Debunking some of the most popular Christmas connected myths

1. Debunking some of the most popular Christmas connected myths By Abdugani Baidildayevfor ENG300, prof. Serguey Ivanov

2. Table of contents • Introduction • Wise Men • Their Visit to Bethlehem • Star mystery • The Scene of Manger • The Livestock • Why the inn was empty • Bethlehem vs. Nazareth

3. Introduction • Non-historical fictionfactsabout the first Christmas. • The story itself is amazing enough. • Embellishments don’t need to be added “after the fact.”

4. About the Wise Men • There weren’t necessarily three of them. • Nobody knows their names. • One of them wasn’t black. • They weren’t astrologers, or even astronomers, for that matter. • They never joined the shepherds in worshiping the Christ-child.

5. About the Wise Men • The Wise Men could not have been guided by a star that was only visible in the east. • Jerusalem and Bethlehem lay to the west and south of Babylon. • If the star had gone before them as a guiding light, the star would have had to travel ahead of them… first to the north, then to the west, and then finally south.

6. The Visit to Bethlehem • “Three men” comes from the three gifts. • Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh (a burial spice) • Three foreign king makers would not have been noticed. • The entourage may have included over 100 people, including security forces. • The gifts given represented phenomenal wealth.

7. The Visit to Bethlehem • Preparation and travel time took two years. • The Magi told Herod they saw the star two years before. • That’s why they went to Jerusalem first; he would have been long gone when they arrived. • But they were guided to Bethlehem, • That’s why Herod killed all the children two years old and under. • They should have followed what they knew.

8. The Visit to Bethlehem • The Magi visited much later than the first night. • Jesus was placed in a manger. (Luke 2:7) She wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was not any room for them in the inn. • But the Magi visited him in a house. After they went into the house and saw the child with his mother Mary, they fell down and worshiped him…

9. The Visit to Bethlehem • The text never claims that Christ was born in a stable. • Luke says the baby Jesus was laid in a “feeding trough” (ISV) by his mother. • But the text doesn’t say the “feeding trough” was inside a stable. • The Magi never asked where the Christ child was born. They already knew.

10. The Visit to Bethlehem • But Herod didn’t know the birthplace. That’s why he did the asking. • The Wise Men didn’t visit the night of the birth because Luke says Mary and Joseph paid the mother’s Levitical sin offering with the smallest offering allowed—turtledoves. • That’s all they could afford, even 30 days after the birth. They would have paid with gold, if they had received it from the Magi.

11. The Visit to Bethlehem • Mary, Joseph and Jesus left for Egypt the very night the Magi visited them. (Matt 2:12-13) • If the Magi had visited him immediately upon his birth, they would have had no time to dedicate him on the eighth day, as Luke 2:21 describes. • There would have been no time for the 30 day post-natal purification rite.

12. What about the Star? • It wasn’t a natural phenomenon. • Luke knew the difference between a planet and a phenomenon in the atmosphere. • It moved with respect to the observers. • Stars appear fixed with respect to the observers. • Luke uses aster, not asterion. • The “star” was the Shekinah of God. Its parallel cannot be found in astronomy.

13. The Manger Scene • There were no livestock. None is mentioned. • There was no stable. None is mentioned. • There was a manger, but it was probably a public feeding trough. • The manger was made of stone, not wood. • There were no oxen. • There was no donkey, as there is no mention of Mary riding one into Bethlehem. Manger

14. The Manger Scene • The swaddling clothes came from Mary’s robes. • She had no mid-wife or relatives to assist. • Joseph is not recorded as even being present. • Not one word of Joseph is ever recorded. • Joseph disappears after Jesus’ 12th year. Abdugani Baidildayev

15. The Manger Scene • Joseph was not the father of Jesus. • Jesus would have had no legal right to David’s throne if Joseph had been his father. • Joseph died while Jesus was a teenager. • Mary became a single parent before she was 30 years of age. • Mary probably had her own catering business. She was in charge at Cana. Abdugani Baidildayev.

16. The Livestock • The livestock, if any, were sheep. • Sheep at that time of year were in the fields. • Jesus was born in the spring, not the winter. • Sheep are not put out to pasture in the winter. • Gabriel spoke to Mary in the sixth month of the year (Luke 1:26) which was also the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. (Luke 1:36) • Jesus was born by the following Passover. Abdugani Baidildayev.

17. Why There Was No Room at the Inn • The shepherds’ flocks were being kept for the Passover. • Millions of people took all the available rooms in Jerusalem and the vicinity before Mary and Joseph arrived. • Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem because the Romans would have forced them to do so. Abdugani Baidildayev.

18. Why There Was No Room at the Inn • God used the whim of Augustus Caesar to inconvenience the entire world with a census to get Mary and Joseph to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. • They had no living relatives in Bethlehem. • They had no one to stay with. • God had cursed David’s lineage through Solomon. (Jeremiah 22:24-30) Abdugani Baidildayev.

19. Why There Was No Room at the Inn • Joseph was of the lineage of David through Solomon. (Matthew 1:6, 11) • Mary was of the lineage of David through Nathan, not Solomon. (Luke 3:31) • But so few members of David’s lineage had survived through the exile that no family members in Bethlehem could be found. Abdugani Baidildayev.

20. Bethlehem vs. Nazareth • Bethlehem was not their first choice. • They tried to go back to Nazareth first. (Luke 2:39) • Within two years, they were back at Bethlehem in a house where they would eventually meet the Magi. (Matt. 2:11) • All their friends lived in Nazareth. Abdugani Baidildayev.

21. Bethlehem vs. Nazareth • But they did not stay in Nazareth due to the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy. • Luke records the scandal. (Luke 3:23) • The Pharisees used it. (John 8:41) • It was probably common knowledge at the time around Nazareth. • It would have been very uncomfortable for Mary and Joseph in Nazareth. Abdugani Baidildayev.

22. Bethlehem vs. Nazareth • But in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph would have been small town heroes. • The shepherds’ story of angels was known. • The prophetic message of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) and Anna (Luke 2:38) had been told. • Mary and Joseph probably moved back to Bethlehem to escape the gossip from Nazareth. Abdugani Baidildayev.

23. Questions?