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Jesus' Infancy & Childhood
 The stories of Jesus' infancy and childhood appear only in the gospels of Matthew
and Luke and a few later apocryphal gospels that you'll read today. The question
that we will want to ask is how much of the portrait in the early canonical gospels
is historical? Modern movies, like "The Nativity Story" that was screened
Christmas 2006, give an added veneer of plausibility to the tales, but we're still
left with the question about how historical any of this is. This will be our first
chance to answer the historical question by applying the criteria of historicity
to a text. Here are those criteria: -
- There has to be a report; no arguments from silence.
- Eyewitness or at least the earliest testimony is best.
- Embarrassing or awkward testimony is relatively reliable, given the motivation not to report it.
- The more multiple, independent witnesses, the better.
- The tradition is coherent with other material that is most likely historical.
- The tradition is discontinuous with prior Jewish teaching/ practice or subsequent Christian teaching/practice.
- The tradition has to be consistent with the manner of Jesus' death.
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- On top of these criteria, your reconstruction will be more convincing the
more aware you are of the authors' biases, your biases, and the historical situation
in Roman Palestine. Awareness of these things will help you to determine whether
a claim about the historical Jesus' birth and childhood is historically likely,
a product of the author's interests, or an image that you've developed.
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- The
easiest place to read the infancy narratives is in The Complete Gospels,
because you can get each story straight through on its own terms, and in a contemporary translation. If you didn't purchase that book and aren't using the library copy on reserve at the Circulation Desk, you can always read them online (see links below). Keep track of
the major plot elements in each. Using your list of each infancy story's major plot elements, make note
of which elements are unique to each gospel and which elements seem to draw on
the same tradition. Then give a try at applying the criteria of historicity to
a few of the details of the story.
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- In the secondary reading, Crossan & Reed discuss the "layers" of Nazareth's occupation, as well as the "layers" of the textual traditions about Jesus' birth. From their discussion of the archaeological strata, be able to:
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- describe the nature of the village of Nazareth around the time when Jesus lived there (not the earlier or later "layers").
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- From their discussion of the strata of the gospel stories in Matthew and Luke, be able to identify the following:
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- the three layers of the gospel tradition, and
- which layer each of the following two events trace to: (a) Matthew's focus on Joseph and (b) the tradition in both Luke and Matthew of the virginal conception of Jesus.
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- As you read Ehrman, see if he sheds any additional light on these questions, especially #3.
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- Assigned Readings
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- Presentations
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- Further Reading
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- Brown, Raymond E. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary
on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke. New York: Doubleday,
1977.
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- Cousland, J. R. C. Holy Terror: Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Library of New Testament Studies 560. New York: T&T Clark, 2017.
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- Landau, Brent. Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men's Journey to Bethlehem. New York: HarperOne, 2010.
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- Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking
the Historical Jesus, vol. 1, The Roots of the Problem and the Person,
ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
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- Miller, Robert J. Born Divine: The Births of Jesus and Other Sons of God. Sonoma, California: Polebridge, 2003.
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- Schaberg, Jane. The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives, expanded 20th anniversary ed. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006; original, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
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- Links
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- Noncanonical
Homepage - provides access to online versions of the Old and New Testament
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, including the apocryphal gospels and infancy gospels.
Hosted at the Wesley Center for Applied Theology.
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- Sources
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- Photograph: Jaimie Trueblood, © 2006 New Line Cinema. Online, "The Nativity Story (2006)," IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1353890304/ tt0762121?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_pbl_16, 15 November 2012.
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