Robert J. P. Lyon, CD MA MDiv
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THE INFANCY NARRATIVES
CREDIBLE STORIES ABOUT REAL PEOPLE
LUKE 1:1-80
For many years I used to have serious difficulties with the Infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke. Not with the Virgin Birth itself; I could believe that, strangely enough, because it was in the Creed. But the stories themselves, and especially the canticles or at least the telling of them stretched my credulity.
Mary, for example, hikes over a hundred kilometers from Nazareth in Galilee to the hill country South of Jerusalem, and on arrival at Elizabeth's house she bursts into song: My soul doth magnify the LORD.... It would seem more credible if she had asked for a cup of tea and a bath. In the same chapter, Zechariah, the priest, the father of John the Baptist, who has been mute for the nine months (what a fate for a clergyman!) regains his speech at John's circumcision and immediately intones a canticle: Blessed be the LORD God of Israel.... If we read Luke superficially, both songs would seem to be newly composed on the spot under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
I can't help comparing such stories to that musical where the Trapp Family, trekking across the Alps, come across a particularly gorgeous vista and burst into strains of The hills are alive with the sound of music. "No they're not!" I want to shout at them. "They're alive with Nazis, and if you don't shut up and keep your heads down you'll get them blown off!"
Unlike a stage musical, people in real life don't "burst into song" without prior deliberation, as Zechariah and Mary appear to do in Luke 1. With the Infancy narratives reading at least to a superficial reader more like a musical than serious historiography, it's no wonder that some New Testament critics relegate these stories to pious fancy and the canticles to the liturgical invention of later decades.
But recently the penny began to drop. What I had been doing wrong was reading an Eastern narrative through Western glasses. I had, as it were, been driving up a hill, seen some peaks in the distance, and thought that's all that was there. But those peaks are like the tips of icebergs: there's so much more that's out of sight. The gospel narrators, on the other hand, knew not just the peaks but the whole panorama that's visible only after you crest the hill. Indeed, when these stories circulated orally among the early Christians, the peaks would have helped in the instruction of converts (which is why such stories were told) by bringing to mind further narrative details and the significance of those narratives for discipleship. With that change of perspective, the Infancy narratives became for me, as indeed I believe they really are, credible stories about real people.
Luke the Investigative Journalist -- Luke 1:1-4
Join me, then, as we crest the hill and try to reconstruct some of what previously had not been visible to us. As we do this, keep in mind, as Luke says, that there were already collections of Jesus-narratives in circulation when he wrote, and that he was careful to interview eyewitnesses and reliable transmitters of the oral tradition.
The Annunciation to Zechariah -- Luke 1:5-24
Zechariah, the priest, lives with Elizabeth, his wife, in the hill country some twenty miles South of Jerusalem. To their mutual sadness and Elizabeth's embarrassment, they are childless. We meet Zechariah in the capitol for his annual monthly tour of duty at the Temple, where his duties include assisting with the daily burnt offerings, singing the liturgy, and as we find him in this narrative offering the morning and evening incense. The altar of incense is located immediately in front of the curtain at the entrance to the Holy of Holies. So when he is officiating, Zechariah is as close to the divine Presence as one can get without actually entering. It's not difficult to imagine his terror, then, when suddenly a talking figure appears beside the altar, coming, as it must have seemed, from within the Holy of Holies.
It's also not hard to understand Zechariah's doubtfulness at the angel's words. The prohibition of wine and strong drink marks John out to become a religious ascetic known as a Nazirite (Numbers 6:1-21) perhaps not quite the sort of child that Zechariah and Elizabeth had been praying for. And the promise that John would minister "in the power and spirit of Elijah" marks him as nothing less than the precursor of "that great and terrible day of the LORD" for at Luke 1:16,17 the angel reiterates the last words spoken by the last of the Old Testament prophets, from the concluding verses of the book of Malachi. Add to this the fact that Zechariah and his wife are "advanced in years", and it is hardly any wonder that he asks doubtfully, "How shall I know this?"
His tour of duty complete, Zechariah returns home, unable to speak a word for the next nine months. Meanwhile, Elizabeth conceives, and soon avoids going out in public, her embarrassment at being childless having turned into embarrassment at being pregnant. To Elizabeth, Zechariah's silence must have been a blessed relief.
The Annunciation to Mary -- Luke 1:25-38
The story of the annunciation to Mary identifies her as a virgin. Neither perpetual nor immaculately conceived, but a virgin nevertheless. Skeptics like to point out that the story of Jesus' virgin birth is not unique, that similar miraculous births were attributed to other gods and heroes in ancient mythology. The skeptics also allege that because only Matthew and Luke actually report Jesus' birth, the silence of Mark and John must mean that the story was actually a fiction that had not yet come to their attention.
In fact, Mark does not report Jesus' birth and infancy for the same reason that he does not report many other matters: his short gospel was intended not as an exhaustive biography but as a Passion narrative with a brief introduction. John, on the other hand, not only is aware of Jesus' birth but also knows of the scandal surrounding it. Reporting a debate between Jesus and some Jewish leaders, John records their loaded reply: "We be not born of fornication" (John 8:41). Moreover, John, who could hardly be unfamiliar with the mythology of his age, explicitly rejects all pagan claims to supposedly parallel birth stories when he refers to Jesus as monogenes theos, the "only-born God" (as John 1:18 in the ESV and NASV translations, following the most reliable Greek manuscripts).
But miraculous as parthenogenesis (i.e., virgin birth) may seem to us, it has actually been documented as occurring in about 70 species, including Komodo dragons (the Chester Zoo and the London Zoo, 2006) and Hammerhead sharks (the Omaha Zoo 2007). As a biological event, then, a virgin birth is clearly not impossible, though genetically one would expect the offspring to be female. The miracle is not that it occurred at all but that, by God's design, it occurred when and where it did, and that the child so conceived was both the Creator incarnate and the promised Messiah. If you have difficulty believing that Jesus was conceived by a virgin, it probably says more about your concept of God than about what is biologically possible.
Of all the characters in the New Testament, it is unlikely that anyone had greater professional knowledge of childbirth than Luke himself, whom Paul calls "the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14). Yet it is Luke, the health professional, who gives us the detailed account of these miraculous births. Matthew's shorter version may be one of the earlier accounts that Luke refers to at Luke 1:1 Luke's more ample version, by contrast, contains "horse's mouth" details available only to the sort of investigative reporting implied in Luke 1:2f. Some of Luke's details even reflect his interest in medical matters. He tells us, for example, that Elizabeth kept herself hidden for five months that when Mary conceived, the angel advised her that Elizabeth was in her sixth month (Luke 1:36) and that Mary subsequently went to stay with Elizabeth for "about three months" (Luke 1:56).
We should be thick indeed if we did not understand Luke to mean that Mary went to help cousin Elizabeth through her last trimester, and likely remained until John's circumcision and Elizabeth's purification. For Luke, these are real people having real-life experiences, and the miraculous interventions do not turn those experiences into something surreal. The absence of the surreal reminds us that our redemption in Jesus will not necessarily lift us out of our present realities; rather, it assures us that God is down here in the dirt with us, sanctifying those realities or sanctifying us as we learn to cope with those realities.
The Composition of the Canticles
My now-rejected reading of the canticles was colored, I think, by a faulty view of what it means to prophesy in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does not normally co-opt a person, will he or nill he, as a passive mouthpiece, for "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Corinthians 14:32). The Holy Spirit works through our humanity, not in spite of it. For a modern example, a sermon prepared with hours of devout study can be every bit as Spirit-filled as one delivered "as the Spirit moves me" (which latter may in fact be a euphemism for "winging it"). This distinction affords insight into the canticles at Luke 1:46 and 1:67.
To better understand the provenance of these canticles, let's ask the obvious question: What would two pregnant cousins, a priest, and a fiance (assuming that Joseph accompanied Mary) do during the elder cousin's last trimester? They would sew baby clothes, construct a crib, perhaps furnish a corner for a nursery. They would talk a lot visiting and revisiting the stories of their respective annunciations, mulling over what each angelic word might mean. They would plan for John's circumcision, for Elizabeth's purification, and for a celebration to follow. They would discuss birthing techniques, and how to parent two very special children. And being devout, they would almost certainly conduct family devotions.
But what would family devotions look like in this home, with a priest steeped in Scripture and liturgy, and two women recently visited by angels? Might they not have sung and sometimes even composed "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs", as Paul describes in Colossians 3:16. You can easily imagine the ideas that are contained in the Magnificat being part of a conversation between Mary and Elizabeth, and then finding expression in their music. The Old Testament depicts women making music on the tof (a drum), the kinnor (a lyre), and the nebel (a small harp), which would afford a suitable pastime for the childless wife of a priest. Certainly Zechariah could not have participated in the singing, but during six months of silence he would have become accustomed to participate in discussions by means of his "writing tablet" (Luke 1:63). Those last three months, with both mothers-to-be present, would have been the natural setting for him to compose a psalm that speaks of the roles of both John and Jesus. Is it even possible for Zechariah knew that his silence would reach its appointed end (Luke 1:20) that he composed the Benedictus to be sung or recited in Mary's presence at John's circumcision.
Luke's Sources
Luke had not known Jesus in the days of his flesh. How then did he come by the "horse's mouth" details that we find in his gospel? How, for example, does he know that the foetus of John the Baptist quickened in the womb at the time of Mary's arrival? Who were the "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" that he identifies as his sources (Luke 1:2)?
Elizabeth was already "advanced in years" at John's birth, so she and Zechariah may have been dead before John and Jesus began their ministries at age thirty. Mary would have been at least in her mid-forties at that time. If she were still alive when Luke was writing his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, she would have been in her seventies or eighties perhaps unlikely, but certainly not impossible. Luke does, however, say that Mary "treasured up all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51). So the question is: Who would know these things and be able to relate them to Luke?
Who better than Mary's children? Jesus was her firstborn (Luke 2:7), and Joseph "knew her not until she had born [that] son" (Matthew 1:25). But Jesus had at least a half dozen younger siblings: James, Joses, Simon, Jude, and "sisters" (Matthew 13:54) who would have heard the family stories over and over and over. James, as a child, might even have been an eyewitness to Jesus' being left behind in the Temple. We find this same James as bishop of the church in Jerusalem when Paul visited there around AD 60 (Acts 21:17; Galatians 1:19). Luke's use of "we" in Acts 21:17 means that Luke accompanied Paul and met James during that visit. It is entirely possible that Luke found the Jerusalem church using versions of the Magnificat and the Benedictus in their worship services, introduced by their bishop.
Another possible source for Luke is John the Apostle, who after the Crucifixion took Mary into his own home, from which we reasonably infer that Joseph was older and already dead (John 19:26,27). We have no record that Luke ever met John, but he might have done so on his travels through Asia Minor, where John spent his later years. If so, he would have had in John another valuable source, for as well as having accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry, John would also have been Mary's principal audience during her later years.
Conclusion
The realization that Luke had access to identifiable eye-witness sources makes all the difference to our view of the infancy stories. The characters become believable people with real lives lives, albeit, invaded by the supernatural. And it appears that Luke found in the church at Jerusalem a liturgy whose roots were known to go as far back as the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. How can we ever again sing the Magnificat without seeing a pregnant menopausal woman, her pregnant young cousin, a priest, and a puzzled fiancι making music in a house in the hill country, to the God who had marvellously visited them. How can we ever again sing the Benedictus without seeing that priest, his voice at last restored, intoning those prophetic words to his son and, at the same time, to the pregnant mother of his soon-to-be-born Messiah.