Reading the Bible Badly. Karl Allen Kuhn
along these stories to us?
I think it would change the way we understand, and celebrate, the miracle of Jesus’ birth.
Misremembering Christmas
Most of our children’s Christmas programs, like our nativity scenes, Christmas cards, and many of the ways our culture observes Christmas, are clear manifestations of how we misremember Christmas. This is not a new observation or complaint.11 For years, Christians across the theological spectrum have decried the commercialized perversion that Christmas in America has become. We have seen the slogans: “Jesus is the reason for the season.” “Keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas!” There is certainly some merit to this criticism and these tag lines.
The reason for the Christmas season, at least the original reason, is a far, far cry from shopping malls, ugly sweaters, Chia Pets, a new Lexus, and kneeling Santas. But the reason for the season is also quite different from the messaging of our children’s Christmas programs (if they even have a message) and what many American Christians celebrate about Christmas. Two particular tendencies in how we tell the story of Jesus’ advent serve as troubling examples of we misremember Christmas, of how our reading lenses do not allow us to see the story of Jesus’ advent clearly.
First Tendency: Forgetting a Main Character
Keep Christ in Christmas. Yes, that would be a good thing. But it would also be a good thing to keep Caesar in Christmas.
Caesar? You mean the guy who ordered the census? What a bit role! We never even cast him in our Christmas programs.
Perhaps you should.
Our remembrances of Jesus’ birth commonly include details from both Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts, the two Gospels that contain birth narratives.12 But it is Luke’s gospel that has the most extensive birth narrative and provides the basic outline many of us follow when retelling the story of Jesus’ birth. Beginning in Luke 2 we read:
1In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3All went to their own towns to be registered. 4Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
Note the setting at the start of Luke’s account. We are in the throne room of Rome! Caesar Augustus, Sovereign of the Roman Empire (which includes all of the Mediterranean world and Israel) commands that “all the world be registered” (v. 1).
Many readers of this story, including some scholars, don’t pay much attention to the mention of Caesar and the census, thinking that the role of these details is simply to provide a chronological marker for Jesus’ birth. To be sure, this may be one reason Luke includes the reference to Caesar, as suggested further by v. 2. But it is not the only or even the main reason. There are several other details from these opening verses and the remainder of Luke’s story that indicate that Caesar, and his rule, function as a counterpoint to Jesus and what God will accomplish through him.
In other words, one of the main reasons Luke tells this story is to draw a stark contrast between Jesus and Caesar, and between the two realms that each is seeking to establish. Luke wants to make clear to his readers that Jesus, not Caesar, is the true Lord and Savior of all. He wants to make clear that Jesus, not Caesar, rules on behalf of God.
If this description of Luke’s birth story seems a bit strange to you, I understand. Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth is not the “Christmas Story” you have come to know. This is not a cozy up to the Christmas tree with a mug of hot chocolate, warm and fuzzy, feel good kind of story. This is not a “weren’t those little angels just adorable and little Jimmy so cute in his shepherd outfit” kind of story.
Rather, the story of Jesus’ birth as told by Luke is a dangerous, even treasonous tale. It is about lords being unmasked as the frauds they really are before the one truly sent by God to rule and serve. It is a story that claims that the world you know is about to be turned on its head.
Lens Adjustment: The Realm and Rule of Caesar
But before we can appreciate the edgy and even dangerous character of this tale told in Luke 2, before we can experience it in the way it was likely intended to be experienced by those who first told it, we need a lens adjustment. We need to become acquainted with the world in which it is set: the Roman world. We need to become familiar with the real-life realities confronting those who first told and heard this tale. We need to understand, in other words, their context.
You may be familiar with the real estate maxim: “location is everything.” When it comes to interpretation in general, and certainly interpretation of the Bible, this maxim applies: “context is (nearly) everything.” When we are ignorant of the context in which the biblical writings are set, we simply limit our ability to understand what those writings actually intended to say.
So, what follows is a lens adjustment needed to delve deeply and faithfully into the story of Jesus’ birth: a cursory, thumbnail sketch of Jesus’ world, drawing out those features that are most relevant for understanding Luke’s account (and really all of the New Testament).13
1 Caesar is a godly Lord and Rome a godly realmOne of the first things we need to get straight about the Roman world (though this is also true of most cultures throughout human history) is that within it, “religion” is inextricably intertwined with politics, economics, and social standing. Caesar, in other words, is not simply a “secular” ruler. The Roman empire was not a secular state. Rather, Caesar was a “religious” figure, and after his death he even became enshrined as one of the Roman deities. Temples were built in honor of him and the royal family. Sacrifices were offered to seek his ongoing patronage and blessing. Eventually, some Roman emperors, like Domitian (late first century CE), would claim to be divine even before their deaths.A central profession of Roman religion and of the “Imperial Cult” divinizing the emperors was that the Roman state and its leaders both existed and ruled with the assistance and approval of the gods. They ruled with a “divine mandate.” Caesar, in other words, enacted the will of heaven. Other Roman rulers, serving under Caesar’s authority, also enacted the will of heaven. Roman military, political, legal, and economic policy enacted the will of heaven. Things were the way they were because this was the world mandated by heaven. At least that is what those Romans benefiting from the status quo enthusiastically proclaimed.
2 Elite Privilege to the ExtremeAnd it is not hard to figure out why. Roman political and economic policy was an extraordinary source of blessing for an extraordinarily small proportion of the population. As declared by the anthropologist, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, the Roman economy was “a massive system of exploitation of the great majority by the ruling class.”14 This ruling class, consisting of only 2 to 5 percent of the population, enacted economic hegemony through aggressive taxation, a market system that “nickled and dimed” the underclass through rents and tariffs, lending policies that routinely resulted in the foreclosure of peasant land holdings, and cheap labor in the form of institutionalized slavery, artisans, and agricultural workers.These policies, enforced by a bureaucratic system of officials, police