The First Christmas
What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birth
Chapter One
The Stories of the First Christmas
In this chapter, we introduce the stories of the first Christmas. Note the plural: we do not have a story of the first Christmas, but two. They are found in Matthew and Luke, two of the four gospels of the New Testament. Each begins with two chapters about the birth of Jesus.
We begin with the texts of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. We do so for more than one reason. Though general features of the stories are well known, the more specific details are not. Moreover, people seldom encounter them as "whole narratives"; most often they hear and know them in parts.
A third reason: Matthew's and Luke's stories are quite different from each other. Many Christians as well as non-Christians are not familiar with how different they are. Seeing these differences is utterly crucial to understanding why we (and contemporary biblical scholars generally) see them as we do. It is the foundation for what follows in this book. And so we present the stories by imaginin ... read full excerpt from First Christmas, The ebook
