Americans as a rule do not read seriously.
They accept as fact that which they are
told by family elders and leaders in the secular and religious realms.
Many a declaredly devout Christian has read
very little of the Old Testament or the New Testament of the Bible, even the
gospels.
In this season of Christmas, those who are now non-reading Christians might
look toward New Year 2020 as a twelve-month cycle during which they come to understand
via their own reading the books of the New Testament that convey what we know
of the life of Jesus.
If such previously non-reading Christians
do read the gospels, they’ll find that only Matthew and Luke concern themselves
with the birth of Jesus and that difference in emphasis and detail should be
noted in the following accounts of those chapters in the gospels that variously
concern themselves with Jesus’s birth or give the events and people considered
important at book’s beginning.
Matthew
>>>>> Chapter One
The first chapter of Matthew begins with a
genealogy that extends from Abraham as progenitor of an ancestral line
extending through 42 generations (fourteen from Abraham to David, fourteen from
David to Josiah [at the time of deportation to Babylon], and fourteen from
Jecho-ni’ah [after deportation to Babylon] to Joseph, husband of Mary, who is
mother of Jesus.
An angel appears in a dream to Joseph, who
in his betrothal to Mary discovers that she is with child and in his desire not
to disgrace her is prepared to “divorce”
(Revised Standard version translation) her;
but the angel explains that the child is of the Holy Spirit, come to
“save people from their sins.” The angel
directs Joseph to name the child Jesus;
awakening from the dream, Joseph accepts Mary as his wife and upon the
child’s birth names him according to the angel’s instructions.
>>>>> Chapter Two
As
Jesus is being born in Bethlehem (a town in the southern kingdom of
Palestine called Judea), three “wise men from the East” see a star signifying
the birth of the “king of the Jews” and go to Jerusalem (the holy city of
Judea) in search of him. Herod, king of
Judea, troubled about this birth, sends the wise men to follow the path of this
special star to the precise place of Jesus’s birth. The wise men do so, entering “the House”
where the child is with mother Mary; they
present gifts of gold, frankincense (a
fragrant gum resin from a tree grown in East Africa and used in incense), and
myrrh (a more pungent gum resin from a different tree grown in East Africa and
Arabia and also used in incense). The
wise men, not trusting the motives of Herod, return to their country by a
different route.
Joseph is warned by “the Lord” in a dream
that he should take Jesus to Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous intentions; Joseph leads Mary and Jesus away in the dark
of night. Herod, furious at the perceived
trickery of the wise men, orders the murder of all male children of Judea age
two years old and under.
When Herod dies “the Lord” signals that
Joseph should return to Israel, the northern kingdom of Palestine; upon return from Egypt, Joseph learns that
Herod’s son Archela’us has succeeded to the kingship and understands the
wisdom of the Lord’s counsel to settle in the northern kingdom; he takes the family specifically to the town
of Nazareth in the district of Galilee.
Mark
A very compact account of events is given
in Mark in just the first chapter of the book.
>>>>> Chapter One
The beginning of the first chapter of
Matthew emphasizes the prophesy of John the Baptist, clothed in camel’s hair,
eating locusts and wild honey, declaring with the “voice of one crying in the
wilderness” the coming of a mighty one “the thong of whose sandals I am not
worthy to stoop down and untie.”
Jesus comes from Galilee to be baptized by
John in the Jordan River; as the baptism
is transpiring, the heavens open to the Spirit descending as a voice declares, “Thou
art my beloved Son; with thee I am
well-pleased.” The spirit immediately
drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days of temptation by Satan, living
with the beasts, ministered by the angels.
Jesus emerges and after John the Baptist is
arrested goes to Galilee, preaching and announcing that “The time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God is at hand; believe
in the gospel.” Passing along by the Sea
of Galilee, Jesus sees fisher brothers Simon and Andrew and invites them to
become “fishers of men.” They follow him
and the three travel just a bit farther to a point at which two other fishing brother,
James and John, are repairing their nets;
these two also leave their tasks and families behind to follow Jesus. They travel to a synagogue in Caper’naum, at
which Jesus rebukes an unclean spirit to leave a possessed man; word of such marvels spreads throughout
Galilee.
Jesus and the four apostles thus far following
along enter the house of Simon and Andrew, the latter of whose mother-in-law is
severely ill with a fever. Jesus cures
the fever, word continues to spread, and people flock to the house, bringing people
possessed by demons and victim of other ills.
Jesus drives out the demons and cures the illnesses. He rises after a night of rest to retire to a
quiet place to pray. Simon and others seek
and find Jesus, who then moves on through Galilee, preaching in synagogues and
casting out demons. After curing a leper,
the leper performs a ritual symbolizing his newfound cleanliness, then against
Jesus’s instructions spreads the word of the wonder Jesus performed. Jesus, perceiving danger in towns and cities,
thenceforth does his preaching in the countryside, with people from every
quarter seeking him for his message and his healing.
Luke
Luke presents his book as a letter to one
Theoph’ilus, giving a summary account that cohesively draws together what
eyewitnesses and others have conveyed about the life and teachings of Jesus.
>>>>> Chapter One
Luke writes that in the days of Herod, king
of Judea, the angel Gabriel appeared on the right side of an altar where a
priest by the name of Zechari’ah was burning incense, during a period when his
division of the Hebrew priesthood was in
charge of such duties. Despite the fact
that Zechari’ah and his wife Elizabeth were advanced enough in years to have given
up on being parents, Gabriel tells a still-doubting Zechari’ah that their
prayers have been heard and that Elizabeth will give birth to a son to be named
John. For his disbelief, Zechari'ah is struck
dumb. Elizabeth does give birth and
rejoices that the Lord “took away my reproach among men.”
Gabriel then goes to Elizabeth, a kinswoman
of Mary, to give her the good news that she will give birth to a son of the
Most High. Mary asks how this can be, given
that she has no husband. Gabriel replies
that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and that the child “will called holy,
the Son of God.” Mary, who lives in the northern
part of Palestine called Israel, in the district of Galilee, travels to Elizabeth’s
house in a town of Judea, the southern kingdom of Palestine. When Mary enters the house, the baby (John) carried
by Elizabeth leaps in her womb.
Elizabeth, feeling blessed by Mary’s presence and the events occurring
according to divine plan, harkens to Mary’s words of joy and gratitude for the joy
that “God my Savior” is bringing to the hungry and humble people of the world
with the impending birth of her wondrous child.
Elizabeth soon gives birth; she and Zechari’ah agree to name the child
John, who shall be “prophet of the Most High.”
>>>>> Chapter Two
In the days of Caesar Augustus (honorific
name taken by Octavian, Julius Caesar’s nephew;
as Caesar Augustus, Octavian ruled 27 BCE [BC]-14 CE [AD]), a decree went
out that all the world (ruled by the Roman empire) should be enrolled (counted
in census) for tax purposes. Patriarchal
heads of households were to go the city identified with their ancestral line,
which in the case of the man, Joseph, who had become Mary’s husband, was Bethlehem
in Judea. Joseph and Mary found no room
in the inn, so they retired to a manger, where Mary gave birth to Jesus and
wrapped the infant in swaddling clothes .
An “angel of the Lord” appeared to
shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night to inform them of these
events, whereby “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is
Christ the Lord.” And with the angel was
a “multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “glory to God in the
Highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.” The shepherds went to the manger and in
paying their respects told Mary and Joseph what they had heard; they then went forth to spread the word as Mary pondered all
that had transpired.
Eight days passed and Jesus was
circumcised, then taken to Jerusalem for ritual purification. A righteous and devout man named Simeon, to
whom revelation had come that he would first see the Lord’s Christ before
dying, after seeing Jesus took him in his arms, blessed God, and declared to
Mary what a wondrous life had come into the world. A prophetess named Anna stayed in the temple
for days fasting, praying, and declaring that redemption had come for all Jerusalem.
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus went when the
latter was twelve to Jerusalem for Passover.
As the family and those with whom they were traveling were departing
after Passover feast, Jesus, unbeknownst to Mary and Joseph, lingered behind in
the temple listening to the priests and asking questions. When
Mary and Joseph discovered that Jesus was not among them, they returned to Jerusalem
and upon finding Jesus asked him why he had worried them so. Jesus replied, “Did you not know that I must
be in my Father’s house?”
Jesus then obediently returned to Nazareth
with Mary and Joseph, thenceforth “increasing
in wisdom and stature (years), and in favor with God and man.”
John
John’s motivation in writing his book is to
present the theological importance of Jesus’s life. As in the case of Mark, he does not concern
himself with details of Jesus’s birth. Those matters of importance presented by John in the first chapter of
his book are given as follows:
>>>>> Chapter One
John famously declares the eternal divinity
of Jesus with the words, “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God… In him was life, and the life was the light
of men. The light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness has not overcome
it.”
Like Mark and Luke, John is concerned that
the role of John the Baptist be understood early in the account. John recounts that the Jews sent priests and
Levites to John the Baptist at Bethany, where he was baptizing people beyond
the Jordan river. The priests and
Levites asked him, “Who are you?” To
their speculations, John the Baptist
declared that he was neither the Christ nor the prophet Elijah, but rather that
“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the
Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” John
the Baptist delivered the line as in Mark about the coming of a prophet “the
thong of whose sandal I am unworthy to untie.”
The next day John the Baptist saw Jesus
coming and declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world.” The Holy Spirit then descended “as
a dove from heaven,” moving John to say that “I have seen and borne witness
that this is the Son of God.” A man
named Andrew was one of two who immediately began to follow Jesus, then went to his brother Simon to declare, “We have found the Messiah (Christ)."
The next day Jesus went to Galilee and
found an acquaintance named Philip, who in turn located another named Nathan’a-el,
who was astounded that Jesus, although far away, knew the exact spot under a
fig tree where Nathan’a-el had been sitting when Philip called out to him. Nathan’a-el had been skeptical when Philip
told him about Jesus, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But now he believed, given Jesus’s manifest
powers. But Jesus said that much greater
sights and wonders were to come:
“You will see heaven opened and the angels
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
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