Questions about the Nativity [Where's You're Jesus Now!]

The Boston Globe ^ | 12/23/2003 | James Carroll

[johnny7]

OUR CALENDAR assumes that Jesus was born in the year 0 -- but was he? Scholars, noting a mistaken calculation by the 6th century sage who invented a scheme of time to honor a "Christian era," tell us that Jesus was born in the year 4 BC. But was he?

[freedomcrusader]

I was just kidding.

[Allegra]

A grammer correction is due: "You're" is incorrect. You're is a contraction of "You are".

You should have used, "Your".

Thank you. That was kind of sticking in my craw, too. I can't help it; it's one of my pet peeves. :)

[usslsm51]

Thank for pointing out the incorrect use of Your by the "nitwit". When I saw the way it was used I knew he was a dummy and stop there.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

"But the Gospel of Luke says that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem from their home in Nazareth to comply with the empire-wide census order of the Caesar Augustus, and some such decree is thought to have been issued after Herod died, perhaps as late as AD 6.

There was more then one census. In fact they took place about every 14 years which would have meant there was another one in about 8 or 7 BC.

[hellinahandcart]

When I saw the way it was used I knew he was a dummy and stop there.

You're kicking yourself right now for failing to utilize the Preview function, I'll bet. LOL

Serves you right, for "piling on" on Christmas Day.

[T Minus Four]

I can't help it; it's one of my pet peeves. :)

Thanks, me too!!!!

[T Minus Four]

That's fascinating and enlightening. Thanks for posting that.

[FreedomCalls]

OUR CALENDAR assumes that Jesus was born in the year 0

Dude, there's no "year 0". Have you never heard of ordinal versus cardinal numbers? Years are ordinal numbers (not birthdays) - the first year after, the second year before, etc. The year we are in is just abbreviated to 2003. The whole name is "The Two-Thousand and Third Year of Our Lord." Think of it like this: the first year you were on this planet was your first year. You turned 1 at the end of your first year. From when you were 12 months old to 24 months old your were in your second year of life. You turned 2 at the end of your second year. Where was your "zeroth" year? It doesn't exist. It's the same with the calendar. The first year of Jesus on earth was the First Year AD, or as it is abbreviated today AD 1. We are in the 2003rd year of Jesus Christ -- which is abbreviated as 2003 AD. There can be no such thing as the year "0".

This whole confusion over year names has come about because few people anymore have even heard the long form anymore -- it's been shunned by the PC police. Years are ordinal numbers.

[Redwood71]

Ping!

[aruanan]

On these simple details of time and place, the Gospels of Luke and Matthew do not agree. "If we chose to grant credibility to one," the scholar Paula Fredriksen writes, "it comes at a cost to the other: Both cannot be true."

This is nonsense. This reminds me of the time when scholars like Paula were claiming that there were no such people as the Hittites, that they were fiction, an invention of the writers of the Old Testament. Since then, of course, they have been rediscovered by archeologists and the Old Testament writers vindicated. This has happened time and time again. There is no other collection of ancient books that have been so subjected to such intense scrutiny and deliberate doubt and come out shining as have the books of the New and Old Testaments.

[ValerieUSA]

[Where's You're Jesus Now!]

Where is you are Jesus now!
That was a question?

[aruanan]

The author has not been given the gift of faith.

There is no such thing as "the gift of faith". But you're in good company. Even William F. Buckley, Jr., has made this goof. This comes from the ambiguity of English in the translation of Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace have you been saved through faith and this not of yourself. It is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast."

The reason why Ephesians 2:8 doesn't identify faith as being a gift from God has to do with with fact that Greek has gendered nouns. This makes it easy to identify which pronouns refer to which nouns. In English, one has no clue which antecedent in the chapter "this" is referring to. Because of this, many mistake it to be referring to faith. It also doesn't help that folks who presume it to refer to faith punctuate the passage in English in a way that reinforces what the Greek doesn't allow and destroys the parallelism with the construction in the first part of the chapter, "for you have been saved through faith" being an interjection.

Faith (pistis), however, in Greek is a feminine noun, as is grace (karis). The singular pronoun in question, "this", however, has a neuter form. It is referring neither to "faith" nor to "grace" but to a singular neuter noun earlier in the passage, and referred to immediately thereafter as “G-d’s “gift” (to doron, a singular neuter noun). That “gift” to which this is referring is found immediately prior in verse 7: "the overwhelming riches" (to huperballon plutos, a singular neuter noun and adjective). Its apposition is found at the end of verse 8, G-d's "gift" (to doron, another singular neuter noun). A translation that pays attention to the actual Greek instead of to subsequently developed theologies would be the following, the singular neuter nouns and pronouns in italics:

"...in order that in the coming ages he might show the overwhelming wealth (the singular neuter noun and its neuter adjective) of his grace in lovingkindness toward us in Christ Jesus--for by grace you have been saved through faith--and this (singular neuter pronoun, ie., the "overwhelming riches"), God's gift (singular neuter noun, ie, the apposition of the "overwhelming riches"), [does] not [come] from you, [it does] not [come] from works, in order that no one should boast. Because we are his works, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good deeds which God has prepared in order that we should live [literally "walk about"] in them."

Without the parenthetical comments and with the singular neuter "this" accompanied by its singular neuter referent and the referent's apposition, the singular neuter noun "gift" in order to get rid of the English ambiguity, the passage correctly reads thus:

"...in order that in the coming ages he might show the overwhelming wealth of his grace in lovingkindness toward us in Christ Jesus--for by grace you have been saved through faith--and this [overwhelming wealth], God's gift, does not come from you; it does not come from works, in order that no one should boast. Because we are his works, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good deeds which God has prepared in order that we should live in them."

[dread78645]

Now the date of all of this is in dispute. We know Herod the Great died in 4 BC. ...
... a gathering a planets in a certain constellation that would indicate to eastern astrologers the birth of a king in Israel- possibly the star of Bethlehem- in 5-6 BC. Basically, the Nativity ocurred in 5-6 BC.

There are quite a few good studies that show Herod died late in 1 BC or the following year ... 1 AD. This would put the Christ birth at 2 or 1 BC.
Nicely matching the Saturn/Venus conjunction of 17 June 1 BC.

[CyberAnt]

Thank you! I thought it was facinating too.

[CyberAnt]

Okay ALF, just don't let it happen again!

[aruanan]

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" does not qualify as a description of the Nativity.

But, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" does refer to the nativity. Remember that the gospel of John was written relatively late compared with the other gospels. It was talking about events of which Christians were already well aware. Besides, the earliest NT writings are not the gospels (with, perhaps, the exception of Mark) but Paul's letters and these show that from the first years following the resurrection believers considered Jesus to be G-d incarnate (and Luke was written relatively early--before Paul's death in Rome). And that one source doesn't mention something that another source talks about doesn't mean that the first source is fictional. This writer is either extremely ignorant of the material in question or extremely motivated to undercut its message. I think it's probably the latter. The question to be asked is, "What's in it for him?".

[CyberAnt]

I will say this one more time .. and hopefully it will not be misunderstood.

3 of the Gospels describe the birth of Jesus, John does not. There is no dispute in this statement. The fact that you're trying to pick this apart is just apalling! There's nothing to pick apart. I don't know why John didn't describe the birth of Jesus .. he just didn't. GOD knows and that's good enough for me.

To say, "In the beginning was the Word ...", is not describing the birth of Jesus. It really says that Jesus always was .. and I don't have any argument with that.

[Louisiana]

bump for later reading.

[Louisiana]

John speaks of the origin of Christ... He is and always has been - the pre-exisitent Christ ... none but God Himself.

[DannyTN]

I concur with the other answers you have gotten. The author construes differences in the gospels to be contradictions when in fact they are not contradictory.