Why December 25th?

Why do we celebrate Christmas just a few days after the winter solstice when almost no one thinks that Jesus was born on December 25th?

An important clue lies in the Gospel of Mark.

Mark? You say. The author of Mark didn’t even write about the birth of Jesus.

Exactly: this earliest of the surviving gospels doesn’t mention anything about Jesus’ birth. Sometime after Mark was written, theological questions about the incarnation arose: What does it mean for God to become incarnate?

The authors of Matthew, Luke, and the non-canonical gospel of James each chimed in with DIFFERENT accounts of a miraculous birth of the baby Jesus.  (The author of John went a different way, emphasizing the eternality of Christ (as opposed to the birth of Jesus)—he only refers to the “Word” becoming “flesh.”)

This is to say that the account of the birth of Jesus (i.e. Christmas) is the answer to a theological problem about what the incarnation MEANS. As theological commentary, the placement of Christmas on December 25^th is a reference to a familiar theme. It is an allusion to pagan notions because those were the common parlance, tropes, and memes of the day.

Co-opting solstice celebrations is not theft or borrowing, but the use of something familiar to explain something unfamiliar.   

Comparing the contested genealogies of Jesus given in Matthew and Luke

Immediate observations:

·         Matthew emphasizes that Jesus is a Jew, showing that Jesus is the son of (i.e. the descendent of) Abraham

·         Luke emphasizes that Jesus is the son of God (and hence available to all, not only the Jews).

o   Besides the genealogy Luke also does this via Jesus’ reference to “my father’s house” meaning God’s house (Luke 2:49).

The women of the genealogies:

·         There are four women mentioned on Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus

·          There are no women on Luke’s genealogy—including no mention of Mary

o   Luke’s failure to mention Mary should be troubling for those who see Luke’s genealogy as the Genealogy of Jesus through Mary

o   An early (and still prominent) view holds that Luke’s genealogy details Mary’s ancestors, not Joseph’s

§  This is in no way clear

§  It seems, at the outset to be, merely an easy ploy to explain away a contradiction (as if that were an important goal) rather than learning from the contested stories

There are  4 women mentioned by Matthew and at least one can be inferred:

1.       Tamar – was accused of being a prostitute (Gen 38:6-30).

2.       Rahab – a former prostitute who provided shelter to Joshua’s spies sent to Jericho (Joshua 2:1-24).

3.       Ruth – a Mobite widow who left her own people to follow her mother-in-law (Naomi’s) Israelite tribe and religion rather than return to her own people (Ruth 1:1-14).

4.       Mary – a pregnant teenager carrying a child who is not her husband’s (as in Matthew), or her betrothed husband (as in Luke.)

5.       Bathsheba can be included by inference. We know that she was the mother of Solomon (who appears on Matthew’s list (but not Luke’s). Bathsheba was an adulteress. She was already married when she had an affair with David (he was too).

Numbers of Generations

You will note that there are several more generations on Luke’s genealogy than there are on Matthew’s.  Some will say that Matthew skipped generations (after all, to say that Jesus is the son of David, just means that he descends from David. It doesn’t necessarily imply that they are in adjoining generation.

How are the numbers 7, 70, and 77 relevant?

If we accept the view that Matthew wasn’t concerned with stating the exact number of generations, but was merely making note of some famous ancestors, then what are we to make of Matthew’s claims about the numbers of generations?

·         Matthew explicitly states that there were 14 generations from Abraham to David,

·         14 from David to the deportation to Babylon, and

·         14 from the deportation to the Messiah (Matt 1:17)?

·          If Matthew skipped some intentionally, then why would he directly refer to an exact number of generations and the pattern of three sets of 14?

Seventy seven

·         Note also that 3 sets of 14 is 6 sets of 7. And what would come after Jesus is the start of the 7^th set of 7. This sounds a lot like 77.

·         Curiously, Luke’s genealogy has 77 generations from God to Jesus.

·         Augustine suggests that the number 77 symbolizes the forgiveness of sins.

·         In the non-canonical book of Enoch the Lord instructs Michael (the Archangel?) to “bind them [meaning humans] fast for seventy generations” due to their uncleanness. Note that Enoch (the great grandfather of Noah) is in the 8^th generation, starting with God as the first. Thus, the generation after Jesus (who is in generation 77) would be 70 generations past Enoch. The book of Enoch claims that this will be a time of judgment and new beginning.

   Who is who on Luke’s genealogy?

·         From God to David, Luke follow the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), not the Masoretic text (which is the authoritative Hebrew version). We see this in that Luke includes Cianan who is mentioned in the Septuagint, but not the the Hebrew versions.

Who is who on Matthew’s genealogy?

·         From David through Jeconiah, Matthew lists the legal Kingly line

 Solomon or Nathan?

·         Luke shows that Jesus descended from David’s son Nathan (not Solomon, as on Matthew’s genealogy).

·         Matthew shows that Jesus descended from Solomon

·         Why the discrepancy?

o   Because from Solomon we have the descendants of the legal kingly line from David up through Jeconiah. In Jeremiah, it is reported that the line that descends from Jeconiah would be cursed and never again rule (Jeremiah 22:30). If Jesus were to have been a descendent of Jeconiah, this curse would mean that he could not be the King of the Jews.

§   Luke solves this by going back to Nathan so that Jesus does not descend through Jeconiah.

§  Matthew seems either unconcerned (this would be surprising as the Jews of Matthew’s time would recognize the name Jeconiah and immediately think of the curse and its relation to them their current subjugation) or else Matthew solves it with the virgin birth. This too would be very surprising in the sense that one hearing the story for the first time would not see this plot twist coming.