Part 9: Myth or Fact: Does it Really Matter?

If the Evangelists were just writing beautiful and inspiring fiction in their Nativity accounts, why is it that not a single one of the early Fathers of the Church (who lived in the same Greco-Roman culture as the Gospel writers and spoke the same Greek language, and some of whom knew Jesus’ original apostles personally), recognized the fictional nature of the Nativity accounts? They all assume that the Nativity stories tell us what really happened, long ago. 

Part 9: Myth or Fact: Does it Really Matter?

By Robert Stackpole, STD

In this weekly web series, Dr. Robert Stackpole, emeritus director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, leads us step-by-step through the life of the Founder of Christianity, from Bethlehem to Galilee to Jerusalem. Along the way, we pause to consider in-depth the historical debate over the gospel stories of the virginal conception and nativity of Jesus, his message of the Kingdom, his embrace of persecution and death on the Cross, and his glorious bodily resurrection from the dead. Finally, we plunge into the great mystery of the Incarnation, and show how it actually shines through the whole gospel story from beginning to end.

Read the series from the beginning.

Many theologians and biblical scholars insist that it simply does not matter whether the tale of the angelic visitation and the miraculous conception, the journey to Bethlehem and the baby in the manger, the shepherds and the wise men, the miraculous star and the massacre of the innocents is literally, historically “true” or not. These stories were meant to convey “truth” at another level.

Whether these things really happened is largely beside the point.

Meditate and be inspired
To some extent, Catholic believers can concede this. Yes, we can still meditate on, and be inspired by the message of the beautiful Nativity story, even if some of the details are fictional, or at least uncertain. For example, in the final stanza of the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” the author of the lyrics, Anglican Bishop Philips Brooks, wrote:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us; we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in; Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell:
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Immanuel.

Brooks conveys to us here one of the central messages of the whole story of the Nativity: that the Child who was born so long ago was Immanuel, God with us (Mt 1:23). Because He is the divine Son, even now He can be born in our hearts (so to speak), and abide within us to enable us to overcome the sin and guilt that ultimately keeps us from sharing in the peace and joy of Heaven (Lk 2: 14).

All this is certainly true, whether or not all the details of the Gospel story of the Nativity are historically accurate — whether or not the baby was really born in Bethlehem, or the Christmas angels really sang to the shepherds, abiding in the fields by night — indeed, whether or not the whole tale is just a fictional celebration of the divine gift of the sending of the divine Savior into the world.

Advice and news
On the other hand, we tread on dangerous ground if we take this too far. The gospel story as a whole was not meant to be just “good advice,” communicating spiritual truths to us in mythical or symbolic form; above all, it is “good news” (the actual meaning of the word “gospel”), telling us, first of all, what God has actually done for us in human history to reveal his love, and to rescue us from sin and death. Timothy Keller explains the difference in his book Hidden Christmas:

Advice is counsel about what you must do. News is a report about what already has been done. Advice urges you to make something happen. News urges you to recognize something that has already happened and to respond to it. … [T]he Greek word for messengers is angelos, angels. The messengers do not say “Here is what you have to do.” They say rather, “I bring you good tidings of great joy.” …

The biblical Christmas texts are [intended to be] accounts of what actually happened in history. They are not Aesop’s Fables, inspiring examples of how to live well. Many people believe the Gospel to be just another moralizing story, but they could not be more mistaken. … The shepherds, the parents of Jesus, the wise men — are not being held up to us primarily as examples for us. These Gospel narratives are telling you not what you should do, but what God has done. The birth of the Son of God into the world is a gospel, good news, an announcement. You don’t save yourself. God has come to save you. [1]

Still, the Nativity stories do have the literary “feel” of beautiful myths, legends, and fairy tales: a miraculous star, angelic emissaries, a supernatural dream that leads to a midnight escape from the murderous soldiers of an evil king, etc. And all this has led many Scripture scholars to conclude that at least here in the New Testament accounts of the life of Jesus, the Gospel writers were using fictional means to convey spiritual and theological truths. Making that concession, they say, does not necessarily mean casting doubt on the general, historical veracity of the rest of the gospel story of the life and ministry, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We can easily distance ourselves from this claim, however, in two ways. 

No distinction
First, the Gospel writers themselves do not make any explicit distinction between the kind of literary form they are using in the Nativity stories and the kind they are using throughout the rest of their accounts of the life of Jesus. As St. Luke tells us, he intended to inform his readers of “the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses …” (Lk 1:1-2). He makes this statement just a few verses before he begins his version of the Nativity story! 

Second, if the Evangelists were just writing beautiful and inspiring fiction in their Nativity accounts, why is it that not a single one of the early Fathers of the Church (who lived in the same Greco-Roman culture as the Gospel writers and spoke the same Greek language, and some of whom knew Jesus’ original apostles personally), recognized the fictional nature of the Nativity accounts? They all assume that the Nativity stories tell us what really happened, long ago. 

In short, the Gospel writers who tell us the story of the birth of Jesus intended to tell us what really happened. The spiritual and theological truths that this tale also conveys are both illustrated and confirmed  by what God actually did in Nazareth and Bethlehem, 2,000 years ago.

Next Monday, Feb. 3: Part 10: Myth Became Fact in the Incarnation.
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Note
[1]  Timothy Keller, Hidden Christmas (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), p. 21-23.
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