Almost all of us, at one time or another, have participated in a Christmas pageant. We have been angels or shepherds, wise men or Joseph, the Virgin Mary or …
Dear Friends:
As the calendar in the year 2014 dictates this column should arrive at your email address at about 2:00 o’clock A.M. Eastern Standard Time on December 25th. …
Matthew, having provided Jesus stories for the Sabbaths between Sukkoth and the final major Jewish festival of the liturgical year, is now ready to relate Jesus to this last …
The wise men from Matthew’s birth story have been deeply attached to our Christmas celebration, stretching all the way back to the time that Matthew introduced them in the …
It is difficult for most Christians to imagine that the story of Jesus’ virgin birth was a late developing tradition in the Christian faith, yet it appears to have …
Luke concludes his birth story with a series of episodes designed to point to the story of the adult Jesus. First, in Luke’s story, the shepherds depart, while …
Having now described the miraculous birth of Jesus in chapter one of his gospel, Matthew turns next to his account of how the birth of Jesus was divinely “rolled …
Matthew is the gospel writer (82-85) who first introduced the story of Jesus’ miraculous or virgin birth into the tradition. He did so with the seventeen most boring verses …
The familiar stories of Jesus’ miraculous birth entered the Christian tradition in two different forms, separated by perhaps a decade. The original narrative was written by a man we …
The first gospel to be written, the one we call Mark, was composed in the early years of the 8th decade (70-72). It contains no story of and no …