Christmas Story Myths and Realities

8/8/2019 Christmas Story Myths and Realities

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Christmas Story Myths and Realities

by Bill Allin

Let me state at the outset that I have never been a great fan of the

Bible. While it stands as a repository of human wisdom through the

ages, it has been used--too often and unnecessarily--as a cause forwar and a source for religious propaganda. Whereas it has proven to

be a marvelous source for history, academics argue over it likechildren in a sandbox who are well past their nap time.

My experience with people who quote "scripture" has been all bad.Without exception they have been mentally unbalanced, some to a

greater degree, some less. The scripture they quote has almost alwaysbeen from what Christians call the Old Testament. These books were

written shortly after written language began, by the Israelite tribes

who escaped Egypt during the Exodus.

Those tribes were violent people then, as most tribal peoples are todayin comparison with those who live in more developed cultures. (Think

of the ones in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan who historyshows have been at war with each other "forever.") The Israelite tribes

were relatively uncultured in comparison with neighboring tribes. By

comparison, the Romans and the tribe of Goliath, known to us as thePhilistines, were culturally much more sophisticated.

But the Israelites had written language, they may even have invented

it as a secret code as they prepared the exodus of Egypt. Like today'sBedouins (of which the Israelites were a part in those days), theytended to convey history, tribal wisdom and their oral form of

education in parables or stories, the way Jesus of Nazareth did in theBible's New Testament. Even today if you listen to a translation of

taped messages from Osama bin Laden you will wonder at the strange

story-like way he conveys his messages. Sometimes his messagesseem backwards, which is a story style of these people. People born

into the culture understand the story-telling techniques.

The ancient Israelites used their written language the way today'spolitical leaders do, as a tool of propaganda as well as a record of fact.So, is the Bible a factual record of what actually happened or is it a

collection of folk tales invented by people who clearly had an agendathey wanted readers to believe? The latter would include myths of the

nature of Aesop's Fables, designed to convey life lessons to youngergenerations, and well as rewrites of history that conform to the wishes

of those in power at the time, who had the money to pay for the



writing. The answer to the question is clearly: yes. Both, and more.

The Church of Rome devised the modern Bible in the Fourth CenturyCE, omitting many books that did not fulfill its agenda of the time and

rewriting others to fit its newly devised doctrine, taking advantage of

its new position as the official religion of the Roman Empire. In theprocess it omitted its extermination of the Followers of Jesus in the

Holy Land in the Third Century (the power of the Christian Church wasin Greece at the time, not in Jerusalem) and it made Mary of Magdala

almost disappear from the texts.

Two centuries later a Pope had Mary Magdalene repositioned as a

prostitute (which is never hinted in the Bible) so that it could maintainits hold of men only holding power in the religion. Only in fairly recent

years did we learn that Mary was the strongest supporter of Jesus,

even likely in a financial sense as her father was a well-off Jewishmerchant, and she became virtually the leader of the teachers who

were the Followers of Jesus, courtesy of the Nag Hammadi textsdiscovered in Ethiopia, that were arguably more important than the

Dead Sea Scrolls.

Remember that Jesus of Nazareth was a Galilean who spoke and

preached in Aramaic, though he obviously also spoke and read Hebrewas he quoted from Hebrew texts and chatted with the priests in

Jerusalem when he was 12. Some of what is recorded in the Bible istranslated from Aramaic. Not only was Aramaic different from Hebrew,

the culture and customs of the people who spoke it in the Galileediffered greatly from those of the Israelites farther south.

In Aramaic, for example, the same word that means carpenter alsomeans stone mason. The Bible has Joseph being a carpenter, not an

impossibility, but unlikely in an age when Rome and King Herod were

responsible for most of the building in the region and they preferredbuilding with stone because wood was rare in the Holy Land, as it is

today. Joseph was surely a stone mason, one who helped to build thenew Roman city that sprang up a few kilometres away from Nazareth.

Something that has bothered scholars for ages is the status of themother of Jesus, Mary, as a virgin at the time of her becoming

pregnant. What the Bible emphasizes is her Immaculate Conception,meaning that Mary, thus her son, conceived free of Original Sin (the

sin of Eve, which supposedly followed all humans until the death of Jesus on the cross).



Mary (Mariam in Aramaic) was betrothed to Joseph (Josephus), but notyet married to him when she was visited by a messenger from God

and told that she would give birth to a very special child. As she was of marriageable age and already betrothed, it is highly likely that she

married shortly thereafter and became pregnant soon after that. If you

were told that you would soon be pregnant, you might choose to getmarried quickly as well.

The sequence of words to describe the conception of Jesus may be

what confused people as they were translated. Jesus could have been

born free of Original Sin and blessed by God without lacking thatessential second set of human DNA which makes each of us human.

Remember, the people of Galilee may have been poor and notculturally blessed, but they weren't stupid. They knew what it took to

create a baby.

They also knew that no matter how they told the Mary story after the

fact, in their strange-to-us peculiar story form, everyone wouldunderstand that human babies are conceived by copulation of a man

and a woman. It would never have occurred to them that people inother parts of the world, millennia later, would confuse their odd way

of telling a story until they understood it to mean that a virgin had

conceived a baby.

Some Christians still believe that Mary remained a virgin throughouther life, despite the fact that the Gospels state she had several

children after Jesus. Many also believe that the angels in the Bible hadwings, despite the fact that the Bible mentions nothing of wings. (Whatwould a non-corporeal energy-based being need with a birdlike

method of movement anyway?)

[Aside: The Christmas star could have been easily accounted for by

the convergence of three planets. Witness our fascination with suchastronomical events today. The Magi, being stronomers, would have

expected a convergence and may have travelled some distance to seeit, as eclipse lovers do today. Shepherds would not likely have known

about a convergence, so might easily have attached spiritualsignificance to it. Either group might have known about Hebrewprophesies of a star signifying the birth of a holy child.]

Those violent Israelites of the day still believed that a woman should

be a virgin when she married. It was Torah law, is part of the ChristianOld Testament and Muslim holy texts. A woman who became pregnant

(or who even had sex, lost her maidenhead) before marriage would



have become a social pariah and cast out of her community. She mayeven have been stoned to death, a penalty advocated by the Bible and

still practiced (to the chagrin of most of the world) in parts of theMiddle East.

Two thousand years ago in Galilee a woman who became pregnantbefore she was married would be highly unlikely to survive long

enough to give birth. "Virgin Mary" is almost certainly a testament toour ignorance of Aramaic, of Galilean and Israelite customs and of the

story telling techniques of the Israelites of the time more than to poor

writing of the Bible text. What we see but don't understand we tend tointerpret in strange ways, often ways that don't make sense, so we

commonly attach magical or religious stories to them to account for"miracles" or misunderstood events.

Finally we look at the man after whom Christmas Day and Christianitywere named. Jesus was likely born on or about the equinox in

September. While the exact day was not stated in the Bible or othersurviving texts, the date may be calculated by references to it and to

the birth of the cousin of Jesus, known as John the Baptist, in theBible. (See my article When Was Jesus Born?)

Several years ago a furor arose about replacing the word Christmas inseasonal advertising with the word Xmas. Those who were most upset

knew nothing of the use of "Xmas" for the past 400 years, of themeaning of the ancient Hebrew letter "X" or of the significance of its

use in texts of the time of Jesus. As has so often been the case withreligious books, ignorance bred contempt (more correctly, prejudiceagainst others who knew more than they did).

What had nearly vanished from the December celebration was the

spirit, the reason for which Jesus preached and gave his life.

Jesus had one message, one commandment if you will. Love.

Everything else would resolve itself out of devotion to love. Charity--helping others in need--would follow naturally from love. The real spirit

of Christmas revolves around love and charity.

Jesus had one weakness, a disability you might say, in his teaching.

He had experienced God, a phenomenon known as the mysticalexperience. He knew who and what God was. That made him rare,

even liable to be a victim in his day if he spoke publicly about it. Heknew that God was within him and every other person. He knew that

he came from God, but also that the rest of us did as well. That's why

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45877440/When-Was-Jesus-Really-Born

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45877440/When-Was-Jesus-Really-Born



he never admitted (to Pontius Pilate) that he was the only Son of God.Nor did he say as much to his own followers. The Bible tells us that

Jesus taught us to find God within ourselves, not in heaven. Everyperson can be a son or daughter of God because each of us is part of

God already.

The church never liked the idea that people could find God on their

own, without going through the church and without paying tithes.When the Bible was rewritten, Jesus was made to say that people

could reach heaven only through him, which meant through the

church. The church has never stressed the part of the Bible whereJesus says that anyone can find God by searching within themselves.

But it's there. Jesus never advocated attending a church, except in oneplace where his meaning is vague (a characteristic of Bible rewriters,

but not of Jesus himself).

People who have actually experienced God rarely become preachers.

They know that trying to teach others about God brings struggle andrisks. Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi come to mind first. Mother Teresa

was not murdered, but she struggled her whole adult life with herchurch and with people who wanted to keep desperately poor people

as "Untouchables." People who have experienced God do not want to

fight. They want peace. They want to help others.

How can they possibly spread their message of hope, of joy, of charityand of love to others without preaching? Look around you. Their

message is not in the media, that clearly favour consumerism. You willfind it on social media such as YouTube and Facebook, in shoppingmalls and other places where people meet each other and share. You

may even see it in the smile of someone you pass in a public place.

It's happening. Remember, the media do not represent who we are as

people any more than they represent who you are as an individual.

Look around you. Hope, love and charity are there. If you can't see it,maybe you need to change how you look or what you look for. You can

feel it if you learn how. Okay, that's not easy, but you can learn.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for

Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents,teachers and anyone who wants to know how children develop and

what kids need that they aren't learning in schools or in their homes.And what happens to children who grow up without developing in

those critically important ways.



Learn more at http://billallin.com

http://billallin.com/

http://billallin.com/

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Christmas Story Myths and Realities