From: Ouko joachim omolo
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2012
Since Pope Benedict XVI released his new book on Jesus of Nazareth challenging Christmas Traditions I have received several requests from Regional News readers if I could comment on the challenge.
Pope’s book says the Gospels do not support the presence of animals at Jesus’ birth. The pope says the Christian calendar is actually based on a blunder by a 6th century monk, who Benedict says was several years off in his calculation of Jesus’ birth date.
According to the pope’s research, there is also no evidence in the Gospels that the cattle and other animals traditionally pictured gathered around the manger were actually present. He also debunks the claim that angels sang at the birth, a staple theme of Christmas carols.
The book, which is being published in multiple languages in time for Christmas, is the third in a series by the pontiff. The previous two volumes dealt with Jesus’ adult life and his public ministry.
The 176-page volume, which comprises a brief foreword, four chapters and an epilogue, traces Jesus’ life up to the age of 12, when, according to the Gospels, he was presented by his parents in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Chapter 1 considers the “question about Jesus’ origins as a question about being and mission, while Chapter 2 is on the annunciation of the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. Referring to the angel’s greeting to Mary, “Rejoice, full of grace!” the Holy Father points out the connection between joy and grace.
One section of the book is dedicated to “Virgin Birth — Myth or Historical Truth.” There, the Pope makes the observation: “If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God. But he does have this power, and through the conception and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has ushered in a new creation.
Chapter 3, on the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, offers this meditation, regarding the fact that there “was no room for them in the inn”: “He who was crucified outside the city (cf. Heb. 13:12) also came into the world outside the city.
The last chapter of “The Infancy Narratives” includes a consideration of astronomy as context for a discussion on the star that led the Wise Men from the East, as well as a look at who those men were. It addresses the overall question of the historicity of the two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel dedicated to Jesus’ childhood.
“The Infancy Narratives” completes the Pope’s series on Jesus of Nazareth. The first book in the series, published in 2007, dealt with the period from Jesus’ baptism through the Transfiguration. The second volume released before Lent 2011, covered Christ’s passion and death. Both those volumes were immediate bestsellers (Zenit).
To our Regional News readers, the pope is not against the historical critical method at all, in fact, he uses it, and he appreciates it, as Anthony Valle, a professor of theology says. Only that the pope has been open to scientific inquiry in his own study of Jesus’ life. The pope uses “both faith and reason” in his efforts to bring the life of Jesus closer.
In other words, the pope used his writing to explore “the inner meaning of the infancy narratives, showing how they pick up on Old Testament themes and develop them in new and unexpected ways.” He helps us to understand the world where Jesus was born.
According to the Westar Religious Institute in America, it was a monk from Russia called Dionysius Exiguus who was asked by Pope John to work out the dates for Easter. It was back in 527 A.D. when Dionysius formalized the date of Jesus’ birth as December 25 on the Christian calendar, thus making a mistake on his calculations.
As Professor of Classics, Nature and History at Warwick University, Kevin Butcher states, the idea that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 is nothing new. Churchmen in the 17th century had also challenged the date before.
This discrepancy has been known about for many centuries, in fact. In the 17th century it became quite apparent that the calculations by Dionysius Exiguus were incorrect. The dating basically rests on the New Testament.
Birth of Jesus occurs during the reign of King Herod the Great. And King Herod the Great died in 4 B.C., so if this story about the birth of Jesus is correct, obviously he would have to be born before 4 B.C.
The fact that there were plenty of other dating systems in use is one of the reasons why it was so hard for Dionysius to figure out the date, in the first place. There are lots of competing dating systems. And trying to create some kind of universal one is very hard, if you’re working with lots of other dating systems.
According to popular tradition however, the birth of Jesus took place in a stable, surrounded by farm animals. A manger (that is, a feeding trough) as mentioned in Luke 2: 7, where it states Mary “wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn”.
Popular tradition also holds that three kings or wise men (named Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar visited the infant Jesus in the manger, though this does not strictly follow the Biblical account.
The Gospel of Matthew instead describes a visit by an unspecified number of magi, or astrologers, sometime after Jesus was born while the family was living in a house (Matthew 2:11), who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the young child Jesus, following a mysterious star, commonly known as the Star of Bethlehem, believing it to announce the birth of a king of the Jews. The commemoration of this visit, the Feast of Epiphany celebrated on January 6, is the formal end of the Christmas season in some churches.
Against the background that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas. The Bible says there were shepherds out in the fields with their sheep. In Jerusalem it is very cold in the winter and often snows. It is very unlikely that the shepherds would live outside during these months.
Not only was Christmas not Jesus’ birthday but it was never observed by first century Christians. Its origins lie in the ancient Roman festival Saturnalia, beginning Dec. 17 and ending Dec. 25, the “birthday of the unconquered sun”.
In the first century, the apostle Paul warned Timothy that “wicked men and impostors” would slip into the Christian congregation and mislead many. (2 Timothy 3:13).This great apostasy which began after the death of the apostles indicates that many changes in traditional calendars took place around this time.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Peaceful world is the greatest heritage That this generation can give to the generations To come- All of us have a role.