the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem but Jesus is clearly from Nazareth dilemma. That doesn't automatically mean that none of the stories have any core of truth to them. The additional elements of stars, magi, shepherds etc all teach us a lot about who they authors considered Jesus to be with parallels in OT stories and midrash (especially relating to the birth of Moses for Matthew), Greek and Roman stories, and titles routinely used for Caesar all making an appearance in the birth narratives.
<snip>
Of course, we've not just got to deal with 21st century readers. There is a massive body of Christian literature that also takes the same essential details from the stories - Mary was a virgin, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born in Bethlehem to fulfill Messianic prophecy. The "embellishments" in the original narratives serve a purpose, and as 1st/2nd century accounts (depending on when you consider them to have been written and whether they were in circulation in the Church prior to that) carry with them the expectations of that culture - which include a reduced expectation of them being "literal history" in the way we might expect a biography to be.
Of course, popular culture has both emphasised and expanded upon those "embellishments". There are times when we may need to remind people that the "star" was not something bright and obvious (why then would Herod need to find out when it appeared?) but more likely an astrological sign that only held meaning to the eastern astrologers, as just one example of a popular embellishment of the actual narrative.
I'm not sure where you are going with this thought, Alan Cresswell, but (obviously) all these things you describe as "embellishments" are part of long-held traditions of the Church.
If one is saying that these things (stars, magi, shepherds) are embellishments, that in a lot of ways it is a minor step further forward to say that other things (the birth being in Bethlehem, the virginity of Mary etc) are also embellishments.
If one is using Tradition as a standard of truth, then one is surely forced to accept the whole package. If one is allowing that there may be embellishments, in the absence of other supporting information, then whatever one accepts or rejects is to personal "taste" - to use an inappropriate term.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
"Embellishment" isn't a term I would prefer to use, I was only using it since that was Cherubim's choice of word. But, in this case I'm using it mainly of the elements of the narratives that Matthew and Luke do not hold in common (Star, Magi, Shepherds), rather than what they agree on (born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary). They are bits that add something extra. And, by and large, I have no reason to reject them outright - adoration of the Christ child by rich and poor, wiseman and unborn prophet, signs in the sky and angelic messages all contain important truths about this child.
Though, we have tended to embellish the original embellishments, and sometimes it's worth stepping back and deciding just what of the school nativity play it useful to hold onto as Christian teaching and what is just good fun. What I tend to have great difficulty with is when we develop a midrash of three kings, with names and everything. Or, a star that was seen by the shepherds "And to the earth it gave great light,
And so it continued both day and night". The Gospels do not give a number to the Magi, and they weren't kings. And, quite clearly the star was not obvious to anyone else, neither the scholars in Herods court much less shepherd in the field.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
OK, but the gospels may only have some aspects in common because they've copied from each other.. (or a common source)..
That's a pretty poor way to make judgements about what is an "embellishment" in my opinion.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
It probably depends on where you draw the line between "essential part of the narrative needed to adequately express the gospel" and "part of the narrative that tells us profound truth but is not essential to an adequate expression of the gospel". If we make a decision that the Nicene Creed is a summary of the minimum to adequately understand the gospel then under the Constantinople version we only have "incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary" - the 1st council of Nicea doesn't even have that. That makes the entire birth narratives except "Mary was a virgin, who conceived a child by the Holy Spirit" additional details (embellishments).
The additional details (by that measure) of the Gospel accounts, whether the birth narratives or the details of the teaching and ministry of Christ, do make the Gospel stories richer, fuller and more compelling than the Credal summaries though. And, I for one, am glad they are there.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cherubim
Get used to reading between the lines in the Bible from the perspective of the original author and readership and you'll get more form it, rather than reading it with the eyes of a 21st century reader.
How do you determine the perspective of the original author and readership?
Moo
Posted by TomM (# 4618) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Cherubim
Get used to reading between the lines in the Bible from the perspective of the original author and readership and you'll get more form it, rather than reading it with the eyes of a 21st century reader.
How do you determine the perspective of the original author and readership?
Moo
Well we could start with the readings given to the passage in the first couple of centuries after it was written. We can then at least get something of the mindset of a culture significantly closer (pre-industrial, pre-Enlightenment, still aware of effects of living in the Roman Empire, all that stuff), and with (say) 16 centuries less cultural clutter.
Thing is our new poster will find a pretty firm view on the truth of the Gospel accounts there, much to his disappointment...
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Even his enemies couldn't come up with the "you know his mother was pregnant before Joseph married her? Who knows who his father is, he could be the bastard child of some Roman who raped her and not even Jewish!" to slur his character.
Although they did in the Gospel of Nicodemus, chapter 2:
quote:
3 The elders of the Jews answered and said unto Jesus: What shall we see? Firstly, that thou wast born of fornication; secondly, that thy birth in Bethlehem was the cause of the slaying of children; thirdly, that thy father Joseph and thy mother Mary fled into Egypt because they had no confidence before the people.
4 Then said certain of them that stood by, devout men of the Jews: We say not that he came of fornication; but we know that Joseph was betrothed unto Mary, and he was not born of fornication.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Even his enemies couldn't come up with the "you know his mother was pregnant before Joseph married her? Who knows who his father is, he could be the bastard child of some Roman who raped her and not even Jewish!" to slur his character.
Although they did in the Gospel of Nicodemus, chapter 2:
Which - given its probable date looks more like an earlier anticipation of Alan's point above.
[ 01. December 2015, 11:42: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
I never claimed it was an original point.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Remove that misunderstanding and its implications, and Luke says quite clearly that Joseph, like everyone else affected, was registered in 'his own city' - the place where he and his family currently lived.
Because Joseph was a descendant of David, he did in fact live in what was also his ancestral city, Bethlehem, but the reason he went there to register was not because it was the ancestral home, it was because he and his family actually, in c6BCE by modern reckoning, LIVED THERE!!!
This makes sense to me.
In our church community our records typically indicate that people in their twenties and even in their thirties still live here (and even with their parents), when they are in fact married and living somewhere else. Sometimes they even come back to vote, not having established residency and registered anywhere else.
So I can easily imagine that Joseph would be a Bethlehem boy even if he had been living for long enough in Nazareth to get engaged there. However it is more than likely that Mary was also from Bethlehem, since her cousin Elizabeth lived near Bethlehem and they were close enough for Mary to visit her when she became pregnant.
I also don't think that we need to assume any particular falling out with Joseph's family for them not to have had room when Mary was about to give birth. Maybe they were simply of humble circumstance and did not have room. It is unlikely that Mary would have given birth all by herself, alone with Joseph and the animals. Family members and local midwives would surely have been in attendance.
An important point, I think, is that the specific things mentioned have symbolic significance, but they do not tell the whole story. The fact that there "was no room for them," for example, surely relates somehow to people not having room in their hearts for God, or for the Light, in that dark time.
I think that Matthew offers evidence that Mary and Joseph were not estranged from their family, since they evidently stayed in Bethlehem long after Jesus' birth and were living in a house by the time that the Wise Men arrived.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Luke 3
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar – when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene – 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
This historical detail comes in the next chapter to the one about Quirinius being (or not) the Governor of Judea. Has anyone actually examined these dates and persons for accuracy? If so, why would Luke include this detail - and be correct - and also include a detail that (some think) is incorrect?
Could it be that the first one is actually correct but that the external corroborating evidence hasn't been found yet? It seems strange that Luke would include external historical details and yet get them wrong.
Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Has anyone actually examined these dates and persons for accuracy? If so, why would Luke include this detail - and be correct - and also include a detail that (some think) is incorrect?
The dates seem to jibe reasonably well. Tiberius ruled from 14 AD to 37 AD, so the 15th year of his reign would be circa 29. Herod Antipas's rule was from 4 BCE to 39 AD, while his brother Herod Philip went from 4 BCE to 34 AD--so the 29 AD date works for them too.
Apparently this reference is all anybody knows about Lysanias. No way to confirm its accuracy.
What is truly impressive in terms of accuracy is the reference to the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. How can two people share a single high priesthood? Well, Annas originally was high priest from 6 AD to 15 AD when the Romans put him out of office. Caiaphas eventually took over (although exactly when seems unclear, but somewhere between 18 to 25 AD). But, by Mosaic law, a high priest is a high priest for life so, even though he no longer held the office because of the Romans, Annas was still considered "high priest." And, of course, the 29 AD date works for both Annas and Caiaphas. (We don't know exactly when Annas died, so I think we have to give it to Luke that Annas was still alive in 29--Wikipedia seems to think that Annas made it to the 40s.)
So Luke seems to have it exactly right, at least to the extent that I am able to check the dates. And, as you say, this gives some cause for believing that Luke was right earlier, too.
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