Demythologizing Christmas

When the demythologization of the Christmas story is completed, we find in the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew stories that are rooted in eyewitness accounts. It is okay to decorate the Christmas tree. It is my modest hope, however, that we will see the decorations for what they are, and in seeing them, appreciate the true story even more.

Anyone who pursues a study of the New Testament will very soon come upon the tribe of scholars who follow the chief demythologizer, Rudolf Bultmann (d. 1976).

Bultmann did not believe the historical details of the gospels were vital for an experience of the Christian religion. Taking an existentialist approach to the faith, he argued that all that matters is the “thatness,” not the “whatness” of Jesus. In other words, it was only the fact of Jesus’ existence, his preaching and his crucifixion that mattered, not what happened throughout his life.

Consequently, Bultmann and his followers embarked on the task of “demythologization”: a project to disentangle the supernatural “mythical” elements from the Gospel. The pretext was not an intrinsic antipathy to the supernatural, but the assumption that the supernatural elements of the Gospel narrative were the parts most likely to have been added by later editors in order to boost the prophet of Nazareth’s divine status.

This concept must have been rooted in a distrust of any supernatural elements, as nineteenth- and early- twentieth-century European scholarship was inevitably influenced by the rationalistic conclusions of the Enlightenment.

Bultmann’s theory could only work if another aspect of his project were true: the late dating of the New Testament. Put simply, if the Gospels were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses, the theory of supernatural embroidery of the Jesus stories by the early church would not have been credible. Therefore it was necessary to push back the dating of the New Testament in order to support the rest of the theory.

However, even the most liberal scholars admit that the Gospels had to have been completed within five decades from the death and resurrection of Christ. It is perfectly possible that a person who heard Jesus as a youth would still be living. Indeed, the tradition is that the Apostle John survived into his nineties—dying just before the dawn of the second century.

Rudolf Bultmann

Bultmann’s intention was, no doubt, positive. He wanted to free the Gospels of their cumbersome, first-century mythological baggage in order to enable modern man to encounter the teaching of Jesus Christ afresh. The result, however, has been negative. What is most remembered about Rudolf Bultmann is not his attempt to make the Gospel approachable, but that his efforts to weed out the supernatural led him and his followers to a position of complete distrust of any of the historical details of the Gospel account.

In the face of the wholesale dismissal of the historical veracity of the Gospel, I have been drawn for the last few years to study the historical basis of the infancy narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke. What we have in the contemporary Christmas story is a fabulous confection—two thousand years in the making— that has become a marvelous mythology of its own. Over the years the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem has been elaborated by enthusiastic preachers, mystic visionaries, speculative authors, and commercially minded entrepreneurs.

The simple story of the visit of the Magi became a wonderful tale of exotic wizards from a faraway land who followed a magical star across the desert sands. The tale of Joseph and Mary traveling home to Bethlehem where she gave birth has become a pilgrimage saga complete with a rustic midwife, a grumpy innkeeper, a dozy donkey, and a meek ox. The story we witness in our children’s Christmas pageant and illustrated by Renaissance painters and the creators of Christmas cards simmers with magic, mystery, and mythology.

Among Bible scholars it is the infancy narratives that are most distrusted historically, and it is easy to see why. The stories themselves are full of supernatural incidents that the modern “enlightened” audience would find problematic: angel appearances, messages from heaven, dreams of ominous portent, astrologers and angelic choirs abound. The embellishments and legends that grew up around the stories in the intervening two millennia have infused St Luke and St Matthew’s stories with an aura of wonder and mystery that is difficult to penetrate. Even the most objective Biblical scholars are influenced by the mystique and fantasy mentality that the extra-Biblical accretions have added to the stories.

My research into the historicity of the infancy narratives began with a desire to cut through the overgrowth and read the stories themselves, and to study the geography, political and cultural context to attempt to see what really happened. This has been a demythologization of a different order—not stripping away the historicity of the gospel accounts, but stripping away all the sentimental, pious, legendary accretions to the story. Stripping away first of all, the layer of modern commercialized Christmas, then stripping away the lovely legends and the pious, but un-Biblical preaching points, then the Gnostic speculation of the apocryphal writings.

I am convinced when this kind of demythologization is completed, that we find in the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew stories that are rooted in eyewitness accounts. Realizing that Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels were composed at least fifty years after the events, one allows for some elaboration, some inconsistency of detail, some faulty memories, while still acknowledging the essential reliability of the story.

The reception of my work has been predictable. Any attempt by an amateur scholar like myself is simply ignored by the professional Bible scholars. Thus the comment from one Bible scholar who did take notice: “There is no historical basis to the infancy narratives. You have started from the wrong premise.”

On the other hand, some of the faithful are disappointed to have their received traditions of the Christmas story challenged. “But I feel the wonder and magic of Christmas much more with the old version!” So the image of throngs of winged beings floating over the shepherds’ fields remains fixed. Three wise men named Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior remain in the Christmas play, and the grumpy innkeeper with his “No Vacancy” sign has his place.

And so it should be. The non-Biblical myths surrounding Christmas are a part of the whole celebration, and it is churlish to expect them to be cancelled. It is okay to decorate the Christmas tree. It is my modest hope, however, that we will see the decorations for what they are, and in seeing them, appreciate the true story even more.

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The featured image is “The Virgin Adoring the Child with Two Donors” (circa 1527) by Girolamo Savoldo, and is the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The image of Rudolf Bultmann is also in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.