Few 'believers' pay attention to the story of Jesus

The story of Jesus is believed by between a quarter and a third of the world's population, writes Vincent Browne.

THE FIRST account of Jesus is in the gospel of Mark and he makes no mention of the birth of Jesus at all. It starts with a quotation from Isaiah and then goes straight to John the Baptist who "appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins". The first mention of Jesus is in verse nine of the first chapter: "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan."

The next gospel, in chronological order, is that of Matthew and by virtually unanimous consent of gospel experts, the gospel of Matthew, along with that of Luke, was based largely on the gospel of Mark.

The gospel of Matthew starts out with "an account of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, son of David, the son of Abraham". This genealogy goes through a total of 42 generations and ends up with Joseph, which some may find surprising, since, the same gospel claims Joseph was not the father of Jesus.

The wise men from the east (an undisclosed number) play a central role in Matthew's account.

They inquired: "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews." When King Herod heard this he was alarmed. He summoned the wise men and asked them to report back to him where the child had been born.

The wise men, following the star in the east, found Jesus in a "house" in Bethlehem (no mention of a manger or a stable). They delivered their presents, paid homage and then, on being advised by an angel, missed out on reporting back to Herod and returned home. An angel came to Joseph in his sleep and advised him to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt.

Luke's account is the one which is most remembered and the most detailed. He has the story of the conception of John the Baptist; the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary; the meeting between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth; the mother of John the Baptist; the birth of John the Baptist; and finally the birth of Jesus, who was placed in a manger "because there was no place for them in the inn".

Then a story about shepherds being visited by an angel and who then went to see Jesus. No flight into Egypt. No wise men.

Then finally the gospel of John, which has nothing at all about the birth of Jesus other than the remark: "And the word became flesh and lived amongst us."

So of the four gospels in the Christian canon, two of them make no mention at all of the story about the birth of Christ and the other two give very different accounts: both have him born in Bethlehem, but one of them say he was born in a house and the other implies he was not born in a house; one of them has the story of the wise men, the other no mention of wise men; one of them a story about shepherds, the other no mention of shepherds; one of them telling about a flight into Egypt, the other no mention of a flight into Egypt.

It is a certainly true that some or a lot of the stories about the birth of Jesus were just inventions.

For instance, Herod is quoted as directing the wise men about something and then discussing matters with the high priests.

How could the gospel writers possibly know about that? There is much about the story of Jesus, contained in the gospels that is unreliable.

Not that the gospel writers were lying but, primarily, that they were writing in a tradition that is very different to our contemporary standards.

Nobody reading these gospels about the time they were written (from 30 to 70 years after the death of Jesus), would have understood them to be telling the literal truth. This would have applied particularly to the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus. The tradition was to embellish such stories about remarkable people with fable and fantasy and nothing of significance turns on that.

What is of significance though is that this story of Jesus is told or read or understood and believed by between a quarter and a third of the world's population. Jesus has been the most revered figure of Western civilisation and a revered figure in other civilisations, including the Islamic one. To most "believers" he is regarded as God, as one of the Holy Trinity.

There is simply no other figure of all human history that has the same stature as Jesus and were it true that he is indeed God or even son of God (as the gospels state), then his birth was by far the most significant event in history, for it would prove that (a) there is a God and (b) this God intervenes in a very direct way in our lives.

There are some features of the story of Jesus which are troubling (more of that again). But many of his reported sayings are sublime, even though he was not the first and the only person to say such things: concern for the vulnerable, the poor, the imprisoned and the marginalised. But isn't it extraordinary how so few "believers" pay any attention?