[Vision2020] The Christmas Story and Other Redeeming Myths

[Nicholas Gier]

Merry Christmas Visionaries:

I wrote this for Christmas 2005 and I see it as my own version of the Dear
Virginia letter that is published every year and everywhere at Christmas.
 Yes, Santa is a myth but it, just like the Bible story, it is a tale that
tells profound truths.

I'm celebrating one special person this Christmas: my daughter is here and
she is now a tenured associate professor at the University of Alberta.
Plus, she will have her first sabbatical in 2014-2015.

Let's tip our glasses to all those young scholars out there who face higher
and higher hurdles as they make their run through the increasingly
corporatized university.  My daughter and her colleagues have a very strong
faculty union to protect them.  My daughter now makes $30,000 more as an
associate professor than I did as a full professor at the end of my career.

For those who wish to read more on Luke’s census and the savior archetype,
see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/census.htm and /archetype.htm.

Happy New Year to all,

Nick

The Christmas Story and Other Redeeming Myths

A myth is a tale that tells truth—Anonymous

At the risk of being a Grinch who ruins Christmas, I would like to go
behind the Christmas Story and relate what scholars know about the biblical
texts involved. I hope that the result will be a more enlightened
perspective on the role of such stories in the common life of humankind.

In the second chapter of Matthew we read the story of wise men who came
from the East to worship the baby Jesus. These men are called *magoi* (Greek
for magicians), and scholars have identified them, if they were there, as
Zoroastrian priests from Babylon.

There are several problems with this story.  If they were following a star
in the East, they would have been heading in the direction of the birth of
a Hindu savior, not a Jewish one.  Most likely, however, they were seeking
their own savior, one named Saosyant.

Jewish historian Josephus hated King Herod and chronicled his life in great
detail, but it is very odd that he never mentions the slaughter of infants
found in Matthew 2:16. The Buddha and Krishna also had royal genealogies
and miraculous conceptions; they worked miracles and escaped the clutches
of death.  Jesus, Krishna, and Zoroaster were also threatened in infancy by
demon kings.  Could these be redeeming myths and not actual history?

Returning now to the beginning of the story, there is no record of Caesar
Augustus’ decree that “all the world should be enrolled” (Luke 2:1).  The
Romans kept extremely detailed records of such events.  Not only is Luke’s
census not in these records, it goes against all that we know of Roman
economic history.

In Josephus’ account of the Roman census in 6 C.E., he writes that those
people taxed were assessed of their possessions, including lands and
livestock.  But Luke has Joseph and Mary making a three-day journey, away
from their home and possessions in Nazareth, to register in their alleged
ancestral home in Bethle­hem.

An Egyptian papyrus recording a census in AD 104 states that “since
registration by household is imminent, it is necessary to notify all who
for any reason are absent from their districts to return to their own homes
that they may carry out the ordinary business of registration.”

The authors of the Gospel of John apparently do not know of Jesus’ alleged
birth in Bethlehem.  Nathanael does not know it (7:46), and no one answers
the challenge of the crowd when they say: “Is the Christ to come from
Galilee? Has not the scriptures said that the Christ comes from Bethlehem?”
(7:42).

At this point some readers may be saying: “Way to go, Gier, you’ve just
spoiled Christmas more than any commercial enterprise could ever do.”

Let me tell you about a wise woman in an African village whose job it was
to instruct the children in the tribe’s myths.  She began each session with
the following disclaimer: “The stories that I will tell you are not true,
but they are the most important stories that you will ever hear.”

In India it is the grandmother’s task to teach Hindu mythology to the
children.  These are fantastic tales of great heroes and heroines, but also
much violence, death, and sex.  Their graphic “in your face” style, not too
different from Grimm’s *Fairy Tales* or many Old Testament stories, has a
very important socio-psychological purpose.

In Europe and America, where we pride ourselves (even very religious people
do) by living without myth and legend, we still pay huge sums to
psychotherapists to help us recover from unresolved experiences of
violence, death, and sex.  I’ve always thought that Hindu mythology serves
as a fairly effective substitute for a mental health program that the
Indians cannot afford.

Every year Unitarian children, some of whom I’ve taught world religions,
celebrate the miraculous births of Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus. Could not
these births simply be symbols of the light of hope that every new born
child brings to a broken world?

In conclusion I offer this poem by Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon
Fahs:

And so the children come.

And so they have been coming.

Always in the same way they come,
Born of the seed of man and woman.
No angels herald their beginnings,
No prophets predict their future courses,
No wise men see a star to point their way
To find a babe that may save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and Mothers,
Sitting beside their children’s cribs,
Feel glory in the wond’rous sight of life beginning.
They ask: “When or how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”
Each night a child is born is a holy night.

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
years.
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