Session 1 Fact, Fable and Parable: Veracity of Redemption

Session 2 The Annunciation Accounts - Mary and Joseph

Session 3 Matthew and the shadow of the Pentateuch

Session 4 Luke and Primal Beginnings

Session 5 Genealogy - Grandmothers and Caesar

Matthew’s Account - Chapters 1 and 2

Luke’s Account - Chapters 1 through 3

There is a third option that moves beyond the choices of fact or fable. This study will examine the third option. We see the nativity stories as neither fact nor fable, but as parables and overtures.

The issue of the factuality of the birth stories is recent, the product of the last few hundred years. In earlier centuries, their factuality was not a concern for Christians. Rather, the truth of these stories (including their factual truth) was taken for granted. Their truth, and the truth of the Bible as whole, was part of conventional wisdom in Christian areas of the world. It was part of “what everybody knew.” Believing them to be true (including factually true) was effortless. Nobody worried about whether they were factually true. All of the in­terpretive focus was on their meaning. Page 27

Parables are a form of metaphorical language. The metaphorical meaning of language is its “more-than-literal” meaning, the capacity of language to carry a surplus of meaning. A parable is a narrative metaphor, a metaphorical narra­tive, whose truth lies in its meaning. Page 34.

Like his parables, the birth stories are subversive. And just as Jesus told subversive stories about God, his fol­lowers told subversive stories about Jesus. The gospels are full of them. The birth stories are among them. To illustrate, some of the themes:

1.      Who is the “King of the Jews”?
That was Herod the Great’s title, but Matthew’s story tells us Herod was more like Pharaoh, the lord of Egypt, the lord of bondage and oppression, violence and brutality.

2.      Who is the Son of God, Lord, savior of the world, and the one who brings peace on earth?
Within Roman imperial theology, the emperor, Caesar, was all of these. No, Luke’s story says, that status and those titles belong to Jesus. He not the emperor—is the embodiment of God’s will for the earth.

3.      Who is the light of the world?
The emperor, son of Apollo, the god of light and reason and imperial order? Or is Jesus, who was executed by empire, the light in the darkness, the true light to whom the wise of this world are drawn?

4.      Where do we find the fulfillment of God’s dream for Israel and humanity?
In the way things are now? Or only beyond death or in a very different world this side of death? Page 37f.

Parabolic Overtures

The [birth stories] are not just parables, but overtures, parabolic overtures—each to its respective gospel. In other words, Matthew 1-2 is a miniature version of the suc­ceeding Matthew 3-28, and Luke 1-2 is a miniature version of Luke 3-24. Each is its own gospel in miniature and microcosm. Page 38.