All These Things Accrued To Us Through His Poverty

"Then he proceeds afterwards to the head and crown of his persuasion. 'For ye know the grace of our Lord, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.' [2 Corinthians 8:9] 'For have in mind,' says he, 'ponder and consider the grace of God and do not lightly pass it by, but aim at realizing the greatness of it both as to extent and nature, and thou wilt grudge nothing of thine. He emptied Himself of His glory that ye, not through His riches but through His poverty, might be rich. If thou believest not that poverty is productive of riches, have in mind thy Lord and thou wilt doubt no longer. For had He not become poor, thou wouldest not have become rich. For this is the marvel, that poverty hath made riches rich.' And by riches here he meaneth the knowledge of godliness, the cleansing away of sins, justification, sanctification, the countless good things which He bestowed upon us and purposeth to bestow. And all these things accrued to us through His poverty. What poverty? Through His taking flesh on Him and becoming man and suffering what He suffered. And yet He owed not this, but thou dost owe to Him." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Second Corinthians, 17:1)

David's Horn Exalted

One of the passages of scripture I often read at Christmastime is Psalm 89. Jesus' Davidic ancestry is a prominent theme in the infancy narratives, as well as in the accounts of Jesus' adulthood. Psalm 89 says a lot about how David's throne will be eternal (verses 3-4, 29, 36-37). Yet, the psalm concludes mostly with despair:

Videos On Christmas And Paganism

Wesley Huff and Michael Jones recently put out videos arguing against the supposed pagan nature of Christmas.

Luke 2:39 In Context

One of the foremost objections critics raise against the infancy narratives is the alleged contradiction between Luke 2:39 and Matthew 2. Supposedly, Luke 2:39 suggests that Joseph and Mary had lived in Nazareth prior to being in Bethlehem and stayed in Bethlehem for only a little over a month, after which they returned to Nazareth. So, they shouldn't be in a house in Bethlehem in Matthew 2, and Matthew 2:22-23 shouldn't be worded as it is. I've answered that argument in the past, such as here. But an article I wrote earlier this year adds some points that are rarely made.

As I explain there, Luke's material leading up to 2:39 suggests that Joseph had lived in Bethlehem prior to 2:4, that the wedding of Joseph and Mary occurred there, and that they were in the city for about six months prior to 2:39. In that context, 2:39 can't be saying that Joseph and Mary had both lived only in Nazareth prior to 2:4, and it can't be assuming that they would have had no reason to stay in Bethlehem after the fulfilling of the law referred to in 2:39. If Joseph had lived in Bethlehem prior to 2:4, the wedding occurred there, and they had spent about half a year in the city leading up to 2:39, then the view that there was a larger rather than a smaller amount of time that passed between the fulfilling of the law and the move to Nazareth is more plausible accordingly.

In fact, it makes more sense in the larger context for the family to have stayed in Bethlehem longer. Most likely, Joseph and Mary would have at least gathered their belongings and made other preparations for the move to Nazareth between the time when they fulfilled the requirements of the law and the time when they left for Nazareth. They wouldn't have gone to Nazareth immediately after the last requirement of the law was fulfilled. There's nothing in the context of taking Jesus to the temple prior to verse 39 that suggests the family would uproot themselves from Bethlehem to move to another city and one so far away. The move makes more sense under the circumstances Matthew refers to, and that probably is when it occurred. If the reason for moving occurred in a timeframe not covered by Luke, such as Matthew's timeframe close to when Jesus was two years old (Matthew 2:16), then Luke's not providing a reason for the move becomes more coherent. Furthermore, it's clear that Luke is encapsulating a large amount of time in a short space in verse 40, and Jesus is already at age twelve when we get to verse 42. So, a compressing of a large amount of time into one verse in verse 39 would be consistent with the verses that immediately follow. We have to explain not only the text of verse 39, but also the context. And the context substantially weakens the critics' view of the passage.

A Video Of The McGrews And Others Discussing Christmas Issues

Than Christopoulos recently hosted a good Christmas program on his YouTube channel. There were several guests: Tim and Lydia McGrew, another Tim (I don't know his last name), Erik Manning, Bram Rawlings, Lucas (I won't use his last name, since he doesn't use it in the video and may not want it mentioned), and Michael Jones. They made a lot of good points about the historicity of a traditional Christian view of Jesus' childhood and the supposed pagan roots of Christmas.

National Geographic's Reconstruction Of Christmas

National Geographic just published an article by the New Testament scholar Antonio Pinero on the events surrounding Jesus' birth. The article often refers to scholars and scholarship without naming names or citing the percentage of scholarship holding a particular view. The author favors liberal conclusions and sometimes mentions views that are only held by a minority of scholars without indicating how unpopular those views are. People often write without providing the sort of information I just referred to, for the sake of saving space, to make an article more readable, or for whatever other reason, but the information is worth noting when responding to an article like Pinero's. It's common for people to think a source like National Geographic or a scholar like Pinero who's writing in such a context is representing more of scholarship and better scholarship than he actually is.

Evidence For Jesus' Genealogies

Peter Williams makes some good points about Jesus' genealogies in the New Testament:

In terms of the different accounts of Joseph’s father, it’s not difficult either today or back then to imagine that someone might have a legal father other than his biological one, especially if Joseph’s biological father disowned him over the shame of Mary’s irregular pregnancy. But there are a few other interesting things to notice about the genealogies. First, though they give different grandfathers for Jesus, the name of his great-grandfather in both genealogies is almost identical: Matthan in Matthew and Matthat in Luke. The only difference is in the final consonant, and this is of a kind that is readily explicable: these names reflect two Hebrew words — mattan and mattat — both of which mean “gift”.

Secondly, taking our cue from this name, we see that a number of the names in Luke’s genealogy share a single root. The name Matthat along with five other names in the genealogy after David come from the Hebrew three-consonant root NTN which means “give”. (Sometimes the Ns are hidden by turning into Ts.) These are Mattathias (3:25), Mattathias (3:26), Matthat (3:29), Mattatha (3:31), and Nathan (3:31). This makes some sense as this is the genealogy through David’s son Nathan. The root for “give” was used to form some of the most popular names of Nathan’s descendants. As is common in families, names are repeated. There are three Josephs, two Levis, two Melchis, and the name Er (3:28), which is only ever attested for the tribe of Judah (see Genesis 38:3). These are features we might expect in a true narrative. We may also note that the genealogy doesn’t blunder by having any of the popular Greek names, such as Philip or Herod, for the period before Alexander the Great.

Thirdly, in both Matthew and Mark we’re told the names of Jesus’s brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55) or James, Joses, Judas, and Simon (Mark 6:3). These differ only in the order of the final two names and in the adaptation of the Hebrew name Joseph to a Greek ending in the form Joses in Mark. However, these names also link with the genealogy in Matthew. Boys were often called after their grandfathers (a practice known as papponymy) and sometimes after their father (patronymy). If Jesus’s name was indeed given by the angel as stated in Matthew 1:21, then neither the father’s nor the grandfather’s name was an option. However, we see both these names used in the family. James is usually understood to be the first son born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus’s birth. He was therefore called James, or strictly Jakobos, ie his grandfather’s name Jacob with the Greek noun ending -os. Jakobos evolved into English as James through centuries of sound changes. The next son after Jakobos was named after his father Joseph.

Thus we can see in the names of Jesus’s brothers a tiny coincidence which supports Matthew’s genealogy.

A Geographical Argument For Christmas

A concise, memorable way to begin a case for a traditional Christian view of Jesus' childhood is to focus on geography. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He was raised in Nazareth. He chose to live in Nazareth for a while as an adult. He then moved to Capernaum. During his public ministry, he became closely associated with Galilee more broadly. Since then, he's become highly influential among the Gentile nations. That series of events lines up well with the geography of Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 9:1. (It's also a significant fulfillment of other passages referring to a Jewish messianic figure who will become highly influential among the Gentiles. For discussions of the significance of the reference to Gentiles in Isaiah 9:1 and references to influence over the Gentile world elsewhere in Isaiah, see here and here.) Jesus' living in Nazareth and Capernaum as an adult and his giving so much attention to the region of Galilee in general during his public ministry were things he could have done by normal means without significant difficulty. They were prophecy fulfillments he had a lot of control over by natural means rather than having little or no control. Still, his deciding to do those things provides evidence that he viewed himself as the figure of Isaiah 9:1-7. That's significant in light of what the passage says about that figure's Davidic ancestry, Messiahship, and deity. And being born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth from so young an age and becoming so influential among the Gentiles weren't things he had that sort of control over.

Why Nazareth?

I've written about the significance of Jesus' upbringing in Nazareth as a fulfillment of Isaiah 9:1. It should be kept in mind that other cities in the region of Zebulun could have been chosen if the early Christians were fabricating the claim about where Jesus was raised. There was another Bethlehem in the region of Zebulun, for example (Joshua 19:15). Or Cana could have been chosen. It doesn't seem that such alternatives had the bad reputation of Nazareth (Matthew 2:23, John 1:46). The best explanation for why the early Christians claimed he grew up in Nazareth and was there so long (thus making the claim more falsifiable if it wasn't true) is that he did grow up there and was there so long. Earlier this year, I wrote about how the nature of Luke's material on Nazareth and other issues suggests the material is unlikely to be fabricated, which supports some kind of family background in Nazareth:

The scenario I've just outlined is large and complicated, but the evidence warrants a large and complicated explanation. It's not the sort of situation the early Christians are likely to have made up if they were free to have made up whatever they wanted. When the pregnancy is premarital, Mary lives in Nazareth rather than Bethlehem, Joseph is in Nazareth shortly before the wedding in spite of having a home in Bethlehem, etc., the early Christians probably were operating under significant historical constraints that prevented them from giving an account that was as simple and easy as they would have preferred.

See here for an acknowledgment of the significance of one of my points about Nazareth from Christopher Hitchens. Bart Ehrman has gone as far as to refer to Jesus' upbringing in Nazareth as "certain": "Little can be known about Jesus' early life, but one thing that can be said for certain is that he was raised in Nazareth, the home village of Joseph and Mary." (The New Testament [New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012], 269)

Michael Shermer And Bart Ehrman On Christmas And Christianity

Michael Shermer recently had Bart Ehrman on his YouTube channel. There are too many problems with the comments made by both of them for me to interact with everything. They address a wide range of topics: Jesus' existence, the virgin birth, Trinitarianism, the atonement, the resurrection of Jesus, the problem of evil, etc. But Ehrman was on the program primarily to discuss Christmas issues. He had an online seminar on the subject coming up on December 5, and that was Shermer's main interest. What I want to do in the remainder of this post is respond to some of their comments about Christmas and prophecy fulfillment.

Micah 4-5 Fulfilled In Jesus

I want to have a post that links all three parts of my series in one place:

Jesus' Fulfillment Of Micah 4-5

How difficult was it to determine Jesus' birthplace?

Jesus' Birthplace Outside Matthew And Luke

Jesus' Birthplace Outside Matthew And Luke

Among the earliest sources, the place of Jesus' birth is discussed most explicitly in Matthew and Luke. But his birthplace is implied elsewhere in the New Testament and is discussed in the early patristic literature, and those other sources get much less attention in modern considerations of where Jesus was born. The evidence from ancient non-Christian sources has been neglected as well. What I want to do in this post is address some of those sources outside Matthew and Luke.

For some important background to this post, see my article on Micah 4-5 and my article on how difficult it would have been for people to determine where Jesus was born. You don't need to read those in order to understand what I'm arguing here, but those other posts will help you understand the larger significance of this one.

How difficult was it to determine Jesus' birthplace?

I've argued that Micah 4-5 is an eschatological, messianic passage that predicts the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Issues like whether that prophecy has been fulfilled and whether it's been fulfilled by Jesus in particular are important, but they're rarely discussed in much depth. One of the subjects that doesn't get much attention is what access the relevant historical sources had to information on Jesus' place of birth. How well could they have judged the subject? Were they in a position to pass on reliable information to future generations?

Not enough consideration has been given to how Jesus' birthplace is connected to other issues. His birthplace wasn't an isolated issue about which people either were ignorant or had the most direct, explicit sort of knowledge. Rather, it's a subject with a lot of connections to other topics, so that people could discern Jesus' place of birth and corroborating evidence for it by a large variety of direct and indirect and explicit and implicit means.

Jesus' Fulfillment Of Micah 4-5

A few years ago, I wrote about Isaiah 9:1-7, and much of what I said there is relevant to chapters 4 and 5 in Micah. I won't repeat everything I said in those posts. See here regarding issues like the origins of the Israelite monarchy in 1 Samuel 8 and some material that Isaiah and Micah have in common. In another post, I explained why we shouldn't think Isaiah 9 was fulfilled by Hezekiah or some other Jewish king of the Old Testament era. Some of what I said there is applicable to the material in Micah. Since there's so much overlap between what's said in Isaiah and what's said in Micah, those posts from a few years ago provide a lot of background for this post.

Micah 5:2 is often singled out in discussions of prophecy fulfillment, but the remainder of the chapter and the previous one should get more attention than they usually do. Chapters 4 and 5 are both eschatological and messianic. Chapter 4 opens with a discussion of Yahweh ruling the nations forever from Jerusalem in "the last days", and chapter 5 concludes with a reference to his executing vengeance on the nations. Both are addressing what will happen "in that day" (4:6, 5:10). Some of the same or similar themes are found in both chapters, and they often shed light on one another.

Enfield Miscellany (Part 6)

(See part 1 here for an explanation of what this series is about. Here are links to the other parts: two, three, four, and five. I'll be citing the Enfield tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I'll use "MG" to reference a tape from Grosse's collection and "GP" to designate one from Playfair's. MG44A refers to tape 44A in Grosse's collection, and GP10A refers to 10A in Playfair's, for example.)

Hazel Short's Other Experiences

She's typically discussed in the context of a levitation of Janet Hodgson that Short witnessed on December 15, 1977. The other events she witnessed don't get much attention. An article published several years ago reports:

Hazel, now 65, said: “I was once invited into her [Peggy Hodgson's] house, it was a boiling hot summer’s day outside but inside it was like a freezer, ice-cold.

“Peggy, Janet’s mum, led me through to the downstairs toilet and stuck to the wall was the toilet brush and a bottle of bleach.

“I will never forget what I saw and felt in that house. “It’s just a surprise that the story has taken this long to be turned into a film.”

She seems to be saying that the toilet brush and bottle of bleach were sticking to the wall in a paranormal manner.

Luke 1:56 And The Importance Of Bracketing

In a post about Luke's census account a few years ago, I mentioned the value of bracketing the first three verses of Luke 2 to highlight the fact that Jesus and his family don't enter the narrative until verse 4. Bracketing is often helpful in understanding Biblical passages and working through some of the issues involved. And Luke's material on Jesus' childhood provides us with another example.

As I mentioned in a post earlier this year, Joseph's presence in Nazareth in Luke 2:4 makes more sense if you read 2:4 in the context of 1:56. But people typically don't do that, since the material between 1:56 and 2:4 is distracting them from 1:56 and what led up to it. If you bracket the material about Mary and Jesus in 1:26-56 and the material about Jesus and his family starting in 2:4, you'll have a better understanding of some aspects of what's going on. You can read the post linked at the beginning of this paragraph for an explanation of how 2:4 makes more sense in light of 1:56. Luke had good reason to present the material as he did. The paralleling of John the Baptist and Jesus, going back and forth between the two, accomplishes some good things. But it's helpful to also bracket the material I've mentioned above and read that bracketed material together.

And it helps to do the same in other contexts. A major example outside of Luke that I've often cited is John 7:53-8:11. That passage shouldn't be included in John's gospel, but when it's present, it's important to bracket it to assist in reading 8:12 in light of 7:52 and what led up to it.

Christmas Resources 2021

I've written some articles that can be used as starting points for researching Christmas issues. One is about how to concisely argue for a traditional Christian view of the childhood of Jesus. The other is about how Jesus viewed himself as the figure of Isaiah 9:1-7 and framed his public ministry around that identity.

The following are examples of other Christmas issues we've addressed over the years:

Appreciating The Accomplishments Of Past Generations

I see the years like billows break
Upon the passive strand of time,
And as they break, sweep off in turn
Man's works of every age and clime.
Who, what am I amid the wreck
Of all this beauty, love, and power,
O'er which I weep, but whose decay
I cannot hinder for an hour?
The true is never obsolete,
The never old is never stale;
I guard the gold of ancient mines,
And gather gems, though few and pale;
I call them fair - as fair as when
They dropped from God's bright heaven for men.
(Horatius Bonar, "The Silence Of Faith", Hymns Of The Nativity [London, England: James Nisbet & Co., 1879], 53)

The Light Of His Eternal Glory

"Indeed, it is adversity on the outside that is often the catalyst for regained fellowship with God on the inside (Ps. 119:67). In 1745 Boston pastor Benjamin Colman's daughter died, following the death of another daughter, the debilitating illness of his wife, and the death of his associate pastor. [Jonathan] Edwards wrote a moving letter to Colman with a desire that 'when you are thus deprived of the company of your temporal friends, you may have sweet communion with the Lord Jesus Christ more abundantly, and that as God has gradually been darkening this world to you, putting out one of its lights after another, so he would cause the light of his eternal glory more and more to dawn within you.'" (Dane Ortlund, Edwards On The Christian Life [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2014], 118)

Precedent For Metaphorically Drinking Blood And Eating God

Do a Ctrl F search for "John 6" in Glenn Miller's article here. In a video here, Steven Nemes makes a lot of good points about the eucharist and whether Christ is physically present in it. My main interest in this post, though, is his examples of precedent for viewing the eucharist in a way that doesn't involve a physical presence. We often apply the same sort of reasoning in other areas of life (when speaking of the Passover elements, when referring to how an actor is the character he represents, etc.).