The Dans Ruin Christmas

Dan McClellan I think it's just vibes. So here it is, the Lamb of God, so you got to have some shepherds come by and go, "Yep, that's the Lamb of God."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Well, there's your problem right there. You left him in the manger. Wait, you can take him out of the manger? Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Oh, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

Dan McClellan It's getting to be that time.

Dan Beecher Or so the song says. Not technically for us in our actual timeline, but for the people hearing this, by the time this gets out to the world, it will be officially Christmas time.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, the radio stations here in Utah have been playing Christmas music for a few weeks now.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And I just received a package, or probably my wife received a package, with a bunch of candy cane-colored and shaped throw pillows. So yes, it is definitely that time.

Dan Beecher 'Tis the season.

Dan McClellan And it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

Dan Beecher Ugh, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Although, by the time you're hearing this, it obviously has been Thanksgiving. If you're Canadian, it was Thanksgiving a year and a half ago.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But yes, this is one of those rare moments where you and I, Dan, the two overburdened-with-ADHD guys- ... actually planned ahead enough to get a Christmas thing to happen before Christmas.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So I'm very proud of us, because we're- It didn't work for Halloween, but gosh darn it.

Dan Beecher No. Every now and then we can make it happen, if we're four weeks ahead of plan or whatever. But I will say this. This is a good one. I have a hunch this is going to be a very shareable episode, just because we are looking down on all the Whos in Whoville and planning to Grinch this thing to death.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher We're going to ruin Christmas is my guess.

Dan McClellan Dan's ruining Christmas, yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's the goal.

Dan Beecher So why don't we launch in? It's just one subject today. Let's just launch in, and because we're just talking about the nativity, the birth of Jesus, why don't you start by giving us an overview, a 35,000-foot look at what we're going to be diving into?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Because of turbulence, I might bring it up to 37 or 39,000 feet. But yeah, in short, we're looking at the accounts in Matthew, the end of chapter one, the beginning of chapter two, and then we're looking at the account in Luke. And Luke's is much larger, and this is where we get most of the traditions that are associated with what we think of as the nativity. And actually, these two accounts, and then we'll talk a little bit about it when we get to these details, but some of the things that people associate with the nativity, for instance, Mary riding on a donkey, Jesus being born in a cave, Joseph being really old, traditions like that, if you associate them with the nativity, that actually comes from a pseudepigraphic text called the Protoevangelium of James or the Protogospel of James. We can talk about that later.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But we have Jesus, who probably was born in Nazareth. At least the tradition has Jesus being of Nazareth, but he's got to be born in Bethlehem if he's going to be the Messiah. And so the earliest Gospel, Mark, and certainly the earliest writings in the New Testament, Paul, never talk about Jesus's birth at all.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because it probably just wasn't relevant until questions began to arise as the tradition is circulating. People were like, "Well, but where was he born? Because it says the Messiah's supposed to be born over here." And so we don't have nativity accounts in the earliest Gospel. They're in Matthew and Luke. And traditionally, people think of Matthew and Luke as the middle two Gospels, Mark as the first, and John as the last, but Luke might be the last.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan And the two chapters that cover the nativity might even be secondary additions to Luke. So these are traditions that are being added quite late to the tradition that are trying to cover this gap in where Jesus came from and say Jesus was from Bethlehem, because that's where the Messiah was supposed to be from. And so- Yeah.

Dan Beecher If nothing else, it explains why the Luke story is so much better and longer and more fun than- Yeah ... the Matthew story.

Dan McClellan They've had a lot of time to revise and edit and everything. Their deadlines were a lot softer than Matthew's, so.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And John doesn't cover it either, does he?

Dan McClellan So you've got a trajectory where Mark starts with the baptism, and then Matthew and Luke are like, "We're going to go back to his birth." And John's like, "Screw you guys. I'm going back to the beginning of creation."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so the scope of Jesus's mission and identity and everything keep getting pushed further back until John is like, "Beginning of time." And then yeah, just skips over what happened with Jesus's mom and dad- Yeah ... and Herod, so yeah. So I think we're going to start in Matthew, and then we'll move on to Luke afterward.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher And I just went through and just bullet pointed I just read both accounts.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And you got to say, as we go through this, one of the things that's going to become very apparent, and I don't know why. Growing up, when I heard this story, when this story was told to me, when I would go downtown Salt Lake City to the Mormon Temple Square. Which at that time, every year they would do this. They would light all the trees and light up all of the temple square, so it was pretty to walk through. And you'd go there at night in the cold, and everybody would bundle up. And then on one of the lawns, they had these life-sized plastic people, statues of people. Nativity scene, yeah. And so, you'd have shepherds over here, and you'd have wise men over here on camels, and you'd have the manger and whatever. And a recording, and I know the actor. I actually worked with the actor who did the voiceover for the recording.

Dan McClellan Nice.

Dan Beecher Robert Peterson's voice would come over and read these passages to you from the Bible, and the different parts would light up as they talk. And I think most of us could be forgiven for not realizing these are two totally different stories that are just completely unrelated to each other.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There's frequently a harmonization that goes on, and you got to try and squeeze the different parts in together to tell the story. So, when everybody gathers around and daddy reads the nativity, it's a mashup. It's not either one of these stories, but it's an attempt to try to make them one and the same narrative, and they're not, as we're going to discover.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It makes sense to want to harmonize them. Like, yes, if you want this to be true, then you got to harmonize them because they don't relate to each other. But we'll get to that. Let's just start with Matthew in chapter one.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Verses one through 17 is just genealogy connecting- Right ... Joseph to David.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, we'll just skip all of that, because there's nothing more boring in the Bible than the begats.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All of the begats are the worst thing in the world. Then you get to the birth of Jesus, and so Joseph and Mary are-- And help me out with this.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I grew up with the King James. It said that they were betrothed.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher NRSVUE has it as engaged.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher But then, a few sentences later, Joseph is going to divorce her.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, what is the state of their relationship at the beginning of this?

Dan McClellan So, betrothal in the ancient world, betrothal would frequently happen when a woman reached puberty, shortly after, 12, 13, 14, somewhere around there. And, for arranged marriages. Not all marriages were arranged. If they weren't arranged, it might happen later. But basically, this was a contract, and for all intents and purposes, they're married.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, if you wanted to break up a betrothal, that was a divorce. If a man passed away during betrothal, before consummation of the marriage, that woman was now considered a widow.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan So, for all intents and purposes, they are married.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan They haven't performed the ceremony. They haven't consummated the marriage. So, there is another stage to it, but they're considered married. And this is why, for instance, in Deuteronomy 22, where we have the legislation about what's to be done when a man is discovered committing adultery or something, and they both get killed. And then there's a question of a virgin who is betrothed, and the penalty is the exact same as a woman who's not a virgin anymore, who's married.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Got to kill them both.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then it's only someone who is unbetrothed who is considered not married. So, yeah, for all intents and purposes, they were married, even though they had not sealed the deal, so to speak.

Dan Beecher Well, and in other stories, that would be less important. In this story, that's a very important point.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher That they have not sealed the deal.

Dan McClellan Critical.

Dan Beecher Everybody knows this. In this story, Mary just gets pregnant, and Joseph, gentleman that he is- Mm-hmm ... decides he's going to quietly divorce her, and not scream to the high heavens about how she is, I don't know, deserving of being murdered maybe? I don't know what happens to a woman who gets pregnant and it's not her husband's baby.

Dan McClellan Well, again, if we go back to Deuteronomy 22, a few verses earlier, if a man comes together and accuses his new wife of not being a virgin, then she's supposed to be stoned. So, it was capital punishment, but- Right ... by this time period, one, they did not have authorization to engage willy-nilly in capital punishment, and so that wasn't allowed. And so basically, divorce was what was supposed to happen.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then she then becomes a divorced woman.

Dan Beecher So, he's planning on that, but an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says, "Go ahead and marry her."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher "She conceived of the Spirit," which that's got to be weird to hear.

Dan McClellan Yeah. That is a pregnant statement, which itself is a pregnant statement. But, yeah, it is. There's a lot of people who have read an awful lot of stuff and know exactly what it means to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But yeah, the authors probably were not concerned with those details.

Dan Beecher Nope. There's a lot of stuff that's thrown into these things that's like, you know that there's going to be centuries of parsing that happens afterwards.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That somebody was just like, "I'll just write it this way."

Dan McClellan Not my problem.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Exactly.

Dan Beecher Enjoy that, scholars 1,000 years from now.

Dan McClellan Or 2,000.

Dan Beecher "She will bear you a son, and you will name him Jesus," quote, "for he will save his people from their sins." Is that what Jesus means?

Dan McClellan So Jesus is our transliteration of the Latin transliteration of the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic name Yeshu or Yeshua- Yeah ... as it's written in the Hebrew Bible, and this is a contraction of Yehoshua, which means Adonai saves.

Dan Beecher And so- Okay ...

Dan McClellan Yeshu probably means, it is also the Aramaic word for salvation. So it's either salvation- Right ... or Adonai saves.

Dan Beecher And then there's this moment, which I will also need some help with, where the angel in the dream, this is dream angel, says that this is going to fulfill a prophecy. He's just said, "You're going to name the kid Jesus."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then says, "This is going to fulfill a prophecy about a virgin becoming pregnant," and quotes that prophecy, and the quote is, "And they shall name him Immanuel, which means God is with us."

Dan McClellan Yes. So, oh, lots of stuff going on in this quotation.

Dan Beecher Just so much happening.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Not least of which is, you just said, "Name him Jesus."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher How does that fulfill a prophecy of him being named Immanuel?

Dan McClellan Well, this is being slotted in here for a very specific purpose. So this is Isaiah 7:14, but specifically from the ancient Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14, so the Septuagint.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And in the Hebrew, it says, "Look, a young woman has become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and she will call him Immanuel." So what's going on here is we've made some changes. Young woman, almah in Hebrew, has been translated into Greek as parthenos, which usually more explicitly refers to biological virginity, as if there were a biological virginity.

Dan Beecher There's not.

Dan McClellan But to virginity as we think of it. That's not always the case. For instance, in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation again, in the story of the rape of Dinah, she is referred to as a parthenos afterwards.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan So it's not incredibly strict, and there's a wonderful paper by a friend of mine named Rodrigo de Jesus that talks about whether or not the rendering is theologically motivated. But anyway, Matthew has to appeal to the Septuagint because that's the only way that this has anything to do with a woman being a virgin.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So this translation gives him the out to be like, "Oh yeah, check it out. It's a virgin. It's magical. It's divine. It's a miracle." All this stuff.

Dan Beecher And then- Is it likely that the Septuagint is the only version that the author of the Gospel of Matthew knows? It's the one- Or would the Gos- ...

Dan McClellan that's being appealed to here. A lot of people think Matthew would've understood enough Hebrew to know that the Hebrew is different.

Dan Beecher Huh.

Dan McClellan But there are places where Matthew will fiddle with the prophecies in order to make them fit his rhetorical goals. And this is just one example. We've talked before about, for instance, the triumphal entry where Matthew was like, "Two animals at the same time?

Dan Beecher All right.

Dan McClellan Whatever." And has Jesus- Works for me.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So whether or not Matthew knows the Hebrew is different, Matthew is appealing to the Greek.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then it says in the Greek also says, "Shall become pregnant," whereas the Hebrew, most scholars agree, means has become pregnant. And then in the Greek here it says, "They shall name him Immanuel." This is actually a change from the Septuagint because the Septuagint says, "You will name him Immanuel." Either you or he, I am going from memory. But it's changed to, "They will name him Immanuel," which is probably the author recognizing that Joseph is going to name him Jesus. So other folks are going to call him Immanuel. And what I think is going on here is this is a little bit of foreshadowing. Shadowing, not shattering. The angel is like, "Yes. People you don't know yet, the mythical they, are going to refer to him as Immanuel," meaning God is with us. In other words, other people are going to recognize that Jesus bears God's presence and brings God's presence among them. And so it's kind of a recognition of his future mission.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan In my opinion. There are scholars who account for it in different ways, but the fact that the author changes it to say, "They shall call him Immanuel," I think pretty clearly indicates this is intended to prophesy about other people recognizing Jesus' mission.

Dan Beecher It's such a weird... This is not the first time, by the way. There are many times, especially in Matthew, where it overtly says- This happened, and that is a fulfillment of this prophecy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And so it's very clearly like Matthew is going through the motions of, here's this part. Now you guys can just know that that prophecy was fulfilled. He's just ticking boxes- Yeah ... as he goes through.

Dan McClellan He's going to be like, "And then this happened, and I bet you can guess why this happened. So that the prophecy could be fulfilled." Yeah, we know, Matthew.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, yeah, let's go on from there.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So we move on to chapter two, and this is where the Magi come- Oh, one more thing real quick.

Dan McClellan Okay. Sorry to interrupt, particularly if we've got some lag today. The chapter ends with verse 25 saying, "But he had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus."

Dan Beecher That's true.

Dan McClellan Indicating that there had not been the taint of sexual intercourse anywhere associated with Jesus' gestation or birth. So he was free and clear of that territory by the time Joseph arrived. And this kind of makes it difficult to argue that Mary maintained perpetual virginity as well.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan There are folks who are like, "Hey, just because it said he didn't have marital relations until he was born doesn't mean he had marital relations after he was born." Just like when I say, "Yeah, I didn't eat dinner until after I got home from work," doesn't mean I never had dinner ever again. It just means it happened after I got home from work.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It could mean you never had dinner again.

Dan McClellan It's not impossible.

Dan Beecher It's possible.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We know what that's all about.

Dan Beecher All right. Chapter two, we've got the Magi who come in. We did a whole cool episode of that last year.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Go back and look that up if you want to. The Magi, who we know are not three men, but an undetermined number of men, and frankly, when you see how they behave, I don't think we can call them wise men either. Because they just come barging into town yelling, "Hey, where's the kid that's going to be the King of the Jews?" Which does not hit the King of the Jews very well. Herod is not happy about that- Yeah.

Dan McClellan ...

Dan Beecher at all.

Dan McClellan "Oh, do you mean me? Oh, you don't mean me? What are you talking about?" "Are you talking about my son?

Dan Beecher You better be talking about my son, because I'm not..." By the way, we are very clearly in Bethlehem. There is no mention of Nazareth anywhere here.

Dan McClellan None whatsoever.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher And also, this is after Jesus has been born, but no mention of Jesus' birth or how long this is after the birth.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Herod becomes furious, brings the Magi in to trick them into, "Go find him, and then come back and tell me where he is so that I can pay homage to him, too." They follow a star, which, as I read it, it was very clear to me that the star moved and physically stopped directly over the house where they're supposed to find Jesus.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher It's not just in the sky- Yeah ... guiding them in the direction. It's like follow the bouncing ball sort of thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So they get to the house, they pay homage, they give the gifts, and then they scurry off out of the country, going a different way than they came in so that they wouldn't get stopped by Herod again, because they had a whole dream about Herod being ready to do some damage.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And then Joseph has another dream. He's visited by his dream angel again, who says, "Herod's going to kill you guys. You have to run away to Egypt."

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Which is interesting, because that is also very much just in this narrative, nothing to do with the Luke narrative. There's no mention- Right ... of Egypt anywhere around that.

Dan McClellan And it's precisely because Matthew found another prophecy that he was like, "I bet I can get that into the story." "I bet I can squeeze it in." "I'm going to get it in there."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so has them go to Egypt. "This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I have called my son.'"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It is the desire to have Jesus fulfilling all these Messianic prophecies that is driving the narrative.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And unlike what we have in Luke, Luke is very different. And then, what happens while they are sojourning in Egypt?

Dan Beecher Herod dies. Oh, well, first- Well, we- ... Herod kills all the kids in and around Bethlehem- Yeah.

Dan McClellan Don't forget that one.

Dan Beecher ... who are two and under. So yeah, pretty horrific, and also an event which you would think would merit being told in other places.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You would think- In any other places.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's like this guy, he just lost it and killed all the babies that were under two. That would have merited some mention by somebody like- Yeah.

Dan Beecher You would think Josephus might have had something to say- Yeah ... about that moment.

Dan McClellan And it says in verse 16, "He sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the Magi," which suggests that this is within two years from Jesus' birth.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So among other things- It could've been as much as two years from there.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which, among other things, means that Jesus would've been born as much as two years before Herod- ... was dead.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan In other words- Yeah ... that would've needed to be around 6 to 4 BCE, somewhere in there.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher So, we got, we... Now, oh great, now you've ruined our whole calendar. Thank you so much for that. If nothing else, that is a good reason to use CE and BCE as opposed to AD.

Dan McClellan Yeah, because it's not accurate.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They didn't have a Y zero countdown.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That were like, "This is gonna screw up all of our computers." "The whole economy's gonna come crashing down. We better have a census."

Dan Beecher Okay. Don't get to censuses yet. We're gonna get to censuses. But yes, Herod dies eventually while they're in Egypt, so they feel like they can come back from Egypt. But they didn't go back to Bethlehem, they went to, da, da, da, da, Nazareth.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And that fulfills the prophecy that he will be called the Nazarene.

Dan McClellan Which is not a prophecy.

Dan Beecher It's not? There's no part of the...

Dan McClellan So, this is usually put in quotation marks, "He will be called a Nazarene."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan There's nothing anywhere in the Hebrew Bible that says that.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan So, other people are like, "Oh, it's not direct speech, it's just a paraphrase." Well, there's nothing about the Messiah being from Nazareth. What a lot of people will do is they'll point to Isaiah 11:1 where it says there's a, "root will come forth out of Jesse," or something like that. And, the word for root there is netser in Hebrew. And so, they're like, "If you squint at that, you could say maybe he's from Nazareth, therefore, the prophet said he will be called a Nazarene." It's either that, or there's something that we have lost, that there was a prophecy that we've lost, or Matthew was just making it up. So- Or Matthew was ...

Dan Beecher Yeah ... he was so used to wedging in prophecies that- Yeah ... he just threw in one of his own. Why not?

Dan McClellan Well, and this is one of the reasons that I think critical scholars would agree that the historical Jesus probably came from Nazareth, and was known to come from Nazareth. When it comes to Egypt, Matthew's like, "Oh," stretching, he's cracking his knuckles like, "Check out what I'm gonna do." But here, because he wants to fulfill the prophecies, here, he kind of has to bend the Hebrew Bible a little bit to fit what sounds like everybody knows about Jesus. He can make up Egypt, he can't make up Nazareth.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Nazareth has to be there. And so, whereas elsewhere the prophecies are driving narrative, here, the history is driving his representation of prophecy.

Dan Beecher So- I guess that makes sense. There must be then a prophecy that says that the Messiah will come out of Bethlehem. Is that true?

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. We skipped over it.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan Back in verse 6 of chapter 2. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet, 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, that is what, in that time period, had been interpreted as a Messianic prophecy about the Messiah coming from Bethlehem.

Dan Beecher So really, the Nazareth thing, getting him to Nazareth is just a matter of explaining why this kid from Bethlehem is known as the Nazarene guy.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, it's basically like, "Okay, we had our fun, but now we have to tie it into what everybody already knows about history."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And so, we got to get him to Nazareth."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And you'll notice the text shares absolutely no indication whatsoever that they ever lived in Nazareth. They're like, "All right, we're coming back from Egypt," and God is like, "Uh, go over there." Oh, okay.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so they show up in Nazareth, and according to Matthew, if you only had Matthew, Jesus had never been in Nazareth before.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And his family wasn't planning on going there. They were just like, "God told us to come here.

Dan Beecher All right.

Dan McClellan Well."

Dan Beecher And he's not grown, but this is years after his birth that they were there.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Uh- So, depending on when you date it, if it's after Herod's died, so it's after 4 BCE, so he's anywhere from one to three, maybe four years old at this point.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay. Oh, and I looked this up just to paint a picture for those of you who are curious. Nazareth is about 90 miles north of Bethlehem. And Bethlehem is just outside of Jerusalem. It's just a little suburb of Jerusalem.

Dan McClellan Yeah. A little south of Jerusalem. Now it's like a suburb of Jerusalem. Back then, it would've been separate from Jerusalem. But- It's a long walk, though. It's a long- It's a hike.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Through some very hilly country, apparently, is what I was seeing on the map.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And Nazareth, it's in a little bowl between some mountains. It's quite a large city now, but at the time, it would've been a tiny little hamlet, so there wouldn't have been much going on there.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But it's right at the northern center of the Jezreel Valley. Beautiful area.

Dan Beecher Near the Pond of Galilee.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's a bit of a hike to the Sea of Galilee, but it is near it, yeah.

Dan Beecher I will not call it a sea. I've seen how small it is.

Dan McClellan It is not a sea.

Dan Beecher All right. Let's move on then now- Yes, let's ...

Dan McClellan to Luke.

Dan Beecher Luke. Because that's basically the end of the birth of Jesus story in Matthew.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, Luke tells a very different story.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Starting with, and I'm just going to start, don't you get ahead of me now, Dan.

Dan McClellan I'm going to start with- I wouldn't dream of it ...

Dan Beecher in chapter one, an angel appears to say, "Do not be afraid, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife will bear you a son, and you will name him John the Baptist." That's right. The first part is all about John, and Elizabeth, and Zechariah, and nothing to do with Jesus.

Dan McClellan Yes. So, just like with Jesus, everybody had to one-up the story before- ... and be like, "Well, yeah, well, what about his birth?" "What about the beginning of time, Matthew? What about then?" And here, they're doing the same thing with John the Baptist, because now it's like, "Oh, we've got to go back to John the Baptist's birth," which is all miraculous and everything as well.

Dan Beecher Yeah, and very, very reflective of the Jesus narrative as well, which is very interesting.

Dan McClellan Well, and it's probably because there were a bunch of people, and we talked with my friend James McGrath about John the Baptist. It's probably because a bunch of people were like, "Jesus was a subordinate to John," and now they're like, "Oh, but wait till you hear this." Before John was even conceived, they were like, "He's number two. He's the runner-up. He's just a forerunner."

Dan Beecher But he was really, really important, so there's angels telling them that he's coming, too.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, he was special. You got that right, but he was always number two.

Dan Beecher So, after all of that happens to Elizabeth and Zechariah, where an angel comes and tells them about their kid and all this other stuff- Mm-hmm ... then we get to Joseph and Mary, and an angel appears to Mary, not to Joseph, and this isn't in a dream, and the angel has a name, and that name is Gabriel.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, Gabriel is sent to Nazareth, because Mary and Joseph are in Nazareth.

Dan McClellan That's where they live, yep.

Dan Beecher Tells Mary that God is pleased with her, and so she's going to bear a son, and you're going to name him Jesus, "And he will be great and will be called the son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Which, by the way, I feel like him saying he will get the throne of his ancestor David, he doesn't get that. Maybe metaphorically, but it sounds like what he's saying is, "You're going to be the king of the Jews."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And that doesn't seem to happen in the story, does it?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher No. This is what everybody's been waiting for.

Dan McClellan Everybody has been waiting for this deliverer to come and to whoop the Romans and drive them out so that they can reestablish their kingdom, which is what the Maccabees did 160 years before with the Seleucids and Antiochus IV Epiphanes. So, that's what they're anticipating.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And Gabriel is kind of like, "Yeah, that's what's going to happen."

Dan Beecher Yeah, totally.

Dan McClellan Yeah, that's filling them with false hope when he was like, "No, this was all a spiritual throne, not a physical, actual, literal throne."

Dan Beecher One could imagine a conversation between God and Gabriel afterwards where God says, "You told them what?

Dan McClellan Why?

Dan Beecher Why did you say that?"

Dan McClellan Anyway. Yeah, or at Jesus's crucifixion, Mary is like, "Wait a minute."

Dan Beecher "Hang on."

Dan McClellan "I wrote this down." "I still have it in my scrapbook."

Dan Beecher "Gabriel, are you there?"

Dan McClellan "It's in the garage."

Dan Beecher Yeah. Oh, man. So anyway, moving on, Mary goes and visits her cousin, her relative, Elizabeth.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And little baby John, who's about six months old, or six months gestated in Elizabeth's womb- Mm ... kicks, and so that's why abortion isn't legal.

Dan McClellan And then- This is post-quickening, by the way- Yeah ... movement on the part of John the Baptist. And so, yeah. Anyway, continue.

Dan Beecher So, there you go. Mary sings a song, which I am led to believe is called the Magnificat by Mary.

Dan McClellan The Magnificat, yes. This is another mashup of praise coming from the Psalms and stuff like that.

Dan Beecher Right. And then there's a bunch more stuff about John the Baptist that we don't care about. So then, let's move on to chapter two.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And here's one of my favorite bits in all of this, the weird census where they say, "Everybody leave where you are and go to where you're from," which- Yeah ... to my knowledge, has not been how any census has ever worked, ever, and couldn't possibly work, and is crazy.

Dan McClellan And your knowledge is accurate. They wanted people to be where they lived and worked because they needed to know how much to charge in taxes, and they needed it to be accurate. And if they're like, "Everybody go to your ancestral homestead," not only do you nuke the economy- Right ... but a lot of people are going to leave your jurisdiction.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then you're going to have utterly useless data. It's like, "Why are your taxes so low? There were supposed to be a million people living in your city." And you're like, "No, there were just a million people who came ancestrally from the city."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It would be utterly useless, and there are apologists who are like, "Well, no, there was this census from 115 BCE in Egypt," or CE, I forget which one it is, "where the instructions were for everybody to return to their hearth." And they think that means- Your ancestral homestead, and it 100% does not. It quite literally and explicitly means if you're out traveling for work, go home- Right ... so you can register for the census at your home where you live.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, not where your great-granddaddy said you were from.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So yeah, that's nonsensical.

Dan Beecher But- But it does get us to the city of Bethlehem.

Dan McClellan Yes. AKA the- You could call it the MacGuffin Census. Yes, it is the MacGuffin Census.

Dan Beecher It gets us to Bethlehem, which is called the City of David.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Is that right? Are we just fulfilling a prophecy thing? Or why do they keep calling it that?

Dan McClellan Yeah. City of David is a name for a ridge that kind of juts down a little south of-- It's like the Florida of Jerusalem. It kind of sticks out a little on the south. And that's where David's palace was.

Dan Beecher That was- Okay ...

Dan McClellan Jerusalem before the temple was built and all that kind of stuff. So, it had that title, the City of David for a bit.

Dan Beecher Okay. You get Jesus, who's called Emmanuel, and Bethlehem is called the City of... Just name things once. I don't want more names.

Dan McClellan Well, we need to talk about dating as well here, because it says, "In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria." Quirinius was governor in Syria, or legate in Syria, and conducted a census in the year 6 CE.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Because after Herod the Great died in 4 BCE- Mm-hmm ... his son Archelaus took over rule of Judea, and he was a moron. And because of his ineptitude, he was deposed in the year 6 CE, and Rome was like, "We're doing it ourselves." And so Rome was like, "Well, we got this territory now that we took over, because of that moron. We need to know how to tax it." And so they said, "Quirinius, you're closest to Judea. Go run a census in Judea." And so in 6 CE, Quirinius ran a census in Judea, which means that this is a full 10 years separated from after the death of Herod the Great. And even though Luke says that this was happening in the time of Herod the Great. So internally, so in Luke 1 verse 5, "In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah." So internally, Luke's story already is contradictory.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It cannot work- ... because it is placing two different events that took place 10 years apart from each other at the same time.

Dan Beecher And so it- In fairness to the author of Luke, he was writing this well after the fact.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's hard to get all of the facts right when you're- And probably extra well after the fact, because this might be a secondary addition to Luke, which means- Oh, right ... this might come from the middle of the second century CE.

Dan Beecher Wow, okay.

Dan McClellan This might be 100 years after the death of Jesus. And I don't know about you, but I would probably not do a great job trying- ... to write a story about something that happened 130 years ago, even with Wikipedia.

Dan Beecher So- I was going to say, just Google when the census was, man.

Dan McClellan Come on.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher So, they go to the city of Bethlehem. Mary has the kid, wraps him in, I prefer the phrasing swaddling clothes, but- Mm-hmm ... NRSVUE has bands of cloth- ... and puts him in the manger because there's no room for him in the guest room.

Dan McClellan Guest room.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Which is how the NRSVUE-- That is not how Robert Peterson said it- ... at Temple Square down in downtown Salt Lake City.

Dan McClellan Yeah. What about the inn?

Dan Beecher Where's the inn, Dan?

Dan McClellan There was no inn because the word in Greek is kataluma, which usually means some kind of sleeping quarters or something like that. So, you could squint at it and be like, "Yeah, that's an inn." But elsewhere, when you have the parable of the Good Samaritan, when he takes him to a place to stay, it's not kataluma that is used. When in Luke, they describe Jesus prepping for the Last Supper, it's in the kataluma in somebody's house.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And so this means in either the sleeping quarters or the guest room. And so they are already at somebody's house. They already have a place to stay, but it's too crowded in the bedroom, and so they go downstairs. And the standard four-room house that would've been prototypical of Judea in this time period would've had a bottom floor where you kept storage stuff. It was a little cooler. The animals were down there. A manger would be down there. And then you'd have a ladder or something that went up to a second floor, and that's where you would sleep, that's where you would eat, and things like that. So, there's nothing upstairs. And a manger- You got to go downstairs ...

Dan Beecher a manger's just like a feeding trough. Is that right? For the animals?

Dan McClellan Yeah. An awful lot of people think manger means shed or something like that, or a stall. But yeah, it is just a feeding trough.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So it would've been a little stone feeding trough that he was put in.

Dan Beecher Which could be cradle-like. It's fine.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Okay, so they put him in- But just to clarify one other thing.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They did not swaddle sheep And put them in mangers to protect them in this time period. This is a laughable myth that people have made up to try to inject more significance into Jesus being swaddled and laid in a manger.

Dan Beecher Why? Because he's the Lamb of God? Is that the connection they're trying to make with that?

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher I've never heard that.

Dan McClellan Oh, it's all over social media.

Dan Beecher Oh, I'm sure it is.

Dan McClellan But yeah, the idea is that they swaddle him because otherwise they thrash around in the manger, and they bash their heads against the stone and they die. It's like, well, they didn't put him in a manger to begin with, but yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah, why would you put it in the feeding trough? Swaddling- That's not where sheep go ...

Dan McClellan yeah. Swaddling a baby sheep just sounds like such a great idea, doesn't it?

Dan Beecher Also, yeah.

Dan McClellan Have you tried swaddling him?

Dan Beecher I just can't imagine. I love the idea that sheep are so dumb that the first few hours of their lives- ... if you don't put them in a straitjacket, they just flail themselves to death.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. Yeah, so that didn't happen.

Dan McClellan Good.

Dan Beecher Shepherds. We're going to get to shepherds now.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher This part baffles me.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher But I think it's actually kind of cool, and maybe I'll tell you why. But what happens in the Bible, in chapter two of Luke, is that shepherds are- Stays in the Bible. That's right.

Dan McClellan Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Dan Beecher You're right. So the shepherds are watching their flocks by night, so it's nighttime. Do shepherds do that? Do you have to watch them 24/7? Anyway, they're watching their flocks by night, and then angels appear, a heavenly host or whatever. It's a huge laser light show. They got a full orchestra. Chappell Roan is there. It's a hullabaloo. And they tell these dudes, just a few dudes, "Hey, go find a baby. Here's how to find it." Which is weird.

Dan McClellan "You want a baby? I'll get you a baby by 2:00."

Dan Beecher It's such a weird thing. Why is it important that the shepherds know and not everybody else? I'm mystified by this.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Do you have any insights, or is it just a big question mark?

Dan McClellan I think it's just vibes. So here it is, the Lamb of God, so you got to have some shepherds come by and go- Okay ... "Yep, that's the Lamb of God."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Well, there's your problem right there. You left him in the manger. Wait, you can take him out of the manger?

Dan Beecher I kind of like it in part, I think there are a lot of Christians in the United States of America, especially with the whole prosperity gospel thing, where they put wealthy people as sort of the most deserving and the most important of our society, and they kind of biblically justify that.

Dan McClellan Uh-huh.

Dan Beecher So to me, there's something very lovely about the idea of, the angels being like, "You know what? Those guys are just chilling. Let's go tell them about it. They'll dig it." And it's not important people. It's not the prophets or the priests of the town. They're not waking up everyone at the temple. They're just waking up some dudes who are minding their business with their sheep.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It could've been Paul Revere riding through town. "The Messiah is coming. The Messiah is coming."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then not making it all the way to Concord, and then demanding he be paid an exorbitant amount of money. But it wasn't. They went to some lowly shepherds.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So the shepherds do what they're told. They go and they find the baby, and they tell the story of the big concert that they got to see.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And everybody's very impressed by that, and that's the end of the shepherds' bit.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And then- But, and David was a shepherd, by the way. So they're- Oh, right ... drawing, there are connections being drawn here.

Dan Beecher Okay. There's that.

Dan McClellan But again, mostly vibes.

Dan Beecher Mostly vibes.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher And then that's most of it. Eight days later, they name him Jesus and cut off the end of his penis. And then they take him to the temple and kill some birds to purify him and to make him holy to the Lord.