The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, dismissed the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men yesterday as nothing but “legend”.
There was scant evidence for the Magi, and none at all that there were three of them, or that they were kings, he said. All the evidence that existed was in Matthew’s Gospel. The Archbishop said: “Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from. It says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that’s all we’re really told.” Anything else was legend. “It works quite well as legend,” the Archbishop said.
Further, there was no evidence that there were any oxen or asses in the stable. The chances of any snow falling around the stable in Bethlehem were “very unlikely”. And as for the star rising and then standing still: the Archbishop pointed out that stars just don’t behave like that.
Although he believed in it himself, he advised that new Christians need not fear that they had to leap over the “hurdle” of belief in the Virgin Birth before they could be “signed up”. For good measure, he added, Jesus was probably not born in December at all. “Christmas was when it was because it fitted well with the winter festival.”
Read it all; also a piece from the Telegraph is there.
Update: An excerpt of interview with Simon Mayo on Radio 5 live is there.
Well, at least he didn’t claim they existed but were most likely just a group of three gay guys.
[blockquote]ABC: We know his mother’s name was Mary, that’s one of the things all the gospels agree about, and the two gospels that tell the story have the story of the virgin birth and that’s something I’m committed to as part of what I’ve inherited.
SM: You were a prominent part of a Spectator survey in the current issue which headlined’ Do you believe in the virgin birth?’ there are some people in this survey who would say they were Christian who don’t have a problem if you don’t believe in the Virgin birth;’ how important it is it to believe in that bit?
ABC: I don’t want to set it as a kind of hurdle that people have to get over before they, you know, be signed up;, but I think quite a few people that as time goes on, they get a sense, a deeper sense of what the virgin birth is about. I would say that of myself. About thirty years ago I might have said I wasn’t too fussed about it – now I see it much more as dovetailing with the rest of what I believe about the story and yes.[/blockquote]
Uh, Rowan, this is kind of important.
“And as for the star rising and then standing still: the Archbishop pointed out that stars just don’t behave like that.”
…nor do men commonly walk on water or turn water into wine or raise the dead…
[i]”Although he believed in it himself, he advised that new Christians need not fear that they had to leap over the “hurdle†of belief in the Virgin Birth before they could be ‘signed up’.”[/i]
Do they have to say the Apostles Creed (without the conflicting doubt of invisible crossed fingers) before new Christians are baptized?
Does he even think through the simplest implications of what he is saying both theologically and ecclesiastically? After such a statement, it has become even more apparent to me that the captivity is much deeper and more profound than first believed by many. It would be interesting, to say the least, if there could be an elicitation of some response to this by some primate of the Global-South, not to mention the wonderful bonds of faith that must have been strengthened with Rome. Inquiring minds want to know.
Jafer
Rush Limbaugh had a good monologue on this today (Thursday), even though he kept calling Dr. Rowan Williams “Dr. Rowan [i]Wilson[/i]”.
It will probably be posted on his [url=http://www.rushlimbaugh.com]website[/url] sometime tomorrow (Friday).
The two main points of his was:
If you don’t believe the tenents of your religion, why do you want to keep the job?
and
If you want to start a new religion devoid of all historic Christian belief, go ahead — just don’t call it ‘Christianity’.
Rush’s article on this is posted now. The title (and link) is [url=http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_122007/content/01125110.guest.html]A brief sermon for the Archbishop of Canterbury[/url]
If you don’t believe the tenents of your religion, why do you want to keep the job?
Maybe because Rowan thinks Christianity is more about personal behavior and way of life than about assent to historical propositions. Unfortunately, most Christians believe that the faith is mostly about assent to historical propositions, not about personal behavior.
I think a better question is : if the early Christians lied to posterity about something, does that mean everything they said was a lie? Do we have to dump the whole belief in Jesus Christ? Or is it possible that God intended for us to wallow our way through the truth and lies and do our best to figure out what the truth is?
Ha, so Rush talks about cherry-picking beliefs. Look, cherry picking beliefs has been going on ever since St. Paul said you don’t have to be a Jew to be Christian. Every Christian does it, but some pretend not to – and that is one of the greatest blows to the Christian witness there is.
We are so saturated with the “Hallmark Card” theology of Christmas that we can’t or won’t recognize what is actually written in scripture. Technically Williams is correct. His problem is he suffers from “foot-in-mouth” disease in the media which is eager, almost panting, to jump on anything to discredit Christianity.
Sidney,
[i]Maybe because Rowan thinks Christianity is more about personal behavior and way of life than about assent to historical propositions. Unfortunately, most Christians believe that the faith is mostly about assent to historical propositions, not about personal behavior. [/i]
How about: it’s about both? Without the historical accuracy of the accounts, Christianity is only another empty philosophy by a deluded man who thought he was the Son of God. See C. S. Lewis’ [u]Mere Christianity[/u] for a more detailed description of this.
You might also try:
Josh McDowell [u]More than a Carpenter[/u],
Lee Strobel [u]the Case for Faith[/u],
John Stott [u]Basic Christianity[/u].
[i]I think a better question is : if the early Christians lied to posterity about something, does that mean everything they said was a lie? [/i]
I think the better question would be: if the early Christians lied about something like this, why SHOULD we believe them about ANYTHING they said?
As usual, Rush takes something out of context, or possibly no context at all, and makes a mountain out of a molehill. He should stick to spearing Democrats.
Sorry, Sidney, but Christianity has never been more about “personal behaviour and a way of life” than “historical propositions”.
The gospel – which should shape our personal behaviour and way of life – IS an historical proposition. It states that at a specific time and in a specific place God broke into human history and freed us from thinking that our personal behaviour and way of life could possibly make us acceptable to him.
We are Christians NOT because of what we do, but because of what Jesus has done.
Personal behaviour flows from this in a grateful and obedient response – but one of the great lies of apostasy is that Christianity is all about being nice.
We cannot divorce our faith from historical propositions.
The topic is NOT Rush’s remarks, but about what the ABoC said, and Rush is speaking to that, so I didn’t think it was off topic.
Frankly, if the virgin Birth is not necessary to belief in Jesus as the Chirst (and half the gospels give it credence, and a fourth hints of a special birth) nor historically accurate, then Jesus of Nazareth was just a man, as we are merely human.
If He was just a man, he cannot save us from sin, nor restore us to the pre-fall [i]imago Deo[/i].
If he cannot save us, we are still slaves to sin.
If we are still slaves to sin, then we’d better find a different way to worship, because this delusion is going to damn us all to hellfire.
Well, if you believe in the Resurrection, then the Virgin Birth is child’s play. And if you don’t believe in the Resurrection, then why bother with all this religious stuff?
The big question is ‘what is real?’ There are many narrative legends that convey truth. For instance, I don’t believe that the virgin birth empirically occurred, but I believe the virgin birth is real and true. It is an important part of the meaning of Christian faith and cannot be ‘reduced’ or ‘demythologized’ (in the Bultmannian sense) into strictly existential terms only. It is that, but it is more than that. It encounters us ontologically in the very essence of our Christianity. The ontology of the incarnations would be very difficult to understand without the doctrine of the virgin birth.
So whether the magi are ‘real’ historical figures doesn’t reduce their ‘real’ significance.
Hum, lets see – no virgin birth, no incarnation of the eternal Son of God; no incarnation, no two natures… and so down the slope we slide. Are we actually seeking converts/members in God’s Church who need not jump such a hurdle?
Everything he says is fact. We have no way of proving any of it. Yet, no one has come up with disproving it. But this almost sounds like Spong. For me – the basics – if there is an Almighty God (I do believe), and He chooses by the Holy Spirit to Incarnate, who am I to second guess him. I guess that is the big problem, we have too many second guessers out there – and now the ABofC…..
#17…You believe in God. Yet God isn’t an empirical object that can be discovered by scientific enquiry or defined in physical terms (at least literally). There must be more to reality than what can be empirically determined. Maybe there are other truths that aren’t empirical, or can be expressed in narrative legend, and yet still be true.
I think I’ll stick with the New Testament. It has worked just fine so far, even without the ABC’s help. I guess he can run down his own rabbit trail.
ViT 15 & 18:
Fortunately, historically authentic Christianity does not require me to break my brain into two incompatible parts – one that understands normal reality and one that needs to invent “truth” that is divorced from such reality. Normal everyday reality tells me that if I step off the Golden Gate bridge, gravity and the water far below will always do very harmful things to me. The “theological truth” you seem to describe can perhaps say that the resurrection is vitally important, but it does not matter if it actually was a historical event. If the ABC is providing any reasoning or opining that is similar to that, he is not a helpful proponent of the Christian Gospel.
I am professionally trained in empirical hypothesis testing. That was foundational to my PhD in biology and is foundational to the work I do now. But, with that training and practice, I also know the limits of such empirical hypothesis testing. I would not go into a courtroom and do an experiment to test a hypothesis that the defendant was a murderer. I would use another method – I would call on trustworthy witnesses who saw the event or who could testify to good solid evidence that supported the claim that an actual event called murder perpetrated by the defendant took place.
When I decided to become a Christian, it was not on the basis that I had to compartmentalize “theological truth” in a way that I do not do for any other facts upon which my life depends. Do I have to make a separate compartment in my thinking to handle miracles? No. The God about whom the Bible attests imagined, initiated and now sustains the entire universe. I know from my scientific study and even from the fact that I can walk predictably on level ground that he customarily operates within the patterns we know and come to depend upon. However, a God who can do that can certainly have the power and authority to do otherwise in his universe. The Bible describes numerous unique events where he chose to step outside the normal rules he invented for his universe. I have personally seen miracles that cannot be described by those rules. A woman’s teeth do not spontaneously go from crooked to perfectly aligned in a matter of seconds as she kneels sobbing at the alter rail repeating again and again, “They’re moving!”. This was the same divine power to which the Biblical witnesses and the early church attest. Believing the Biblical and other witnesses about this power does not require that I separate my brain into a part that deals with real, “everyday” evidence and truth, and another part of my thinking that must believe that Christianity is founded on a pseudo-reality that does not connect precisely and completely with historically dependable true events that really happened.
We give science a bad name (as does Spong) when we claim that “scientific understanding” prevents us from agreeing with the Apostles, writers the scriptures, and the early church. Unless you have the power to order God to hatch a miracle upon your command, you will need to trust “trustworthy” witnesses, for miracles such as the virgin birth and the incarnation will happen outside any nicely arranged observation chamber. We can be thankful that God provided trustworthy witnesses and a record of what was witnessed. If the ABC or anyone brushes away the words of such faithful and trustworthy witnesses, he is misplacing an essential thread that should tie him to the historical foundations of Christianity.
There is a limit to science and reasoning possible by the scientific method. If everything in the universe was strict cause and effect according to immutable inviolable laws then we would not have free will.
A Brief Sermon for the Archbishop of Canterbury
December 20, 2007
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: As you people know, I really do not like to stray into religion, because religion is personal and it’s faith-based, and to argue about it is not productive. So I very rarely like to stray into it, but there’s a news story out that’s been out there for a couple days that I have to address, because it bugs me. The liberal Christians out there, these wacko Christians that are liberal just try my patience. It’s that time of year again just before Christmas, when some religious leaders feel the need to explain that the miracles of the Bible never happened, or that the homeless roaming the streets in Buffalo are the modern equivalent of Mary and Joseph. We get the bastardization of the story of the Bible this time of year by liberal Christians. Today’s violator, if you will, is no less than the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and what he says is that the star of Bethlehem, the star of Bethlehem “rising and standing still,” he said stars “they just don’t behave like that.” Now, that is the Archbishop of Canterbury. This is a man of the cloth, and he said that it’s just not possible. Stars don’t just stop up there.
He also says that “belief in the Virgin Birth should not be a ‘hurdle’ over which new Christians had to jump before they” can be signed up as Christians. You can be a Christian without believing that. No big deal. I mean, who really thinks that happened anyway? says the Archbishop of Canterbury. Well, a lot of Christians know where his reasoning is going to end up, or where this line of reasoning will take you, because it ends up denying the fundamental basis of Christianity, which is the resurrection. Because if that didn’t happen, then the whole thing is in trouble, and if these biblical miracles didn’t happen, the star of Bethlehem didn’t stop, if there was no virgin birth, then, of course, there probably wasn’t a resurrection. In which case, what the hell is the Archbishop of Canterbury doing in the business, if he wants to rewrite it this way? This is the typical way that… (interruption) That is the worst toupee I have ever seen on anybody. I’m watching CNBC, and I’ve got Fox on the top. That is the worst toupee I have ever seen. I have not lost my place.
Now, the Resurrection. I’ve told you about the French philosopher, Pascal. Blaise Pascal. He was just agonizing over trying to find earthly proof of the existence of God, aside from inanimate objects and the existence of human beings. He was looking for some sign, and, of course, there is no sign that we knowingly receive. So he began to philosophize about it, and the Resurrection was his problem point. He said, “If that didn’t happen, then all of this might be bogus.” So he said, “How do I explain the resurrection?” This is the thing about religion and the Bible, people take it on faith, but truly inquiring minds, curious minds, are going to examine it and try to establish proof for themselves rather than just have to accept the word of others. It’s natural. It’s part of the way we’re created; there’s nothing wrong with it. So Pascal set about to explain to himself in a satisfactory way the Resurrection, and I’m going to paraphrase, because I don’t have it right in front of me, but he basically said, “It’s easier to believe that something that has been can be again than it is to believe that something that’s never been can be,” which takes me back to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. He said that the star didn’t stop, and he said that the virgin birth, you don’t have to believe that. Why would anybody not believe in these things?
Isn’t it because they are contrary to scientific laws, contrary to how we observe nature operating? If we don’t see it operating a certain way, scientists say, “It couldn’t have happened that way.” Yet — yet, ladies and gentlemen — our very existence cannot be explained by science. The Big Bang violates the best-known law of science, the first law of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics says that you cannot create something out of nothing. Hello, Mr. Pascal. He wasn’t even a scientist. He was a philosopher. It’s easier to believe that something that has been can be again than it is to believe that something that has never been can be. Yet, the Big Bang violates the first law of thermodynamics. That law says you cannot create something out of nothing. But cosmologists, who are physicists that study the evolution of the universe, have to invent new physics to explain the Big Bang: physics that have never been observed. So is this science or is it faith? The Big Bang crowd, nobody was there to see it. We’re just told that this tiny little speck of almost nothing exploded one day and became the universe?
What law of physics explains that? We don’t have one. They’ve had to create it because they haven’t observed it. The Big Bang is as much an article of faith as anything else is in any other religion. It’s just like the other day. We found out nobody in the world of science or medicine has yet to prove that unsaturated fats, saturated fats, whatever, clog your arteries and make you sick. Nobody has ever proved it. Yet we all believe it, and a lot of people run around believing the Big Bang. Nobody can prove it, and the laws of physics as we know them cannot explain it, and yet we accept it. So what’s the problem with Dr. Rowan Williams? You can claim that the universe has always existed, if you want, on the other hand, but if you do that — if you say that the universe has always existed — now you’re violating the next most important law in science, which is the second law of thermodynamics, which says that everything is running down and wearing out, but the universe is still wound up and operating, isn’t it? But we’re told it’s still expanding. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time? I was able to get through 80% of it before I gave up. The universe is still expanding. Then it’s going to contract. The Big Bang is going to become the Big Implosion.
We’re going to all die! Well, we won’t be around when this happens because we’re talking gazillions of years. But wild guess. So it’s wearing down. It’s the second law of thermodynamics. “Oh, yeah. It’s wearing down. We’re going backwards here. The universe is still wound up and operating.” Therefore, here’s the bottom line: Whether he knows it or not (and this is the key point here for the Archbishop of Canterbury), his very existence is a miracle, as is all of ours a miracle. That is, it cannot be explained by modern science. By the way, the Archbishop of Canterbury also said the nativity scene is a “legend.” Not real, just a legend. So for those of you out there who feel compelled to take some of your Christian beliefs, discard the miracles, and replace them with modern science and thereby invent a new religion, go right ahead — and if this is what Dr. Rowan Williams wants to do, if he wants to throw out the things in Christianity that he just can’t explain in his “superior mind,” go ahead, Dr. Williams. But just don’t call it Christianity. You are distorting and debasing it. Call it whatever you want. Call it Williamsism. I don’t care what you call it, but do not call it Christianity. When you start cherry-picking things that you want, cherry-picking things that your superior mind says you can’t possibly accept because stars don’t stop; there’s no virgin both, and nobody can rise from the dead, fine. Go base your own religion on that; find the flock that you want, but don’t call it Christianity.
END TRANSCRIPT
Ah, yes, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”
I prefer the Oliphant version of the visit of the magi:
First Magi, “What is this? We bring him all these presents and all he can say is ‘Happy Hanukkah.’ What kind of a Christmas greeting is that?
Second Magi, “Well, he’s, like, Jewish. What do you think he’s going to say?”
Third Magi, “Jewish? The kid is Jewish?!”
(The little bird in the corner of the cartoon says, “Jeez, get over it!”
So, guys, get over it! Let the ABC have his say without beating him over the head with your Bibles.
Why would anyone want to waste their time listening to a bloviator like Limbaugh?
Bob from Boone…Do I sense just a little frustration?
The ABC has a great intellect. He delves into areas the average Christian couldn’t even imagine. But before I’d critique his theology, I’d want to be able to operate in the deep end of the theological pool. The shallow end is a reasonable place to be for a Christian, but before swimming over to the deep end, I’d want to have had some lessons.
Um, Don, it DOES matter if the Resurrection is an historical event. It was the event that transformed the world, beginning with a small group in Israel and spreading throughout the world.
IT was so important that St Paul says several times “IF Christ is not risen from the dead, your faith is in vain” “If Christ is not risen from the dead, our preaching is in vain”.
Peter points to the resurrection as proof to the Jews of God’s power:
[blockquote]22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. 25 For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
29 “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. [/blockquote]
So you see, the Resurrection has to be taken as an historical event AND a theological truth. It is both, and it is core doctrine.
#24 I don’t find critique of a “bloviator” with your ad hominem particularly compelling. In fact, your critique and Limbaugh’s logic are much the same.
LJ–I think Rush is making the point that the resurrection does matter, not that it doesn’t–making the argument that it is precisely because it doesn’t always happen–and that it marks a particular word from God, is itself a saving event…certainly he did a little better than the ABC
#10 I think the better question would be: if the early Christians lied about something like this, why SHOULD we believe them about ANYTHING they said?
I couldn’t agree more, and frankly, it troubles me greatly.
#12. Sorry, Sidney, but Christianity has never been more about “personal behaviour and a way of life†than “historical propositionsâ€.
Indeed – that is what makes the witness of much of Christianity so sickeningly foul. I often wonder why I still bother.
At the very least, this is horrible promotion of the Anglican Faith at Christmas time. This is saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Whatever your thoughts on Rush, he has 20 million listeners daily who have heard his take on the Archbishop. The article is also posted on Foxnews. This is yet another hurdle for parishes to jump to get visitors to church; well, except those who don’t want to have to believe all that unimportant stuff like the virgin birth and I guess everything that is built upon that.
Don,
You mean I wasted a perfectly good rant (with Bible quotes) because I misread the message? Sheesh!
Having read the article, it doesn’t sound as though Williams is as skeptical of the Gospels as he is of Hallmark cards…
Hi Sidney
Your frustration at the failure of Christians to live out their faith effectively is totally understandable. I am constantly frustrated at my own inability to “measure up” in the ways I behave (echoes of Romans 7!!). That is why I am always so grateful that my relationship with God does not depend on MY performance, but on the performance of my substitute and Saviour.
Of course, Hallmark cards are often just kitschy versions of medieval masterpieces that do conflate shepherds, magi and the obligatory oxen and donkeys – for which we have St Francis of Assisi to thank.
Charles Cranfield dealt with the question of the Virgin Birth very well in the Scottish Journal of Theology c. 1988 – still worth reading, see also Nolland’s commentaryon Luke (WBC). Good that Williams has become more orthodox on this question in recent year (but shouldn’t this go without saying?). As for the Magi, they were evidently better known in the first century than in the 20th or 21st – Martin Hengel notes how magi showed up in Nero’s Rome in the 60s.
This website lists the Cranfield articles I mentioned above, as well as a whole lot of other useful academic stuff on the nativity narratives:
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/jesus_birth.php
I think we should listen carefully what the Archbishop actually said and the context before buying into the way Times has reported it.
e.g. it was a criticism of the 3 wisemen story as is popularly portrayed, not the Scriptural version.
#9: You have said it exactly. Larry
The story of the Virgin Birth goes back at least 2000 years before Jesus. There are so many instances of divine beings’ births being attributed to virgin mothers that Jesus’ story is unremarkable and probably a bad interpretation of prophecy. But whether it literally happened this way or not only defines Christianity in the Creedal sense. Certainly God is capable of making Himself Incarnate in any way He sees fit. To argue that Jesus can not be God if He was not born of a Virgin limits God.
Re #38
Certainly God is capable of making Himself Incarnate in any way He sees fit. To argue that Jesus can not be God if He was not born of a Virgin limits God.
That’s absolutely true. Which, to me, means that the refusal to accept the Gospels’ account of Jesus being born of a virgin is simply a willful way of saying, “He has to do it in a way that I can buy into!”
What Rowan Williams said in his interview with Simon Mayo is accurately provided in another part of the Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=FNNTIYYFRFPZRQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/20/nwise220.xml
Please read carefully and ignore sloppy journalism. A lot of aplogies are needed from many bloggers above. Some disgraceful things written based on what he did not say.
Brian,
[blockquote] To argue that Jesus can not be God if He was not born of a Virgin limits God.[/blockquote]
This is an absurdly facile statement. The Virgin birth is essential to both the human and divine natures of Christ. Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. He could not be otherwise and still be of one being with the Father. Nor could the angel Gabriel salute Mary as “full of grace” if she were not chaste. Orthodox Christianity is the sum of its parts; you do not get to pick and choose.
If you do not believe fundamental Christian theology, then you are being dishonest when you recite the Creed, and you are wasting your time on Sunday morning pretending that a madman or con artist was God in the flesh.
kensaw1,
I quoted Rowan’s statement regarding the Virgin Birth above. It is a patently incorrect statement of Christian theology.
I copy the transcript here.
SM – And the wise men with the gold, frankincense, and Myrrh – with one of the wise men normally being black and the other two being white, for some reason?
ABC 0 Well Matthew’s gospel doesn’t tell us that there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from, it says they’re astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire. That’s all we’re really told so, yes, ‘the three kings with the one from Africa’ – that’s legend; it works quite well as legend.
SM – But would they have been there?
ABC – Not with the shepherds, they wouldn’t. So if you’ve got shepherds on one side and three kings on the other, there’s a bit of conflation going on.
SM – And pulling back further – snow on the ground?
ABC – Very unlikely I think; it can be pretty damn cold in Bethlehem at this time of the year, but we don’t know that it was this time of year because again the Gospels don’t tell us what time of year it was; Christmas is the time it is because it fitted very well with the winter festival.
SM – Just as a side issue on the kings and the wise bit; do you have a problem with astrologers being seen as wise men; there’d be many people in your church who would think, actually, astrology is bunk and should be exposed as bunk and the idea of saying that they are wise is somewhat farcical.?
ABC – Well I ‘m inclined to agree that astrology is bunk but you’re dealing there with a world in which people watched the stars in order to get a sort of heads up on significant matters and astrologers were quite a growth industry; people who were respected and had a kind of professional technical skill and were respected as such., the thing here if course is what’s the skill about? Well it’s all bringing them to Jesus; it’s not about fortune telling or telling the future, it’s about a skill of watching the universe which leads them inexorably towards this event, so I don’t think it’s a justification of astrology.
SM – So if we’re pulling back even further then, is there a star above the place where the child is?
ABC – Don’t know; I mean Matthew talks about the star rising, about the star standing still; we know stars don’t behave quite like that, that the wise men should have seen something which triggered a recognition of something significant was going on; some constellation, there are various scientific theories about what it might have been at around that time and they followed that trek; that makes sense to me.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/20/nwise220.xml
This is an absurdly facile statement. The Virgin birth is essential to both the human and divine natures of Christ. Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. He could not be otherwise and still be of one being with the Father.
What is absurdly facile is the depths of your theology. God does not need a virgin in order to become Incarnate. It can happen any way He decides it will happen.
Good grief!
I shall attempt in my brief remarks to put the controversy into perspective. The Wise Men (so called) were from the East. The East is the part of the world where the exiles from the fall of Israel fled after the Northern Kingdom dissolved in 721 BC. I posit that among them were copies of Torah. There were no copies of the later prophets which went with the early exiles; the later prophets had not yet provided their prophecies.
In the Torah is the prophecy of the hired gun, Balaam, famous in song and story for being rebuked by his ass. He refused, in fact, to prophesy against the Hebrews, even under threat from his bosses. Instead he prophesies about the coming Messiah. And what he prophesies is that a Ruler will come. The astrological sign of the Hebrews was Leo, the lion. How was it to be known that the Ruler had come? A star would appear in Leo. So the Wise Men saw the star appear in Leo. They had to stop to ask for directions, because they lacked the reference to Bethlehem. The conjunction of Jupiter and Venus was visible in Babylon before sunrise, thus in the east.
So they left Jerusalem and went to Bethlehem. And what did they see? The same conjunction, appearing at sunset, as they approached Bethlehem coming in from the east (thus the setting conjunction of Jupiter and Venus would appear to be resting on Bethlehem). Again the conjunction appeared in Leo.
And how do we know this?
In order to send spacecraft to explore the planets, one must know where the planets are going to be when the spacecraft arrive. So JPL (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) was tasked to produce an ephemeris (a catalogue of positions) for the planets. Any catalogue which works in the future will also work in the past. So Roger Sinnott used JPLII to look at conjunctions in Leo. He found two, one on August 17, 3 BC, and one on June 11, 2 BC. Both were striking, as the planets would have appeared to merge into a single image as seen by the unaided eye. Few indeed are the conjunctions where the two images appear to merge.
Sky and Telescope magazine ran this article 40 years ago.
And the Magi would have visited a house rather than the manger, Jesus being almost 10 months old at the time, and Joseph probably still undecided about where to go next. After the Magi departed Joseph got his next directions to flee to Egypt. And Herod issued his instructions to kill all the babies in Bethlehem of ages 2 and under.
So much for historicity. I shall leave it to others to explain how shepherds who would obviously be in the fields in August could possibly be out in December, and how Christmas became celebrated at or around the winter solstice. And how the visit of the Magi 10 months later became conflated with the shepherds.
The three Magi were hypothesized because of the three gifts, which were certainly appropriate in terms of the work which Jesus did.
But the ABC displays the type of uncertainty and hesitancy which is not appropriate for a Shepherd of the flock.
If he doesn’t believe the Scriptures, he should pack up his mitre and retire to a cushy university.
[url=http://nabataea.net/birthdate.html]David Gibson[/url] writes:
[blockquote]in the dry summer season the hills are well-nigh bare, affording insufficient pasture, so the shepherds then normally keep their sheep near the town and enfold them at night. But when the winter rains fall, the hills become clothed with grass, and the shepherds, knowing this, take their sheep further a field. Then, because it would make the sheep walk too far to reach the folds every evening, expending energy needlessly, they simply watch their flocks in the fields all night. This seems to be precisely what the evangelist Luke describes:
“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8). The shepherds were not in the town; the flock was not in a fold in or near the town. They were afar in ‘the field’ or common pasturage. The sheep were taken there only in the winter, when the winter rains brought forth grass on the hills.[/blockquote]
and
[blockquote]As far back as 1863, Smith’s Bible Dictionary, under the heading ‘Palestine: the Climate’, explained the rarity of snow in southern Palestine, while it conceded its more frequent occurrence in the northern parts of the land. The mean temperature at Jerusalem during December is said to run around 47 to 60 degrees F.
It certainly would not hurt sheep to be out at night in that sort of temperature. The Dictionary further states:
“As in the time of our Saviour (Luke 12: 54), the rains come chiefly from the S. or S.W. They commence at the end of October or beginning of November, and continue with greater or less constancy till the end of February or middle of March, and occasionally, though rarely, to the end of April. It is not a heavy continuous rain, so much as a succession of severe showers or storms with intervening periods of fine bright weather, permitting the grain crops to grow and ripen. And although the season is not divided by any entire cessation of rain for a lengthened interval, as some represent, yet there appears to be a diminution in the fall for a few weeks in December and January, after which it begins again, and continues during February and till the conclusion of the season.”
It may be noted that the traditional date for the birth of Christ falls in this period of the diminution of rainfall toward the end of December.
The former rains would have produced grass on the hills, and the fine bright weather intervening between the rains, with temperatures averaging 55 degrees F. would be excellent for sheep grazing on the hills east of David’s royal city.[/blockquote]
He also has a pretty good commentary on the same site for the Star of Bethlehem.
Merry Christmas!
Jim Elliott <><
Re #44
What is absurdly facile is the depths of your theology. God does not need a virgin in order to become Incarnate. It can happen any way He decides it will happen.
I agree. So just what is your problem with the virgin birth? Or is it ideologically uncomfortable to admit that perhaps God used a method for incarnation that biology can’t explain?