A Christmas Myth? Pushing "Evidence" Beyond the Christmas Story

"Shepherds Delight" by Neal Fowler is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Memes are circulating faster than ever. Stories "go viral" in a matter of minutes. Fictitious emails, doctored pictures, and urban legends rehashed as fact spread like wild-fire thanks to Facebook and Twitter. Having fallen prey to several of these in the past, I have become alert to some tell-tale signs and usually follow up by going to Snopes.com to see if it's "too good to be true." Nine times out of ten it is.

The other day my dad asked me to sit and watch a video with him called "Bethlehem: Beyond the Christmas Story" from Day of Discovery, hosted by Jimmy DeYoung. I have no previous experience with this ministry or the scholarship of Mr. DeYoung, so I had no idea of what to expect.

DeYoung presents a theory that the birth of Jesus took place in a room that shepherds used to birth sacrificial lambs. This room is purported to be at the base of an edifice we know only through Scripture and some rabbinic writings--Migdal Eder (Tower of the Flock). According to him, the shepherds that were tending to their flocks in the fields of Bethlehem were no ordinary shepherds but rather levitically trained shepherd who watched over the flocks destined for Temple sacrifice. As such, he claimed, they would have been familiar with the prophesies about the messiah's birth in Bethlehem. Then he offered up another intriguing morsel to tie up all the loose ends.

This final claim really caught my attention because it sounded so odd to me. He stated that when these shepherds delivered a lamb, they would wrap them in swaddling clothes and lay them in a manger until they calmed down. They didn't want the disoriented lamb to thrash around and twist a limb and thus be ineligible for sacrifice.

The supposed proof that unified this theory was that the angels never told the shepherds exactly where to go in order to find the baby Jesus. According to this theory, they didn't need to because a message of messiah born+wrapped in swaddling clothes+lying in a manger=the birthing room at Migdal Eder. Interesting theory...and also a little too neat and tidy for my taste. Lambs wrapped in swaddling clothes sounds like the very kind of thing people would have latched on to and talked about a lot, so why am I just now hearing about it? It's not like I have my head in the sand. I read commentaries and other material on 1st century culture and customs--books by guys like Victor Matthews, Craig Keener, Kenneth Bailey, N.T. Wright and Ben Witherington III. So I set out to check the sources (if it gets overly detailed, this is because there are scores of blogs and websites that are touting unsourced hearsay in this matter).

To make this easier, let's break it down into individual claims:

1. Shepherds at Bethlehem were temple shepherds, caring for flocks destined for sacrifice.

2. There was a birthing room under Migdal Eder (the Tower of the Flock) in or around Bethlehem.

3. Shepherds wrapped new born sacrificial lambs in swaddling clothes and laid them in mangers to keep them from harming themselves and disqualifying themselves for sacrifice.

First of all, DeYoung uses Alfred Edersheim, a 19th century scholar who relied on late source material for many of his deductions. Since Edersheim's time the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi library have shed new light on the 1st century life and thought. Still, I wanted to be generous and thorough, so I pulled a copy of Edersheim's The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah to see what he actually wrote. His claim that Migdal Eder was linked in Jewish expectation to the Messiah finds it's source in the targum (translation/commentary) Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 35:21. However, current scholarship dates this targum to the 4th century A.D., so this doesn't necessarily tell us what 1st century expectation was.

 Edersheim makes a case for priestly shepherds based on a couple of passages from the Mishnah (Shekalim 7:4 and Bava K. 7:7). These seem to check out and reputable scholars, such as Keener, have allowed for the possibility.

However, Edersheim says nothing about the structure of Migdal Eder (and neither do the Biblical texts Genesis 35:21; Micah 4:8), nor does he say anything about these priestly shepherds swaddling newborn lambs. So, I referred to all reputable sources in my personal library that might speak to Migdal Eder or priestly shepherds or swaddling. My conclusions have led me to believe that...

Mr. DeYoung, secondly, seems to use anecdotal evidence or pure conjecture to make this theory more appealing. 

If such a practice as swaddling sheep and laying them in a manger were documented by historians, I am confident that I would have found some evidence for it in the works of careful and thorough commentators and historians as F.F. Bruce, William Barclay, Ben Witherington, Craig Keener, or N.T. Wright. However, the only place I can find any evidence of such a practice is on blogs, none of which cite any sources.

Also, DeYoung repeatedly claims that it was a 2-story stone tower, but where he gets this information is beyond me. He states that the remains of such a tower have not been discovered, but then he states that there was a room in the lower level of this tower where the shepherds would birth sheep. DeYoung admits that they have looked for the remains of this tower but could find none, so without archaeological or textual evidence for the design of such a structure I have no idea how he can make these claims.

 If someone can prove me wrong, I would love to see hard evidence. Sometimes I feel like the Grinch, but thinking Christians need to be careful to investigate information before they pass it along. Don't take everything you read or see at face value.

That being said, my conclusions are that the status of this tale is: unknown. While there is some Biblical and extra-biblical evidence for such a place as Migdal Eder in the vicinity of Bethlehem and possibly tied to the revealing of the messiah, we have no proof or usable evidence for what such a tower would look like. Moreover, while the Bethlehem shepherds may have been priestly shepherds, we have no documentation on how they delivered their sheep.  If I could re-title Mr. DeYoung's theory, I would have to call it Migdal Eder: Beyond the Evidence of the Christmas Story.

Demolishing the Intellectual and Moral Pretensions of Christianity?: My Review of Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation

If you are an intellectual Christian or aspiring to such, at some point you will need to engage the so-called "Four Horsemen of the New Atheism"--Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennent, and Sam Harris. These four men (Hitchens lost a battle with cancer in 2011) are not so much atheists as anti-theists. Their books are popular and influential. As such, I believe that we, as Christians, need to be informed and able to articulate a response. So when I spotted Sam Harris' little book, Letter To a Christian Nation, on the discount rack at the bookstore, I snatched it up and bumped it to the top of my reading list.

 Weighing in at 91 pages, I thought it would be a quick read. I was wrong. I was wrong because I was compelled to dialogue with the book, rather than passively read it. I filled the margins and spaces between sentences with questions and retorts of my own. I would go back through an argument and find the holes and fuzzy logic. It was mentally stimulating to read someone with whom I disagreed at nearly every turn. I rather enjoyed it and just might make it a habit.

This "letter" was written in response to so-called Christians who had "written to tell [him] that [he was] wrong not to believe in God" after the publication of his first book, The End of Faith (vii). He states that "the truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse" (vii).

First of all, it saddens me that so many "Christians" resort to anger and bad-mouthing people for whom Christ died--even if those people refuse to accept it. This adolescent reaction stems from the inability to give thoughtful and learned answers for the hope they have. It is a sign of fear or a clear indicator that other idols occupy the place of Christ in their hearts. While such snarling is unbecoming of a disciple, it does not diminish the reality of the Christian gospel. 

Harris fails to cite any of these "murderously, intolerant" rantings. Later in the book he does lampoon certain passages, leaving me to suppose that these could be the verses that Christians threw at him. He deems these verses morally wanting, but in engaging these passages he smuggles in his own premise that these Old Testament laws are "timeless wisdom." He fails to read them in their context and commits the same intellectual fallacies as the Christians he is berating.

Interestingly enough, Harris is of the opinion that "there is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer" (75). By this point in the letter he has used a snide and snarky tone for seventy-five plus pages, made sweeping assumptions, groundless claims, and moral judgments of his own. He blames religions, in general, for most of the world's conflicts. His basic thought seems to run that:

 Religions give people different opinions about the way the world should be run. Different opinions lead to conflict and war. The world needs to talk its problems out, but religions stand in the way of discourse. However, my atheistic scientific naturalism holds no presuppositions and is therefore neutral and the only way forward.

In other words, "if you don't hold to my worldview, then you are a narrow-minded idiot." I can only imagine Mr. Harris flailing a baseball bat while he spews his disgust over the moral judgments of Christian and Islamic worldviews (and, oh yes, he conflates these two every chance he can get). As Alister McGrath points out in his book Why God Won't Go Away, "Any worldview based on an exclusivist metanarrative (a controlling story) has the potential to provoke hostility...Get rid of religion, and conflict and violence will simply find other occasions for their emergence and other grounds for their justification" (71, 79). The anger than emerges out of the "new atheism" in books like this, as well as on atheist websites and forum demonstrates this clearly enough.

In the end, I found this letter to be pure rhetorical tripe that relied on false inferences, unsubstantiated claims, non sequitur arguments, straw men, and gross double standards. He fails to show how atheism provides a moral framework for a world filled with love and self-sacrifice. 

On the one hand, he spins religion as a by-product of evolution, but then claims that it causes the greatest evils. He claims to believe in objective truth, believes that certain behaviors are moral reprehensible and should be punished, makes a case for abortion as a lesser of two evils, and yet sits in judgment on a god that would ever dare to kill anyone. 

His ethics are utilitarian when they suit his needs, but he moves to emotionally based appeals when they don't. In brief, it falls far short of "demolish[ing] the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms" (Harris, ix).

The Greatest Mystery Of Christmas

Today is Advent Sunday, and while the world may kick off their Christmas celebrations with Black Friday (how fitting in a consumer driven society), the Church has the grand opportunity to use this season to reflect upon the doctrine of the Incarnation. This is our time to ponder and stand in awe of the ultimate mystery that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory" (Jn 1:14). We often do a good job of understanding that Christ was born of a virgin and was born into poverty. We contemplate the events surrounding His birth as so much history. Then we skip to the Atonement. He came to die. The end.

It is true that one of the reasons Christ came was to die to redeem us, but maybe we shouldn't rush to the end of the story during this time of year. We have Lent, Good Friday and Easter to contemplate those aspects from a Church calendar standpoint. But this time of year is the season to wrap our minds around the fact of Emmanuel--"God with us." God one of us. The Incarnation is mind blowing. Trying to understand the intricacies of the Theandric Union can either fry our brains or fill us with wonder at the greatness of Almighty God.

Luther wrote: "It is not for the angels to be proud of Christ's incarnation, for Christ did not assume and angelic but a human nature. Therefore it would not be a surprise if the angels looked at us with envy in their eyes because we human beings, creatures far inferior to them and sinners besides, are placed above them into an honor so high and great. They worship Christ, who has become our Brother, our flesh and blood" (Serm. on Col. 1:18-20 quoted in Thomas Oden, The Word of Life).

We have a God who can identify with us! He knows, in an experiential way, our struggles and weaknesses. This is one of the messages of the Advent season. What might it mean that God became flesh? Not just in a systematic theological sort of way but in a personal way. Do we need to sit back and think about that one for a while? That's what this season is all about. That's the greatest mystery of Christmas.

(Originally published 2009 under the title "God With Us" @ www.4sixteen.blogspot.com)

My First Lesson On Not Being A Biblical Scholar of the Gaps

I was in the sixth or seventh grade when I learned one of the most foundational principles I would carry forward in my work as a Bible student and theologian. I was in the middle-school Sunday school class at my church. The teacher, Cindy, didn't seem particularly comfortable teaching middle-schoolers--especially know-it-all preacher's kids. But she was dedicated to two things--the Bible and making her students think.

I wish I could remember what she was teaching or how she was teaching it. Unfortunately, all I remember is where it ended up. She must have been talking about the dinosaurs and how they fit into creation, when I spoke up as a proponent of "the Gap theory." Bad move on my part.

At some point in my childhood, someone had explained to me this theory that the reason dinosaurs did not appear in the Bible was because there was a "gap" between Genesis 1:1--"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and Genesis 1:2 "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep..." The Gap Theory runs that God created the heavens and the earth in verse one but by the time that we've made it all the way to verse two, we find it formless and void. Logical conclusion? God created a good earth populated with dinosaurs and other creatures and then destroyed that world for unknown reasons before starting over in Genesis 1:3.

The first thing Cindy said was, "Show me where or how you can find that in the Bible." In other words, she wanted me to prove my case with evidence. So I went home and pulled all our reference books that talked about the lost world of the Gap. I made photo copies for her of my extensive research, but she was unimpressed. 

"I'm not talking about what someone else says. I'm talking about showing me evidence from the Bible."

I went back to work, and you know what I found? Nothing. The Gap Theory had a gap in Biblical credibility. It also had a gap in logic. While it is possible that there is a gap in time between passages, it is unprovable  from silence. When I looked at how it stacked up with the other possible explanations of the data, it was the least credible.

This lesson has formed me in how I interpret the Bible. Even though my teacher didn't know it, she was showing me the difference between eisegesis (bringing outside ideas into the interpretive process) and exegesis (interpreting from the text). We shouldn't try to make our square peg fit into a round hole, rather we should allow the peg to dictate what hole it will fit. As students of the Word, we can't afford to build our arguments or beliefs on thin air. We need to push towards evidential arguments from exegesis. But not only that--we need to push students in our churches to think and study for themselves. It's never too early to learn that lesson.

Why and How To Use Biblical Commentaries

Last week I had a conversation with a gentleman about reading and understanding the Bible. In the course of our talk he made a comment that he didn't put any stock in commentaries. I wish I could say that this was the first time I had heard someone make such a statement, but it wasn't. Sadly, I have talked with several folks who have a "me and my Bible" approach to study, meaning they pick up the Bible, interpret it for themselves, and believe that it means whatever they understand it to mean. Their line of reasoning is that God wrote the Bible to communicate with people for all time, so it just can't be all that complicated.

Some people are skeptical of scholars and commentaries in the same way I am skeptical of used car salesmen and contractors going door-to-door. The prejudice seems to run that these learned types are trying to take away our time-honored understandings of Scripture and baffle us with BS (that's Bible Study if you are easily offended). These well-meaning people fail to realize that any time they talk with someone else about the Bible, hear a sermon or a Sunday school lesson on a particular passage they are listening to commentary. Commentaries are merely a person's reflections on a book of the Bible. The best ones present sound exegetical proofs for their inferences and subsequent case for interpretation. Commentaries are conversation partners we invite into our dialogue.

Other Christians have the opposite problem. Rather than engage in a conversation with several informed voices, they read one or two commentaries and take everything they have to say as God's honest truth without doing any of their own study. No interpretation of Scripture outside of the Bible is inspired, so we can't afford to hand off our brain to another interpreter. So, what is the proper way to use commentaries in the service of Biblical interpretation? Read two or more only after you have conducted your own study.

My mentor, Dr. David Bauer, always teaches his students to inductively study the Bible, looking to such things as key terms and definitions, book survey, immediate and broader book context, word usage, NT and OT usage, etc. before they ever pick up a commentary. However, reading a few commentaries is an important part of interpretation because without other scholars weighing in on a subject it can be quite easy to see what you want to see in a particular passage. The scripture doesn't belong to you or me--it belongs to the Church, and it is in the community of faith that we should interpret it.

If you are new to reading commentaries and are not sure how to get started, you should know a few things. There are several types of commentaries aimed at different levels of learning. There are devotional commentaries, which illustrate the scholar's interpretation but offer few to no proofs along the way. These can be edifying (or even good for sermon helps) but they aren't helpful for a student engaged in deep study. You need to be able to understand how the commentator got there. Commentaries of this type would be Matthew Henry's Commentary or N.T. Wright's "New Testament For Everyone" series.

Then there are exegetical commentaries, which build a case for an interpretation from the text using such things as original languages, grammar, context, historical background, etc. There are numerous types of these with various levels of technicality. Some are easily read by a lay person while some are difficult for an academic. Personally, I use the IVP New Testament series, Tyndale New Testament series, Word Biblical Commentaries, New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) and New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT), and New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) to name a few. If you want further help in selecting good study resources, I highly recommend Dr. Bauer's An Annotated Guide to Resources For Ministry.

Once you find some that work for you, don't feel the need to read them like regular books. They are reference tools. A good one will be laid out in such a way that you can dip in at the points in the conversation where you are interested or need clarity.

Please let me know if this has been helpful to you or if you have any thoughts or questions.

Getting Rid of Negative Thoughts

Unless your name is Pollyanna, you have probably had some days and nights where negative thoughts took over and darkened your mood. I'm not just talking about waking up on the wrong side of the bed and having a bad morning. I'm talking about a long-term funk.

A few weeks ago I started feeling a bit down-in-the-mouth with no clear reason. My wife would ask me what was wrong, but I could not articulate the problem. No one thing seemed to be the culprit. After ten or twelve days of this nonsense I sat down with my journal and decided to do a "brain dump" of everything negative that I could think might be a factor. I wrote a paragraph: gray weather, lack of exercise, bad eating habits, a few frustrations at the church, some disappointments on a couple of projects...

Then I wrote a heading--Blessings--and began to note some of the things for which I was grateful. My dad had my sister and me do this when we were kids. Before I knew it I had quite a list of blessings and my mood had improved.

Every time I do this exercise I can hear my dad singing "Count Your Blessings" in  the background.
"Count your many blessing name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done..."

This is a useful way to get our minds out of a cycle of negativity. Why do our minds move towards entropy? Why do worry, bitterness, frustration, and guilt crop up more frequently than peace, contentment, and hope? And misery loves company, so the cycle continues, spiraling down, down, down until we're depressed. The negative thoughts bounce off each other and echo in our minds with increasing intensity until we no longer know the source. Writing helps us sort things out.

But is this the best way to maintain a positive outlook on life? Is this the type of exercise that Paul was advocating in his letters, particularly in the letter to the Philippians? "Rejoice in the blessings always..." That is not what it says, but rather, "Rejoice in the Lord always." Do you see the difference? Blessings and circumstances can change--just read Job. Jesus does not.

Theologian Leslie Newbigin was once asked whether he was an optimist or a pessimist. He replied, "I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead." That is a powerful statement. Optimism or pessimism have to do with the state of things in our world. Are they improving or going to improve or are they declining with no hope of recovery? Neither. Christ is risen.

What in creation does that mean? Not creation but New Creation. Two verses of Scripture will help me illustrate how I understand this. First, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come" (ESV). Except that isn't what the Greek technically says. It says, "Therefore, if anyone [is] in Christ a new creation. The old things have passed away; Behold! has emerged the new." The Greek doesn't indicate that the person is new, but rather that in Christ they live in a new creation...a new creation that is emerging. It is not fully here, but it will be one day.

The second passage that speaks to this issue is five chapters later in 2 Corinthians 10: 5. Paul writes, "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of  God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" (ESV emphasis mine). The context of the passage indicates that we don't wage war through physical means but through ideas and truth. We are to take every thought captive--that means our own fallen and sinful thoughts too. We make them captive to Christ Jesus because, as the verse in chapter five shows, those who are in Christ have a new creation. The rules have changed. Christ has risen. Death has been reversed. The ultimate consequence of the fall has been stripped of its power and now we can have eternal life in relationship with God. Everything else is peanuts compared with that.

So when we find ourselves depressed it does us good to think on positive things, but those positive things shouldn't simply be the material or circumstantial blessings that God has given us. Rather we should look to the blessing we have in Christ. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3 ESV). Through Him we have New Creation. We need not choose between optimism or pessimism--the victory has already been won.

So when you find yourself dwelling on negative thoughts, fix your eyes upon Christ "and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace" (Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, Helen Howarth Lemmel).

Apologizing For the Gospel

It seems that everyone is entitled to their opinion these days, even if their opinion is crass, disrespectful, unpatriotic, ignorant, or down-right devoid of objective proof. Scientific naturalism is touted with religious zeal as the answer to all of life's problems, while moral relativism is being championed with equal fervor. Somehow these two worldviews seem to be tag-teaming Christianity to shut us up. Naturalism likes to proclaim "facts" that eliminate God while relativism states that there are no absolutes. All opinions are equally valid unless, of course, your opinion is exclusive. This truth claim is self-refuting, but so many people in our culture, including those inside of a Christian worldview, are so unschooled in basic logic that truth claims like this often go unchallenged or become outright accepted. Thus, many Christians give away ground and apologize for the exclusivity of the Gospel.

Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

Everyone may be entitled to their own opinions, but not all opinions are equally valid. An opinion is simply a person's interpretation of a particular matter. Opinions are subjective. But objective truth still exists, and our opinions only hold water insofar as they comport with reality. Imagine that you see a person standing atop a 20 story building who is about to walk off the ledge, and you say, "Get away from the edge! You will fall to your death." The person cheerfully states, "Oh, I won't die. The law of gravity doesn't apply to me. As a matter of opinion, I doubt whether or not gravity is even real." Who do you think would be right? They may be entitled to their opinion, but their opinion would be dead wrong.

Christianity is not based on subjective truth claims. We may have experiential reasons for holding onto our faith. The apostle Paul had such a starting point for his beliefs on the Damascus Road, but his subjective experience never stood alone. However, so many Christians that I have talked with retreat into subjective reasons for their faith in Christ without having objective backing. "You ask me how I know He lives...He lives within my heart," as the old song goes. Or more recently, "God's not dead. He's surely alive. He's living on the inside, roaring like a lion..." "Heaven is for real" because some person had a vision, near death experience, or the like. Don't hear me saying that these reasons are wrong or invalid, they are just not very useful for interacting with skeptics. 

We need to be able to apologize for our belief in the Gospel--not in the English sense of the word but in the Greek sense. The branch of Christian study dedicated to offering reasons for our faith and defending it is called apologetics. Apologetics has nothing to do with being sorry for our beliefs or opinions. It comes from the Greek word apologia, meaning 1.) A speech of defense, defense, reply 2.) The act of making a defense. Peter exhorts all believers to this when he writes, "...always being ready to [apologia] to anyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you..." (1 Peter 3:15 NASB).

As long as we lean on opinions and subjective reasoning we will constantly be lashing out in anger or apologizing for our beliefs in the face of a belligerent world. We need not apologize for the exclusive claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, rather we need to apologia for the hope that we have. We need to be able to go further than "how I know" into "and here is how you can know as well."

If you have not examined the evidence for Christ, then I greatly encourage you to listen to the apostle Peter and do so. Faith is not against reason. Our faith is reasonable.

If you need a good starting point, I recommend  The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel or Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace.