A Historical and Parabolic Approach
The parabolic approach needs to be combined with a historical approach, and so we add a second adjective to our way of seeing the birth stories. By “historical,” we do not mean factual, even as we recognize that that is one of the meanings people associate with the word in our time. When people ask about a story, “Is that historical?” they mean, “Did that happen? Is that factual?”
But this is not what we mean. Rather, a historical approach to these stories means setting these ancient parables in their first-century context. Just as the parables of Jesus become powerfully meaningful in their first-century context, so also do early Christian stories about Jesus. A historical approach means “ancient text in ancient context.” What did these stories mean for the Christian communities that told them near the end of the first century?
This historical-parabolic or historical-metaphorical approach to the birth stories is shared by the vast majority of contemporary mainstream scholars. Moreover, it has a broader application to biblical narratives generally: it is always the more-than-literal, the more-than-factual meaning of biblical stories that matters most. That is why they were told again and again, because of their surplus of meaning.
Seeing the birth stories as parabolic narratives provides a way of moving beyond the fractious and fruitless “fact or fable” conflict, marked by endless assertion and counterassertion: “They’re factually true.” “No, they aren’t.” “Yes, they are.” “No, they’re not.” When their factuality is emphasized, the issue becomes, “Do I believe them or not?” Did these events, including especially the spectacular ones, actually happen? The debate is not only fruitless, but a distraction, for it shifts attention away from the truly important question: what do these stories mean? Quite apart from whether they happened, what did they and do they mean?
Parables as Subversive Stories
A second feature of the parables of Jesus adds to our model for interpreting the birth stories. In addition to providing a way of seeing that parabolic language can be true independently of factuality, his parables were subversive stories.
They subverted conventional ways of seeing life and God. They undermined a “world,” meaning a taken-for-granted way of seeing “the way things are.” Jesus’s parables invited his hearers into a different way of seeing how things are and how we might live. As invitations to see differently, they were subversive. Indeed, perhaps seeing differently is the foundation of subversion.
Like his parables, the birth stories are subversive. They subverted the “world” in which Jesus and early Christianity lived. As stories told by his followers late in the first century, they are part of their testimony, their witness, to the significance that Jesus had come to have for them. That significance had at its center a different vision of life, a vision they got from Jesus—from his teaching, his public activity, and his life, death, and vindication by God. The vision was embodied in Jesus, incarnate in Jesus.
And just as Jesus told subversive stories about God, his followers told subversive stories about Jesus. The gospels are full of them. The birth stories are among them. To illustrate, we here simply name, without detailed exposition, some of the themes we develop at greater length in the rest of this book:
Who is the “King of the Jews”? That was Herod the Great’s title, but Matthew’s story tells us Herod was more like Pharaoh, the lord of Egypt, the lord of bondage and oppression, violence and brutality. And his son was no better. Rather, Jesus is the true King of the Jews. And the rulers of his world sought to destroy him.
Who is the Son of God, Lord, savior of the world, and the one who brings peace on earth? Within Roman imperial theology, the emperor, Caesar, was all of these. No, Luke’s story says, that status and those titles belong to Jesus. He—not the emperor—is the embodiment of God’s will for the earth.
Who is the light of the world? The emperor, son of Apollo, the god of light and reason and imperial order? Or is Jesus, who was executed by empire, the light in the darkness, the true light to whom the wise of this world are drawn?
Where do we find the fulfillment of God’s dream for Israel and humanity? In the way things are now? Or only beyond death? Or in a very different world this side of death?
The birth stories subvert the dominant consciousness of the first-century world as well as our own. Jesus’s followers learned well how to tell subversive stories, and presumably they learned the gift from him.
Thus, in our considered judgment, Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2 contain, and were intended to contain, minimal historical information—probably just the three items that Jesus was a historical figure whose parents were Mary and Joseph and whose home was at Nazareth in Galilee. But, in this book, we are not interested in a long string of negatives or a dreary list of what did not happen. Rather, the realization of how little is historical in these stories points to parabolic meaning. It is never, ever enough to say that some event did not happen without asking, why, then, did Matthew or Luke create it? And that is always a question of meaning.
PARABOLIC OVERTURES
We turn next to a second major and equally important facet of those two Christmas stories. They are not just parables, but overtures, parabolic overtures—each to its respective gospel. In other words, Matthew 1–2 is a miniature version of the succeeding Matthew 3–28, and Luke 1–2 is a miniature version of Luke 3–24. Each is its own gospel in miniature and microcosm. But, since Matthew and Luke have quite different gospels, they must also have quite different overtures.
What exactly is an overture? It is the opening part (French ouverture) of a work that serves as summary, synthesis, metaphor, or symbol of the whole. We all recognize overtures quite easily when we are dealing with classical operas or popular musicals. But it may be harder to grasp an overture in a literary text. But here is a good example even in a historical study.
Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August is a magnificent history of the outbreak of World War I. Her 1962 Pulitzer Prize winner has three major parts entitled “Plans,” “Outbreak,” and “Battle.” But her first chapter precedes those three sections and is entitled “A Funeral.” She describes how the crowned heads of Europe gathered in London for the burial of Edward VII. She is both starting her story by describing what actually happened that May morning in 1910 and symbolizing the burial of the old European order that would follow it between 1914 and 1918 as millions died, dynasties fell, and thrones were emptied forever. A European funeral is the most appropriate overture for that “brutal, mud-filled, murderous insanity known as the Western Front that was to last for four more years.”1 A European burial is the most appropriate overture for a war in which “the known dead per capita of population were 1 to 28 in France, 1 to 32 in Germany, 1 to 57 for England and 1 to 107 for Russia.”2 Her section entitled “A Funeral” is not just a first chapter; it is a profoundly appropriate overture. It is all that follows in miniature and microcosm.
Furthermore, once each birth story is understood properly as a parabolic overture, the problem of Jesus’s “missing years” disappears completely. It is not that we have detailed historical information about the genealogy, conception, birth, and infancy of Jesus, and then a yawning gap opens up until his public life begins around the age of thirty. It is rather that all the years are missing until the story begins—as it does in all four gospels—with John’s baptism of Jesus.
THE BIBLE AS “OLD” AND “NEW” TESTAMENT
Before we get into the separate overtures in Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2, we look at one common impulse behind them both. And this concerns the New Testament as the climactic consummation—and never the simple replacement—of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible.
First, two powerful streams of interpretation flowed out from the common Jewish biblical tradition during that terrible first century ce. Each would eventually claim exclusive rights to its own understanding of the past as the only authentic vision for the future. We now name those two streams as Judaism a
nd Christianity, and in this book, to change the metaphor, we think of them as twin daughters born in a hard and difficult delivery for their mother. Judaism and Christianity are, for us, a double covenant and, no matter how each has disputed the other’s dignity and integrity throughout the centuries, we hold them as fully and equally valid before God.
Second, our Christian Bible is divided into an Old Testament and a New Testament, terms that are in no way derogatory to that common biblical matrix. For us moderns the “old” is often considered useless and the “new” is what is important and significant. For the ancients, it was, rather, the opposite. The “old” was the tried and true, while the “new” was often mistrusted and suspected. Greeks and Romans, for example, may have mocked Judaism, but at least they respected its antiquity.
When we speak about the New Testament in this book, then, we do not think of it as having superceded the Old Testament, but having brought it to one of its two fulfillments. The other fulfillment, of course, is in the Mishnah and Talmuds of Judaism. In Jeremiah 31:31, for example, God promised “a new covenant,” or testament, which is no more and no less than the old covenant re-new-ed—and renewed differently for Jews and Christians.
Third, there is one fundamental constitutive element common to the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke. Both Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2 insist that the birth of Jesus is the glorious completion and perfection of the tradition into which he was born. He is, for them, the magnificent and climactic completion of the hope and fears of his people, his tradition, and his homeland.
Fourth, based on that common faith in Jesus as the fulfillment and consummation rather than replacement and abandonment of Israel, each overture goes its own very individual way. In the rest of this chapter, we show how Matthew and Luke create overtures that depict their gospels in miniature. And, as we shall see, that overture-as-microcosm represents the gospel-as-macrocosm with regard to both content and format.
MATTHEW’S CHRISTMAS STORY AS OVERTURE
We begin with Matthew 1–2 as an overture to Matthew 3–28. The major theme is a very basic parallel between Jesus and Moses, an interpretation of Jesus as the new—that is, renewed—Moses.
First of all, what is the most obvious parallel between the birth of Jesus in Matthew 1–2 in the New Testament and the birth of Moses in Exodus 1–2 of the Old Testament? It is surely that, in both cases, an evil ruler—Herod in Matthew 1–2, Pharaoh in Exodus 1–2—plots to kill all the newly born Jewish males and thereby endangers the life of the predestined child, who is only saved by divine intervention and heavenly protection.
Even if we do not catch that parallel immediately, anyone in the first century ce who knew the biblical tradition and the importance of Moses in it would see it as the most striking parallel between the birth story of Jesus in Matthew 1–2 and that of Moses in Exodus 1–2. It would scream to those Jews as it should to us Christians as loudly as a giant newspaper headline:
EVIL RULER SLAUGHTERS MALE INFANTS PREDESTINED CHILD ESCAPES
From the very beginning of his life, therefore, Jesus was already the new Moses and Herod was the new Pharaoh. And that is our major clue to Matthew’s intention in his Christmas story as overture to his gospel.
Next, focus on these twin items in that overture. Matthew moves the plot of his Christmas story as gospel overture by five divine dreams and five scriptural fulfillments. The plot and action of Matthew’s birth story proceed by a series of divine interventions and instructions communicated in dreams:
To Joseph: “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’” (1:20)
To the Magi: “Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” (2:12)
To Joseph: “An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt.’” (2:13)
To Joseph: “An angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’”(2:19–20)
To Joseph: “But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.” (2:22)
There are five such dreams, and after each one the directive is immediately obeyed. In other words, the entire progression of the plot is under fivefold divine control. And, except for once for the Magi, all the dreams are for Joseph.
There are also a series of prophetic fulfillments and, once again, there are five such explicit references:
On Mary’s virginal conception: “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’” (1:22–23, citing Isa. 7:14)
On the birthplace of the Messiah: “Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” (2:5–6, citing Mic. 5:2; 2 Sam. 5:2)
The departure of the Holy Family from Egypt: “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’”(2:15, citing Hos. 11:1)
After Herod’s infanticide at Bethlehem: “Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’”(2:17–18, citing Jer. 31:15)
On Nazareth: “There he [Joseph] made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He [Jesus] will be called a Nazorean.’” (2:23, citation unknown)
In our world those prophetic fulfillments seem to be more and more of a stretch, to put it gently, and we treat this more fully in Chapter 8. But Matthew probably first decided that he needed precisely five prophetic fulfillments, went seeking them, and, lo and behold, found them. But why exactly did Matthew need five dreams and fulfillments and not any other number as the skeletal structure of his Christmas story? For the answer, we turn to Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus is the new Moses.
First, that Jesus is Matthew’s new Moses is immediately evident in what we—rather inappropriately—call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7. It is actually, for Matthew, the new Moses giving a new Law from a new Mt. Sinai. It would be better to call it the “New Law from the New Mountain” rather than the Sermon on the Mount. There Matthew has Jesus as the new Moses proclaim: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (5:17). That principle is then applied to six moral cases, and note the repeated introduction to each one:
On murder: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder.’…But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment…” (5:21–26)
On adultery: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’…But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery…” (5:27–30)
On divorce: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife…causes her to commit adultery…” (5:31–32)
On oaths: “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely.’…But I say to you, Do not swear at all…” (5:33–37)
On nonviolence: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye.’…But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer…” (5:38–42)
On love for enemies: “You have heard that it was said,
‘You shall…hate your enemy.’…But I say to you, Love your enemies…” (5:43–48)
You will notice that, in all those cases, the Law is fulfilled by being made harder rather than easier; it is being radicalized rather than liberalized. But that repeated refrain of “I say” over against “was said” at the start of this, Jesus’s inaugural address, is the clearest indication that, for Matthew, Jesus is the new Moses and that the new law fulfills the old law by being even more ideally difficult than the earlier one was. But how does that parallelism create a need for fives in the overture?
The Torah, or Law of Moses, was contained most fully in the Pentateuch—(a term from the Greek for “Five Scrolls”). Those are the first five books of the Bible, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Therefore, Matthew structures his gospel so that Jesus gives five long addresses, as follows:
Book 1
Matthew 5–7
The Law Discourse (Sermon on the Mount
Book 2
Matthew 10–11
The Missionary Discourse
Book 3
Matthew 13
The Parables Discourse
Book 4
Matthew 18–19
The Community Discours
Book 5
Matthew 24–25
The Eschatological Discours
Matthew 5–25 is a new five-book Pentateuch. Jesus as the new Moses is indicated throughout the entire text.
In summary, then, in both content and format, Matthew 1–2 is structured as an overture to Matthew 3–28; it is the gospel in miniature. And the theme in both is that Jesus is the new Moses.
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