Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep927: The Scandal of Christmas, Part 1: Dr. Craig Keener

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

I’ve invited 4 different New Testament scholars on the podcast to talk about the Christmas story. In this opening episode, I talk with world renown NT scholar Dr. Craig Keener about Luke 1-2, the politics and sociological scandal of Christ’s birth, his earthly vocation (as a tekton...woodworker? mason? None of the above?), the location of Christ’s birth, Matthew 1-2 (and the differences between Luke and Matthew), the problem of genealogies, and much, much more.  Dr. Keener did his Ph.D. work in New Testament and Christian Origins at Duke University and is known for his work as a New Testament scholar on Bible background (commentaries on the New Testament in its early Jewish and Greco-Roman settings). Well over a million of his thirty-plus books are in circulation and have won thirteen national and international awards. His award-winning, popular-level IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (now in its second edition [2014], and available in a number of languages) has sold over half a million copies. Craig is married to Médine Moussounga Keener, who holds a Ph.D. from University of Paris 7. She was a refugee for 18 months in her nation of Congo, and together Craig and Médine work for ethnic reconciliation in the U.S. and Africa. Craig is ordained by the National Baptist Convention, an African-American denomination, and for roughly a decade was one of the associate ministers at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Craig and Médine’s story together is Impossible Love: The True Story of an African Civil War, Miracles, and Hope Against All Odds (Chosen Books, 2016). Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. This episode is sponsored by the InterVarsity Press Book Drop. The IVP Book Drop is a monthly book club perfect for readers who want to grow spiritually and hear from a diverse range of voices addressing today's most important cultural topics. Okay, so for like 10 bucks a month, you get one book sent to you every month, and that includes shipping. They start you off with Esau Macaulay's bestselling book, Reading While Black. And then on the second Monday of every month, a new book will be sent to you. Books written by emerging voices along with well-known authors who are both diverse in ethnicity and in gender.

I love InterVarsity Press. They always publish books that are intellectually responsible, well-researched, and also very readable and like focused on the church. So many of my guests on the show, I don't know if you know this, have published with IVP. So Lamar Hardwick, Sandy Richter, Lori Krieg, George Yancey, Tish Harrison Warren, and, and Preston Sprinkle. I don't know if you know that, but I have a book out with IVP. Anyway, super easy to sign up. Just go to ivpress.com forward slash T-I-T-R. That's ivpress.com forward slash T-I-T-R. Hello, Theology Narah listeners. As you may have noticed, I have finally begun to host various sponsors on this podcast. You've heard some ads that I've given, and I want you to know that I

simply will not, I refuse to endorse any kind of product, book, organization that I actually don't believe in. So we've had a lot of people hit us up for sponsor this, sponsor that, and we've turned them all down. And we get offers to sponsor all kinds of stuff. And we heavily screen everything that comes our way. It has to be something that I believe in. And there's a lot of great stuff out there. So I hope this will be helpful for you as you are thinking about various resources, organizations, programs, or whatever. I will only talk about things that I personally believe in. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you would like to

support the show, you can do so through patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. The info is in the show notes, or you can support the show by leaving a review or sharing this episode or other episodes that you have enjoyed on your social media outlets. Spreading the word does help let others know about this podcast. I am starting today a four-part series on the birth of Christ, the Christmas story. And I've invited four different New Testament scholars on to talk about the Christmas story from maybe a different angle that the average Christian hasn't considered yet. And so my guest today is the one and only Dr. Craig Keener, who is a world-renowned New Testament scholar.

This guy has written so many high-quality, rich, highly acclaimed academic books, including a four-volume commentary on the Book of Acts. I'm pretty sure this is like the longest commentary on any single book that has ever been done. And Craig is a humble Christian and just an incredible New Testament scholar. So I'm excited to have him on the show to talk about the birth of Christ, beginning with Luke chapter two. So please welcome to the show for the first time, we want to know Dr. Craig Keener.

All right, friends, I'm here with Dr. Craig Keener, somebody who I have known from a distance for a long time. We've had a couple meetings here and there at various conferences, but man, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Thanks for taking the time to do this. It's my privilege to be with you. The most important, the most pressing question I have in my mind before we even jump into it is do you know how many pages,

total pages your Axe commentary is? I think it's 4,500. No, that's the big one. There's also a one volume one with Cambridge. Oh, you do have a one volume one. Okay, I was wondering about that. So if you guys want to, if you volume one. Okay. I was wondering about that. So for, if you guys, I mean, if you guys want to, if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, you can

Google Craig Keener acts commentary. It's a very large four volume commentary on the book of acts and the footnotes a lot. I mean, it's how long did it take you to write that? Or is this kind of like, I mean, it's hard to quantify how long it took you to write something like that. he get to write that? Or is this kind of like, I mean, it's hard to quantify how long it took to write something like that. Yeah. I mean, obviously the research had been going on while I was doing other projects too, because whenever I'm going through ancient sources, I take notes on whatever will be useful for anywhere in the New Testament or sometimes anywhere in the Bible. But the writing of it plus the indexing of it took maybe 10 years. Oh my word. Wow. Wow. I'd be young if I hadn't done that.

So I, we're going to get into the Christmas story cause that's, you know, we're doing a short kind of mini series on having different scholars on talking about the Christmas story. I've got, um, the three other people I'm having on are Lynn Kohik, Joey Dodson, and Mike Berg. So they're all going to talk about the Christmas story in different ways. But before we get into that, your ability to produce not just books, people can write books pretty quickly, but your ability to produce academic work that's so highly researched, high quality, how, how do you do that? Like, and I don't even know if that's, if he can even answer that. He probably is like, it's just what I do. But I mean, it's, it's, it's uncanny to say the least. It does take some concentration. I don't normally watch TV or sports or things

like that, but I do exercise. But I started taking notes back around 1980 when I was a sophomore, undergrad. And originally, it was just going to be for background, you know, so when I would preach, I would have this material on hand. But I was taking it on index cards. We didn't have computers back then. This is how long ago it was. And I just kept them organized by passage, or sometimes by topic. And, uh, eventually by the time I got to, well, by the time I was able to just type things into a computer, um, by then I had about a hundred thousand index cards. And so whatever I do now, I'm building on all those decades of research and just, just, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm actually ADHD. So in, in a positive end, it helps me think multidisciplinarily, if that's a word. Um, cause I'm always, you know, jumping to something else, but on the, on the negative end, obviously

it makes it harder to concentrate. So harder to concentrate and especially hard to organize. So I have to do that in a separate step. I organize, and then once I have it organized in order, then I write. And then I go back and revise it. Thank God for computers because back in the old days, it was a lot harder. Yeah. So I've heard this about you, actually. It's good to hear you say that.

It's good to confirm the rumor. So you, from almost 40 years, over 40 years ago, you've been keeping track of original source material. So if I even said, like, Joseph and Aseneth, Chapter 3, you would probably know what I'm talking about there. Yeah, that's right why it's written down. Wow. Yeah, I've read Joseph and Asenath, but I don't remember what's in chapter three. Now, if you ask me what's in the third chapter about Joseph in the Bible, now that would be a lot easier.

That's because Joseph's story starts in chapter 37, obviously. But anyway. Yeah. But you're so familiar with the background material. I mean, you spent so many years in it, but I mean, that seems to come so natural to you. Yeah. And the way I did it originally, it was just, you know, as I'm reading through it, I'm thinking, OK, what would this shed light on in the New Testament? And so it disciplined me to just think of that as reading through the ancient sources, but to peg it to like I don't actually teach a course in New Testament background.

to, like, I don't actually teach a course in New Testament background. I just love teaching the Bible, but I bring in the background as I'm teaching on a particular passage or something. Okay. Well, one more thing, and then we'll get into the Christmas story. One thing I've really preached about you, Craig, is your commitment to Jesus as a Christian seems to be your primary identity. And even though you're a renowned New Testament scholar, it seems like that's not your primary identity. It seems to be you're a Christ follower. And you're not going to remember this, but we were at a conference, I want to say about eight years ago in San Diego, and we actually hopped in a cab together. And me and another, I think I might have been in the middle of my PhD program.

No, I think I was shortly out of it. But you wouldn't have had a clue who I was. And me and my friend who were riding the cab were like, oh my gosh, you're hopping in the cab with Craig Keener. And you probably don't even, the entire car ride, cab ride, the driver I think was from, I want to say Ethiopia. ride. The driver, I think, was from, I want to say, Ethiopia. And you spent the entire cab ride getting to know the driver. And I was just blown away. I was like, yeah. It was just like, that's such a Christian thing to do, is actually get to know the cab driver. And you were so genuinely interested in this person. In fact, the driver was from the same place where your wife is from.

Is your wife Ethiopian? She's from Congo, Brazzaville. But she was a refugee. And so it gave a point of identification with, you know, some of the troubles that Ethiopia has faced over the decades. Okay. Wow. So anyway, that has been a great model for me and other scholar friends of mine who also strive at least to keep our Christian identity above our academic identity. All right. Let's jump into the Christmas story. You mentioned in our email exchange, you had some thoughts on Luke 2. Yeah, I'll just turn you loose and have you jump in and would love for you of explore and unpack maybe some elements of the Christmas story that the average Christian could maybe sit in church for years and not really maybe

fully appreciate or be aware of. Sure. Yeah, I love Luke 2. I love all of it, but Luke 2 actually, maybe to set it in a somewhat fuller context, thinking in terms of Luke 1, because, you know, the first four verses Luke gives his historical preface, says, you know, here's how I did my research, here's how I got my information, and so on. Kind of like what we talked about in a sense. But then immediately Luke goes into the account of Zechariah in the temple where the angel Gabriel appears to him. And then after that narrative, I think it's like verse 19 or so, the angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah. And around verse 26, the angel appears to Mary. the angel appears to Mary. And you have this parallelism, because in each case,

the angel appears, in each case, they're shocked, in each case, the angel has to say, don't fear, and then gives him the announcement about the child, says this child will be great, gives a name for the child. But Zechariah responds with, with unbelief and Mary responds by, you know, be, be it to me according to your word. And so she gets blessed and Zechariah is struck mute for a while. And he's not a bad character. He's a good character. Uh, you know, Abraham and Sarah, they doubted too, but the, the contrast here, you've got this aged priest in the holiest sight of all in the temple, male. And then you've got Mary, who's female. She's a virgin, probably given that culture. She's in her mid-teens, maybe even younger.

And so she's kind of a nobody in the eyes of that culture. She's in a nowhere place, you know, in Nazareth, as opposed to in the Holy Temple, you know, contrasting status in every way. And yet she comes out greater in the story. And then when you hear Mary's song, when she's with Elizabeth, Mary, you know, echoing the words of Hannah in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel, how God has exalted the lowly and brought down the proud. And that kind of sets the tone for where Luke Acts is going, you know, ultimately in the Acts with the Gentiles and so on, but already in Luke 2.32 or so with Simeon saying a light to the Gentiles. But coming back to the main passage, you have this in Luke chapter 2, verses 1 to 14,

because here it seems like the agenda is being set by caesar augustus you know he sends out this decree okay everybody go where you own property and and um there seemed to have been at least somewhat later period the tax censuses were about four every 14 years but maybe not all at the same time uh in different places but you know it it was to raise money for the empire. So here's this big person, Augustus, who was, I mean, he's got these brag sheets posted and inscriptions all over the empire about, look, I did this for the empire. I did this. I celebrated all these triumphs.

I gave all these donations to Rome. Never mind that a lot of it came from taxes. So he's this big figure. But he's not the hero of this story. You know, he looks like he's the one who's moving it along. But it's really God who's moving things along. along, but it's really God who's moving things along. And you have this contrast because Augustus on his birthday was hailed as the savior of the empire, the bringer of peace, what came to be known as the Pax Romana. Augustus was hailed by the powerful, the local priests in different imperial temples. They would hail him as a god.

And these imperial priests were drawn from the elite. But Jesus, as he's born, he isn't born in a palace. He's laid in an animal feeding trough, probably in a cave out behind the home. probably in a cave out behind the home. And then he's not hailed by earthly choirs of elites. He's hailed by heaven's choirs. And he's the real savior. He's the real bringer of peace, peace on earth, goodwill towards humanity.

And the announcement isn't sent out to all the elites, it's sent out to shepherds who were basically a despised group through most of the Roman Empire. They were considered rugged and ragged and smelly and often associated with ruffians and so forth. They were, of course, in the Old Testament, you know, you have David, you have Moses, you have Amos, and so on. I mean, they can fulfill great roles. But for elites and mostly for urban people in the Roman Empire, including in Judea, I mean, we have this in sources that probably go back to the Pharisees, people look down on shepherds. But that's where God chose to reveal this good news first. And we see that right from the start, just like the Bible says elsewhere, God is far

from the proud, but he's near the lowly and the broken. And if we want to seek his presence today, that may be where we're most likely to find him. So this setup of contrast between the powers to be in Luke 2 and then the birth of the true king is such a blatant, like in your face kind of contrast. But I love, I haven't thought about this before. You've linked it to chapter one with even the very, very beginning where there's contrast being set up. And you're saying that this sets up a theme that's going to go all the way through Luke X, of perceived powers and then the lowly being exalted. Do you see that in Luke more than the other gospel? Is it highlighted more particularly in the other gospels?

It's kind of hard to quantify, I guess. Yeah. No, it's already in Mark. It's already in Matthew. Sure. But I think Luke highlights it even more. Yeah. Now, in his second volume, it's not quite as evident because we don't think of Gentiles being marginalized.

I mean, Gentiles back then wouldn't have thought of themselves as marginalized either. back then wouldn't have thought of themselves as marginalized either. But within the church in the first century, they were – especially early – the early Christian movement, they were a marginalized group. So ethnically marginalized in the church, culturally marginalized. So I think even the Book of Acts carries on that theme in some respects. what seems to be a growing number of converts that are from the powers, more wealthy aristocrats, Gentile leaders and stuff getting converted to this upside down kind of kingdom. Would that be accurate that you see a growing number of kind of more wealthy people getting

impacted by the gospel, converted by the gospel? Yeah, and I think it's also interesting that Luke dedicates his two-volume work to Theophilus, and he calls him Most Excellent Theophilus, which means he was a person of status in that society. Now, I think it would be a mistake to say, like some people have said, Theophilus is the ideal reader of Luke X. I mean, he's just one. When you dedicated the book to somebody, it didn't mean that was the only person you were hoping would read it. But still, Theophilus at least has some fairly elite people in his audience. And yet, Luke is the, did I say Theophilus? Luke has at least some fairly elite people in his audience. And yet, Luke is the gospel where you have the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and where you have the story of the rich fool in Luke

12, and so forth. I mean, he hits harder on the theme. It's already there in other gospels, but Luke is really emphatic about it. So he wants to make sure people understand that the gospel has implications for how we treat one another. Do we know anything else about Theophilus? He calls him most excellent. Are you saying that phrase most excellent intrinsically means that he was of a high social status? It's not just like, hey, my good friend Theophilus. Is that more of a specific term? Most excellent? I think it's the Greek word kratiste, but it's also used when Paul addresses – or maybe it's not Paul. Maybe it's the Kiliarch, the tribune in Jerusalem, when he addresses most excellent Felix. Yeah.

Now, Felix actually was a freed person. He wasn't actually of the normal status of governors. But when you address somebody as most excellent, normally that person was of a higher social rank. The night class or the equestrian class or higher. Yeah. or higher. Yeah. So given that he's addressing it to Theophilus, and given the fact that the latter part of Acts kind of has a growing number of these kind of high social status people coming into the faith, would you say is it too much to read into this that that's strategic, that

Luke is ultimately saying, hey, Theophilus, you can also be a convert? Or is Theophilus a convert or is he a seeker or do we even know? I think he's already a believer because Luke says, now concerning, I'm confirming these things you've already heard. So, yeah. So the audience has already heard a lot of this. Now, it's possible he's a seeker, but I think it's probably more likely he's already a believer. But, yeah, I would encourage him. He's not alone in that. The social cost was a lot higher for members of the elite to become Christians.

Because you were a public figure. for members of the elite to become Christians. You were a public figure. Everybody expected you to be worshipping the local gods, the emperor, and so on. And it would be very conspicuous if you weren't. So, you know, Luke has, just like you have in Mark 10 and Matthew 19, Luke also has this in Luke 18, the rich ruler who is told by Jesus that he has to give up everything and follow. But Luke also has other statements of that. He has John the Baptist telling people in Luke 3, 11 or so, here's how you express your repentance. If you have two cloaks, give one to the person who has none. This is also in Matthew where he's addressing the disciples and he says, sell everything you have, give to the poor, lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. And then 1433 where Luke reports Jesus saying, talking about counting the cost for the kingdom, even so, none of you can be my disciple unless they give up everything that they have. Now, that doesn't mean we lose all our possessions at the moment of conversion,

but we lose our ownership of them at the moment of conversion, because if Jesus is Lord, he's Lord of everything we are and everything we have, all our time, all our resources should be for Jesus. And so Luke 18 kind of climaxes that. And then in the book of Acts, you have people saying, what must we do to be saved? And Peter says, repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. But the implications of that as it goes on, we see the way that Christians live and they serve one another, they're meeting together. And it says that when people were in need, they shared their possessions. So in Acts 2.44 and 45 and in Acts 4.32 to 35. And then you have the Philippian jailer, what must I do to be saved?

And Paul and Silas tell him, well, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And we may think, oh, that's lowering the standard. Just believe. But it's not really lowering the standard because if you really believe in Jesus, if you really stake your life on the truth of his claims, I mean, the jailer actually risks his job and probably his own freedom by taking Paul and Silas out, washing their wounds. They wash him in baptism. He washes their wounds. I mean, that's a radical thing. A jailer could get in big trouble for what he did, but he's committed to follow Jesus. So throughout, we see

really radical discipleship. As people follow Jesus, they realize this is really true. This is worth everything. This is worth forsaking our other gods. And this is the social cost. And I think the early Christians, probably most of them weren't elite, but when they saw somebody who was elite, it's like, hey, look, even some of these people are believers, and I think it was a big encouragement to them. It's like the shape of Christianity, it doesn't really resonate with elitism or high social status. And yet it's a hundred percent open to somebody of a high social status.

It's willing to give up that status, which that, that is, that is, yeah. You put yourself in the, in the shoes of the first century high status Roman, you know, in a culture where kind of like, I guess similar to places where there's like a caste system today. For somebody who is of a forward caste or upper caste like that, that's a huge, huge sacrifice to join a movement that's primarily almost like maybe designed for, I don't know if that's too strong of a term, but like it has a very kind of low caste, low social status kind of flavor to it, you know, like that. You have to give up a lot. That almost goes back. I mean, that flows right from Luke 2, though, where you have the king of creation flipping the whole thing upside down by the very nature of his birth.

Yeah. Yeah. And just like what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 about the message of the cross, you know, to the wise of this world, it's foolishness, to the powerful of this world, it's weakness. But God chose to do it that way so that we couldn't boast not only just in our works, we couldn't boast in our wisdom, we couldn't boast in our status. But Luke X does show us that there are some rich people who made it through the eye of a needle to change the lives of Luke 15. That it is, everybody's welcome. But if you're going to follow Jesus, in the Roman Empire, it was like saying, yes, I am loyal to this person who was executed for high treason on the charge of having claimed to be a king

when we're only supposed to acknowledge Caesar as Lord. And so it was sticking your neck out to follow Jesus. Even as I think ahead, as I think ahead to like our future in the next couple of weeks, you know, Christmas Eve services or just our ecclesiastical rhythms of celebrating the birth of Jesus. How,

I don't know, like my mind's just kind of going like, it seems like we should kind of go out of our way really to remind people in our liturgies around Christmas of this upside-down nature of Christianity. This is such a main heartbeat of the birth of Jesus. And I don't know, there can be some creative ways of going about that, I think. Yeah. Can you talk to us really briefly about where Jesus was born?

You know, most translations say something like an inn, but I don't know if that's the best translation of the Greek word. I forget what it is. Kataluma. Kataluma, that's right. Yeah, it's only used, I think, one other time in Luke to refer to like a spare room, I think, right? Yeah, maybe the upper room or something like that is. But yeah, it's not the word that's used for inn in Luke chapter 10 in the parable of the Good Samaritan. It normally doesn't mean an inn. It can mean a spare room. It can mean a room.

And probably, yeah, some people are like, hey, no, you mess up our sermon because we want to preach that he was turned away by the innkeeper. Well, no, it's probably worse than that. He was probably turned away by the relatives. They're going back to where they own property. There were probably some relatives living in the house where they come back to in Bethlehem. A lot of people in Nazareth, actually most Galileans, whether they were first generation or more often second or third or fourth generation, were immigrants from Judea. So it's not surprising that Joseph has reason to travel back to Bethlehem. But the house may be too crowded, maybe a bunch of other people have come back. And so it's better for Mary to give birth in a quiet place, I guess quieter in terms of people.

I suppose you have some of the animals there. Sometimes it's envisioned as like a lower level as part of the house, which, you know, the animals could be there. On the other hand, tradition says that it was in a cave out behind us. But a lot of houses in Bethlehem were actually built out of caves. So it's possible that both are true. I think it was around the year 135 or so that the Emperor Hadrian was going through judea and desecrating holy sites he built a temple venus on the site of the jerusalem temple and when he got to bethlehem the is is this story goes the local inhabitants said uh well this this cave is where Jesus was born. And so he erected a grove for, I think, Adonis on top of it, made it a pagan site, which later, of course, it got reversed. But what that would suggest, if that story is true, is that the memory of the site goes back to,

to within a century of the time, it might well be the actually remembered site from, from relatives there of where Jesus was born. So do we have knowledge of where that site is today? Is this the place where if you go visit Bethlehem today and they take you to the place where Jesus's birth visit Bethlehem today, and they take you to the place where Jesus's birth is kind of commemorated, are you saying that this geographically is a good case to be made that that was the original site?

I think a good case can be made. I mean, it goes back to within a century. Wow. Of the, probably goes back to within a century of the events. probably goes back to within a century of the events. Now, it's not as clear as, like the site of the Holy Sepulcher, or his tomb and his resurrection. That one I think is clear-cut.

But the one in Bethlehem, I'd just say it's probable. Okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, that does, yeah, of course we're going on tradition, but that tradition that, that early, um, that is pretty significant. And yeah, I spent some time in Israel and I remember, yeah, the Holy Sepulcher does seem to be a pretty good,

a pretty good, it matches all the geography, right. Of being outside the city, at least as the way the city walls were constructed in the first century. And, um, yeah,

the early tradition and, and so, okay. So, so just to and the early tradition. So, okay, so just to summarize the story then, so Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem. They have relatives there. They probably go to a house of a relative who says, there's no room in our kataluma, in our, let's just say, some kind of spare room. So they go out to where the animals were possibly a cave or maybe an outside courtyard or something is there anything

so this is speculation but mary you said a teenager most likely is visible visibly pregnant and not married yet. I mean, she's... It's speculation, but could there be some... And then in an honor-shame culture, I mean, I don't think her Holy Ghost story is going to win a lot of people over. No, no, God did this. Could there be something in the relative that's like,

I don't know if i should be housing this immoral cousin of mine or you know married cousin or relative or whatever like is that is that i know it's speculative but could that be a possibility too that the relative just didn't want to house them under the roof for fear of housing an immoral person? I don't know. It's possible. I mean, this is before the shepherds show up with their revelation, and it's well before, maybe up to two years before the magi show up. And so it's possible. The question is, was she showing? Because it says that while they were there in Bethlehem, the days were fulfilled that she gave birth. So it's not like in the movies where she, I mean, I understand the movies

need to do it this way, but it's not like in the movies where she actually went into labor as they got to Bethlehem. She went into labor sometime after they got to Bethlehem. So we don't really know, but yeah, if she was showing and they were just betrothed at that point, that would be scandalous. And that would be more than speculation that that would be scandalous. It might be a little bit better received in Judea than in Galilee, certainly a small town like Nazareth, which maybe just had a few hundred people. The tradition, and this is a later tradition again, but the Jewish tradition, the best information we have, in Galilee, your betrothal would last about a year. And if you were to be together at all, you had to be chaperoned.

In Judea, the betrothal would last about a year, but you didn't have to be chaperoned. And they had more unexpected pregnancies, for some reason, in Judea than in Galilee. Galilee seems to be a bit more conservative in that way. And certainly a small village like Nazareth, which, again, later Jewish tradition regards as a very orthodox village. And inscription shows that a whole group of priests settled there after the destruction of the temple. I wouldn't have guessed that Galilee would have been more conservative than Judea. Well, some parts of it.

I mean, actually, Upper Galilee would be probably really conservative. They were pretty much Aramaic speaking. Lower Galilee, where Jesus was from, was more bilingual, probably. But still, you know, if you're from a village in Galilee, it could be pretty conservative. And all evidence suggests that it was very conservative. The urban areas tended to be more open to other ideas. And so you had Tiberius and Sephoris in Galilee, in Jerusalem especially.

I may be saying things your hearers aren't really interested in. I probably shouldn't talk about all that. I have a very engaged audience who appreciates depth. So, no, feel free. I mean, yeah. You mentioned Aramaic speaking. Do we know or what is your best, I guess, guess? And Craig Kierter never just guesses,

it's always based on some level of evidence, but did Jesus speak Aramaic, Hebrew, a bit of Greek, all of the above, or do we know anything about what Jesus spoke? Obviously, there's some debates on this, but the majority of scholars believe that Jesus spoke Aramaic. We actually have some Aramaic phrases in the majority of scholars believe that Jesus spoke Aramaic. We actually have some Aramaic phrases in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus spoke. And Mark translates them for his audience. The other Gospels usually just do it in Greek. Well, you have some in John, and then Matthew does have the cry from the cross, although it sounds more Hebrew in Matthew.

But, yeah, Jesus probably predominantly spoke Aramaic, but I think he was also conversant in Greek. He's from lower Galilee, which had more intercourse with the outside world and more use of Greek. When he's in Jerusalem, he's probably talking with, you know, when he's talking with the elite, maybe he's talking in Greek some of the time because if we can gather from their tombstones, some of the elite in Jerusalem, Greek may have been their main language. some of the elite in Jerusalem, Greek may have been their main language. And there was a significant use of Greek in Jerusalem. Okay. What do we know about Jesus' and Joseph's occupation?

You know, we often, you know, a woodworker, or some people say, no, he's a stonemason. I think the Greek word is tectone or something, which as I recall, please correct me if I'm wrong, simply means like a worker with your hands. Like it doesn't specify what you're working with. Is that right? Or what can we say about his occupation? That's correct. Actually, I had a student who did a paper on that recently, and I told him, hey, you could turn this into a dissertation. He did a word search through all of Greek literature, and yeah, he said tectone is just a builder of some sort. So they probably couldn't afford a whole lot of specialization in a town of about 200 people. But also, when Jesus was fairly young, the nearby city of Sepphoris was burned to the ground during a revolt, a tax revolt.

And immediately, the governor of Galilee, Herod Antipas, set to rebuilding. And so there was a big need for builders. And Nazareth is like four miles away. So that would be one of the villages where a lot of people would be builders. The fact that Joseph and his first son, well, first in my view, some people think that he had a previous marriage and children from the previous marriage, but in my view, Joseph was probably 18 to 20. Jesus was the first son, the eldest son. And so they probably continued traveling different places for building. They probably built things locally. They may have helped build the local synagogue where Jesus later gets in trouble.

So when you say builder, does that mean like a wood with wood or with stone or both and or do we know? It could be, yeah, whatever is needed. The woodworking would be mainly for furniture it would be for the door frame although the lintel would be built of stone and then you had the timbers uh is the beams for the roof over which you would lay thatching uh and ultimately mud caked mud but the walls in in gal Galilean homes were mostly built of stones. Okay. Okay. So if he was building structures, which needed in Sepphoris because it was burned down,

that would be primarily stone with some beams and other wood edifice. Okay. Wow. Interesting. They probably did whatever was needed. Don't you have some... My knowledge of ancient literature ends around AD 70. So don't we have early Christian texts like second, third century apocryphal text that refer to Jesus as a woodworker?

And is that true? First of all, second of all, is there any credibility to that as them drawing on tradition? I don't know if they're actually drawing on tradition or they're just inferring it. But something that is interesting, though, is that they need to make some defense of Jesus' occupation. Like Celsus, an elite pagan critic of early Christians said, hey, you're just following this guy who's a, who's a woodworker, a carpenter. And, uh, they have to make a defense on that because their lord didn't come from the elite. Although as an artisan, he was more, at least part of the time he was being an artisan, that still would differentiate him from the farmers who made up the majority of the population.

who made up the majority of the population. Carpenters, fishermen, tax collectors, and so on, they would not be probably 70% it's estimated. Some estimate as high as 90% of the population in Galilee would have been farmers. And elites look down on those who just tilled the land for a living, unless it was their ancestors. Would Jesus' occupation as a tectone have been also looked down upon?

Or not as much as a farmer? Not as much as a farmer. By the way, I respect farmers. I respect carpenters. My grandfather was a carpenter. But just in terms of what the popular views were back then. But some people have thought that in Mark chapter 6 where they say, isn't this the carpenter? That it's like – it doesn't mean that they were more elite than he was,

but he's not a scribe. He's not, you know, somebody of high status. And they would expect, you know, somebody who speaks like they're educated to be from a high status group where they could have enough wealth to speak authoritatively and to have the education to speak authoritatively and so on. Do you think... Jesus, one of us. Yeah.

He was a normal person. Do you think he would have been literate in terms of writing or reading Jesus? That's a big debate. There are different levels of literacy, but in Luke chapter four, I mean, he reads from the Torah school, which is presumably in Hebrew. I mean, in the diaspora, they would be using Greek versions, I'm sure. So he can at least read that much if we take Luke seriously, which I do. But there were different levels of literacy. I mean, the literacy needed to be able to read is not as high as the literacy needed to be able to

write or compose. So, you know, the gospel writers, well, even then, I mean, the gospel writers probably dictated and other people wrote it down. But yeah, I think Jesus had some literacy, but he wouldn't have been considered a scribe. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Going back to the Christmas story in Luke 2, or Luke, yeah, Luke, I guess Luke 1 and 2, what are some key differences between this story and Matthew 1 and 2? You've mentioned a couple of them, but the time is a little different. But what are some, as you kind of contrast, maybe not contrast, maybe correlate these stories, what are some things we should recognize as we read these two together?

If we just had Matthew, we wouldn't know that they started in Nazareth. We would think they started in Bethlehem. That's where Matthew opens that part of the story. in Nazareth. We would think they started in Bethlehem. That's where Matthew opens that part of the story. That's, by the way, one reason why I think that Luke didn't have Matthew's gospel in front of him, or vice versa. Because I think, you know, they would have, if they knew the other one, they would have wanted to clarify so nobody would get confused. So in Matthew chapter 1, it doesn't say where Joseph and Mary are in 118 through 25 when it's revealed to them. But in chapter 2, we find out that they are in Bethlehem because that's when the Magi come from the east. But the Magi coming from the east, Herod has heard from them about this child being born, but he wants to get rid of every boy two years old and under.

every boy two years old and under. So the Magi may have been coming up to two years after Jesus' birth. So they don't get there at the same time as the shepherds. It's a different incident. And Matthew is therefore carrying the story on a lot longer. You know, in Luke, they travel to Bethlehem. After Jesus' birth, they go to nearby Jerusalem. It's about six miles from Jerusalem. So, you know, not that long of a walk for people then and some of us today. And they offer the sacrifices in the temple and maybe they go back to to bethlehem uh well presumably they do go back to bethlehem they settle in nazareth later um but luke isn't concerned to it's like in uh i think it's Acts 9.23, Luke condenses like a few years by saying, after many days.

So, you know, we compare it with Paul's letters. So, you know, Luke is interested in telling the story. He's not interested in telling you how much he's leaving out because that's not really part of the – you don't have to do that to tell the story. because that's not really part of the you don't have to do that to tell the story in in Matthew we also have people are sort of elite coming I mean the magi were highly respected for dream interpretation and they were highly respected for in the Roman Empire as astrologers and so on. And that brings up an issue. You know, this one case in history, God reveals it to these people, the place where they're looking. But, you know, obviously, all sorts of divination were prohibited in the Old Testament. And Matthew brings out a different kind of contrast there because Herod the Great is the one who seems to be in charge of everything in that story.

And then the Magi seem like so innocent, they're almost clueless about what Herod wants to do until the Lord shows them in a dream. And then you've got another group of characters who are Herod's wise men, the scribes and the chief priests, the predecessors of the Sanhedrin. Well, members of the Sanhedrin, but predecessors of the Sanhedrin of Jesus' adult generation. And you look at how they act in the story. I mean, Herod wants to kill the male children. Well, who in the Old Testament did that? Pharaoh.

And also Jewish people, I think of Antiochus Epiphanes, who did things like that. By contrast, the Magi, who would be considered pagans, I mean, the only time the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, uses that phrase is for Daniel's enemies. So your expectation going into it is King of the Jews, Herod the Great, should be a good guy, and these Magi should be bad guys. But Herod acts like a pagan king, and the magi, three times it says they came to worship him who was king of the Jews, and describes the chief priests to know what the Bible says. Micah chapter 5, verse 2, we're born in Bethlehem. They don't go to Bethlehem like the foreign wise men do. That's a sin that only people who know the Bible can commit, taking its message for granted. And this fits Matthew's theme about the Gentile mission, you know, going from the four Gentile women in the genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 up through Matthew 28 19 making disciples of

the nations so telling his Jewish audience look I know Gentiles have been mean to us but we we have a mission to reach all the nations with this good news about the rightful king of Israel and the nations so obviously the emphasis is is different and both emphases are really important for us to remember today at Christmas and the rest of the year. Do we have any historical extra biblical evidence of the slaughtering of the male children in Bethlehem other than that resonates with what we know about the character of Herod the Great? Macrobius talks about it in a kind of garbled account, but Macrobius is writing centuries later after the Christian story was widely known.

So I don't weigh that too heavily. But in terms of the character of Herod the Great, and then sometimes people argue from silence, well, why wouldn't this be mentioned? You know, Josephus, as he talks about Herod the Great, he's talking about Josephus being a first century Jewish historian. He's talking about things that he has from his source, which was a court source, Nicolaus of Damascus. So he knows especially what goes on in Herod's court. But in terms of Herod's character, yeah, he killed a couple of his children who were falsely accused of trying to get the throne. He had his favorite wife strangled, who was falsely accused of committing adultery. And then later on his deathbed, about six days before he died, he found out the son that falsely had accused the others that he really was plotting against him, and he had him killed.

So there's a probably apocryphal saying attributed to the Emperor Augustus, better to be one of Herod's pigs than one of his sons. Herod didn't want anybody to challenge his kingship, even on his deathbed. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he's got like a textbook, like narcissist, like clinically diagnosed, you know, like just off the chart, like, because he's so driven by fear, right?

And self-preservation and yeah that turns out like externally is just this hyper hyper bizarre arrogance you know but it's all out of this kind of insecurity and fear and um he's such an interesting i mean interesting might not be the best holy cow he's an interesting figure i mean for so many so many reasons. One more question that I've always been troubled with is, and when I read the Gospels, there's obviously lots of tensions and differences and emphasis and stuff. And I don't know, maybe it's the way I'm wired. I kind of appreciate the different emphases and different accounts. But the one that does, I guess, if there is any kind of tension in the Gospels that does trouble me, it has to do with the two genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Do you have any, or maybe can you just quickly summarize

what those tensions are in the genealogies for our audience? And then do you have any proposed solution to this? Now, some of the differences are just like the way that they're arranged. So I'll start with those little ones first. But, you know, Luke's traces it back to Adam, adam the son of god and so probably implying something about jesus as a new adam jesus revisiting you know where adam failed and so on in it and the you know the context where the heavenly voice says that jesus is god's son that you know it all it all fits together there matthew um the way he starts the genealogy is really interesting because, and actually the way his gospel starts with this first line, the book of the generations of Jesus Christ,

I think it's Biblios, Biblos Genesios, the book of, it's the same title that came to be used for the book of Genesis in Greek, based on some of the genealogies there, where it would speak of the book of the generations of. And then it would list the descendants of the person. But Matthew lists not Jesus' descendants, but his ancestors. Because for Matthew, he recognizes that even the ancestors depend on Jesus for their meaning and purpose in history. Also, the genealogies differ a lot after David. It's like they trace it through different sons. Now, those who try to reconcile it say, well, you know, you could have just a couple adoptions in the line, and one is traced through the genetic, and one is traced through the adoptive line, and they're able to put it together that way.

Genetic and one is traced through the adoptive line, and they're able to put it together that way. Again, it's another reason I think that Matthew and Luke didn't have each other's gospel in front of them. So I'm one of those people who still believes they used don't actually come out to exactly 14, all of them. But, you know, it's approximate. It's like a way of saying, okay, at this phase, this happened, this phase, this happened. Hey, look, it's about time that something major was about to happen in Israel's history. So here it is. And some relate the 14 also to the numerical value of David calculated in Hebrew letters. of David calculated in Hebrew letters. I'm not sure if that's true, but one scholar recently did that with some other names in the genealogy and I thought made a pretty impressive case that

it only works in Hebrew. So it would suggest something before our current Gospel of Matthew as a source that Matthew has to work with. But I also think it's interesting how Matthew tweaks it theologically because you've got a couple kings in the genealogy. We know what their names were from the Old Testament, and that's how they're translated in most of our translations in the genealogy. But I think it's because the translators thought matthew made a typo ancient scribal equivalent of a typo for example you have aim emo emon well emon wasn't a very nice king he only lasted a couple years he was a wicked king but matthew the transcription is a

little bit different in matthew the the Greek text doesn't say Amon. It says Amos, the prophet. Oh, yeah. And it changes one letter, just a minor orthographic change. And then also you have the king Asa. He was kind of a so-so king. But his name becomes Asaf by adding one Greek letter, the letter Fi. Well, who was Asaf, the psalmist?

And so Matthew, with these minor orthographic changes, and rabbis did stuff like this all the time, but with these minor orthographic changes, he's hinting at Jesus' spiritual heritage as well as his, well, I actually shouldn't say genetic heritage because it's traced to the line of Joseph, but at his spiritual heritage that he's the heir not only of the royal line, but he's also heir of the mission of the Psalms and the prophets.

The whole of the Old Testament bears witness to Jesus. And normally you didn't mention women in a genealogy. And of course, today we would, but back then they usually didn't. And Matthew includes four women, all of whom are either Gentiles or have Gentile connections, three mothers, sorry, three ancestors of King Solomon, and actually the mother, three ancestors of King David and the mother of King Solomon. Now Bathsheba wasn't probably a Gentile herself, but, you know, Matthew introduces her as the widow of Uriah. Uriah, of course, being the Hittite. So all four of them. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, the women in Matthew's genealogy are fascinating.

And a lot of them, if not all, wait, all of them are, most of them except maybe Ruth, have some kind of association with even sexual immorality. Not always to their, you know, Bathsheba was at a, you know, Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Ruth probably, you know, probably not, but then there's, you know, still going on with Boaz and the bar. I'm not sure exactly what's going on there, but clearly Rahab and Mary's maybe reputation. So, I mean, they have kind of like shadiness surrounding the reputation, which again, that, I mean, this kind of, is this designed to kind of project upon Jesus's future

ministry? I mean, he also had a reputation of being a tax collector and a sinner. And he also very much obviously humanized women way more than your average first century rabbi. So is that by design that the genealogy in Matthew is trying to tell us something about the life and ministry of Jesus himself? Yeah. Oh, I think so. And I think it shows that Jesus, you know, right from the beginning, God cared about Gentiles. But also the moral things. With Ruth, she's definitely an exception to that because, I mean, she was actually highly respected in Jewish tradition. actually highly respected in Jewish tradition. But, you know, Ruth was a Moabitess, and Deuteronomy 23.3 says, an Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the Lord's congregation of the tenth generation. But, you know, God welcomed her because she, and the rabbis, you know, went

through various things to try to explain it. Well, she wasn't a Moabite, she was a Moabitess, and so on. And with Rahab, I mean, if you look in the book of Joshua, there's a contrast laid side by side between her and this Judahite, who he hid the loot under his tent floor, brought about the destruction of his family. She hid the spies on her roof, brought about the deliverance of her family and so on. So her Gentile character is very much emphasized there. And Tamar presumably is a Canaanite. It's really emphasized in Genesis 38, but it's there. And we already mentioned Bathsheba. So I think that those address some themes that run throughout Matthew's gospel.

So there are reasons why each one focuses on what they focus on. I think that Matthew and Luke probably had access to different genealogies. I have no way to say where it goes back before then. And maybe it was adoptive lines again. It's back before we have evidence to resolve it. That, to me, is probably the most complicated question in terms of comparing the Gospels that we have. I think so. It's the only one that kind of

bothers me a little bit. But that does make sense that access to different genealogies and you have some scribal things going on and generational leaps and gaps. They're not as clean cut as we sometimes make them out to be. Well, Craig, I've taken over an hour, at least by a minute or so. Thank you so much for, man, I just, yeah, you're fun to talk to. And you just carry a wealth of wisdom and knowledge of the scriptures.

I don't, just so my audience knows, you know, this is both a YouTube conversation, but also primarily an audio podcast. And just so my audience knows, like, you don't have anything in front of you right now. All the references that you have mentioned are all from memory, which is astounding in and of itself. But thank you so much for your example. Thank you for being such an example of scholarship and faithfulness. So yeah. Thanks, Craig. Thank you so much. It's great to be with you.