Josh & the Wise Guys

The birth of Jesus. The Nativity. Christmas.

In this episode, we cover the story of Jesus' birth and sift through what is plausible and what must be fiction.

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Katie Dooley  00:09

atheist Bailey's nervy that I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.

Preston Meyer  00:17

Merry Christmas everyone.

Katie Dooley  00:21

Yeah, no more. And where are they? Now? We're happy holidays. We're wishing you Merry Christmas on this episode of The Holy watermelon podcast. But generally speaking, happy holidays is a superior term.

Preston Meyer  00:39

Yes. But today we're going to talk specifically about the Nativity. So Merry Christmas. How are we getting this out just in time so that if you've pre listened to it, you can share some of this episode with your family on Christmas Day as part of your Christmas observation, if that's the thing that your family does,

Katie Dooley  00:59

or just wow them with your knowledge, right.

Preston Meyer  01:04

Maybe play it in the background while you're eating.

Katie Dooley  01:08

We'll do that. Christmas carols this year. Calming sound of my voice. My entire family stand outside

Preston Meyer  01:16

of changers doors with a booth.

Katie Dooley  01:21

Everyone should everyone do that? More

Preston Meyer  01:23

fun than Christmas Carol.

Katie Dooley  01:29

So let's start with words I guess so. So the word nativity, as defined by Merriam Webster, which we know precedent doesn't like bear in mind. It's

Preston Meyer  01:41

the inferior English dictionary. Yeah, it's

Katie Dooley  01:45

the duty as the process or circumstances the circumstance of being born, a horoscope at or of the time of one's birth, or the place of your origin, specifically refers to the birth of Jesus. I have never heard it used in any other context. But

Preston Meyer  02:02

I've heard a couple of times, and I guess a more literary context, when people are trying to sound a little more French fancy, they'll say the land of my nativity. But most people don't. Really,

Katie Dooley  02:16

nobody says

Preston Meyer  02:20

Saskatchewan is the land of my nativity. Business. But so sorry. That's the way it goes. Like Mewtwo says, it doesn't matter the circumstances of your birth.

Katie Dooley  02:36

The earliest so we'll take that word, and we'll talk about the earliest celebration of Christmas is recorded as 336. See, yeah,

Preston Meyer  02:45

the the Catholic Well, the, the universal ish Christian church at the time, didn't really have it as a congregational celebration until then. But they did decide to drop it, basically where it is today, a week before the first of January. I don't know how they made that decision. But that's what they did. And we'll

Katie Dooley  03:06

get into a little later how Jesus was definitely not born on December 25. But they just kind of, it's not arbitrary. They didn't arbitrarily pick today, but they absolutely picked the day that Christmas would be celebrated. So

Preston Meyer  03:21

we'll get into that. Well, I mean, they could have picked any time in that week. And for that goal, how they picked the 25th the nose,

Katie Dooley  03:31

and they like the sound of the five,

Preston Meyer  03:33

maybe, maybe that's half the trick right there. So 336 C, is when we have the first recorded congregational celebration of Christmas, they didn't actually celebrate it in the Christian church in Rome, until about the end of the third century. So just shortly before that time, but it wasn't until about 40 years after that in 379, when they had the First Congregational Christmas feast in Constantinople. So this kind of spread kind of slowly, considering it was a fairly organized church at this time. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  04:16

And even we'll get into some other dates that are quite recent for a religion as old as Christianity for things that are celebrated. But let's quickly chat about there are some Christian groups that don't celebrate Christmas. What?

Preston Meyer  04:32

Yeah, we talked about this a little bit last year that groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians and a few other I guess call them fringe groups because they don't fit into the big categories of Catholic orthodox Protestant

Katie Dooley  04:48

on Sundays keep studying considered themselves Christian, which I disagree with, but and they're self identifying. So

Preston Meyer  04:55

a lot of them are told by other Christians. You're not Christian. Which, of course, is a frustrating bit of the way people deal with each other. But yeah, there's a good handful that don't celebrate Christmas. And I think it's worth noting that a good handful of the early Catholic Church Fathers like origin, condemned the practice of celebrating birthdays, and also did not celebrate Christmas, a birthday kind of deal,

Katie Dooley  05:25

or Jesus. Birthday celebrated?

Preston Meyer  05:29

Oh, yeah, it's, it's kind of weird. Remember, we talked about this last year that birthday celebrations was very much pagan thing, pagan being a pejorative for anybody who's not Christian or Jewish. And so it was just a thing that the faithful worshipers of the God of Abraham just didn't do birthdays, because it was celebration of other gods and that just wasn't cool. So that's where we're at.

Katie Dooley  06:04

Getting into the story a little bit more the the Nativity is described in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, which I'll let you handle most of that resident theologian, but I found it really interesting that all records of Jesus's birth place in Bethlehem, including Islam. So a big misconception, I think we've talked about this a little bit is that Muslims somehow don't believe in Jesus or whatever they do. They love Jesus as a prophet, and they do have like his origin story in, in their writings as well. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  06:39

Interestingly enough, the Koran is also interested in the figure of Mary as well. So it's not just Jesus. That's where

Katie Dooley  06:46

the excuse me, that's where the very common you see a lot. South Asians Muslims with daughters named Miriam. Yeah, exactly.

Preston Meyer  06:56

It's interesting, though, even though we don't have any records saying anything other than Jesus was born in Bethlehem. There's a good handful of scholars now who are starting to think that maybe Jesus was born in Nazareth. Interesting. I, I still can't get on board with it. But there's a couple of scholars who argue it. So if you're interested in reading up on that, go for it.

Katie Dooley  07:21

Now, they also never really tell us his birth date. Nope. Most people believe that the date of the 25th is them. Christianizing a pagan holiday? I think it would be what you will. Yeah. That would that falls around there, or there's obviously Solstice, as well, right around this time. There's also I have notes on this later. I don't know where they are. But it's also aligns with the Zoroastrian holiday as well.

Preston Meyer  07:51

Yeah. If you're one of those people who thinks that Christian Christmas is deliberately a strike against Hanukkah? No, that's not true at all. It's basically just a coincidence, it's definitely a lot more of a strike against the pagans. So December 25, is the solstice on the old Roman calendar. So celebrating the birth of the light of the world does fit pretty nicely into this time when the days start getting longer again.

Katie Dooley  08:21

And there's also a lot of other festivals with light,

Preston Meyer  08:25

so many, I'm sure you've noticed, if you've been listening,

Katie Dooley  08:30

it goes back to that metaphor of the darkest time of the year, and then the light arrives. Exactly. So which is a really nice metaphor, obviously, because every religion has borrowed. But now, the actual date, I remember this was years ago, I was listening to some documentary, and they were sort of saying that they, whatever the scholars that we're talking, we're quite positive that Jesus's birthday was in April, not in December. And you've brought up some really good points on passages in the Bible that kind of pointed to a more temperate time of year. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  09:09

the shepherds being out in the fields with their flocks, rather than keeping them sheltered in the cold rainy winter. I mean, it's it's not like a Canadian winter, but it's still cold and rainy and, and gross. I guess there's parts of Canada that are like that, not where we are, where we are, where we are, it's white and awful. But that does lead more into a a temperate time of year. And the idea that it was a census that all the world must be taxed, as Luke describes in chapter two, doesn't hold up against good historical scholarship scrutiny. There's so far we haven't found any records of huge census through the Empire at this time. And it doesn't mean there wasn't one. But because of the decent records that we have the time it means it's very likely there was not a census at this time,

Katie Dooley  10:10

as you say, censuses are literally meant for record keeping. And I recognize that it's 2000 years old, but we do have records older than that. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  10:19

it's probably not the case that there was a census, like Luke suggests, well, and

Katie Dooley  10:24

even people debate the year, we sort of put it at zero, not that 01. And then one ad, but or see scholars actually placed the year even earlier than one year, whichever one you want to pick,

Preston Meyer  10:39

a lot of scholars will put Jesus birthday, somewhere between six and four BCE, some of them will go even earlier. Oh, wow. They're not the majority, as far as I've been able to observe. And very often anywhere between April 1 And September 30. It's kind of a big window, good old six months. The problem with having this early birthday for Jesus is that every single scholar, who is said it has to be several years BCE, is making a kind of embarrassing error, assuming that Herod the Great is still alive for the event. And it makes sense that that's coming into their calculations, because Matthew says, of course, Herod was still alive until a little while after Jesus was born. But we're very certain that Herod was dead by to see. So tricky problems. Unfortunately, Matthew's account isn't terribly reliable. Matthew Chapter Two follows kind of trope, I guess, of Jewish literature, where a great religious figure is persecuted at his birth by a notoriously evil ruler, we have this kind of thing going on with Moses and the Pharaoh in Egypt. And this trope gets repeated again with Abraham, the king they've picked for this story is good old King Nimrod. And this is actually used a fair bit through good old, Judaic religious literature. It's kind of interesting, but it makes and the more we find it, the more it makes it look like Matthew, chapter two is just fiction.

12:23

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  12:27

There's a few parts of both of these Gospels where where we go, you just made this up. The census being a big one. So I wanted to dive into that a little

Preston Meyer  12:38

bit. So Luke is quite separated from the story he's trying to tell. But he did gather information from a lot of sources. And he starts his story by saying, Hey, have compiled all these stories from all these different people to give you his his one intended reader, who would then spread it out? One story about Jesus from beginning to end kind of deal. Problem is, it looks like he didn't vet his sources very well.

Katie Dooley  13:09

So the problem with the census is that it's asking Mary and Joseph to go back to their ancestral home, which is basically unheard of. Right. So to put it in perspective, my family is historically from Ireland. That would be me having to go back to Ireland where I have never lived to participate in a census. In a census that doesn't count women. So poor Mary was just thrown on a donkey because Joseph was a dick. What's rule number one of religion?

Preston Meyer  13:48

Don't be a dick. Yeah, we've got some issues here. So yeah, they're very likely was no census at the time. And if there was, this still doesn't explain why Joseph brought Mary to Bethlehem. It's a lot more likely that there was a religious festival, where they would be expected to attend the temple, which is honestly just a couple hours walk from where Jesus was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem. So that makes perfect sense.

Katie Dooley  14:21

Would this potentially be in linked with a festival or maybe just location of the temple, like a pre birth ritual? Because they have those in Judaism? Right, you're expected to there's a woman there's more

Preston Meyer  14:36

ritual specifically prescribed for after the birth. And usually, it's usually it is go to the temple and be circumcised receive your name. And that is part of the story that's after the birth. And so that could have been the reason why they traveled to Bethlehem. To be at the temple for that. I don't actually know of any sources saying that that had to happen at the temple though. So I could just be missing a thing there.

Katie Dooley  15:12

Yeah, I just I mean, I'm thinking of like Mormons traveled to go to the temple if you're not near a temple, yeah.

Preston Meyer  15:18

But that's more of an adult. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  15:22

You're nine months pregnant better get over here, right waddle your way here on a donkey.

Preston Meyer  15:26

Right? Actually, speaking of Mormonism, there is a passage in the Book of Mormon, that actually says that Jesus was born very, very, very shortly after the beginning of the year, which means that since the year and in this calendar is starting at the Spring Equinox, that places this specific time at the Passover, which gives us a festival and a reason to be at Jerusalem at this time, interesting. So that does help back up the idea that a lot of scholars have that springtime is the time

Katie Dooley  16:11

the basically the only people that argue that Luke must be right, regarding the central the census, excuse me, are fundamentalists who believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God.

Preston Meyer  16:22

Yeah. So which I mean, if you've read the book, you know that God didn't write it.

Katie Dooley  16:28

I hope you'd write. I was just gonna say something me. I would hope God would right away more exciting. But this is me just coming off all the temple measurements. But

Preston Meyer  16:39

I mean, yes, there are very dry but but it's got bore, it's got murder, it's got sags, it's got involuntary sex. Book,

16:53

it's a different name for that.

Preston Meyer  16:56

Hoping to keep it a little more PG back? Yes, the Bible has re been it's a problem over there already.

Katie Dooley  17:09

So speaking of sex, you know, who didn't have any sex marry?

Preston Meyer  17:14

That's a weird, weird bit of the story.

Katie Dooley  17:17

I thought you're gonna see that was a weird segue.

Preston Meyer  17:19

That's a perfectly reasonable, well done. There's this huge tradition built up that Mary could never ever, ever have sex no matter what, even after Jesus was born. And there's just no good theological reason for that. And Mary,

Katie Dooley  17:36

come on, right? She carried this on, oh, God, you can let her have some fun. afterwards.

Preston Meyer  17:43

Jesus has brothers and sisters. The Bible is very clear on that detail. Some versions, some translations of the text, kind of fudge that away and clean up so that it doesn't look like that's the case. That is a serious problem. And then there's a bunch of theologians, they're like, no, no, they're the kids from Joseph's other marriage, which we've never been given any reason to believe that he actually had any other wives.

Katie Dooley  18:13

I'm quoting this from Wikipedia on the virgin birth, honestly, because they think it's just great wording. Jesus was conceived by his mother Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit without sexual intercourse.

Preston Meyer  18:26

And that's basically what we get from both Luke and Matthew, that she was undefiled until after the birth of Jesus, because you know, she kept the law, you're not supposed to have sex before you're married. But that also is cited when we talk about Jesus being both divine and human, which is an important pair of aspects of his identity. Yes. And

Katie Dooley  18:55

back to the point about Islam earlier, the virgin birth is also mentioned in the Quran.

Preston Meyer  19:01

Christianity had a pretty solid influence on the genesis of Islam. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  19:10

Now, there's also and when I was, you know, first learning about religion in general, I thought these were the same things. So there's the virgin birth, and there's the Immaculate Conception. And they're two different things.

Preston Meyer  19:22

They sure are. The Immaculate Conception is, I mean, it looks like a virgin birth, except for the fact that we know Mary's mother wasn't a virgin because he might conception is about the birth of Mary, her conception and birth.

Katie Dooley  19:40

Yes, so Mary also doesn't have a father biologically speaking. I

Preston Meyer  19:45

mean, she by Eliza posts, too, but yeah, the story gets real weird. So in an effort to make Mary more holy and further separate Jesus from this new idea of original Sin, a story was devised that Mary was born to a woman named Anna, or Hannah, if you're keen on Old Testament characters, and her old sterile husband, joking. And he was supposed to be a way for just long enough to let us know for sure that Hannah hadn't been having sex before Mary was born. And it's all kind of weird. And it's it's testified of in a couple of the proto gospels. There's the gospel of Mary and the proto gospel of James. And that's it. It's a lot of work to come up with this idea that we have to separate Jesus. Further from this idea that doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense to begin with.

Katie Dooley  20:48

I just truly believe that these women are running the two greatest scams of all time.

Preston Meyer  20:57

See, that will be easy to jump on board with if the story of Hannah was at all reliable. I'm pretty sure every bit of information that we have about Mary's family is fiction, written centuries after she died. Even naming her Anna as we have it in the common tradition today. It is stealing the character of Hannah from the Old Testament, who was barren, couldn't have a baby went to the temple, prayed real hard. And then got her baby and gave her to the temple. That's exactly the story. plagiarized almost word for word. It feels like oh, wow, for Mary.

Katie Dooley  21:41

Now, before we jump on to our next section, the word immaculate. I just like One fun fact. I remember learning and no never and your words guy so immaculate. So we talked about oh, like your home is immaculate, meaning like it's really clean and put together. Immaculate actually means untouched by a man. Right? So if you're which just makes me giggle. Your home is immaculate. Where did your husband go? My house is immaculate when my husband's gone. in all senses of the word. Yeah, it's very clean when he's not around. So yeah, that's we've kind of bastardized the term immaculate to mean, you know, pristine or perfect, but no, it means untouched by a man. So that take you remember the Immaculate Conception and see

Preston Meyer  22:39

this little problem now? Where in my head, it's not just he didn't touch it with his hand. Oh, wow. And one can hope that this is the state of at least most of your home. Oh, well.

Katie Dooley  22:59

Cut the tape right. Now.

Preston Meyer  23:04

Another interesting bit that shows up in Matthew chapter two. And remember, I'm very convinced that this whole story of Matthew chapter two is fiction is the Magi. The three wise men or kings in the English tradition for no good reason at all. And there's a very good chance that they were Zoroastrian priests based on the words that we have. If these were real people that were really present for the story.

Katie Dooley  23:36

Well, and just to jump ahead a bit, they actually never give a number in the Bible. So we have decided it was three, partially because of the three gifts. Yeah, and we know three is important number in Christianity, but they never actually say that three, so you're right. Or assume it's three. smart guys,

Preston Meyer  23:57

right? The story is, the story goes that we got three ish fellows that were from the east. So it would make sense that there were Zoroastrians from Persia, that that does. If

Katie Dooley  24:14

we're sticking with the term. Yeah, we're sticking with the term Magi and I also this brings so much more meaning to the song We Three Kings orient higher, right?

Preston Meyer  24:25

But not even the far oriented just orient from where they are, which of course only means east. Zoroastrianism is pretty deep into astrology. And so it gets linked to the occult and magic, and here are magicians. It fits in the Greek text is pretty explicit. It does call them mages, and so not translating that as sorceress feels weird. Wiseman is definitely downplaying the magic bit. Yeah, mere

Katie Dooley  24:59

delivery At least shifting away from wizards. Yeah. Oh, and here's that point I made earlier, there is a major Zoroastrian holiday Yalda on December 21. So I was just really fascinated how these kind of all link together. Hmm.

Preston Meyer  25:17

Yeah, it's a curious thing. And so these Magi are regulars and most representations of the Nativity, if you don't have somebody bringing gifts you have said is woefully incomplete or historically accurate. I like it. Yeah, so these three wise men are said to have brought gold frankincense and myrrh, man. Do you know?

Katie Dooley  25:52

Did you know Preston that the first visual depiction of a Nativity scene was from 1223 by St. Francis of Assisi. That was the first time we visualized this donkey and the three guys and a little baby in a manger. So

Preston Meyer  26:09

that's less than 800 years ago. Yeah, that's pretty new relative to the Christian tradition. Yeah, it's kind of nifty. All right, going back to these three gifts, the gold, frankincense and myrrh. So these gifts are symbolic, as is the entirety of Matthew chapter two. And gold is treasure for the king. Frankincense is burned in priestly ritual prayers. And Myrrh is a decent painkiller representing the great healer that is Jesus. Of course, all of these gifts are useful in real life. Anybody who's dropping babies in a barn clearly needs more gold.

Katie Dooley  26:48

Dropping babies. I like that term.

Preston Meyer  26:52

Anything that covers that barn birth smell combo is definitely appreciated for the frankincense. Yeah, yeah. And painkillers. great gift for any woman who's just given birth. So this these birthday gifts do make some good sense.

Katie Dooley  27:12

Also very expensive, even though right? Yeah, all of these things are not cheap. We

Preston Meyer  27:17

have much cheaper painkillers now that actually do the job better. So yeah, no, it's good. Yeah. Exactly. So it's, it's interesting, the Gospel of Matthew is the only one that mentions them out of not just the four biblical gospels. But out of the larger collection of gospels. There's a couple other references to these that are obviously taking from Matthew's story. And that's all we get. And we don't even have the volumes of these three gifts. It's just, there's some tiny gold piece. Yeah. And it's for the narrative value of these symbols. Of course, from a story that isn't historically reliable, definitely meant to be more symbolic. All right.

Katie Dooley  28:13

Tell us a story, Preston.

Preston Meyer  28:15

All right. Let's get into the reworking of Luke chapter two, that I can explain some more of the bits if they inspire questions after the story. I was gonna say,

Katie Dooley  28:30

Yeah, I'll do it in full so people can play it at Christmas. Yes.

Preston Meyer  28:33

Alright. So this is drawn from Luke chapter two. Miriam is a young Jewish girl living in the northern province. You know, it is Galilee, which is just a generic designation as lame as the Northwest Territories. Miriam has been engaged to marry this fella Joseph, and he's a decent guy, not terribly old, no other wives. And he's honest to the point that it gets him in trouble. Sometimes. Things are tough when an engagement lasts a whole year, particularly when sex is forbidden until after the official marriage ceremony. Miriam and Joseph are separately visited by heavenly messengers who tell them that Miriam's going to have a baby boy, Joseph has warned that he is not allowed to call them Joseph Jr. And the worst news is the baby isn't even his. That kind of news could get marry him killed in some communities and could certainly invalidate their marriage if he took her to court over it. The messenger tells Joseph that it's okay because the child is the Son of God, and that Joseph needs to stay with Miriam. Miriam decides to stay with her cousin Elizabeth, and avoid her local congregation for a while to keep things on the down low. Several months pass and the Passover is a big deal. And since King Josiah eliminated all the satellite altars in the nation a few centuries ago, Joseph and Miriam need to travel south to Jerusalem for their occasional pilgrimage. You Even though Miriam is ready to pop, Joseph has a bunch of cousins in Bethlehem. So they figured they'd have a place to eat and sleep but the family estate, just a few hours walk from the temple. Unfortunately, the cousins are not impressed that Mary was pregnant before the wedding. And telling that it isn't Joseph's baby isn't the kind of thing that's going to make things better from area. But they get lucky. They're not left out in the rain, there's animal shelter nearby. And all the shepherds have taken their flocks out into the countryside for that sweet spring grazing. While Miriam and Joseph are dealing with the labor that may have been accelerated by an 80 mile donkey ride, those shepherds are visited by a Heavenly Messenger who tells them that they need to get to Bethlehem and worship the newborn king. When they get there a little bit, a little baby boy named Joshua is commonly resting in his mother's arms, and the little fella grows up to change the world. That's the Christmas story. Thanks. Yeah, it's the idea that it was a trip for tax purposes, like we've addressed before, is just crazy, Miriam would have stayed home. For sure, especially when the trip would have been terrible when you're pregnant. And there's no way that they didn't already consider the possibility that they wouldn't get to stay at the family estate anyway. And as the word in is almost universally applied to this story, that there's no room in the in most, most versions of the story say and, and it's weird that the word would better be translated as a state of family estate, the place that the family had been living in probably for generations. It's not referring to a public house, but a private family dwelling. The Bible does tell us that shepherds are out in the fields with their flocks, like I said before, less common in cold rainy weather. And whether there were any sources video visiting from the use is unfortunately, impossible to know, did he do? Since that part of the story used to illustrate the special nature of the Christ child isn't super historically reliable, but it is important for our next episode. Because we've got a fan request. Yes,

Katie Dooley  32:33

we're gonna be talking about the 12 days of Christmas, which has already enraged me a few times this December.

Preston Meyer  32:43

I mean, it's, it's too late now to stop the people from using it incorrectly as they have. But

Katie Dooley  32:49

next year, next year, there's gonna be a mass correction, because everyone listen to our podcast. You're gonna share it with your friends. We're gonna have to.

Preston Meyer  33:03

Yeah, so Matthew also goes on to say that after King Herod found out about the baby, he had this mass slaughter planned for the area. And so Jesus and his family had to take off to Egypt. So far, this whole story is seen as very unlikely. The detail of the persecuted child trope, Matthew leaned into that pretty heavily. The author suggested that this fleeing to Egypt, and then back again, would be a fulfillment of prophecy. And it's completely unnecessary. That's a weird interpretation of Scripture, because the prophecy that he's referring to isn't a prophecy at all, but a reference to Israel coming out of Egypt 1000s of years before with the Exodus, this kind of weird. Christianity has a couple of traditions that just don't actually make sense. Coming from a Christian,

Katie Dooley  34:10

that's why we keep you around so I don't get in trouble.

Preston Meyer  34:15

And this whole story about Herod having all the young boys killed, is also really not very likely. Such a massacre was never mentioned by the contemporary historian, Flavius Josephus. A lot of people call him Josephus and I will hate that until the day I die.

Katie Dooley  34:36

Wow. Yes, very passionate.

Preston Meyer  34:39

Josephus is not that pronunciation doesn't happen in Latin. Josephus, Josephus. Joseph, or Yosef is even more likely Okay. Josephus is just kind of an anglicized deal. His name was Yosef, Ben Matthew. Good historian guy, very popular at the time, even though some of his texts have been fiddled around with by the Christians who kept publishing them. That's just the way it goes. But good old Josephus pulled no punches when talking about what an evil douche nozzle, Herod was being a half Jewish king that ended the line of the Maccabean dynasty that we talked about a couple of weeks ago with a Hanukkah story. So if even he didn't mention, a perfectly good reason to hate this dude, when he was willing to tell so many other stories of why you should hate this dude means that story might not have been real. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  35:41

I mean, do you think someone would record something so horrible,

Preston Meyer  35:45

right? It's not clear whether the story had the Magi led by the star to Nazareth or to Bethlehem, Bethlehem being a small suburb of Jerusalem. Nazareth being a very small town that was probably going by a different name up in the north province. And so it's possible that they could have killed 30 kids, and that never hit the news. But it just doesn't seem likely. But if you're really committed to the idea that the biblical story has to be history perfect, then this is what you bought into. We don't have any records outside the biblical texts that testify of the town Nazareth, before the third century. See. So we do know that archaeologically, this, the place that we now call Nazareth has basically always had a city there or a town at least. But some lean tos. Yeah, we've got archaeological evidence of solid structures, people lived in a little bit better than lean to

Katie Dooley  36:59

going away for her by like, before the third century, would there have been anything there?

Preston Meyer  37:05

Oh, yeah. There was stuff there. Just there's no record of it going by that name. I sewers. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting. The Christians, when they started spreading out, they were distinguished from other Jews, not by the name, Christian, but by the name, Nazarene. And in fact, as far as I know, that's how Christians are referred to in Arabic is not Christian. But that's interesting. Yeah. So there's a strong tradition tied to this place that probably never even actually had that name designated to that town. During that time, the time when that name was used. Yeah. It's kind of interesting stuff.

Katie Dooley  37:56

So, I mean, you've kind of mentioned that you think Matthew is mostly fiction. So

Preston Meyer  38:02

Matthew, chapter two, Matthew, chapter two. The early theories of Jesus are a lot less reliable than his adulthood stories.

Katie Dooley  38:11

So like, my question is, and obviously, this little bit matters on your belief and how much is true? How much of this did they go back and write because he became important later in life? You know what I mean? I mean, like, nobody cares about your childhood didn't tell you've done something. All

Preston Meyer  38:30

of the gospels were written a while after that. So it's, that's just the way it goes. History didn't make him important until he was important. And then they're like, Oh, now we need to ask people about what happened. Tell me more about Jesus. And then we get some stories that are less reliable.

Katie Dooley  38:54

little sketchy.

Preston Meyer  38:58

Yeah, it's, it's frustrating. And, uh, definitely give us some pretty solid ground for atheists like yourself to stand on.

Katie Dooley  39:08

I mean, the one the one point I really like, can't suspend my disbelief on is the virgin birth. I just really think Mary is the best liar of all time. got away with it. Well done, girl.

Preston Meyer  39:21

It's interesting that there are scholars who have even decided that there's a name for the secret father of Jesus. Oh, I like that. And his name, according to the scholars is Penn Terra, which is a wicked sounding name. Yeah,

39:38

it's not a bad. Yeah, that's amazing. So

Preston Meyer  39:42

it's loads of scholars for ages, instead of saying there was no Jesus, or instead of saying, oh, yeah, they just made up this story about his birth or like, no, she definitely had sex with somebody else and lied about it. Which I mean, you've gotten offer a lot of options when you want to say the biblical text isn't true. Naming the guy Panthera is bold.

Katie Dooley  40:07

I mean, like, I get it, it's like, I get out because there's a lot of whatever mystical or fantastical things in the bylaws, the Bible, it's what makes it spiritual and divine. And I'm like, but it's never happened before nor haven't said. And again, I recognize that's like, the whole point. But like, you just biologically, you can't do that. There must be some dude, or even it was Joseph. And they're just like, all keeping the

Preston Meyer  40:36

virgin birth is an option today

Katie Dooley  40:41

by injecting a sperm,

Preston Meyer  40:43

right, yeah, it's medically possible. Yeah. And we still need sperm. Right? So adding a little Miracle Touch. I mean, that's starting to look even less special of him here.

Katie Dooley  41:01

I think she just she just got frisky. And she was like, we have to lie about it. And he was like, Okay, well. I don't want to get stoned to death.

Preston Meyer  41:14

Yeah, there were some parts of the Jewish community where that would be a risk. But it's hard to say, after the fact separated by 2000 years, whether or not their

Katie Dooley  41:23

community easily 60 years when people are going back, write the story. It's 60 years is a long time. I don't think it was a full 60 years. And it was the first gospel right?

Preston Meyer  41:33

The first gospel was written probably less than 10 years after Jesus died. But the Gospel of John is said to Britain been written about 60 years after he died. Yeah. So we've got time for people to figure out these stories. Screw up some stories, like

Katie Dooley  41:52

you said, 60 years is, especially then when people didn't live as long. Right? Like, I'm just 30. Right? So for me to write about someone that died 60 years or six years ago. Yeah, that's three years before I was born.

Preston Meyer  42:08

Yes, that is the case. However, I'm

Katie Dooley  42:10

just doing complicated math on this podcast, guys.

Preston Meyer  42:14

So John, the Revelator, or John the Apostle, or John the Evangelist, whoever wrote the Gospel, according to John would have been a very, very old man. He was pretty surely younger than Jesus by a few years. Hard to say how much he may have been older. That seems unlikely. But that would have put him still close to 90 when

Katie Dooley  42:37

he wrote it is almost unheard of 2000 years ago. Yeah, it was weird for people to live in weird now. Like our life expectancy now is 82. I think in Canada. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  42:49

contrary to popular belief, the average life expectancy of the human race has never actually been 30. We had a lot of infant mortality, historically speaking, until brings down the average that brings down your average average.

Katie Dooley  43:09

Actually, just thinking about that, when before you even said it. I was like, Yeah, but there's so many people who die. Yeah. That even if the most people in Canada live till 90, there's enough people who died, bring it down, whatever that young is, whether it's a kid or a 30 year old or 40 year old.

Preston Meyer  43:25

Yeah. So it's always been normal to at least make it into your 60s if you made it to puberty. Unless you of course, you were actively engaged in Mortal Kombat. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  43:39

Cool. Um, what are your final thoughts on this Christmas story?

Preston Meyer  43:48

Well, Luke did try really hard to compile good information from a wide variety of sources. And either he or some later editor clearly made some mistakes, especially about the taxes and the census. And definitely some other time sensitive historical details some benchmarks on when things happened, probably is very real possibility. But unfortunately, the entirety of Matthew chapter two, I have to dismiss his fiction. It's a great story. But it's the dangerous kind of fiction that leads scholars, priests and laymen alike into making misleading assumptions that undermine the integrity of the whole narrative. And that's frustrating. Yeah. But it's all about directing people's attention to Jesus and appreciating him even more than normal for one special day, even if it's several months removed from appropriate time.

Katie Dooley  44:55

Right. You can follow us

Preston Meyer  44:59

on Instagram Facebook on 201 YouTube.

Katie Dooley  45:03

Yeah, it's court check out our Patreon and our Spreadshirt we're putting up new Patreon content we put up a fun little radio show called Miami Christ the other day. So much fun recording some interviews planned for the new year that will not be public release and only for our patrons. So check us out on there. And then we have a fabulous another fabulous contest sponsored by Blackbird farm and apothecary, they've been

Preston Meyer  45:33

very generous with helping us out a little bit and we want to return the favor. We're running another contest.

Katie Dooley  45:43

This time we are giving away a PSP with you cutting board and it's going to be a little different last time we got you to like can share on social media, but we're pushing our Discord this

Preston Meyer  45:56

time. So we want you to get on board discord, and you'll see the rules for the giveaway there.

Katie Dooley  46:02

All you have to do is take pictures show us that you're following Blackbird apothecary and farm on either Facebook or Instagram and POSTED IN OUR DISCORD center.

Preston Meyer  46:11

And what's the prize?

Katie Dooley  46:13

I already said a peace be with you cutting board

Preston Meyer  46:15

gotta emphasize that a piece.

Katie Dooley  46:17

You got your meat on our fingers.

46:24

Was that a good ad?

Katie Dooley  46:25

I love it. Thank you so much. winner will be announced on Discord on January 7.

Preston Meyer  46:32

So be sure to check out our friends at Blackbird farm and apothecary on Facebook and Instagram. Peace be with you. By the late Middle Ages consumed