Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Now that I have concluded my meditations on the primeval history (Genesis 1-11), maybe it would be a good time to start getting ready for Christmas. Over the next several weeks, I plan to comment on the infancy narratives in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. There are many topics that could be discussed, for example:

• the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew
• the annunciations to Joseph, Zechariah, and Mary
• the Benedictus and the Magnificat
• the Magi and the Star
• the manger and the shepherds
• finding Jesus in the Temple

In addition, I'll probably also have at least one (or two) general articles discussing the purpose of the infancy narratives ("gospels in miniature"), the differences between them, or how the two distinct narratives have been harmonized in the typical nativity story.

In a way, the next couple of months will be for me a return to where my study of the Bible first started. Back in 1977, Catholic scripture scholar Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998) published The Birth of the Messiah, his 600-page study of the infancy narratives. I read a review of it in Newsweek magazine and recall being a little shocked and somewhat intrigued that one of Fr. Brown's claims was that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. A few years later, I bought a copy of the paperback version of the book, but it remained on my shelf unread because, after all, it was 600 pages long.

Back to where it all began. This is the cover of the trade paperback I read around Christmas 1983 that started me down the path of my self-directed study of the Bible.

In 1983, I took a class on New Testament literature and was exposed to modern biblical scholarship for the first time. That class gave me the foundations of how to approach the NT and I finally felt like I could read Brown's magisterial work with understanding. It turned out to be a good choice for me to start with because The Birth of the Messiah was ground-breaking and vastly influential. No one could write on the topic of the infancy narratives without addressing what Brown had to say on the subject, whether the writer was in agreement with him or not. And write they did, because Brown's book kicked off something of a resurgence of interest in the infancy narratives with some 500 books and articles written on the subject in the 15 years since its publication. When Brown released an updated volume of The Birth of the Messiah in 1993, he added a supplement of 150 more pages addressing the literature that had come out since the first edition.

Getting back to my story, as I read Brown's book, I found something of a kindred spirit. Brown's approach is to lay out the different theories and supporting evidence that have been proposed to explain some curiosity in a scripture passage before finally stating which side he believes and why. I appreciated his balanced approach and found myself in agreement with his conclusions 99% of the time. Simply put, his mind seemed to work the same as mine. This led me to seek out and read his other books. Years later (in 1991), I was finally able to take a week-long class with Fr. Brown and meet him in person.

But I digress. Not everyone has the time or inclination to read 750 pages on the infancy narratives. For those people, Fr. Brown has digested the main insights in two very short books (71 and 50 pages): A Coming Christ in Advent and An Adult Christ at Christmas. If you want to get some background on what I plan to write about over the next several weeks, read these two books.

After concluding my articles on the infancy narratives sometime around the start of the New Year, I'm not sure what topics I will be writing next. One obvious choice is to return to Genesis and pick up where I left off with the Abraham stories. A less obvious choice would be to work my way through the Gospel of Luke since in 2016 the Sunday gospel readings in the Lectionary will be coming from Luke. Or maybe I'll go crazy and start reading a 1200-page commentary on the Book of Revelation and discuss that. Who knows?

If you have a preference for what you'd like to read about in this blog after I conclude my review of the infancy narratives, please leave a comment below with your suggestions.