The “book of the origin of Jesus Christ” and what really happened at Christmas

This is how we traditionally debunk the Christmas traditions to get at what the story was really all about: there was no star the night Jesus was born; we do not know how many wise men there were; Joseph and Mary were not turned away from an inn; Jesus was not born in a stable (are we thinking that this is a safe-guarding issue?); and he was not born on Christmas Day. But, we say, what really happened that night “still stands as one of the most monumental events in human history. God became a man and entered our dark, cold world to redeem a sinful people.”

Unfortunately, that what-really-happened—or more precisely, what was really said to have happened—has also been shaped “more by popular perceptions and modern retellings than by the text itself.” Confining myself here to Matthew’s “book of the origin of Jesus Christ,” I will argue that no attempt is made to cast it as a monumental event in human history; that we are not told that “God became a man”; that Jesus was not born into our “dark, cold world”; and that he was not expected to redeem “a sinful people” if that is intended as a reference to all humanity.

The book of the origin of Jesus Christ

Matthew’s Gospel begins thus: “A book of the genesis of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” What does the Greek word genesis mean here? The heading is followed by a genealogy that runs from Abraham through David to “Joseph the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, the one called Christ” (1:2-17) so genesis in Matthew 1:1 is often translated “genealogy.”

The phrase “book of the genesis,“ however, appears to have been taken from the early chapters of Genesis:

This is the book of the origin (biblos geneseōs) of heaven and earth…. (Gen. 2:4 LXX)

This is the book of the origin (biblos geneseōs) of human beings. (Gen. 5:1 LXX)

So a biblos geneseōs is an account of the origin of something—the whole created order, humanity within the created order. We read in 2 Maccabees 7:23 that the creator of the world “shaped the origin (genesin) of man and devised the origin (genesin) of all things.”

There are also occasions in the Septuagint where there is reference to the land of a person’s “origin” or “birth” (Gen. 31:13; 32:9; Ruth 2:11; Jdt. 12:18; Ezek. 16:3). So a biblos geneseōs could perhaps be a book that records simply where a person came from.

Immediately following his summary of Jesus’ ancestry in verse 17, Matthew states that “the genesis of Jesus Christ was thus,” and he proceeds to relate the circumstances of Mary’s scandalous pregnancy. Perhaps it is too early in the story for genesis to mean “birth” so the general term “origin” may be more appropriate. But we are still, seemingly, in the biblos geneseōs of Jesus Christ.

We are then told explicitly where he came from: “Jesus was born (gennēthentos) in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king” (Matt 2:1). That statement carries a political weight which cannot be rewritten as God becoming man and entering our dark, cold world.

That “Christ” is added to the name “Jesus” in the book of his origin (1:1, 16-18, 2:4) gives reason to think that the story is being told from a later perspective, when questions were being asked about the legitimacy of his purported messiahship. In the subsequent account of Jesus’ ministry, the word “Christ” first appears in Jesus’ admission to John the Baptist about the “works of the messiah” (11:2), and then we have Peter’s watershed confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” which is quickly hushed up: “Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ” (16:16, 20).

So I would argue that the “book of the origin of Jesus Christ” comprises the first two chapters of the Gospel—the story of his birth, escape to Egypt, and return after the death of Herod. We then fast-forward abruptly to the preaching of John the Baptist, some thirty years later:

In those days (En… tais hēmerais ekeinais), John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the wilderness of Judea…. (3:1)

In what days? Here, presumably, Matthew has taken up Mark’s account, and we are no longer in the “book of the origin of Jesus Christ”:

John was baptising in the wilderness…. And it happened in those days (en ekeinais tais hēmerais) that Jesus came from Nazareth…. (Mk. 1:4, 9*)

The book has been prepended as a supplementary apologetic, giving further justification for ascribing such immense political significance to this controversial and sacrilegious Jewish figure.

An unmarried woman will get pregnant

It is often noted that there are some women of dubious standing in Matthew’s genealogy. One of them is Tamar (Matt. 1:3).

As the story is told in Genesis, Judah is informed that his daughter-in-law Tamar has “committed immorality” (ekpeporneuken) and has “become pregnant from fornication” (en gastri echei ek porneias) (Gen. 38:24 LXX*). The same might have been said about Mary—in fact, these are the only two places in the Greek Bible where we find the idiom en gastri echein (“to have in the belly”) with a prepositional phrase with ek to specify the manner of conception.

Matthew wants his readers to understand that Mary became pregnant not “from fornication” but “from (the) holy spirit” (ek pneumatos hagiou). But the stain of immorality was not easily removed. Joseph would have to put up with it, and Matthew has found a way to make the enduring scandal almost a hallmark of divine saving action.

The manner of conception, however, has nothing to do with incarnation. There is no fusion of the human and the divine. For all the later theological importance of the doctrine, this is not what Matthew is trying to say. The point is only that the child was generated by God super-naturally rather than by the normal means of conception.

Instead, what Matthew finds in the suspicious circumstances of the conception is a “fulfilment” of the “Immanu-El” prophecy in Isaiah. It would be a “sign” for king Ahaz that an unmarried woman in the royal court would “have in the belly” (en gastri hexei) and that the boy would be named “Emmanuel” (Is. 7:14 LXX). The birth and naming of the boy were a sign that before long the threat posed to Judah by the armies of Ephraim and Syria would be removed.

Matthew may well have seen in this an actual prophecy of Jesus’ birth rather than just a telling analogy, but the prophetic significance of these two remarkable births is not so different. The ambiguous circumstances of Jesus’ birth—a scandalous miracle!—constitute a sign for Israel that in the current political crisis YHWH is with his people to deliver them, but by unconventional and highly controversial means.

Wise men from the east

The magi—Persian priests or wise men—have seen something in the heavens that signifies, according to the rules of ancient astrology, the birth of a king in Judea. They do not follow a moving star, they use their common sense and go to Jerusalem on the assumption that this future king of the Jews will have been born in the palace. Herod consults the priests and scribes, and they identify Bethlehem as the likely place of the birth because it was written by the prophet:

And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; for from you shall come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel. (Matt. 2:6*)

The context is relevant. Just as the Assyrians came against the city in the time of Ahaz, the nations will lay siege to Jerusalem (Mic. 4:11-13) ; they will “strike the tribes of Israel upon the cheek” (5:1 LXX). But a leader will come from the small town of Bethlehem who will “stand and see and tend his flock in the strength of the Lord” (5:2, 4). Again, the presuppositions for the story about the origin of Jesus are narrowly Jewish and thoroughly political.

When Herod meets privately with the magi, he enquires about the precise “time of the star appearing” (2:7), which sounds like he has in mind a star—or some more complex astrological phenomenon such as a conjunction of planets—that becomes visible in the heavens in a quite normal fashion. The present tense of the participle in the phrase “time of the star appearing (tou phainomeou asteros)” may mean that he is asking about the time of night when the star rises and becomes visible. If Herod were asking about the first appearance, we would expect a past tense.

I take it, therefore, that having found the house, the magi are delighted to see the star above the horizon ahead of them—as though it has led them there. They enter the house and do obeisance to the child as they would before any king.

The Old Testament resonances are hard to miss:

Kings of Tharsis and the isles will present gifts; kings of Arabs and Saba will bring gifts. And all kings shall do obeisance to him; all nations shall be subject to him. (Ps. 71:10-11 LXX)

Shine, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Look, darkness and gloom shall cover the earth upon the nations, but the Lord will appear upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. Kings shall walk by your light, and nations by your brightness. Lift up your eyes round about, and see your children gathered together; look, all your sons have come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on shoulders. Then you shall see and be afraid and be amazed in your heart, because the wealth of the sea and of nations and of peoples shall change over to you. … All those from Saba shall come, bringing gold, and they shall bring frankincense and announce the good news of the salvation of the Lord. (Is. 60:1-7 LXX)

The magi are token representatives of the great and the good who will bring tribute from the nations when YHWH restores his people after the catastrophe of war and exile, who will do obeisance to Israel’s righteous king.

Rachel weeping for her children

Rachel weeps bitterly from her tomb in Ramah (cf. 1 Sam. 10:2) because her children have been taken into exile (Matt. 2:18; cf. Jer. 38:15 LXX). The killing of the “children” in Bethlehem, therefore, stands for the oppression of Israel under a brutal client king of Rome—a political crisis equivalent to the deportation of the Jews into exile by Assyria or Babylon.

But the saying about Rachel is a recollection of lament in a “book of consolation” (Jer. 37-38 LXX), which proclaims to the nations that the God who “winnowed Israel will gather him,” that the Lord has redeemed Jacob, that they will return to the land (38:10-14 LXX); and Rachel is immediately assured that “they shall come back from a land of enemies; there will be permanence for your children” (38:16-17 LXX).

The return of the family from Egypt is styled as an exodus motif: ‘This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son”’ (Matt. 2:15). This is another lament, in effect. YHWH loved Israel as a child and brought him out of Egypt, but the people rejected his love, they went away, they “kept sacrificing to the Baals,” and now they face war and destruction. They will not return to Egypt, but “Assyria shall be their king…. The sword shall rage against their cities…,” and so on (Hos. 10:13-11:7).

Yes, it’s time to put the record straight

So look, it’s all very well putting the record straight about the innkeeper and the date of Jesus’ birth, but the more fundamental misconception is that Matthew is speaking about the entry of God into our world in human form to redeem humanity. This sort of inflationary, dehistoricising, theological reading of these chapters is simply wrong.

The “book of the origin of Jesus Christ” locates the one who would later be acclaimed by many as Israel’s messiah firmly in the chaotic landscape of Israel’s history. Two political crises dominate: the deportation of the Jews to Babylon; and the oppressive rule of the Herods. The birth of Jesus was to be of “monumental” importance for a people living under an unjust régime and longing for the day when the mighty would be brought down from their thrones (cf. Lk. 1:52).

The shameful origin of Jesus carried a paradoxical prophetic significance. His conception and naming were as much a “sign” to Israel, in a period of severe crisis, as the birth and naming of the boy Immanuel. YHWH was again present with his people both to judge and to save.

But it is the kingship theme that fundamentally defines the nature of this salvation. The king who comes from Bethlehem will deliver his people from the political crisis which is the consequence of the sins of the current “evil and adulterous generation” of Jewish leaders (cf. Matt. 16:4).

This historical narrative is the whole point. It is not just Christmas decoration. It is meaningful for the church today because it was a pivotal moment in our troubled story, whatever we make of the historicity of the details.