Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] 12 Days of Christmas Day One from a historical view by Bart Ehrman the 12 Days of Christmas I'd like to honour the tradition by giving 12 of my favourite Christmas themed posts over low these many years the blog has been in existence.
[00:00:17] I'm not ranking them in any particular way as a countdown to my number one favourite, much as the famous English Christmas Carol itself.
[00:00:25] Speaking personally, I'd prefer five gold rings, both to what came earlier, say three French hens, and to what came later. What am I going to do with 10 lords a leaping?
[00:00:36] They're just the 12 and here's the first from 2012 right now I have the Christmas on my mind as makes sense this time of year, but I have some other reasons. First, I've agreed to write a brief 2,000 word article for Newsweek this week to be published in a couple of weeks about the birth of Jesus. And this has made me think about the other gospels from outside the New Testament that tell alternative accounts of Jesus birth and young life.
[00:01:04] Second, just as I was about ready to start writing the article, I learned that the Pope now remember this is the Pope as of 2012. He was a theologian and a scholar. The Pope has published a book on the birth of Jesus, where he, among other things, dispels many of the myths that many people subscribe to about the Christmas story.
[00:01:24] I've just gotten my copy today and will read it hopefully tonight. But it's clear at first glance that among other things, the Pope wants to affirm many of the things that scholars have long known about the popular beliefs about Christmas.
[00:01:37] First, we don't know what year Jesus was born. It'll be interesting to see if the Pope suggests a particular year. None of the Gospels says according to Luke and only Luke, Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his ministry. According to John and only John, the ministry lasted between two and a half and three and a half years.
[00:01:59] And according to all the Gospels, he died during the governorship of Pontius Pilate.
[00:02:04] We know from other sources that Pilate was governor between 26 and 36 CE. So if, and it's a big if, it's not clear that either Luke or John really had biographically reliable data available to them on these matters.
[00:02:18] So if Jesus was 33, then he had to have been born somewhere between 7 BCE and 3 CE.
[00:02:26] But if the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are right that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, then he would have had to have been born by at least 4 BCE, since that's when Herod died and so most historians indicate that Jesus was born in 4 B.C. or so, which of course creates a nice irony since it means that Jesus was born four years before Christ.
[00:02:48] The reason the calendars we use are wrong is because the calculations made by the inventor of what became our modern calendars were off.
[00:02:56] Our modern calendars are based on the one devised by a 6th century monk named Dionysius Exiguus. That's a Latin name that means in English. Dennis the Short. He didn't get things quite right.
[00:03:09] We certainly don't know what day of the year Jesus was born on. December 25th has been a traditional day in the west since the 4th century. Chosen because the celebration of Jesus birth was to replace the annual Roman feast of Saturnalia. But it's anybody's guess and Anyone has a 1 in 365 chance of getting it right.
[00:03:29] Apart from the dates, there is nothing in the Bible about the baby Jesus being surrounded by donkeys and oxen.
[00:03:36] And there are lots of other things that I don't know if the Pope talks about, but it will be very interested in seeing. I doubt if he will, for example, that Matthew and Luke are at odds with one another in almost all the details, such as why Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem and whether they stayed there for long after, and whether they fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod and so on.
[00:04:00] And the physical implausibilities of familiar stories. So in Matthew, a star leads the wise men to Jesus and stops over the house that he's in. How does a star stop over a house?
[00:04:13] And the historical implausibilities in Luke, Joseph and Mary are in Bethlehem to register for a census because of attacks upon the whole world. The whole world, even attacks on the whole Roman Empire defies belief. We have no record of one, let alone one that everyone had to register for by returning to the homes of their ancestors.
[00:04:35] Later edition to forestall the obvious question, did the Pope talk about these things? Yeah, it was eight years ago. I don't remember. Then again, I don't remember what I said about something eight years ago. Well, even eight days ago.
