The New Testament present two radically different accounts of the nativity.

The Gospel of Matthew tells of the appearance of an angel to Joseph in a dream, urging him to marry his divinely impregnated virgin wife-to-be; of a new star in the sky and wise men from the east; of the flight of the holy family to Egypt and of the massacre of the innocents of Bethlehem. Matthew invokes ancient Jewish prophecy to validate his surreal claims.

The Gospel of Luke mentions none of these dramatic events but instead reports the appearance of an angel to Mary; a worldwide census; the birth in a manger, a choir of angels; adoring shepherds; and a joyful presentation in the Temple. None of this is mentioned by Matthew.

The lack of mutual support between the two tales, and the fantastic nature of the purported events are damning enough. But what blows the fable clean away from the known universe is the ignorance of any such yarn by the earliest Christians, whether Matthew's version or the fabrication of Luke. Not Paul, nor any of the epistle writers, know the tale and the gospels of Mark and John say nothing of the birthing of Jesus either. Those who should have known most about these wondrous events know least.

But then, the fable of the nativity is late and fake and was a necessary step in transforming the righteous hero of Mark's gospel into a demigod and – at length – into a preexistent co-creator of the universe.

The Birth of Jesus Christ – Competing mythologies Be Matthew

Bethlehem:
Mary/Joseph already live in Bethlehem
Angelic announcements: to Joseph in dreams
Birth: Birth in house
Celestial sign: Star in the East
Genealogy: "42" generations back to Abraham (actually 41 names)
Royal ancestry: Lineage accentuates Jewishness
Adoration: from Magi
Dream-inspired flight to Egypt
Herod's murder of the innocents
Move to (new home) Nazareth

Luke
Bethlehem: Mary/Joseph live in Nazareth
"Worldwide" Census (pretext for birthing in Bethlehem)
to Mary in visions
Birth:Birth in manger
Angelic announcements:Chorus of angels above a sheep pasture
Genealogy: 42 generations back to David.
Then another 14 generations back to Abraham, and another 21 generations back to God himself.
Royal Ancestry: Extended ancestry now inclusive of Gentiles
Adoration: from Shepherds
Presentation in the Temple; recognised as a "light to the Gentiles" by prophets; Prodigy in the temple at aged 12.
Return to (hometown) Nazareth

"Star of Wonder" all right!

Soon after the birth of Jesus, magi from the east arrive in Jerusalem, and ask, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?" The word gets around that they had "seen his star in the east". But why, one wonders, did the magi associate a new star with a Jewish king rather than one of their own, or indeed with some other portent?

In any event, the sky watchers are secretly called into the presence of the current Jewish king, the dastardly Herod the Great, who obviously, is always ready to receive eastern mystics who say they've seen stars. But why had not the whole of Judea also seen the star? In the normal universe the same stars are seen across a vast arc of the hemisphere.

Herod asks the visitors when, exactly, the star had appeared. We will subsequently learn that it was two years previous ("according to the time that he inquired exactly from the mages" – Matthew 2.16). Had they followed the star for two years or merely made a bee-line for Jerusalem?

It is the words of the magi – and not the star – that disturb Herod – and, oddly, "all Jerusalem with him." Was not Herod a brutal and hated king? Should not the people have been delighted by the birth of a new king heralded by a celestial sign – or were the Jews dependent on eastern magi to interpret their own oracles?

But no, Herod asks his own chief priests "where the Christ was to be born" (he surely could have done that at any time) – and the priests provide the answer (Bethlehem, as we all know), information which Herod passes on to the magi. The mystics are redirected by Herod himself towards the town made famous by David, a mere short walk from Jerusalem. Remarkably, rather than accompany with his guards or tag the worship-bound magi, Herod merely asks them to return to him with news of the child "that I may come and worship Him also.” The "wise men" are evidently not wise to the fact that Herod might be a tad displeased with the birth of his replacement. It's also rather odd that Herod, with all the resources at his disposal, could not have found the holy infant with or without word from the magi – after all, we're ask to believe he soon after killed all the others!

Thus it seems that the magi first saw the "star in the east" and knew that it was the sign of a royal birth to the Jews – but the Jews themselves did not see the "star", or simply did not relate it to anything special before the magi showed up.

It also seems that the Jews knew that the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem – but the magi, experts on Jewish oracles, did not!



"Westward leading, still proceeding"?

"When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy." – Matthew 2.9-10. (NKJV).




Did the "wise men" follow a star from the east?

Matthew does not say that but many Christians appear to think so, no doubt due to the popularity of the famous carol. But if that were the case, the author of Matthew not only wrote fiction and passed it off as fact, he confused east with west!

To get from the east to the west guided by a star, the star would need to be in the west, not the east.

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

– Matthew 2.1-2.

If the "wise men" reached Jerusalem unaided by a star – a journey of up to two years and quite a distance – why did they need to ask Herod, of all people, where to go next?
In reality, Matthew was merely working up a yarn from scripture, "a Star out of Jacob". A new star was indicative of divine intervention in human affairs and symbolized "the light".

Following yonder star?

The star "seen in the east" (more correctly understood as "at the rising" now makes a reappearance (or else a course correction!) This time there is no uncertainty, the star really does lead the magi, not east or west but south! Was the star itself aware of the exchange of vital information between Herod and the magi or had it "known" all along that it would "pick up" the magi in Jerusalem and lead them on the final leg of their journey?

Did no one else in Jerusalem notice this extraordinary phenomenon? Where were the frenzied crowds if "all of Jerusalem" was disturbed?

And just how long might it take a "star" to traverse around six miles? It obviously would not have been long – Bethlehem was a walk of barely an hour or so from Jerusalem, and rather less if our magi were on the camels so beloved of Christmas card vendors.

Remarkably, the star makes a precision stop over a particular house (a maneuver challenging enough for a helicopter).

"They went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was." – Matthew 2.9.


Is the "star" not really a star at all but rather, a guiding angel? Aah, that makes it all so much more realistic...



Bearing Gifts?

How remarkable that the oriental mystics brought not just gold (always acceptable, one imagines) but frankincense, an incense used in temples to honour gods; and myrrh, a resin used in embalming and, purportedly, in the burial of Jesus (John 19.39). If this were history, myrrh would be an alarming choice for a new born baby, but this is fable, a "prefiguring" of the climactic finale to the Jesus tale.

Both early and late churchmen have acknowledged that the gifts were redolent with meaning and prescience – gold for kingship, frankincense for deity, and, most mystically, myrrh for sacrificial death. Thus Clement made the connection when he gave the example of the phoenix as a "proof" of resurrection:

"The phoenix makes for itself a coffin of frankincense and myrrh which in the fulness of time it enters and so dies."
– Clement, Epistle to the Corinthians (2nd century).


In the famous carol by the Reverend Hopkins (1857) the Christian understanding of the symbolism is spelt out in detail:

"Gold I bring to Crown him again, King forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign
Frankincense to offer have I, Incense owns a Deity nigh
Pray'r and praising, all men raising Worship Him, God most high
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes of life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying Sealed in the stone-cold tomb."


Thus the macabre gifts from the "wise men" acknowledged the child as both king and god and "anticipated" Jesus's death and burial. The gifts of the magi graphically illustrate that the whole nativity yarn is no incidental late addition to the fable of Jesus. The redactor of Matthew, well aware of the ending, placed appropriate offerings into the hands of his travelling mystics.



Dream time

Having worshipped and delivered their precious gifts (whatever happened to those gifts, one wonders?) a surreal, collective "dream" deters any thoughts of the magi returning to Jerusalem.

"Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way." – Matthew 2.12.


Quite how Matthew got to know of this "dream" generations later one can but wonder! And the star? Rather like the "wise men" themselves, this most remarkable of celestial objects makes a prudent exit.

If only reality was quite so capricious.