The Context of the Nativity Story in the Bible

Modern Errors Have Corrupted How Many Understand the Incarnation and Birth of Christ

So much of Sacred Scripture is improperly understood, and there are many reasons for this. The first and most glaring problem is that so many people have rejected both the Sacred Tradition of God and His holy Catholic Church, which are both needed to properly understand Sacred Scripture and to read it in context. The second reason is that everyone thinks they can read Sacred Scripture written two thousand years ago, through a translation in their own language, and not miss entire swaths of context that exist in the text and in the culture and language used at the time. The third biggest reason is the complete lack of faith in our modern culture, our disbelief in God and miracles from Him, and then reading our own sinfulness back into the text.

In light of that, to help people to properly understand the context of the Incarnation and Nativity in the Bible, here are some items that you may have been unaware of or may have completely misunderstood or gotten wrong.

1. Yes, Jesus was born on December 25th.

   1. The first objection to this date is that people unfamiliar with farming claim that sheep would not be out to pasture in the winter. Sheep, for those unaware, have literal wool coats. They easily handle cold weather and keeping sheep in a barn all winter is actually dangerous for them as they can get diseases and physical ailments. Sheep will huddle together to stay warm and shepherds to this day still have their sheep outside in winter in the region of Bethlehem.

   2. The second objection is claims from atheists that Christmas was created to usurp the festivals of either Mithras, Sol Invictus, Saturnalia or some other pagan festival. None of this is true and upon examination, every claim of this falls entirely apart.

   3. The third objection is from Protestant error around the timing of the Temple service of Zechariah when he was in the Temple and was visited by an angel who told him about the birth of John the Baptist. They are off in their dating and Christians from the beginning have celebrated the birth of Christ on December 25th. For more info on all this, check out a good article from Jimmy Akin ( https://jimmyakin.com/2018/12/was-jesus-born-december-25th.html )

2. Mary is the sinless Ark of the New Covenant. Today, on December 8th, Christians celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Some erroneously believe the Immaculate Conception is about the conception of Jesus, but it is the conception of Mary in the womb of her mother Anna. At her conception, God preserved her from the stain of Original Sin that has infected all of humanity since the time of Adam and Eve. And this is fitting, since Mary is the New Eve, just as Jesus is the New Adam. Through Eve’s disobedience, sin entered into humanity and through Mary’s obedience, the destruction of sin was begun. Eve gave the forbidden fruit to Adam, and so mankind fell. Mary obeyed God’s word and her seed was Jesus, who redeemed mankind.

   Mary’s conception was through normal marital relations between her parents, with God intervening to preserve her from Original Sin, while the conception of Christ was virginal and the Incarnation did not need God’s saving grace to be free from sin, since Mary was without sin her entire life.

3. The greeting from the angel to Mary was the greeting reserved for royalty. The angel addresses Mary with “Hail” (Chaire / Χαῖρε). This is the greeting given to a King when he is visiting or returning home. Mary was shocked at this greeting given to her by an angel of God. Scripture even says that she was troubled by this and wondered at what sort of salutation this was. Here she is, a lowly young woman, who an actual angel sent from God Himself is greeting her as royalty.

4. “Full of Grace” is a title in addition to being a descriptor for Mary. The angel calls Mary, Kecharitōmenē (κεχαριτωμένη) which is translated as “full of grace” in some Bibles, or “highly favored one” by deficient translations which fail to convey the enormity of this title. This word, Kecharitōmenē, appears nowhere else in Sacred Scripture. There are some places where the root word charitoo is used or another form is used, but never this title. The literal meaning of the word is “one is has been and continues to be full of grace”. It means that Mary was already in a state of grace before the angel ever arrived.

5. No, Mary was a not single or unwed mother. Our particularly degenerate culture is always looking to blaspheme on holy people and holy things, and this particular blasphemy is widely pronounced even by those who claim to be Christian. In those days, Jewish marriage was a two-part event where the couple were betrothed but the wife did not enter her husband’s home yet. They were married at this point but could not consummate the marriage until the second part when the wife formally entered her husband’s home. Mary was married to Joseph, she had not entered into his home at the time of the Incarnation. Scripture corrects this error when it says that Joseph considered privately divorcing Mary. You cannot divorce someone if you aren’t married to them.

6. No, Mary was not just a regular woman who was going to have a normal married life filled with kids with Joseph. This is a particularly pernicious falsehood that has taken hold as the most common belief among our culture, and it’s completely wrong. Mary was a consecrated virgin who served in the Temple when she was younger and was dedicated to God alone. Joseph, an incredibly holy and righteous man, was willing to marry this consecrated virgin to protect her and willing to forgo a family for the glory of God. One clue to this is Mary’s question to the angel in response to him telling her that she will bear a Son. This question makes absolutely no sense if Mary and Joseph were going to have a normal marriage. Mary was young, healthy and a married woman about to enter the household of her husband Joseph. If you tell any young, healthy married woman that they will soon conceive a baby, she will not be shocked or confused by this statement. Yet Mary is utterly perplexed by this declaration from the angel of God. The reason she is confused is because she consecrated herself to perpetual virginity to God and did not understand how she could get pregnant while keeping this vow and she also knew that God would not have her violate her vow to Him. That is also why the angel explains how it will happen and she readily accepts his declaration.

7. Joseph believed Mary and was not angry or hurt about finding out about the Incarnation and pregnancy. This is a common portrayal of Joseph in multiple movies and shows about the story of the Nativity. They claim that Joseph was angry, upset or hurt by finding out about the pregnancy of Mary. This is false. Joseph knew about the virginal conception of Christ because Mary told him and he believed Mary. Joseph was a holy and righteous man and Mary was a holy and righteous woman. Joseph trusted and believed Mary. Many take the verse that says that Joseph considered quietly divorcing Mary as some indication that he was angry or hurt, but that’s wrong. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, did the angel tell him to believe Mary? Did the angel tell Joseph that Mary was telling the truth and that she wasn’t lying? Nope.

   The angel tells Joseph to “fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost”. The key words there are “fear not”. Joseph had a holy fear of God and was rightly hesitant to presume that he was worthy to raise the Messiah. Mary, being the Ark of the New Covenant, was holy in a special way, just as the Ark of the Old Covenant was holy in the special way. God even struck dead a man who touched the Ark because it was never to be touched by human hands. Joseph knew this and was rightly fearful of doing something wrong. This is why he also immediately obeyed God when the angel told him to take Mary into his home.

8. Joseph did not “know” Mary in a conjugal way after the birth of Christ. This particular blasphemy sprouted up in the Protestant world but ironically enough, all the original Protestant leaders agreed that Matthew 1:25 does NOT mean that Joseph and Mary had marital relations after the birth of Christ. When Sacred Scripture says that something has not occurred up until a certain point in time, it does NOT mean that this situation changed at that point. There are multiple examples of the use of the word “until” in Sacred Scripture that there is not a change in the situation after the event described (i.e. Jesus rules “until” the Final Judgement, 1 Corinthians 15:25). This was universally believed by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Wesley. Every single one of them declared that people were wrong understanding and misinterpreting Matthew 1:25 on this point. At some point in the centuries afterwards, Protestants changed this doctrine that even their first leaders believed.

9. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb. He was consecrated to God when Mary came to visit Elizabeth. John the Baptist was conceived with Original Sin, but he was not born with it. The Holy Spirit cleansed him of the stain of Original Sin while he was in the womb.

10. Elizabeth is shocked and amazed that the Mother of God honors her with a visit. Mary, as heavenly royalty as we noted above in No.3, visits Elizabeth and Elizabeth considers it an incredible honor to be graced with the presence of the Queen Mother of the King of Kings. She exclaims through the Holy Ghost that “why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”. The servants visit the King and Queen instead of the other way around. And yet Elizabeth is given this honor because Mary is a model of perfect humility and charity that she visits her relative and helps her with her pregnancy and birth.

11. The Magi arrived significantly after the birth of Christ. Many believe that the Magi appeared at the Nativity and birth of Christ in the manger but this is incorrect. The text in Matthew actually says that the Magi visited Christ and Mary when they were in the “house”, not manger. So this was some time after the birth of Christ when there was finally room in the Inn for them. The Holy Family stayed in Bethlehem for a while after the birth of Christ so that they could have Him circumcised and to then have the Presentation in the Temple which would have been 40 days after the Nativity. The star the Magi had followed had gone away by the time the Magi arrived in Jerusalem and met with Herod. It was a miraculous appearance of the star again that they celebrated with joyous acclaim and were stunned by. The star should not have appeared again, but it did and led them to the Christ in Bethlehem into the house they were residing in.

These of course are not all the different errors that our modern culture makes with the Nativity, but hopefully in this Advent season, it will help you to better understand the actual story of the Incarnation, Visitation and Nativity of Christ. A very holy Advent to you and a very Merry Christmas in a few weeks!