Newsweek's "The Birth of Jesus": A Muddled Collage
In the December 13th issue, Newsweek Managing Editor Jon Meacham has written a cover story in which he ponders the origin and reliability of the Gospel narratives of Jesus' birth.
Others, such as Dr. Mark D. Roberts and Dr. Albert Mohler have already done a wonderful job of responding to the various assertions, opinions and insinuations presented in the article. I will not try to compete with their knowledge and scholarship. A large number of blogger responses to this article have been compiled by Hugh Hewitt (under the heading, "Vox Blogoli Vi") and are also worth reading.
All I wish to add to this conversation is to observe that Mr. Meacham has made the undergraduate level mistake of collecting various competing and contradictory opinions of unequal value and laying them alongside one another. Mr. Meacham then arrives at the only conclusion that can be reached from this methodology: That, because there is no consensus of opinion, and because one way of looking at the subject is as good as another, therefore the truth of the matter cannot be known with any confidence one way or the other. Further, Mr. Meacham speculates that the existence of many different opinions is evidence that the traditional understanding of the Birth of Jesus is most likely fabricated either in part or in its entirety.
The logic in all of this escapes me entirely. But I am not surprised. The purpose of the article is clearly not to inform but to exploit the season of Christmas to sell copies of Newsweek.
The image of a collage comes to mind. If a person wanted to present an image of what life in the United States is like they could collect many different magazines, cut out eye-catching pictures (from ads and articles) showing Americans at work or play, and pasting them all together on poster board.
The result would be a hodge-podge of images that may or may not have anything to tell us about what life in the United States is like. Further, the impact of the collage would be largely predetermined whatever bias the person brought to the project in the first place. The collage itself would give us no way to judge which pictures are actually representative of American life and which are commercial stereotypes. Nor would we know whether pictures of any one subjectg (such as violence, for example) are over-represented or under-represented.
The Newsweek article struck me as sort of like a collage made up of snippets of fact and fancy, fringe theology and orthodoxy, fact and conjecture all thrown together leaving an impression of uncertainty, controversy and confusion.
When the literary and historical evidence of Jesus' birth is laid bare, however, we find that there is a massive critical consensus as to what the Bible says, who said it, when it was said, and how it was received, believed and validated by contemporaries who could tell a fabrication from a fact and who could have easily discredited a fabrication had there been one.
Dr. Robert's list of 15 common elements in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke (two independent sources) are not only convincing evidence for the historical reality of the "virgin birth" and other details surrounding Jesus' incarnation but also reveal an early consensus as to what these details, when added together, meant to the first century Christian Church.
In 2 Peter 3:16 we read how the earliest Christian writings were sometimes "hard to understand." It was easy then and it is easy today for "ignorant and unstable people" to "distort" the meaning of these scriptures.
The sad part of all this is the pretentiousness of magazines like Newsweek when they pretend to be presenting a reasoned and balanced view when they are not. In this case, the vast majority of Christians who read this article will just shake their heads and set it aside. Many, however, who do not know any better, will be deceived by the deception. It would appear that this is just one more example of the mainstream media being more interested in creating a "story" than they are in presenting the "facts."
The best antidote to all this is, of course, to take the time to read the New Testament in a good study Bible, check out all the Old Testament citations and ask yourself if it sounds like a fabrication or not. When read on its own terms, the Bible (including the narratives of Jesus' birth) holds up quite well, thank you very much!
Others, such as Dr. Mark D. Roberts and Dr. Albert Mohler have already done a wonderful job of responding to the various assertions, opinions and insinuations presented in the article. I will not try to compete with their knowledge and scholarship. A large number of blogger responses to this article have been compiled by Hugh Hewitt (under the heading, "Vox Blogoli Vi") and are also worth reading.
All I wish to add to this conversation is to observe that Mr. Meacham has made the undergraduate level mistake of collecting various competing and contradictory opinions of unequal value and laying them alongside one another. Mr. Meacham then arrives at the only conclusion that can be reached from this methodology: That, because there is no consensus of opinion, and because one way of looking at the subject is as good as another, therefore the truth of the matter cannot be known with any confidence one way or the other. Further, Mr. Meacham speculates that the existence of many different opinions is evidence that the traditional understanding of the Birth of Jesus is most likely fabricated either in part or in its entirety.
The logic in all of this escapes me entirely. But I am not surprised. The purpose of the article is clearly not to inform but to exploit the season of Christmas to sell copies of Newsweek.
The image of a collage comes to mind. If a person wanted to present an image of what life in the United States is like they could collect many different magazines, cut out eye-catching pictures (from ads and articles) showing Americans at work or play, and pasting them all together on poster board.
The result would be a hodge-podge of images that may or may not have anything to tell us about what life in the United States is like. Further, the impact of the collage would be largely predetermined whatever bias the person brought to the project in the first place. The collage itself would give us no way to judge which pictures are actually representative of American life and which are commercial stereotypes. Nor would we know whether pictures of any one subjectg (such as violence, for example) are over-represented or under-represented.
The Newsweek article struck me as sort of like a collage made up of snippets of fact and fancy, fringe theology and orthodoxy, fact and conjecture all thrown together leaving an impression of uncertainty, controversy and confusion.
When the literary and historical evidence of Jesus' birth is laid bare, however, we find that there is a massive critical consensus as to what the Bible says, who said it, when it was said, and how it was received, believed and validated by contemporaries who could tell a fabrication from a fact and who could have easily discredited a fabrication had there been one.
Dr. Robert's list of 15 common elements in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke (two independent sources) are not only convincing evidence for the historical reality of the "virgin birth" and other details surrounding Jesus' incarnation but also reveal an early consensus as to what these details, when added together, meant to the first century Christian Church.
In 2 Peter 3:16 we read how the earliest Christian writings were sometimes "hard to understand." It was easy then and it is easy today for "ignorant and unstable people" to "distort" the meaning of these scriptures.
The sad part of all this is the pretentiousness of magazines like Newsweek when they pretend to be presenting a reasoned and balanced view when they are not. In this case, the vast majority of Christians who read this article will just shake their heads and set it aside. Many, however, who do not know any better, will be deceived by the deception. It would appear that this is just one more example of the mainstream media being more interested in creating a "story" than they are in presenting the "facts."
The best antidote to all this is, of course, to take the time to read the New Testament in a good study Bible, check out all the Old Testament citations and ask yourself if it sounds like a fabrication or not. When read on its own terms, the Bible (including the narratives of Jesus' birth) holds up quite well, thank you very much!
posted by Bird of Paradise at 11:11 PM
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