The Nativity: History & Legend

Short summary: The book is essentially a commentary on the Infancy Gospels found in Matthew and Luke. Vermes carefully looks at these passages from all different angles and can be said to deconstruct the passages as we have them by employing the historical-critical method. He compares elements and themes to Jewish & Greek literature of the time and draws some suprising and less suprising results. In his view the Infancy Gospels have been added later to the Gospels as they stand and conflict greatly among each other. To be sure he finds some similarities but on the whole they are different and contain in some places contradictory ideas. He spends most of his time highlighting these differences and probes to what the reasons behind these are. He sees Matthew's Infancy Gospel as being mainly driven by the idea that Jesus is the new Moses and offers various extra-Biblical readings that show some suprising parallels to the Gospel. Luke, in his opinion, concerns a miraculous birth along the lines we find in the Hebrew Bible (Sarah, Rebecca, etc.), he argues that Mary conceived Jesus, with the help of Joseph, before this was physically possible (before her first period). My thoughts: In general I like Historical Jesus studies in the tradition of Geza Vermes, E.P. Sanders, Paula Fredriksen, etc. They tend to be very critical and leave little trace of feeling bound to dogma. Sometimes though they can be overly critical and especially with Vermes I get this idea. Reading him at times makes me feel he is frustrated with more conservative readings. But given that this works both ways and that it does not distract the reader from his main message, its fine with me. In short I think he does a very good job in dealing with the Infancy Gospels, it is obvious that he is among the best of scholars in Historical Jesus studies and his arguments are in many cases quite persuasive. I liked how he compresses a lot of scholarship without losing its quality and depth and think he manages in this way to make it a book that is both readable for laymen but surely interesting enough for those who are familiar with the more scholarly works of the quest. Grade: 8 out of 10 Brief and to the point. A good read by a scholar who knows what he is talking about.

It's well known that there is a contradiction between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John regarding the events leading up to the Passion and the dating of the crucifixion of Jesus. However, this erudite little book in which Geza Vermes's eminent scholarship in nonetheless lightly worn shows further difficulties in the Christian testimonies. Namely, the Infancy narratives between Luke and Matthew are so divergent as to be difficult if not impossible to harmonize. This of course is not what ecclesiastical authorities want to hear. But Professor Vermes shows conclusively why this must be so. I confess the book astounded and agitated me. Surely, there couldn't be such confusion? I knew that Jesus was likely born in the spring and the acquisition of Christmas occurred by the co-opting of pagan solstice ceremonies. But to find almost all aspects of the Christmas story--no exact number of Magi, no old status to Joseph, as examples--to which I have spent a lifetime ascribing to is disconcerting to say the least. Vermes, however, makes his scholarship stand out for its effectiveness, simplicity, and brilliance. The Nativity: History & Legend has much to commend it, if nothing else but to challenge the thinking of the doctrinaire Christian. One hopes all are made the better for it. As John Stuart Mill said, "He who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that."

Noted scholar Geza Vermes focuses his attention on the nativity stories about Jesus, in a fashion similar to his 2006 book The Passion. He covers such topics as where and when Jesus was born, where he lived, who his father and brothers were, etc. Along the way he makes several excursions into such related topics as Jewish marriage practices in the 1st century, the two meanings of the word "virgin", etc. The text is well written, although at times I thought it rambled, and there is no coherent organization, although at the end of the day, he covers just about every topic one can imagine. The notes are sparce and the bibliography ever sparcer, but one nonetheless gets the feeling that Vermes speaks with authority. While this is certainly a very interesting book, people familiar with the literature will not find much new here. But for a beginning student this will be very informative.

It is refreshing and revitalizing to get legend separated from history. At the same time I love what one of my teachers, Fr. Vincent Vasey at the University of Dayton once said, not necessarily of the Infancy Narrative, "If it isn't true it ought to be true because it makes such a good story."

Here the respected scholar investigates the main events surrounding the nativity in an attempt to establish what really happened. He compares Christmas in Christian imagery with the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke, which are contradictory and confusing in many aspects. They agree on only a few basic points but there are many complications and discrepancies. Vermes looks at how various Christian scholars deal with this, for example John P Meier in A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus and Raymond Brown in Birth of the Messiah. The author performs a textual interpretation and analyses the evidence. Then the findings are compared to all relevant information from parallel Jewish documents and sources of literature and history, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. First the genealogies of Jesus in the aforementioned gospels are compared (including a side by side comparison) and Vermes succeeds in making even this subject absorbing in light of the strange discrepancies. Next he looks at the concept of miraculous births in Judaism and Paganism: virginal conception, extraordinary birth stories in the Old Testament and the weird account in Genesis 6 that talks of celestial beings interbreeding with mankind that gave rise to a race of giants. The Hellenistic Jewish birth stories of the writer Philo are also considered. Chapter Five: Virgin and Holy Spirit, explores the gospel accounts with the prophecy of Isaiah concerning a young woman who would give birth to a son. The earliest extant text of Matthew is in Greek so it is perhaps not surprising that the quote of Isaiah 7:14 comes from the Greek Septuagint not from the Hebrew Bible. This gospel was influenced by the Septuagint's rendering of "Almah" (young woman) as "Parthenos" (Virgin). There are many unexpected, surprising and confusing aspects to the version of Matthew. The date and place of birth are discussed next. Needless to say, there are problems with the date between the gospel accounts and when measured against what we know about the history. The nearest safe conclusion is that Jesus was born before the spring of 4BC. And alas, even the town seems to in dispute, but here I don't fully follow Vermes when he questions the Bethlehem connection for lack of enough proof. The Premonitory signs of the nativity are the announcement to the shepherds, the Magi from the East and the star. These are discussed in the light of history and the Old Testament. Next is the murder plot. Geza confirms that Herod had a murderous character. He compares the murder of the children with the murder of the Israelite boys in Egypt, looks at the infancy of Moses and the parallels between the two occurrences. Chapter 9: The Settlement of Jesus in Galilee, deals with among other issues the meaning of the word "Nazarene." The words Netser (Branch) and Nazoraios (from Nazareth) do not come from the same root and Samson who was called a Nazirite is not a suitable type for Jesus. The last chapter deals with the two