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How a Non-Canonical Gospel Shaped Christmas - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do_NF97ybMI

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(00:02) our topic tonight how a non-canonical gospel shaped Christmas or at least some of our Traditions understanding the Christmas story um as we're probably aware the Christmas story We Tell it in kind of one traditional way Al together but the primary sources from it are actually two distinct versions one found in the gospel of Matthew one found in the gospel El of Luke the stories are actually contradictory from one another and written independently of each other but we tend to then merge them all together as if it's just one story but there's another um text another gospel

(00:46) that provided a bunch of other details uh that didn't make it into the New Testament and we'll talk about that tonight so this time of year nativity scenes are a very common site they come in a lot of different varieties and there's a whole plays set they're fun I think also I remember from when I was a kid because in addition to having all of these little figures and a baby people love babies there's also all kinds of animals and so lots of fun the nativity scenes or sets are also called a crash and that is from the French word for manger because of the

(01:29) location where the baby is kept a Manger which is kind of an oldfashioned word for feeding trough an animal feeding trough sometimes these have a minimal number of characters so you generally speaking need Mary and Joseph and of course the baby Jesus and usually they're in a set like this and a Manger then that doesn't have all the other figures but most have a more substantial cast of characters and we certainly had a complete set not looking like this but of the same kind of characters at home on our fireplace mantle when I was growing up including all of the animals

(02:10) so in this we can identify the baby Jesus in a manger his mother Mary Joseph her husband then the cow just usually present because the cow is also interested in eating out of that manger which is where he normally gets his food or her food there's also a donkey presumably this is the donkey that Mary is riding as she and Joseph made their way to Bethlehem there's also a Shepherd or two who has shown up the Shepherds usually bring their sheep with them at least one freestanding sheep they're often holding one there's the angel who told the

(02:55) Shepherds where to find the baby and there is also the the star that guided the wise men to the same location and speaking of the wise men there are three pictured melor bringing gold Casper bringing frankincense and balazar bringing M and not to be forgotten uh the wise men usually have a camel with them so a wonderful uh action set when you have the complete version and so kind of just identified there if we also see I mentioned how in a lot of cases the tradition of course beyond the people you'd expect Joseph Mary and Jesus the um the characters of the Angel so well

(03:43) say the donkey that they ride in on to to arrive is in the Lucan story uh the idea that there's a Manger so therefore a cow that's uh the Lucan story The Angel that comes to the shepherd and the shepherd bringing the sheep that all in Orange there that's from the Lucan Christmas Story whereas the star melier Casper of Balthazar the three wise men and their camel uh that's the methan story so we can kind of see the merging here then of those two stories in one um plays set doesn't have to be play it's a decorative set and so they these come in all kinds of varieties and you can almost always find

(04:24) all of the figures this one is missing the camel so the wise men got there they left their camel some place you don't want to don't want to miss the camel camels are so much fun for your place got to see one of these for the first time um in uh Palestine and it's interesting that um a lot of them were just actually uh kind of parked at the gas station so people had rid bnds or somebody had ridden camels to the gas station gone into the convenience store and things like that and the camels were outside like uh cars anyway there are other other

(05:03) versions of these more more modern artistic ones and again they'll find all of the different um characters uh from both of the two stories merg together to form a nativity scene and of course these can be actual playsets for kids where this is a Fisher Price version which has again all of the different components for some reason in this case even though the Sheep is made it here were and the angel that that talked to the shepherd were missing Shepherds and the three wise men have brought an entire uh wagon full of

(05:40) presents so I guess uh little kids like presents and so maybe that's why they have that instead of the Shepherds who are maybe less less fun um and even a minimalist nativity scene you know has uh you know the same kind of figures although in this case it's missing Shepherd cow star and camel so another frequent element that I didn't mention here is this background set which you can see is sort of a uh a little building it's meant to look like a barn a stable and that sort of a thing so let's take a quick Nativity quiz for all of you guys in the chats uh and the

(06:21) comments so nativity scenes depicting the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem are common at Christmas time so where was Jesus born and so the answer is a an N B Joseph's house c a stable d a cave and so if you said an in you tricked because in Luke's gospel it says there's no room in the in so they're not actually at the in although some people associate the um the stable attached to the in so maybe that that's a trick answer so if you said stable um that's coming from the Lucan story so they uh Shepherds came with haste we

(07:07) read and they found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in a Manger so the Babe is in a um a food trough for Animals it doesn't actually say that that food trough is in a stable that's uh an inference that people make because there's there's no room in the end and they're uh they lay the baby in a food dough um and so stable is what people infer from that same thing we don't actually have the um they're riding or They Come to Bethlehem in Luke's story we don't me there's no explicit mention of the donkey same thing there's no

(07:44) explicit mention of the cow although it's in the song right the cattle are Lo the poor baby wakes that sort of thing okay so that's the most common answer I would think that people said but if you said Joseph's house then you are probably a Matthew and Christian a mean Christian says Matthew's gospel um says that they essentially had always lived there Joseph and uh Mary are from Bethlehem essentially it doesn't say that explicitly but there's no sense that they've come from anywhere else in Matthew's story and when the wise men show up and enter into the house it says

(08:25) they saw the young child with his mother Mary and so in Matthew's story they are from Bethlehem they live in the house they live in a house there at the beginning of the story so I appreciate that I I understand that Christian apologetics have created a Harmony which implies that these are not contradictory stories and that they go together and that let's say over the course of a couple years of hanging out in Bethlehem for the um the census they buy a house and they start moving there but the gospels are not um uh they're independent texts and they are not and and we we're synthesizing

(09:03) that together that's our own uh creation that's not what the Matthew and gospel is saying finally if you said uh a cave that's what they say if you actually go to Bethlehem and so if you go to Bethlehem in Palestine to the Church of the Nativity underneath the church there is The Grotto of the Nativity and grotto is is a cave it was originally a cave that has now been further excavated over the course of many centuries because it's the traditional birthplace and so when I was there last month um as part of the delegation for

(09:42) churches for Middle East peace because of the um you know the real terrible circumstances right now of the war no one was actually at any of these sites and so we were actually um uh given a tour of the whole um church of nativity by um uh the president of the Bethlehem Development Corporation that is in fact actually uh undergoing a multi-million dollar restoration of the this historic church um which is a UNESCO world heritage site and so because we were really the only people there they also um the three churches that have

(10:25) authority over the Church of the Nativity the Catholic Church the Eastern orthod Orthodox church and the Armenian Orthodox Church uh gave us permission to film for my church's Sunday service beyond the walls uh from The Grotto which we'll have as part of our uh Christmas Eve service if you you know care to tune in for that so if we look at the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem from the outside it's kind of a vast complex of churches that have grown up around the original Basilica and from the outside it really has the appearance of a castle um

(11:02) because a lot of it was built in the Middle Ages uh when there was a bunch of wars and Crusades and that sort of thing going on and after where therefore it needed to be uh defensible the main entrance uh to the Church of the Nativity has actually been bricked up and reduced twice and so if you look at the uh thing here the original colossal Roman era Gateway would have been that big gate even the left side of this has now been had a little wall built or a buttress built in front of it but um it's been bricked

(11:40) in and even the Crusader era Gothic Archway which was the original brick in to make a new portal um that is in turn also been bricked in and so now there is a later medieval door where you have to actually uh duck down to enter to get into the Basilica which is actually pretty neat inside um there is a very classic Roman Basilica Constantine had constructed the original Basilica here which was dedicated in the year 339 and it would have had a floor plan that was very similar to the other great constantinian basilicas like Old St Peter's in Rome St John lerin St Paul

(12:22) beyond the walls and so on um Justinian uh that Basilica got destroyed and the emperor Justin rebuilt uh one in the 6th century and this is primarily uh what we're seeing is Justinian although the constantinian floor and all the mosaics under the on the floor are still uh there underneath this floor during the Crusader period this uh 6th Century Basilica was decorated in beautiful mosaics which were later covered over um and are now being uh uncovered and restored as part of that restoration process so this is a floor plan of the Church of the Nativity you can kind of see the

(13:07) original Basilica here on the main floor that has now been surrounded by a whole complex of other churches that actually goes on a much wider uh Campus of buildings that are all attached to each other but the original Basilica is here there's the main floor and you come towards the Altar and then beneath the altar there's two two staircases that take you down into The Grotto you can see at the far left that's that gate that I showed you that's been um successively bricked up so underneath the main floor there is this underground

(13:43) Grotto or cave that includes the traditional site where Mary lays the babe in the manger and there's also the place which is I guess presumably I think the the birthplace but it's the place where immediately the star was supposedly directly overhead according to again tradition here so um if you look at Orthodox paintings so for example there are beautiful um murals uh of the iconography Orthodox iconography at the uh Church the Eastern Orthodox Church that is um just a few blocks from here in Toronto Center place and it just has beautiful um uh Fresco

(14:29) that were painted did by monks that came over from Mount AOS for several years to paint them and so one of them is a painting of a nativity scene and this of course includes a cave and so you can see Mary and the baby Jesus in the cave and there's the um uh the donkey and the cow that are going into the manger trying to you know they always have kind of their heads there in the iconography uh the shepherds are outside with the angels and instead of the way we kind of see in the Modern Way modern Western way where there's the baby Jesus

(15:05) and both Mary and Joseph are on either side kneeling uh toward the baby Joseph is actually outside the cave uh you know looking a little glum in all of these icons the star of course is above and this pretty much fits into all the sort of Eastern iconography um these two were flipped but essentially the same components are present where you have Mary and the baby in the manger and the with the donkey and the and the cow uh angels and so on on the outside and Joseph off in the corner outside the cave so um default uh like I say the source elements for our story we have

(15:54) our default characters we have Lucan characters donkey cow angel Shepherd sheep stable and the Maan characters the star the three wise men the camel the house of course the like I say the donkey cow sheep camel and the stable are not explicitly mentioned they're inferred from the story and the wise men there's not actually numbered in Matthew's gospel we don't have anything that says there were three wise men that showed up instead it's wise men they show up with three gifts so that's why there's a traditional number of wise men and then later tradition gives them

(16:30) these names M melor Casper and balazar so the cave may have been a tradition associated with the site in Bethlehem from the earliest times we we don't know when that uh site was maybe first identified um there are many caves in the area Bethlehem is on a hill there is a hill right next to it which is um where the tradition is where the Shepherds were and so on that Hill there's another cave which is a traditional site called The Grotto of the Shepherds um regardless of how far that goes back we can't tell but our first

(17:13) written source for the idea that Jesus was born in a cave comes from the gospel of James which is one of the many gospels that was left out of the New Testament Canon it's also called infancy James because it's talking about uh not about the adults Ministry of Jesus but the Nativity Story uh and it's also called the Proto evangelium of James and who doesn't love a word like Proto evangelium so Proto evangelium is the title that was given to the work uh by a very early publisher weam Postal in Switzerland in basil who published uh the first widespread

(17:58) edition of the work in 1552 uh postel presumed based on what the gospel itself says that it was written before the other canonical gospels so it was written before Mark Matthew Luke and John which is what the word means that he gave it though in Greek then so Proto meaning first evangelium meaning gospel so the gospel itself claims to be an eyewitness source and it claims to be written by a certain James someone named James and we can again presume or infer from it that the James that is meant is James Jesus

(18:42) brother like the account in Luke and not like the count in Matthew in this Proto evangelium in this Gospel of James Joseph and Mary have to travel to Bethlehem and they do so in response to a Cree from Augustus so we read in the gospel of James and he Joseph saddled the ass and he sent her Mary upon it and his son LED it and Joseph followed and so this actually has a mention of the donkey which doesn't actually uh get mentioned explicitly in uh I think in Luke's story um and though interestingly Joseph here has a son and so the story

(19:31) all through this Gospel of James assumes that um Joseph already has or it says that Joseph already has sons and children and that these then are Jesus siblings that are described in the synoptic gospels in Mark and Luke and Matthew when Jesus it says Jesus has adult siblings um but in this case it it doesn't say they came from so it doesn't say whether they are Mary's Sons and Daughters or Joseph's or where they came from but the story here in James very explicitly states that these siblings of Jesus are actually step brothers and sisters and they are all older children

(20:19) of Joseph that Joseph had with his deceased first wife before he ever got to meet Mary so um we also have in the um Proto Evangelion the first mention of the cave so um they don't have any uh there's no mention of an inn and no room for them and an inn in in the gospel of James instead Mary senses when it's time uh that she's going to give birth while they're still on the road on the donkey and so they we read they came into the middle of the road and Mary said to him said to Joseph take me down from off the

(20:58) ass for that which is in me presses to come forth and Joseph took her down from the ass and said to her with shall I lead you and cover your disgrace you know this giving birth is a disgrace according to what Joseph is saying this gospel James um places special emphasis on this idea that Mary's pregnancy here is shameful and a disgrace so he says for this place is Desert and Joseph found a cave there and he led her into it and leaving his two sons beside her he went out to seek a midwife in the district of Bethlehem um

(21:45) so the gospel of James now is very much a source for the idea of Mary being perpetually a virgin so following the seant version of Isaiah Isaiah 7:14 reads Behold a virgin shall conceive and this is taken by nearly all early Christians to be a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah so a viron shall conceive and bear a son and you'll call his name so Emanuel God With Us is kind of a prophecy um but even though in the Greek version which is what early Christians were reading it says uh a word that means virgin parthenos in Greek uh the

(22:32) original underlying Hebrew could mean virgin but actually also mostly just means young woman and originally this passage in Isaiah would have been referring to one of the wives of one of the kings of of Judah but now it is being reinterpreted as a me Messianic prophecy and so both um Matthew and Luke the authors of those two gospels even though they are not working from each other's texts do understand that Mary is a virgin and they write that into their own Nativity stories that Mary is a virgin at the time that

(23:09) Jesus is conceived however the idea that Mary continues to be a virgin after Jesus birth and then remain so for the whole rest of her life that is not mentioned at all in in Matthew or Luke and indeed it first appears in the Proto evangelium of James in James as Mary is reposing in this cave that they found Joseph goes back to the road and he happens upon a Hebrew Midwife and I'll just say that this portion of the text is shifted now to A firstperson Narrative of Joseph even though the overall author claims to be

(23:52) uh James and so we read and I Joseph saw a woman coming down from the Hill Country and she said to me oh man whether are you going and I said Joseph I said I'm seeking a hi Hebrew Midwife and she answered and said to me are you of Israel and I said to her yes and she said and who is bringing forth in the cave so she can obviously see the Cave the Cave is got to be open in in other words for her to be able to observe that and I said a woman betroth to me so my Fe fance and she said is she not your wife and I said to her it's Mary who was

(24:36) reared in the temple of the Lord and I obtained her by lot as my wife and yet she is not my wife but has conceived of the Holy Spirit and so this is actually um backstory so by the time we're getting to this part of the Gospel of James we've already had uh whole long birth and infancy and and childhood and now um young Womanhood of Mary Mary's story as she is reared in the temple according to the Proto Evangelion of James and uh how she came to be uh betrothed to Joseph uh by lot we'll go back to that and we'll we'll look at

(25:21) that but in any event um what's interesting here is that Joseph is pointing this out because he presumes that the Midwife has heard this story Mary according to the Proto Evangelion of James is somebody who's famous across all of Judea um the Midwife says is it true that she's conceived by the Holy Spirit and Joseph said to her come and see and the Midwife uh went back to her I'm sorry went back with him and so now the the the shift here is back to third person so now we're talking about Joseph instead of I and come with me or

(25:57) something like that now you know it's back to third person so anyway they stood in the place of the cave and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave and the Midwife said my soul has been magnified this day because my eyes have seen strange things because salvation has been brought forth to Israel and immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave and a great light Shone in the cave so that the eyes could not bear it and in a little that light gradually decreased until the infant appeared and

(26:35) went and took uh the breast from his mother Mary and the Midwife cried out and said this is a great day to me because I have seen this strange sight and the Midwife went forth out of the cave and Salam met her and she the Midwife said to salame salame salame I have a strange sight to relate to you a virgin has brought forth a thing which her nature admits not of so I've seen this miraculous thing happened but one of the most important things is someone who is a virgin has given birth without uh having ever had sex with

(27:16) anybody so as salame is told this crazy thing uh her response is very similar to the Apostle Thomas who is told that Jesus has been resurrected in the gospel of John and he doubts that it's true and he won't believe it he says until he actually puts his fingers into Jesus's side and feels that uh the wounds and can tell that this is the Jesus come again so salame said as the Lord my God Lives unless I thrust in my finger and search the parts I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth so that's a little excessive I don't know G gical

(27:56) detail for for uh scriptures but anyway that's what it is and the Midwife went in and she said to Mary show yourself for no small contoversy has arisen about you so you can imagine there's a little bit of an AP Christian apologetic response to is it you know was Mary really a virgin that kind of thing and so this is the response and so salame put her in her finger and cried out and said woe is me for mine iniquity and mine unbelief because I have tempted the Living God and behold my hand is drooping off as burned with fire so by

(28:34) uh by testing God by doing uh performing this test um she's now been burned in that way so anyway if we look now at that again kind of traditional Nativity it's not only in Orthodox iconography these go all the way back and so this is a medieval western Mosaic actually once again Mary in the cave the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger with the donkey and the cow showing also in the feeding trough there to show it's a feeding trough once again uh Joseph on the outs outside of the cave um Shepherds uh outside as well along with

(29:18) the star and the angels and once again we have Joseph here with his kind of oh my dear what's going on very doubtful and glum looking and again Joseph is also a depicted as an old man whereas in a lot of modern iconography it I'd say depicts Joseph as more age appropriate for Mary like you know we know that she is a young woman but maybe Joseph is also not that old in his 20s or something like that and they're a loving couple as is maybe now portrayed as opposed to kind of an old guy who's sitting outside the cave when all of this is

(29:56) happening um Luke and Matthew do not mention Joseph's relative age so Mary is described as a young woman however when we get in the all of the gospels um Mark the first one but then Matthew Luke and John when we get to Jesus Adult Ministry Joseph is completely disappears from The Narrative and so we presume that he's died and is not around anymore because in fact people actually refer ref to Jesus as the son of Mary so Mary is a character who is present in all four uh gospels that made it into the New Testament in uh in Jesus's adulthood and Joseph isn't

(30:42) there by contrast though to just that inference that maybe okay he died and maybe that's why maybe he was older doesn't mean that he was uh there's a lot of different reasons a person could die fairly young in in Antiquity um James the Proto Evangel Iam's version explicitly gives Joseph's age uh or the fact that he's really agid anyway when the priests uh tell him he's to take custody of Mary and so the priests say um you know you need you've been the one that's been chosen lot has fallen upon you to take custody of this

(31:18) virgin and Joseph it says refuse I have children I am an old man she is a young girl I'm afraid lest I become a laughing stock to the sons of Israel so um so the gospel here indicates that they are very very different in age so different that it would be um embarrassing uh for for people to imagine that this really old man is marrying this teenage girl all right so as we're looking at this traditional depiction of Mary in the cave and Joseph on the outs um as we say we always see the the cow and the donkey also at the

(32:02) manger Joseph outside with Shepherds sheep and an OD deer look but sometimes um uh Joseph is actually outside with with other people um the same imagery is like I say not only in the Eastern iconography of the Greek Orthodox church it's also here in uh medieval Coptic icon from the Egyptian Church on the left in the west uh there's a medieval car carolan miniature and then a 11th century Latin Min miniature on Ivory and you can kind of see again Mary is always lying in Repose you can see the baby with the two animal heads and Joseph

(32:45) outside here's a another example of it from a western Latin illuminated manuscript so this is the way the nativity scene was largely depicted uh in antiquity and in the Middle Ages um sometimes when uh Joseph is out there he's not just with a Shepherd he's conversing with an old man U and so this is also a detail that is from the Proto evangelium so throughout the Proto evangelium the gospel of James Joseph is beset by these doubts and this is represented in iconography as Satan appears ing to him in the form of an old man who's telling him to

(33:35) doubt as a you know completely not not I don't think this is a tradition that survived anywhere but I found it to be a very interesting um little episode in the Proto evangelium Joseph observes time stopping which may be at the moment um that Jesus is being born or right before it and so I this is Again part of that when he's in Joseph's first person and I Joseph was walking and was not walking and I looked up into the sky and I saw the sky astonished and I looked up to the pole of the heavens and I saw it standing and the birds of the air keeping still I looked down upon the

(34:18) Earth and I saw a trough lying and work people reclining and their hands were in the Troth and those that were eating did not eat and those that were Rising up did not carry it up and those that were conveying anything to their mouths did not convey it but I saw the faces of all were looking upward and I saw the Sheep walking and the Sheep Stood Still and I saw the shepherd raised his hand to strike them and his hand remained up and I looked upon the current of the river and I saw the mouth of the kids resting on the water and not drinking and all things in a moment were driven from

(34:55) their course and so at this um you know dispensational moment of uh of Christ uh God be being born among us there is a um something that would be like I say a pretty common CGI superhero special effect where all of time stops um and it's described in a very interesting way here in this ancient text um which I think is I'm not I don't haven't seen in other ancient texts this idea of a time stop so like I say then the Proto evangelium this book of James is the source of many key Traditions the idea that the Nativity took place in a cave

(35:40) the idea of Mary's Perpetual virginity the idea that Joseph was an old man with doubts about the pregnancy the idea that Jesus siblings are Joseph children by a prior marriage and even things like details like the names of Mary's parents St yakim and St Anna there are plenty of churches of of St an that are named for Mary's parents the name of Mary's parents comes from the gospel here of James the Proto evangelium um and actually a lot of times we've talked a lot about um the fact that the historical Jesus actually had historical siblings like James and um and many times when people

(36:29) are in the audience that are listening to the lectures they insist well that's because these guys are Joseph's children by a prior marriage they're not they're really Step Brothers they're not um actual Brothers but again there is no there's no other earlier source for this that's not what the canonical gospels say that's coming from tradition which is coming from this text so um as mentioned this gospel claims to be written by a certain James and so what's the source of it so as the gospel itself concludes in its ending it says and I

(37:11) James that wrote this history in Jerusalem a commotion having Arisen when Herod died withdrew myself to the Wilderness until the commotion in Jerusalem ceased glorifying the Lord who had given me the gift and wisdom to write this history and grace shall be with them that fear our Lord Jesus Christ to whom glory be to ages of Ages amen so you know this time period is happening at the death of Herod so very very early on that same trouble in Jerusalem at herod's death maybe is referenced in Matthew where we read that after Herod died an angel of the Lord

(37:55) appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said get up and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who were trying to take the child's life that is to say Herod the Great is dead so Joseph got up and took the child and his mother Mary and went to the land of Israel but when Joseph heard that aralas was reigning in Judea in the place of his father so Herod archelus is now ethnarch over Judea uh Joseph was afraid to go to Judea and so having been warned in a dream Joseph withdrew to the

(38:31) district of Galilee and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth so this is um Matthew's apologetic account of how um uh Jesus who was always known uh traditionally as Jesus of Nazareth that's multiply attested Nazareth is Jesus's Hometown but the Messianic prediction was that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem and so this is Matthew's way of getting um a Jesus who he feels should have been born in Bethlehem to his actual hometown of Nazareth um but again because the idea here is that there is an unsettling thing that happens in Judea after Herod the Great's

(39:14) death the claim is that the gospel of James is written in that time period soon after the death of Herod the Great so way earlier than um 70 years earlier than mark so this dating if true would make the text the earliest gospel by far the text like I say does not specify which James is supposed to be its author um but throughout the text there are many references to Joseph's sons and so that makes it plain that the author is meant to be one of those Sons which is to say uh James's Jesus's brother James

(39:54) also called James the just so James is a historic figure we've had a whole lecture on James the brother of Jesus and also on his church and also his rivalry with Paul and also why Paul's church is won so there's plenty of lectures on these topics that we've already explored James is attested by Paul who is his rival and also by Josephus who mentions him as having been uh assassinated by local Jewish leaders during a time a later time of unrest in in the 60s um and what we understand from both of those sources is that and also acts is that James the brother of Jesus led

(40:39) the um Jerusalem church after Jesus death and until his own death so Herod the Great died in four before the Common Era the year 4 BC and that's the reason why for example that Jesus's birth is usually given as 4 BC and not 1 AD um you know the anodin system was only really worked out and popularized many many hundreds of years after Jesus birth that was not the way years were numbered at this time people were not counting down backwards getting to you know BC and getting waiting for the year one um and so and so it's not entirely you know it wouldn't there's no

(41:24) particular reason why one is the the actual year of the birth it was a later calculation that somebody made and because people would prefer to imagine that the historical Jesus was born at the time of Herod because of the Maan story didn't have to be Matthew could have created that story there's no no no reason to imagine that that story has historicity um in any event that's why it's normally listed as 4 BC because that is when Herod died if James was already an adult by the time Herod died then he would be 50 or more by the time um Jesus is crucified and then James would be in his

(42:05) 80s when he himself was martyred around the year 62 which is a time we can calculate based on Josephus account of when James the brother of Jesus was um killed nevertheless if he was at the early part of his life um writing a whole go gospel the Proto Evangelion it's a bit strange that then for the whole rest of his life um as he becomes even the leader of a Christian Movement the main Christian movement after Jesus's death for decades that he never added to his text if he were truly the author it's only something that he worked out when he was a a young man and

(42:47) never returned to um the fact that that's not the only problem with the idea that this is um so written so early or written by uh by James at all so for example James was a Jewish Christian I mean initially he's Jewish and then later when Christianity emerges he is a leader of uh a Christian Community in Jerusalem um he was very familiar with Judaism he also lived in Jerusalem and so you know at least in the end of his life and actually according to this he lived there very early too so I guess most of his own most of his life probably we could assume and thus James

(43:31) um would understand for example how the Jerusalem Temple worked you would understand um the way uh the temple complex operated and so on the Proto evangelium author describes Mary being raised in the temple as a virgin girl and really that's not something that happened uh in the Jerusalem Temple it is something that happened in paganism so for example the Vestal virgins uh in Rome Are pagan priestesses of the Goddess Vesta um and that may have been an idea for this Source but it's um this idea that that that this is the actual history of uh Jesus's mother um is is

(44:17) certainly not attested anywhere else and seems I mean is did not happen um as we've seen the Proto Evangelion shares material with the Lucan narrative story but it also has kind of direct overlaps that show literary dependencies as and there's several quotations at least five and so for example part of the Gospel of James we read and behold a voice was saying hail uh you who has received Grace the Lord is with you blessed are you among women and she Mary looked around on her right hand and left to see whence The Voice had come so so she has this voice

(44:58) that makes that declaration in the infancy gospel and of course both of those things hail uh the Lord is with you blessed are you among women those are probably very familiar to people who know um the Lucan story and some of the prayers that have been uh drawn from those and so we read in Luke chapter 1 that an angel appeared to Mary and said you know Greetings or hail you who are highly favored the Lord is with you and then later when um Mary is visiting her cousin Elizabeth in the Lucan story Elizabeth exclaims blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you bear

(45:38) so so again um it's putting it into the Angel's mouth but it's the same phrases so this is a literary overlap um and there are other places too in James we say uh we we read and seeing Mary Elizabeth blessed her and said when is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me for behold that which is in me leaped and blessed you and that corresponds um you know when I'm when I'm using this unfortunately we don't have a modern public Source that's why I'm quoting this with the wz and the and that kind of thing but it's you know this a English version of it so we have that same corresponding story in Luke

(46:25) where in a loud voice Elizabeth exclaimed why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears the baby in my womb leaped for Joy so in both cases we have um the idea that uh that she is recognizing Mary as the mother of Christ mother of my Lord and also um that the baby that she's pregnant with the future John the Baptist also has leapt for joy at this event and so those are direct um overlap between James and Luke and there's another other ones too so we read in James there was an order from the Emperor Augustus that all in

(47:12) Bethlehem of Judea should be enrolled and that is very similar to the beginning of the second chapter of Luke which reads in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world so there's definitely dependence right so either um if infancy James is what it claims to be the very earliest gospel ever written then the author of Luke has a copy of it and is using it very sparingly because there's only a couple things that have been pulled and most of it has been um not

(47:51) used or um the author of infancy James is writing much later and themselves has a copy of Luke um so like I say could theoretically be either one except for when we also consider that infancy James has literary dependence with Matthew as well so not just with Luke and so for example and when you look at the two texts infancy James versus Matthew after Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant in infancy James we read and Knight Came Upon him upon Joseph and behold an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream saying be not afraid for this Maiden for

(48:40) that which is in her is of the Holy Spirit and she will bring forth a son and you should call his name Jesus and he will save his people from their sins and that corresponds very closely to the same point in the story in the gospel of Matthew an angel of the Lord appeared to him to Joseph in a dream and said Joseph son of David do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins so

(49:18) again an overlap here of dependency um the author of Matthew either has a copy of this text or the author of The suo of of the Proto Evangelion has a copy of Matthew the Proto evangelium includes additional episodes from Matthew's Nativity Story including the visit of the Magi who come with their gifts turns out that they show up in the cave right after salame and the Midwife are there the Proto evangelium of James also includes the story of the massacre of the Innocents the story of Herod um putting to death all of the children

(50:01) from Age Two and younger that occurs only otherwise in the OR occurs in the in the gospel of Matthew and not in Luke but kind of strangely um the Proto Evangelion connects that story to Herod searching for the infant John the Baptist who is not mentioned in Matthew rather that's a a detail and John the Baptist being a a cousin and being born around the same time that's a detail from the Lucan story so we read again in in the Proto Evangelion when Herod knew that he'd been mocked by the Magi in a rage he

(50:43) sent murderers saying to them slay the children from two years old and under and Mary having heard that the children were being killed was afraid and she took an infant and took the infant and swaddled him and put him into an ox stall and Elizabeth having heard that they were searching for John took him up and went into the Hill Country and kept looking to where to conceal him and as Herod searched for John he sent officers to Zacharias who is Elizabeth's husband John Baptist's father and says Where

(51:17) have you hid your son and so this contradicts um what Matthew's gospel said because in in Matthew's gospel Joseph again is warned in a dream that Herod is going to do this and he have he and Mary and the baby have already fled uh to Egypt by this point and indeed it's actually presumably happening a long time later than the birth whereas in this case it's shortened and it's happening immediately sort of after the birth and Mary is still wrapping Jesus up in in swaddling clothes as an infant and she hasn't left for Egypt and she

(51:56) instead is hiding him in you know an ox stall so so it's an interesting different variation on it but otherwise the same uh details that are found in Matthew with also characters like Zacharias Elizabeth and John the Baptist that are from the Lucan story so because you know methan and Lucan material for the Nativity stories does not overlap there are a couple points of minor agreement which are that um that Mary is a virgin and that Jesus is born in Bethlehem but those are such widespread Messianic prophecies that any gospel writer would be likely to um to include

(52:38) those details so they're working independently Matthew and Luke and so because there's no overlap between their material but there's lots of overlap of Matthew and and luk and material in infancy G in infancy James it clearly shows that infancy James is making use of both and it follows both so it isn't what it's claiming to be it's not an early gospel it's not the earliest gospel it's actually a later gospel so interestingly though even though it is a later gospel um it's not so late that the author considers Matthew and Luke to be you know so

(53:15) completely or authoritative that he's not um contradicting them so we saw that he isn't using the same you know details of the story that we find in Matthew he's elimin ated a bunch of the Luke stuff there's no Shepherds and so on so the author of James is still telling his own story he's not making what we call a Harmony of the gospels where you combine the Matthew and Luke and stories the way we do in our nativity sets like I showed you where you have all of these Matthew details and all these Luke details and

(53:45) they're all characters and they're all together at the same stable in the same place that um and so most of the material actually for Matthew and Luke stories are surprisingly not included even though though each of them only have a couple chapters on this so the author of James is willing to contradict Matthew and Luke's gospels as he tells his own story but nevertheless he is using them as sources so therefore um infancy James or we'll now start calling pseudo James was written after Matthew and Luke and so they from the 80s and 90s and so

(54:22) therefore it's written after that and if it's not James who wrote it who did well the text was certainly known to origin in the early 3rd Century who talks about it and it's possible that Clement of Alexandria is making references to it or Illusions from some of the details of it and he's writing the late 2nd Century and many scholars think then it was in circulation by the middle of the 2 Century by the 150s so it's written sometime around that like all pseudepigraphic texts um when you're pretending to be somebody Who You're not we don't you haven't said who the real author is cuz

(55:00) you've made a false um pre you know a false name of who's writing it uh therefore when we don't know who the actual author is and we have to you know find hints at who they might be by looking at the contents and so we always have that both for anonymous texts like the canonical gospels but also for pseudepigraphic texts so two of the key themes in this pseudo James um are really his obsession with the virginity of Mary which goes on a lot and also his General disapproval of sex as as shameful and so we'll look at that that

(55:42) may be providing us with one of our core Clues um infancy James begins with a story of Mary's future parents um like I say they're named yakim and Hannah and this is where we get those names following on all of the models from the Hebrew Bible the subagent Greek version of the Hebrew Bible there are all of these couples who have gone to old age and who haven't been able to um have children and so that includes Abram and Sarai so Abraham and Sarah in Genesis who are looking forward to eventually uh the birth of their son Isaac but also for example the mother of

(56:29) Samson the super powerful judge Hannah she has also having trouble having children and so makes a promise to God that if uh if she is able to conceive she'll dedicate her child to the Lord um and so Samson has to take very special vows and is raised as a as a nazary so that he doesn't um cut his hair until until he's tricked into having his hair cut um likewise from the New Testament there's the example of uh John the Baptist who Mother Elizabeth and her husband uh Zacharias were also not able to have children until again very late in life this is the author of Luke again

(57:14) modeling a story on the birth of Samson and Samuel so just like all of these examples then Anna uh the future mother of Mary has been unable to have children she's been mocked and so she prays uh by all the people who uh again women's value in the society is to by Bing a mother and so Anna prays for a miracle and look an angel of the Lord stood nearby we read in the Proto evangelium saying to her Anna Anna the Lord has heard your prayer you'll conceive and give birth and your Offspring will be spoken of through the whole world and

(57:53) Anna said as the Lord God Lives whether I give birth to a boy or a girl I'll bring it as a gift to the Lord my God and it will minister to him all the days of his life so just as um Samuel who is given as an oblate and he becomes a great prophet he's given to the priest Eli to be raised in the shrine at Shiloh and just as Samson takes those vows um so too Anna's child is going to be dedicated to the Lord when the child is 3 years old yakim uh Mary's father said invite the daughters of the Hebrews that are

(58:34) undefiled and let them each take a lamp and let them stand with the lamps burning that the child may not turn back and let her be cap heart be captivated from the Temple of the Lord and they did so until they went up into the Temple of the Lord so um there's this idea that eventually um they're going to give to the temple they don't want to but again all of this idea that you have to have this they're having this kind of ritual and that is involving undefiled that is to say virgin Daughters of the Hebrews

(59:08) with lamps and things like this this doesn't seem very Jewish and it's as a traditions and it seems again more common with Pagan Traditions like the Vestal virgins you know the Vestal virgins keep a sacred hearth fire burning at the Temple of Vesta in Rome so um this is one of the instances where again the author doesn't seem to be as focused on actual Jewish traditions on receiving Mary finally into the temple the high priest has a prophecy and he predicts the Lord has magnified your name Mary in all

(59:45) generations and he also predicts that Israel's Redemption would come about through her and so this makes Mary famous throughout all Israel as this uh little pure girl that is now going to be raised in the temple and according to the text Mary then grows up in the temple of the Lord and she's nurtured like a dove and receives food from the hand of an Angel and there are depictions of Mary growing up in the temple again over in the Orthodox Church in the iconography being fed uh essentially communion Wafers as her food

(1:00:19) from angels with so many fabulous predictions made about her Mary is famous but then as she's getting older um everybody starts to get worried when she became 12 years old there was a council of the priests saying look Mary has been in the temple of the Lord 12 years what should we do about her so that she won't P pollute the sanctuary of the Lord Our God so there's the idea that um a menting girl living in the temple would uh would cause a ritual defilement and pollute the sanctuary and they said to the chief priests you stand at the altar of the Lord go in and pray about her and

(1:01:02) if the Lord reveals anything to you will do it so unable to keep her in the temple but wanting to preserve Mary's virginity which is incredibly valued in this text the priests assemble Israel's oldest widowers and they essentially have a a contest or a lot to see which of them should be given custody for her protection they figure all these old guys are less likely to you know want to marry her and have sex and so um as the sign a dove flies over Joseph's head and he re reluctantly actually has to be charged with um being destroyed uh as he really does not want to take

(1:01:46) charge of of the Virgin he doesn't want to have Mary brought into his custody and this idea that there's a sign again of the dove that flies across him this is thinking of like that's how Romans in fact see um do all of their divination is by by bird flight and things um it's not that there aren't signs in Judaism too but again this is kind of it's not uh it's not a specific to the Old Testament kind of um kind of reading for example Joseph takes Mary into his household very reluctantly but he has to

(1:02:22) go off on carpent De projects and when he finally gets back he realizes we read Mary was in her sixth month of her pregnancy and behold Joseph came back from his building project and entering his into his house he discovered that she was big with child and he smoted his face and he threw himself on the ground upon sackcloth and he wept bitterly with what face shall I look upon the Lord my God and what prayer shall I make about this Maiden because I received her a virgin out of the Temple of the Lord and I have not watched over her and who is it that has Hunted Me

(1:03:06) Down who has done this evil thing in my house and defiled a virgin so Joseph accuses Mary of having had sex with somebody Joseph says to her oh you you who's been cared for by God why have you done this and forgotten about the Lord your God why have you brought brought low your own soul uh you that was brought up in the holy of holies and that received food from the hand of an Angel and Mary wept bitterly saying I'm innocent I have known no man and Joseph said to her whence then is that which is in your womb and she said as the Lord my

(1:03:47) God Lives I do not know whence it is in me so Joseph continues to have all kinds of doubts and that he's eventually assuaged by an Angel in that um um phrase that we read earlier but when the priests um learn the news of Mary's pregnancy there's another whole round and even more rage about the defilement the priest said Mary why have you done this why have you brought your soul low and forgotten the Lord your God you that was reared in the holy of holies you that received fruit from the hand of an Angel and learned sorry heard

(1:04:23) the hymns and danced before him why have you done this so uh having sex is just terrible and she wept bitterly and said as the Lord my God Lives I am pure before him I have not known a man and the priest said to Joseph why have you done this so the general equation of sex with defilement and this obsession with virginity continues you know pretty much throughout the whole text and so that's caused some Scholars to theorize that maybe the author would was part of a um like a non-orthodox non-catholic so non-main line 2 century

(1:05:04) Christian sect known as uh the encres and so founded by an early Christian named T the encres are um whose name means the people who exercise a self-control the self-controlled ones they abstain from meat and wine and sex uh they absolutely forbid marriage and so they are opposed to you know any of these things they're an athetic group um uh the mainline Christians the emerging Proto Orthodox Church people like irus of Leon one of our earliest main writers at the end of the 2 Century who wrote his big book against what he called Heretics he definitely labeled this

(1:05:53) group as one of the heretical groups um and several other early Proto Orthodox Church fathers also talk about them saying that they were widespread uh across the East uh origin says he has the detail that they didn't consider Paul's letters or the book of Acts to be scripture um a lot of times when you have a a religion or a sect of a religion that is opposed to sex and marriage they also kind of die out by natural causes that happens uh but in this case um they actually died out by being killed so the

(1:06:33) emperor theodosius after um after he has made Christianity and and specifically the main line of Christianity Nan Christianity uh the uh State religion of the Roman Empire he kind of brutally suppresses a lot of any Divergent Christians any groups that are considered heretical groups and so he makes uh an ICT in 382 uh that the uh enes are also U it's a capital offense and so they eventually are totally suppressed so we don't know that it was coming out of this but in any event it is um an from an author who has um you know sex on the mind and

(1:07:16) thinks of sex as being really bad there's a lot of that in early Christianity but there's even a special Obsession in this text so whether or not the gospel came from an early Christian group that was later condemned as heretical um that's one of the things that often kept gospels out of the Canon um that may be one of the things that kept it out of the cannon also perhaps people did not believe the attribution that uh James the brother of Jesus had written it um and so therefore it was not um not understood to be a valid text

(1:07:52) by us and when the New Testament was being put together even so um its contents were not kept out of Christian tradition um as we've seen lots of the details lots of ways people think about um especially Mary Mary and her family Mary um uh the Immaculate Conception of Mary Mary's per Perpetual virginity the Catholic doctrine of those things um are drawn actually from this Source first and foremost and again the ongoing idea of Orthodox iconography also draws really directly uh on its contents and indeed um as a uh there's

(1:08:34) other influences so Mary as understood in Islam is also in the Quran said to have been fed uh By Angels um a text a detail coming from infancy James and so pseudo James uh while not actually written by James not actually called the Proto Evangelion but not actually the first gospel not actually in the cannon but nevertheless having a uh substantial Legacy and so hopefully that's been a fun um way to uh get us ready for the Christmas tradition and our our Christmas break and uh I'll get a glass of water and Leandro is going to find

(1:09:13) your comments for me and so I want to thank first of all people who have been um uh donating during the lectur thanks to JM to Jeff CZ to Lawrence Martin to darthur raama to Bo the wolf to fire ever living to Dave Anderson and Mark long really appreciate all of your support fire ever living is Daryl um Ted gamberling asks why was the constantinian Basilica destroyed I I to look back and see what that was I was wondering if it was um if there might have actually been a natural cause or uh whether you know was a not thinking that there's a lot of earthquakes there so maybe a fire but I

(1:10:03) don't think that um I don't know the answer to that Ted but anyway I don't um so it was earlier it's not like it was destroyed uh I think if that who would be attacking that maybe the Persians came in and attacked it but actually the Persians I'm not sure that they did so it'd have to look it up uh Gustavo uh Lopez agu aguado says who is with Joseph in those Greek murals from the uh Nativity maybe he said it and I was distracted so Joseph is out there um there's a couple occasions when he's out there with the Shepherds but most often in the iconography he's with an old man

(1:10:43) in kind of like a a fur coat and this is um Satan dressed iconography symbolically it's Satan dressed as an old man and Satan is is sewing doubts with uh Joseph uh Ron Wagner says so when was the Gospel of James originally written so it's not from the time it says uh which would be whatever around the year one or two but in fact it's more like 150 probably is when it's written so the middle of the 2 Century um myology media says what are the chances that James the brother of Jesus wrote this uh nil there

(1:11:25) it did not it's not written by James the brother of Jesus so it um it's it doesn't have an understanding of of Judaism it's uh it's anachronistic it's literarily dependent on on on books uh Matthew and Luke that are written after James the brother of Jesus's death um it's ignorant about how the Jerusalem Temple works and so on so um I would just give it a 0% chance that James the brother of Jesus wrote it Donna Ford uh said how did Mary come to be raised in the temple so um so it is at the beginning of this story and it is like one of those uh oblation stories that is

(1:12:09) modeled on on the especially the the Samuel story so the same way that Samuel's mother um gave Samuel as a little boy to Eli who then raised him uh in the shrine at Shiloh which is where the tabern was kept where the Ark of the Covenant was kept according to uh the book of Kings actually the book of Samuel and um and so that same kind of model is shown here where where again this uh god-given child who is announced by the angels that she's going to be famous and have this incredible role um that that she is also donated to the

(1:12:48) Lord and so she's brought to the temple and um the high priest who was in charge of the temple immediately also you know has a kind of a Visionary or prophetic experience about her and so that's why she's uh uh kept to be raised in the temple and even as the text says in the holy of holies um sometimes I guess when the angels are giving her Wafers to eat that's certainly never happened only the priest high priest could go in there certainly women couldn't go anywhere near that part of the temple there's a

(1:13:22) court where the women aren't you know the women only only men could go beyond that um uh and it's only the high priest could go there once a year and then um uh you know again then only once a year so it is not um aware of how the Jerusalem Temple actually worked but it is a story that um is created by the author here of her living in the temple that's based on the the Samuel story from the book of Samuel in the Old Testament um Ron Wagner is there any overlap between the gospel of James and the Q source so no by the time the author of

(1:14:05) James um is writing uh the Q Source if it's still in circulation there's no no indication that the author of James would have that the author of James here is not interested in the sayings of Jesus Jesus is appearing as a baby in the story and doesn't doesn't give any sayings um and so there's also no sayings attributed to John the Baptist which would also be in the Q source so none of the things that would be part of the Q Source um are in the gospel of James so there would be no overlap and and even so we know that the um author of James had copies of Matthew

(1:14:41) and Luke which both of which are dependent on the Q source and so if there was any Q material in James which I don't think there is um it would be we would know that they got it from either Matthew or Luke L you want to pull up the questions we at Wayne's World of Science and Technology Wayne's World of Science and Technology said Do we have any indication of which Community um pseudo James is from so so a lot of um Scholars have suggested it's a a second century Community Christian Community in Syria maybe um and again some people have suggested that maybe it's a um you know

(1:15:23) kind of an Eastern Community that is viewed by the mainline church as heretical because of um an excessive focus on the idea that sex is bad um and so that's possibly it but we we don't have anything more than what um inferences can be drawn based on the uh the themes that the author is interested in uh hisl says John have you heard much about the new movie Mary that was released on Netflix earlier this year I saw some people on Twitter upset about it because it was allegedly based on the Proto evangelia I have not seen it and I didn't know that if I had known that I

(1:16:04) should have watched that before this lecture so sorry that I didn't hear that I'll have to um I'll have to look at it and see that it could be very interesting it's always interesting to find that um you know I haven't seen the whole thing but there's a um you know from the the what's his names um who's the guy who's the guy from Braveheart the actor what Mel Gibson so Mel Gibson's Jesus movie um uh he there's this very crazy thing happens where where Jesus is talking to like having visions and he's talking to the devil and then it's going back and forth I'm like what on Earth is this well he's

(1:16:46) and and it and I did not understand where that came from because that's not in the gospels at all passion of CHR The Passion of the Christ yeah and um and and and the tradition that comes out of that that's coming from like some kind of a a 19th century Catholic woman's Vision which uh you know that of of of something that Jesus a dialogue that Jesus and and Satan have U during during the passion part of of the Christ and so so I was I you know in the clips I saw of that I was like where is this coming

(1:17:17) from and so it is weird sometimes when there are non-biblical sources that you know provide a lot of these kind of details um and so so I could imagine if they made a merry movie you would have to use um if if you're not going to just make everything up yourself um you're going to have to use the Proto Evangelion as your main source because this is the main source by far for all of the sort of Maran um tradition so it's the author here who made up all of those merry things uh originally as opposed to like I said unless you're going to make up your own Maran ideas now Kimberly mle

(1:17:56) says does all this mean that people were just coming up with assumptions surmising things about Mary so I actually I just said that and so yes um but actually what I would say is where where are they getting it so um so there's two two major sources for um for when they're creating narrative back story so in Antiquity um we don't have biographies that are the way modern biographies work modern biographies we understand we have a modern idea of self and psychology and so when we're talking about how you

(1:18:34) developed as a person you talk about in things that happened in your life that had an impact you you met a particular teacher you had this sort of event these kind of things shaped who you are uh in Antiquity biography is 100% different from that instead you always are this being who was always destined for who you're going to be and and and ancient authors only write stories about childhoods in order to show to foreshadow all of the things of who they are going to be and so all ancient biography is what you're saying just people making assumptions and making

(1:19:13) making up stories in order to prefigure who the person was already going to be and that's going to be true for everybody's ancient biography Caesar or anybody else and so and so where do where are they getting those details the the sources are not necessarily just coming up with the top of their head about um where these ideas would come from they're getting things from um from the subagent from the Bible and so they're taking a model story like I mentioned that story of Samuel's mother and they are taking that as a a source and saying everything that happened

(1:19:48) before prefigures all the things that's going to happen now we don't know the details of how Mary was raised but she must have been raised in this um the same sort of style that would be consistent with the Old Testament and so they get that as a source and then the other part of it is is that they would they have theological ideas that are important and in this particular case um this author is very uh interested theologically in the idea of Mary's Perpetual virginity and so um they're telling a story in order to demonstrate a

(1:20:24) theological belief that they have or a theological position they have and so in that sense it's not fiction in that in the way we think of a fiction where you're just making up a story for uh its own end for entertainment's sake but actually in this case to um to resonate with uh Old Testament scripture and to teach a theological position or a theological proposition fire ever living says do the names and other details of the magic come from this or from somewhere else the Magi names do not come from this um

(1:21:00) we have had a a lesson on the Magi and I'm not immediately remembering where where those three names from names come from uh which source that is um balazar uh's name there's actually a um it's a reuse of a name for Daniel given in one of the Greek additions to the Book of Daniel in the sepagan so part of the Apocrypha stories of Janel calls him balazar so I would think that that's where that name initially comes from and then it's just reused for one of the wise men later um but yeah I'd have to look again at what the what the source is um for those three traditional

(1:21:40) names um myology media says I was also wondering um if the Magi are at all mentioned in the Proto evangelium yes they do they are mentioned um so they show up like I say right after uh salame is doubting that Mary is a virgin and does her test in the cave uh Salam and the Midwife were there and then the Magi show up um shortly after that uh with the gifts of the cave uh or do we have any other extra biblical sources mentioning them no and so in fact this is only and this also doesn't count as a as an extra source because James is dependent on Matthew so so what's the

(1:22:26) source about the wise men in James Matthew so there is no um there is no other source at all there is no independent source of the Magi um outside of Matthew there is no other source that Herod massacred all of the children in um in Bethlehem or in Judea or wherever whatever limited space it was U outside of the Gospel of Matthew even though that seems like that would be such an a Monumental event that it would be remembered as a um you know Herod is already considered a villain certainly by Josephus Josephus loved to tell stories of Herod um killing his own

(1:23:06) sons and things like that and so um if that had happened it would have made its way into Josephus it would made it way into any other source so the Magi and and the Herod story The Massacre story occur um in Matthew alone and they're unattested any anywhere else and so Scholars universally I think um consider those to be non-historical so those are um stories that Matthew has again a theological purpose for so the massacre of the Innocents is that thing I talked about the typology where Matthew is trying to show that Jesus is a new Moses uh and so Moses uh is according to

(1:23:50) the Book of Exodus uh there's a a massacre that that happens or supposed to happen where all of the baby boys are supposed to be killed um and again there are Hebrew midwives that are that are supposed to do that but don't and that that idea of a of he of really good Hebrew midwives in Exodus is probably the source of the Hebrew Midwife um that the Proto Evangelion of James is talking about it's referencing again the Hebrew midwives uh that are in Exodus so that's where Matthew is probably getting that that Massacre story um Again The Exodus story is also

(1:24:28) non-historical that also didn't happen but it's a typology so there is a um to show that Jesus is like Moses the story of this happening in at for the birth of Moses is repeated by Matthew to uh to uh to talk about the birth of Jesus and same thing then the Magi that's not um like that that instead is part of um Matthew's uh indication that uh that Jesus is born a messiah not just for the Jewish people but for all the world and so uh who recognizes it but the main important foreigners in the Middle East the Persians the Magi are the

(1:25:12) astrologers the priests of the zor asrian religion they recognize that Jesus is a messiah and come there according to Matthew who's created this tradition that's not part of zor asrian tradition so so K Tempest Bradford says it's fascinating to me that so many Traditions have come from non-canonical sources they're good enough for tradition but somehow not good enough for the Bible any thoughts on that um well so so there are there were some standards about what could to make it into the Bible and not that said people were desperate for these um

(1:25:46) people wanted to tell like if they're going to make a merry movie or something like that you want to have um these kind of details and so and so like I said unless you're going to supply them all yourself every single time if you want to make pictures of this stuff you know you have to have you have you know are they born is Jesus born in a house is he born in a stable is he born in a cave um you're going to want to show those kind of things and if you and if the story doesn't exist in the Bible but you have

(1:26:13) all these details from somewhere else um it's hard to suppress the details it's much easier for theodosius to write a list of of Christian or groups that he considers now Heretics and maybe suppress them and maybe burn their books but it's harder to get rid of um details that are in the tradition once they're there because you you can't replace something with nothing Migel Angel says um does the first person part of the story imply that the current version is a combination of smaller texts so it is possible that there's something going on um there is the Maran story is you know

(1:26:58) there's a bunch of different weird chapters of this um but the one part of that the one problem with that I guess is that the whole thing is so short that so it could be that there was something like that was a smaller part I'm not sure like you say there is a weird shift there and so it could mean that there's some kind of a seam um that we're seeing uh but um but it's such a small text you know it's hard to it's hard to dissect it and and and find like this was like an original part and then this has been added to it or something like

(1:27:32) that Julie bazooki says when did the nativity scene tradition begin um so there are um Christmas plays that go all the way back into the Middle Ages actually and so one of the things that revived um the idea of theater um eventually comedy and drama is is actually Christian plays um initially um nuns in monasteries were writing some of these but then later they become popular plays that people uh put on uh related to the different Christian festivals and so that revived them so for for that kind of a festival and then in terms of having a um an actual live nativity

(1:28:22) scene where you you know get the cows and the donkey and you set the whole thing up um famously Francis of aisi did that and so um um he's a good good at doing stuff that people um like and remember and that was something that people really liked and so he was one of the If he if he didn't make it up he's one of the early popularizers for it um and finally fastball flak says when is the next Let There Be answers episode and so I have to ask that do you have any idea I mean it'll be in January after Christmas yeah so we're we're we'll tell you after Christmas but it'll probably be in January so we're trying to get

(1:29:06) back on our um our schedule where we do most every Tuesday but if sometimes we won't be able to have a whole new lecture we'll probably do a Let There Be answers and so guys we're going to wish you a Merry Christmas and also a happy holidays to uh everybody whatever religion you're at Christmas Eve service oh yeah and and we'd love to have you join us for a Christmas Eve service which is primarily um going to be music so landro is going to host he's going to talk about all of the different um uh music that the beyond the walls choir

(1:29:37) has Christmas music that beyond the walls choir has recorded um Mike has recorded a bunch of special Christmas music it'll just be a lot of fun uh Christmas Eve evening so please join us for that