Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 07-17-2011, 10:29 PM

The claim is that Jesus' birth in Bethlehem fulfilled some sort of prophecy.

From the Skeptic's Annotated Bible

Quote:

Matthew claims that Jesus' birth in Bethlehem fulfils the prophecy in Micah 5:2. But this is unlikely for two reasons.

"Bethlehem Ephratah" in Micah 5:2 refers not to a town, but to a clan: the clan of Bethlehem, who was the son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah (1 Chr.2:18, 2:50-52, 4:4).
The prophecy (if that is what it is) does not refer to the Messiah, but rather to a military leader, as can be seen from Micah 5:6. This leader is supposed to defeat the Assyrians, which, of course, Jesus never did.

It should also be noted that Matthew altered the text of Micah 5:2 by saying: "And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda" rather than "Bethlehem Ephratah" as is said in Micah 5:2. He did this, intentionally no doubt, to make the verse appear to refer to the town of Bethlehem rather than the family clan. 2:5-6

An alternative view is presented here by Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, that Bethlehem was the center of Adonis worship:

Quote:

Some mythologists insist that the Adonis shrine is the very same one as the Christians revere, that instead of originating with Jesus and Christianity, the shrine began with the cult of Adonis, a deity of rebirth and vegetation. They say that the holy cave was consecrated by the heathens to the worship of Adonis and that it was the Christians who took over this pagan centre giving a precedent later for the many early churches in Europe and America being built on the sites of pagan temples.

Indeed, the actual existence of Adonis worship in Bethlehem cannot be disputed it is just a matter of when it took place - before or after the birth of Jesus. Yet the fact that the Church of the Nativity, the oldest continuously used Christian place of worship in the world covers the site of a former temple to Adonis is seldom mentioned. The church's importance is because as well as safeguarding the alleged birthplace of Jesus it is the sole major church now in the Holy Land that survives intact from the early Christian period. This ancient basilica was built by Empress Helena, the devout mother of Emperor Constantine after she travelled from Rome and started turning this eastern corner of the Mediterranean into the Holy Land.

... Saint Jerome, the erudite scholar who was the first to translate the bible into Latin, lived in Bethlehem in the 4th and early 5th centuries and wrote in his Epistle 58, that prior to the construction of the church that the birth cave 'where the infant Messiah once cried' had been consecrated to the worship of Adonis, 'the paramour of Venus'. Like other early Christians he insisted that Adonis' followers came after Jesus, that they were only practicing in Bethlehem during the 180 years between Emperor Hadrian's time, that is 135AD, until the reign of Constantine when the church was built. Jerome also described the site of the Church of the Nativity as being shaded by a sacred grove of trees planted by Hadrian to wipe out the memory of Jesus.
....

ApostateAbe · 07-17-2011, 11:06 PM

LXX Micah 5:2 does not use the word for "clans" as in the Hebrew but instead the word for "thousands," so I don't think it should be considered so extraordinary that the community of Matthew interpreted Bethlehem to be the town instead of the clan, especially when Matthew makes the explicit connection.

TedM · 07-17-2011, 11:24 PM

King David was from Bethlehem.

1 Samual 16

Quote:

18And one of the servants answering, said: Behold I have seen a son of Isai, the Bethlehemite, a skilful player, and one of great strength, and a man fit for war, and prudent in his words, and a comely person: and the Lord is with him. 19 Then Saul sent messengers to Isai, saying: Send me David, your son, who is in the pastures.

The Messiah was to be like the next King David (multiple passages). The Messiah was often also portrayed as a military leader. That didn't stop Jews 500+ years later from still looking for a Messiah in passages that appear to no longer have been relevant. And, it doesn't stop Christians from finding him in many of those same passages. The Micah passages are a good example of combining both ideals--a King like David, and a military leader who triumphs over the enemies of God's people.

Toto · 07-18-2011, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

LXX Micah 5:2 does not use the word for "clans" as in the Hebrew but instead the word for "thousands," so I don't think it should be considered so extraordinary that the community of Matthew interpreted Bethlehem to be the town instead of the clan, especially when Matthew makes the explicit connection.

Why would thousands imply a city?

From here

Quote:

Each tribe was divided into clans or "thousands" (each thousand containing a thousand families: like our old English division of counties into hundreds), ...

Matt 2:6 interprets this as "princes" - referring to the heads of the clans. But this is a person, not a location.

Toto · 07-18-2011, 01:20 AM

Both Bethlehem and Nazareth seem to go back to creative readings of the LXX.

Vridar on Bethlehem-Nazareth responding to Tim O'Neil

Quote:

... Responding to standard arguments for Jesus’ historicity

(ii) he was from Nazareth

. . . . Not only is the fact that he was from Nazareth a feature of all versions of the stories but Nazareth itself appears, with Jesus being scorned and rejected there. This was clearly a problem for the gospel writers, because the Jewish expectation was that the Messiah was going to come from Bethlehem. So the writers of Matthew and Luke both tell stories to “explain” how a man who was known to be and who was depicted as being from Nazareth could actually have been born in Bethlehem.

...

It is said that Nazareth is one element in the gospel narrative that is “clearly awkward for the gospel writers”. ...

The awkwardness is seen by the apparent “fact” that Nazareth does not fit the Jewish expectation that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem. There is simply no evidence that there ever was such an expectation. Yet there is evidence against. This “fact” is nothing more than a backward projection by later Christians.

Steven Carr · 07-18-2011, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Both Bethlehem and Nazareth seem to go back to creative readings of the LXX.

Vridar on Bethlehem-Nazareth responding to Tim O'Neil

Quote:

... Responding to standard arguments for Jesus’ historicity

(ii) he was from Nazareth

. . . . Not only is the fact that he was from Nazareth a feature of all versions of the stories but Nazareth itself appears, with Jesus being scorned and rejected there. This was clearly a problem for the gospel writers, because the Jewish expectation was that the Messiah was going to come from Bethlehem. So the writers of Matthew and Luke both tell stories to “explain” how a man who was known to be and who was depicted as being from Nazareth could actually have been born in Bethlehem.

It is said that Nazareth is one element in the gospel narrative that is “clearly awkward for the gospel writers”. ...

The awkwardness is seen by the apparent “fact” that Nazareth does not fit the Jewish expectation that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem. There is simply no evidence that there ever was such an expectation. Yet there is evidence against. This “fact” is nothing more than a backward projection by later Christians.

Does Tim O'Neill have Jewish writings before 30 AD discussing how the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem? I would be interested to see those.

Perhaps they are the same writings that discuss Isaiah 53. I honestly don't know where they are, but Tim O'Neill obviously does. Perhaps he could tell us.

If Nazareth was mentioned , even though it was embarrassing, because the Gospel writers could not get around the fact that Jesus came from this town, then how could they get away with claiming Jesus was born in Bethlehem?

If they were constrained by history to report Nazareth, why were they suddenly free of those constraints?

And if the birth narratives are fiction, why do mainstream Biblical scholars use them to try to work out roughly when Jesus was born?
...

Juststeve · 07-18-2011, 06:13 AM

Steven:

They were constrained by History to acknowledge that Jesus was from Nazareth but they were constrained by an apologetic motive to place his birth in Bethlehem. Luke and Matthew handle these dual constraints differently.

Steve

TedM · 07-18-2011, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Does Tim O'Neill have Jewish writings before 30 AD discussing how the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem? I would be interested to see those.

There used to be an online link to an voluminous work by a scholar 100 years or so ago (I think) who identified all of the passages considered BY JEWS to have been, or possibly been, Messianic in nature, with supporting references. Perhaps someone here has the link. I didn't find it with a quick search. His coverage of the Micah passage might be helpful.

OT: is there a way to do archive searches on this forum? It appears to only go back a year or so now, and there is a ton of information prior to that (including some discussion of the above referenced work).

ApostateAbe · 07-18-2011, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

LXX Micah 5:2 does not use the word for "clans" as in the Hebrew but instead the word for "thousands," so I don't think it should be considered so extraordinary that the community of Matthew interpreted Bethlehem to be the town instead of the clan, especially when Matthew makes the explicit connection.

Why would thousands imply a city?

From here

Quote:

Each tribe was divided into clans or "thousands" (each thousand containing a thousand families: like our old English division of counties into hundreds), ...

Matt 2:6 interprets this as "princes" - referring to the heads of the clans. But this is a person, not a location.

Yeah, the point is that it is not at all out of the question for Matthew to interpret the "thousands" as a city, and we know in fact he did because that is what is on the face of the text of Matthew. He misinterpreted the LXX passage, and that explanation is plausible. If Matthew's explicit claim were not plausible, then maybe we would need a new and bizarre reason that Matthew may have chose Bethlehem, like that thing about Adonis.

TedM · 07-18-2011, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

LXX Micah 5:2 does not use the word for "clans" as in the Hebrew but instead the word for "thousands," so I don't think it should be considered so extraordinary that the community of Matthew interpreted Bethlehem to be the town instead of the clan, especially when Matthew makes the explicit connection.

Why would thousands imply a city?

From here

Quote:

Each tribe was divided into clans or "thousands" (each thousand containing a thousand families: like our old English division of counties into hundreds), ...

Matt 2:6 interprets this as "princes" - referring to the heads of the clans. But this is a person, not a location.

Yeah, the point is that it is not at all out of the question for Matthew to interpret the "thousands" as a city, and we know in fact he did because that is what is on the face of the text of Matthew. He misinterpreted the LXX passage, and that explanation is plausible. If Matthew's explicit claim were not plausible, then maybe we would need a new and bizarre reason that Matthew may have chose Bethlehem, like that thing about Adonis.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but the clan is likely associated with the town of Bethlehem, since we know that their close relative David WAS born there?:

It seems to me that anyone looking for the birthplace of the Messiah in the OT would most logically choose Bethlehem even if the passage refers to the clan because 1) it can be interpreted as referring to the town and 2) they possibly founded the town of Bethlehem, or resided in Bethlehem and 3) even without the passage, since the Messiah was to be another much like King David, wouldn't it make sense for him to be born in the same place as King David was? 4) no other town is clearly named

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07-17-2011, 11:06 PM	#2
ApostateAbe Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MT Posts: 10,656	LXX Micah 5:2 does not use the word for "clans" as in the Hebrew but instead the word for "thousands," so I don't think it should be considered so extraordinary that the community of Matthew interpreted Bethlehem to be the town instead of the clan, especially when Matthew makes the explicit connection.

07-18-2011, 06:13 AM	#7
Juststeve Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dallas Texas Posts: 758	Steven: They were constrained by History to acknowledge that Jesus was from Nazareth but they were constrained by an apologetic motive to place his birth in Bethlehem. Luke and Matthew handle these dual constraints differently. Steve

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