5 Christmas Myths, Not Found in the Nativity Story

5 CHRISTMAS MYTHS: NOT FOUND IN THE NATIVITY STORY

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I am often asked to explain the history behind a holiday: is it based on history, tradition, or legend? The best historical sources on the birth of Jesus are found in two Gospel accounts in the New Testament: St. Matthew and St. Luke.

• St. Matthew was a companion of Jesus during his ministry.

• St. Luke was not. Instead, he was a companion of the Apostle Paul during his journeys.

Still, Luke shows a detailed knowledge of primary sources. He appears to have spoken directly to Jesus’ mother, Mary, perhaps during his travels while she lived in Ephesus with St. John. Luke’s account contains much more detail and is four times as long as Matthew’s.

Below are 5 Myths frequently associated with our celebration of Christmas, which are not actually found in the Nativity story in the Bible. Here’s a fresh look at what the sources say.

Myth 1: Farm animals at Jesus’ birth

Christmas plays and pageants feature them. Creche scenes display them: the ox, donkey, lobster, Yoda… but especially the ox and donkey. However, the Nativity story makes no mention of them.

While the second chapter of Luke says that Mary laid her baby in a manger, and the angel tells the shepherds that they would find the “babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger” – which is an animal feeding bin – there is no mention of farm animals in the narrative. Perhaps a shepherd brought a lamb, but there’s no specific mention of an ox or a donkey.

Where do we get these two animals?

Old Testament

The prophet Isaiah, in Chapter 1:3, recounts his vision:

The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib;
but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.”

Early Church

The 7th-century Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, a pseudepigraphical work, contains the first mention of an ox and a donkey in the nativity scene with Jesus. By the way, this is also one of the sources that promoted the idea of a young Mary and a much older Joseph.

Pseudepigraphical means a famous author’s name was falsely attached to it. The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew was written around 600 years after the birth of Jesus and is falsely attributed to Matthew, a follower of Jesus. It’s not considered canon but apocryphal and is one of the “infancy gospels” writings that tell the story of Jesus as a child.

It was also known as “The Book About the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior.” This book summarizes some of the earlier infancy gospels, including the pseudepigraphical Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of James (both dated to some 200 years after Jesus).

Medieval

When St. Francis petitioned the Pope to allow him to hold a special mass on Christmas Eve with a creche in Greccio in 1223, Francis directed:

“I wish in full reality to awaken the remembrance of the child as he was born in Bethlehem and of all the hardship he had to endure in his childhood.
I wish to see with my bodily eyes what it meant to lie in a manger and sleep on hay, between an ox and an ass.”

The Biblical narrative does not include any animals. Perhaps they were out for Christmas.

Myth 2: Three Kings of Orient

We all know the song that begins,

“We Three Kings of Orient are…”

Great song, poor history.

We don’t know how many there were, but the conjecture is that three gifts — gold, frankincense, and myrrh — mean three givers, right? Some accounts place the number at three, but earlier traditions describe as many as a dozen in the caravan.

Nothing in the Nativity story suggests they were kings. The word used to describe them is Magi, from the Greek word magoi, the plural of magos, from which we get the word “magic.” The word is usually translated as wise men or scholars. Magi were specialists in medicine, religion, astronomy, and astrology.

The word “Orient” typically means the far east, but the Nativity story says they came from “the East,” which could be Arabia, Media, or Persia, but not further east. See more in my article on the Magi here.

Myth 3: Magi at Jesus’ Birth

Were the Magi at the birth of Jesus?

The Nativity story of Luke does not mention them. The Gospel of Matthew does, but it places them in Jerusalem and Bethlehem sometime within two years after the birth.

“Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared.” (Matthew 2:7)

Based on this knowledge, King Herod the Great, after the Magi left his court for Bethlehem

“… sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:16)

By the way, the Magi visited the Christ Child at a house (oikos), with no mention of a manger. Furthermore, the more general Greek word used in Matthew’s Gospel to describe their visit to Jesus is paidon (παιδίον), meaning child, rather than the more specific term for an infant, brephos (βρέφος).

Myth 4: Born in a Stable

Was Jesus born in a stable?

The Nativity story says that he was laid in a manger, a feeding bin where animal feed was placed, but nowhere does it say it’s in a stable.

Why do we think it’s a stable?

Luke’s account tells us there was

“no room for them in the inn.”

The Greek word for room in this passage is topos, which means “space”, not “a room.” The word for an “inn” in the original Greek is kataluma, which could have been a multi-room lodging place for travelers.

However, Luke might have used pandocheion, a better Greek word for the local commercial Holiday Inn. Instead, the word kataluma is used throughout the Bible to refer to a guest room. Indeed, it’s the same word used for the upper room in a private residence for the Last Supper Passover meal in Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11.

Mangers are usually found in stables, but not only in stables or barns. In the Middle East, until recently, they were sometimes found in houses. Two thousand years ago, in simple village homes in Israel, it was common for a home to have a single-family room or a side guest room as well. The guest room would be either attached or on the roof, as described in 1 Kings 17. The main room or family room would be for eating and sleeping.

At the end of that family room, next to the door, a few feet lower than the rest of the floor or partially blocked off, would be an area designated as an animal stall for the family donkey, cow, or sheep to be taken in at night for safety or warmth. This would have been true from the time of King David, 3,000 years ago, until the middle of the 1900s. This area may have been set into the side of a hill, cave, or grotto (see my article on the creche). In this area, or into the family room floor, a manger from which the animals could feed would have been placed. The animals would be taken outside during the day.

Indeed, there may have been an ox and a donkey! But it’s not stated explicitly in the narrative.

Myth 5: Angels Singing

Did the heavenly host sing “Glory to God in the Highest?”

Luke tells how shepherds watching their flocks by night in Bethlehem were told by an angel, “the good tidings of great joy.”

Picture Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas reciting the passage:

And the angel said unto them,
Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.

Not singing, but saying.

By the way, the Latin for the last line is:

Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis

This is known as the Greater Doxology or the Angelic Hymn in the Christian tradition:

• Johann Sebastian Bach turned it into a song in his cantata Gloria in Excelsis Deo

• Handel‘s Messiah XIV. Recit: There were Shepherds set up the Chorus Glory to God

However, the Nativity account does not describe the angels singing it, and none of the angels were named Harold.

However, here’s what I think. Usually, when angels appear in the Bible, people are struck with fear. These shepherds were. I suspect if I heard a multitude of the heavenly hosts speaking to me, it would be indescribable, extraordinary, astonishing, astounding, and fearsome. I would probably be unable to describe it in any way other than singing.

Gloria in Excel sheets Deo

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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