The birth of Jesus remains one of the most contested issues
among biblical scholars. The reason is that the illogicalities and lines of
arguments from literature make it hard for them to come to agreement with one
reality about the fate. It is therefore a tag of thoughts where arguments are
raised concerning the celebrated birth of Jesus to be mythical than factual or
historical. The purpose of this work is to discuss the lines of arguments
raised by scholars that makes the claims of the birth of Jesus a myth.
A definition of the word myth by Konopka (2015) is that
it is something conditioned and negotiated by the agency of language; it is, in
fact the product of basic shortcoming, an inherent weakness of language. It is
only a linguistic attempt to characterize the world that ultimately fails to be
characterized in words. The bible is full of myths as Genesis chapter 1-11
forms a great legendary of the Jewish tradition. Those legends have significant
meaning to Jewish culture and tradition and how they interpret the world around
them. The birth of Jesus is argued to be part of the many mythologies that are
found in the Bible.
Christians celebrate 25 December as the birth of Jesus
and it is celebrated as something that literary happened. Challenging this
assertion, Cummingham (2013) magnify the claim that Jesus was “conceived by the
Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary” and further postulates that the claim
is an attempt to express the child’s extraordinary relationship to God. Supporting
the view is Mohoney (2012) when adding that Jesus was conceived of the Holy
Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. In his argument, William denotes that the
birth of Jesus is a “mystery of Christ virgin birth”. The above scholars tally
with each other by pointing out the controversy of a virgin birth.
To fuel the above argument
concerning the myth of Christmas, Craig (2016) refute the Holy Spirit
conception by linking Panthera the Roman soldier with Jesus’ birth. Considering
the fact that Rome was in control of Israel, there is a
possibility of forceful intercourse by the authoritarian to the subject, after
realizing that she is pregnant, and yet engaged to marry Joseph, she was facing
great shame. If it is the situation, then we might say Jesus was born and
assumed the “adoption” to be Joseph’s son, but scholars refute the existence of
the figure by stating that there is no reliable ancient evidence about the
historical existence of Jesus (Craig, 2016). There is scarcity of primary
sources evidence in the affirmative and there is little that recommend Jesus as
a genuine historical person.
The birth story of Jesus was influenced by the ancient
tradition of magnifying the births of great men (Crabtree, 2014). Such
accounts were readily accepted in an age of superstition and belief in
miracles. Craig (2016) talks about Yeshus
meaning Jesus that Rabbis cite in Talmud and a number of them like Yeshu ben Stada of the second century
BCE. Considering the fact that the gospel traditions were written later after
the death of Jesus according to scholars, we can expect more editing that is
influenced by adherents to religion and ideologies and beliefs of those writers
as to what they wanted to portray about Jesus.
The infancy narrative by the gospel tradition contradict
the evidence about Jesus. Matthew talks about the massacre of infants by the
Romans who felt threatened by the child’s birth. Contrary to Matthew, Luke is
gentle and even softer when narrating the story of Jesus’ infancy (Parini,
2015). He does not mention any massacre of innocent children. This then shows
that their story is a person’s own creation not a reality that ever happened.
Such a gruesome event should have been kept in the archives but scholars argue
that there is np historical basis of this event. This then give the sense of
doubt as to whether it happened or there was nothing like a child who was born
at all.
There is also an argument about the virgin birth
narrative as later editions and not part of the original texts (Racy, 2008).
The scholar further argues that descent was not traced through the female line
in the Jewish law and custom of that time, Jesus was not Joseph’s son as the
gospels all claim. Here, we have to employ the scientific understanding of the
reality. There is no way the society was going to accept the child of this
nature considering the density of patriarchy that rested upon the Jewish
community during this era. We expect the worse to have happened to this couple
but the pen of the authors makes us to see angels convincing Joseph to accept
the marriage. The story here become a bit of a movie and the impossible made
possible; the pregnancy by the divine is a controversy at its best when
scholars use the scientific reasoning to the matter.
To
soften and bring more light to the argument, Boyle and McKay (2016) similarize
the birth of Jesus to the Santa Claus myth. It is mostly used for young kids
for moral teachings. After all, it is a white lie. A white lie is told to
protect someone from being hurt and is qualified to be good for them. The
scholars argue that if the Santa myth is used for kids, why do we doubt the use
of Jesus myth for adults. The line of argument is that the birth of Jesus is a
white lie. It has good moral lessons and is used to portray many massages so it
cannot be discarded and ignored.
Scholars have many reasons to argue their stand that the
birth of Jesus is myth. The mystery birth of Jesus, the influence of ancient
tradition, the Matthean and Lukan narrative contradiction about the infancy
stories of Jesus and the scientific understanding of virgin birth are their
major lines of arguments that challenges the birth of Jesus and arguing it to
be just a myth than a reality and an event without historical basis. This is
echoed by Crabtree (2014) that the stories about
Jesus's birth in the Bible are contained in the Books of Matthew and Luke.
These two accounts contradict each other in many places. Many
elements are certainly untrue. There are no Roman records attesting to the
birth (or life) of Jesus1.
Events such as King Herod's
killing of every male child simply did not occur
The doctrine of the virgin
birth is intricately woven within the texture of the liturgy, theology and
piety of all branches of the Christian Church. In spite of its enduring
influence, the doctrine has been dogged by criticism, particularly in the
modern era. By the 20th century, the teaching of the virgin birth was rejected
by the majority of Protestant theologians in Europe (, 2016). The contradiction about
birth stories in the synoptic gospels, the nature of the historicity of the
virgin birth and claims from scholars about the rape of Mary by a Roman soldier
compromise the Christian claims of the virgin birth.
REFERENCES
Boyle, C. and McKay, K. (2016). A wonderful lie. Vol.3. UK:
University of Exeter.
Crabtree, V. (2014). The Birth of Jesus and the Christmas Story
Pagan and Unhistorical. Accessed date: 05 December 2018 http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christianity_birthnarrative.html
Craig, M. (2016). The Christ Myth: if Jesus did not exist, would
Christianity survive?
Cunningham, D.S. (2003). “Explicating those ‘troublesome’ texts of
the creeds: the promise of realistic fiction,” Dialog. vol. 42, no. 2.
P, 111-119.
Konopka, P. (2015). How do we represent the world we live in?
Mahoney, W.F.E. (2012). Contemporary Controversies Surrounding the
Virgin Birth of Christ.
Parini, J. (2015). Writing Jesus: Issues and Challenges in the
telling the Christ Story. Baylor: Baylor University.
