<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>For those who have access to today's Spokesman-Review, take a gander at page A15 . . . jus' under Joe Heller's "Merry Christmas" graphic . . . in the middle of the page . . . the header "'The Christmas Story retold' by Nick Gier" in BIG, <b>bold </b>print . . . followed by the story below.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for sharing, Nick.</div><div><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" </span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><br></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>On Dec 25, 2013, at 11:15 AM, Nicholas Gier <<a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com">ngier006@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">Merry Christmas Visionaries:</font></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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. </font></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:15.791666984558105px">For those who wish to read more on Luke’s census and the savior archetype, see</span><span style="line-height:15.791666984558105px"> </span><a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/census.htm" style="font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;color:rgb(0,0,102);line-height:15.791666984558105px;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;text-decoration:none">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/census.htm</a><span style="line-height:15.791666984558105px"> </span><span style="line-height:15.791666984558105px">and /archetype.htm.</span></font></p>
<p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="line-height:15.791666984558105px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">Happy New Year to all,</font></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">Nick</font><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large;line-height:19px;text-align:center"> </span></p>
<p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;font-style:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">The Christmas Story and Other Redeeming Myths</font></span></p>
<p align="center" style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">A myth is a tale that tells truth—Anonymous</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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 <i>magoi</i> (Greek for magicians), and scholars have identified them, if they were there, as Zoroastrian priests from Babylon.</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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. <span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;font-style:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:19px">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?</span></font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;font-style:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;font-style:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;font-style:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:19px"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.”</font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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).</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.”</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.”</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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 <i>Fairy Tales</i> or many Old Testament stories, has a very important socio-psychological purpose.</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">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?</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">In conclusion I offer this poem by Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs:</font></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">And so the children come.</font></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center">
<span style="line-height:1.3em"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">And so they have been coming.</font></span></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center">
<font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">Always in the same way they come,<br>Born of the seed of man and woman.<br>No angels herald their beginnings,<br>No prophets predict their future courses,<br>No wise men see a star to point their way<br>
To find a babe that may save humankind.<br>Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.<br>Fathers and Mothers,<br>Sitting beside their children’s cribs,<br>Feel glory in the wond’rous sight of life beginning.<br>They ask: “When or how will this new life end?<br>
Or will it ever end?”<br>Each night a child is born is a holy night.</font></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.8em;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.3em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. </font></p>
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