Dee: The Christmas story didn't happen

James H. Dee, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR

Saturday, December 15, 2007

It's the final month of the year, and that guarantees some controversies over Christmas। Is it too commercialized, or are we not shopping enough to help the economy? Is the holiday season in retreat because of a "war on Christmas," or is the omnipresence of Christmas symbols and references an affront to the growing population of non-Christian Americans?

Was the Christmas described in the Bible a historical event? Was Jesus really born in a Bethlehem manger and visited by Magi and shepherds on Dec। 25 precisely 2007 years ago? Should we believe the claim that Jesus' career is the critical turning-point in human history, making eternal salvation available to all?

The Y2K furor introduced us to the sixth-century monk Dionysius Exiguus, who determined which year should be called AD 1। But Dionysius made a mistake, and it's directly related to Christmas. The birth story in Matthew says that the infant Jesus was threatened by King Herod, but Herod was dead by 4 B.C. So, in the 1650s, James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, declared that Jesus must have been born "before himself," on Dec. 25, 5 B.C., which would make this the year 2011.

Biblical texts have no indication of day or year, and no Christian source specifies Dec। 25 until the early fourth century. So the year is unlikely to be correct and the calendar date is surely erroneous. And the historical status of the Christmas story is no better: It's not a single, unified tale but two contradictory stories, one in Matthew and one in Luke.

The conclusions of the late Raymond E। Brown, a Catholic priest and one of the 20th century's foremost New Testament scholars, about both accounts are surprisingly negative. After careful analysis, Brown rejects the historicity of (in Matthew) the Magi, the star, the Massacre of the Innocents and the flight to Egypt, (in Luke) the census, the angels and the shepherds, and (in both) the birth in Bethlehem, which means no inn and no manger.

The Christmas story never happened। That raises a disturbing question: Do the ministers, pastors and priests who sermonize every year and encourage Nativity re-enactments not know how unhistorical it is, or do they choose to deny their congregations an opportunity to develop a more mature understanding? The former would reflect badly on their Biblical competence, the latter would undermine confidence in their candor.

What about the "real meaning" of Christmas? Brown insists that abandoning the colorful but illusory mythological surface of the story does not diminish the deeper theological significance of Jesus' incarnation, life, death and resurrection। That's valid in principle, but it leads to a difficult philosophical issue.

A core belief shared by most Christians is that each person will spend eternity with the blessed in Heaven or the damned in Hell, a view found in the Gospels. However, that all-or-
nothing dichotomy creates a moral dilemma।

How can a perfectly just divinity establish an ethically acceptable dividing line between the good and the bad? In my high school, a 65 got through while a 64 failed, but there were no eternal consequences। Even a single criterion, say, faith in Jesus, will not avoid the dilemma, since theologians usually acknowledge that doubt is inseparable from faith.

Invoking divine wisdom ("God knows all and His judgments must be fair") also won't work। Plato's "Euthyphro" demonstrates that even an omnipotent divinity cannot make that-which-is-unjust to be just.

So there is a challenge for promoters of Christianity: Do you endorse keeping believers in the dark about the unhistorical nature of the story? And how can Jesus save us if there is a moral impossibility at the center of Christian claims?

Dee, a retired classics professor, lives in Austin.