Myths about Christmas

As it’s the season of greetings, I thought I would greet everyone not with any particular season, but with a big Merry Christmas. I really love this time of year, as all sorts of wonderful, crazy, enjoyable, and ridiculous things happen, mainly because wonderful, crazy, enjoyable and ridiculous things happened last year and that’s just part of what we all do around Christmas time and the end of the year. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Christmas traditions, family traditions, work traditions and even most cultural traditions, but because it’s that time of year, I have decided (and wanted to let all my fans know - yes both of you) that I am going to write a series of posts on a few of the traditions and myths that have grown up around Christmas. My posts and comments are not necessarily going to be theological or intellectual or even that original, they are just going to be a bit of a rant about some of the various myths that I have at some stage believed or myths that other people believe.

Now before you stop reading, don’t worry, this is not going to be an anti-shopping anti-commercialisation tirade, or a series of posts about finding the “true spirit of Christmas”, (whatever that is). Nor will it be a extreme anti-Santa crusade or in fact anti-Christmas anything, it will simply be a look at the Christmas story as taken from the bible and a comparison to some of the traditional (or not so traditional) claims about what Christmas is or should be.

It will assume some basic knowledge of the Christmas story, so for anyone interested, you can read about it here in the gospel of Matthew or here in the gospel of Luke. You don’t have to read these passages, but for Christians it will be a great reminder of what you believe, and for non-Christians a great reminder of what you don’t believe.

But regardless of whether this is the only post you read in this series, (or even if you’re not reading this at all), I just wanted to again wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a season of great greetings.

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Myths about Christmas – that Christmas is not about gift giving

Whenever I hear about “the true spirit of Christmas” I always feel a little bit confused or left out, as I really have no idea what the true spirit of Christmas is. It is usually parroted by anti-materialists or people who don’t like Santa or anyone who wants to rant about how the big department stores have taken over Christmas and turned it into just one big gift giving party. Well, this is perhaps what I think is the biggest myth of all: that Christmas is not about gift giving.

If it’s one thing that Christmas is about, it’s gift giving. In fact the ultimate gift was given on the very first Christmas when God gave his son to the world (and in so doing gave the world to his son). And if the only thing people (whether Christian or non-Christian) associate with Christmas is gift-giving and generosity at least it’s better than associating Christmas with not giving gifts and stinginess. But Christians recognise (or should recognise) that the whole caper of being generous and gift-giving is but a small symbol of God’s generosity and God’s ultimate gift – Jesus (which can also be described as the incarnation or the word become flesh if you want to use some religious jargon).

Because Christians are not just celebrating the birth of a baby, but they are celebrating the appearing of the grace of God, the forgiveness of sins, and the free gift from God (to use some more jargon), which Christians say ultimately comes through the person of Jesus. Or as the bible more eloquently puts it in the book of Isaiah Chapter 9 verse 6 (and which is famously sung about in Handel’s messiah), we are celebrating:

For unto us a child is born,
Unto us a son is given.

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Myths about Christmas – that Mary was a ‘young woman’

Probably one of the most controversial aspects of the biblical story of Christmas is the conception of Jesus. The story goes that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived and that it was in fact a miraculous conception with God as the father. This has been the cause of endless jokes about God and Mary and Joseph and sex, some of which are quite funny, some of them not so funny.

But a myth has come about that somehow Mary wasn’t a ‘virgin’ and that she was in fact just a ‘young woman’. Despite knowing very little about Hebrew and Ancient Greek (the languages of the Old and New Testament) I am informed that in both of these languages the word for ‘virgin’ is the same or very similar to the word for ‘young women’. Some therefore say that a simple mistranslation explains away the idea of a virgin birth. But even if this translation of ‘young woman’ is correct it does not explain a lot of the surrounding commentary in the rest of the story. The gospel of Matthew Chapter 1 verse 18 reads:

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”

And later in the same chapter referring to Joseph it states:

“But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”

Neither verse actually deals with the virgin / young woman translation problem: the texts simply state that before Mary and Joseph ‘came together’ or had ‘union’ she was pregnant.

But even where the translation swap could be used it is hard to reconcile, such as in Luke Chapter 1 verse 34 where Mary is told by an angel that she is pregnant and she replies:

“How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

It does not make sense for someone to doubt their pregnancy on the basis of being a young woman; it does however on the basis of being a virgin.


I am happy for people to ridicule the whole story of the birth of Jesus, or to suggest that the biblical story is not true or completely false, or that Jesus, whoever he was, had one mother/father, many mothers/fathers or no mother/father at all. However on a purely textual level we get four (if not more) bits of information: that Jesus was born in Bethlehem; to a woman; who had the name Mary; and was a virgin. Again from a purely textual level, to accept one of these would mean to accept all of them. The fact that many people reject the last of these, in my opinion, reveals more than anything the preconceptions (pardon the pun) that people have about whether virgin births are or are not possible. Again while the entire text may be wrong, the text itself does not allow anything other than a virgin birth and the idea that Mary was simply and only a ‘young woman’ from the text is a myth.

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Myths about Christmas - that Mary remained a virgin

There is an idea floating around that Mary, after the miraculous conception of Jesus, remained a virgin for the rest of her life. As mentioned in a previous post about the virgin birth, the bible talks about how Joseph had no union with Mary until after she gave birth to a son. However, there is nothing in the text that suggests that Joseph did not have a normal ‘union’ with Mary after this birth. Further to this, the bible also talks of Jesus’ siblings without reference to any further miraculous conceptions. See for example in the gospel of Matthew at Chapter 13 verse 54 where his brothers are named and his sisters are mentioned when others are questioning the teaching of Jesus:

“‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they asked. ‘Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’”

Apart from the extreme comparisons these younger siblings must have endured (“James, stop doing that, why can’t be you more like your older brother Jesus who by the time he was your age was already conversing with the rabbis, feeding the hungry and healing the sick, and you can’t even keep your bedroom tidy”), my own opinion is that any suggestion that Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life is another myth, not directly associated with Christmas, but almost certainly arising out of the Christmas story.

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Myths about Christmas - the three wise men

Every Christmas we hear stories and sing songs about the three wise men. They came from the east to Jerusalem. They visited baby Jesus in Bethlehem. They wore pointy hats and walked in single file and best of all came bearing gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now while I’m sure you all have a picture in your heads (as I do), the bible doesn’t actually portray it this way. In fact the bible doesn’t portray it in any way, but simply talks about the ‘Magi’ from the east, which has traditionally been translated as the three wise men.


But interestingly enough there is no evidence to suggest that there were three, or only three (the basis for this assumption is that because there were three gifts there must have been three people). There is no evidence that they were wise, and in fact in my view it doesn’t seem too bright to go wandering around Israel, at night, following a star that’s not moving. And there’s no evidence that they were men (although it’s assumed as they had been consulting King Herod they must have been men).

So as sad as it is for me to label it as thus, without any further evidence I have no choice: the three wise men are most probably a myth.

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Myths about Christmas – that Jesus never wept

Another myth that has developed, and perhaps most because of the song “Away in a Manger”, is that as a baby, Jesus never wept (remember the lines … “no crying he makes” as he “lay down his sweet head”).

On what basis is there for saying that Jesus was a tear-free baby. While I don’t deny the possibility that it is true, the story from the bible is silent as to whether baby Jesus was a bawler or not. However, my main problem with the idea that as a baby Jesus never cried is that at some point during his childhood (or perhaps even in adulthood) he developed the ability. In the gospel of John at Chapter 11, verse 35, it states, in what is perhaps the shortest sentence in the bible, that “Jesus wept” after seeing and hearing about the death of Lazarus. (He also wept upon seeing Jerusalem in the gospel of Luke Chapter 19 verse 41)

Without intending on being sacrilegious or blasphemous, if Jesus was fully human, then it would follow that as a baby he would have been just as dependent as every other baby that has ever existed or will ever exist on those around him for feeding, comforting, cleaning, nourishing and nurturing. I just cannot believe and nor does it make any sense that Jesus cried like a baby as an adult and lived like an adult as a baby and this idea is, in my opinion, another Christmas myth.

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Blog Series

Approximately once a month I try to write a one-week series on something. They usually, but not always, come under one of these four topics: law, language, liturgical or laughter. They don’t always fit as nicely as what I would like, nor am I always successful (particularly in relation to the last one), but you have to aim at something.

Law

Great Escapes from NSW Correctional Centres

Language

Obama's Inauguration Speech

Using Jargon

Liturgical

Myths about Christmas

The greatest miscarriage of justice

Laughter

Top 5 Business Names that never were

Chuggers - And how to avoid them

My Top 5 Travel Lowlights

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