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The First Christmas
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The First Christmas (2007) (edit title/settings)

by Marcus J. Borg (Author), John Dominic Crossan (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

In The First Christmas , two of today's top Jesus scholars, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, join forces to show how history has biased our reading of the nativity story as it appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. As they did for Easter in their previous book, The Last Week ,... read more

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  • “The meaning of a parable--its parabolic truth--does not depend on its factuality. ... A parable is a narrative metaphor, a metaphorical narrative, whose truth lies in its meaning. (pg 28)”
  • “The truth of parabolic language does not depend on its factuality. (pg 28)”
  • “Jesus' parables invited his hearers into a different way of seeing how things are and how we might live. As invitations to see differently, they were subversive. Indeed, perhaps seeing differently is the foundation of subversion. (pg 30)”
  • “... it is unwise to imagine that those pre-Enlightenment ancients told incredible histories, which we post-Enlightenment moderns have learned to deride. It is wiser to realize that they used powerful metaphors and told profound parables, which we have taken literally and misunderstood badly. ... Whether taken literally or metaphorically, a divine conception was their way of asserting an individual's transcendental character and extraordinary gifts to the human world. ... the proper question is not about the biology of the motehr, but the destiny of the child. What is that destiny and, once you know it, are you willing to commit your life to it? (pg 90)”
  • “... Jesus is for Matthew the new Moses ... Jesus will "save his people from their sins" nonviolently rather than from their enemies violently. (pg 91)”
  • “Since Matthew and Luke agree independently ... that he was descended from David's lineage and born in David's city ... those must come from an earlier tradition than either of their Christmas stories. And, in fact, we find both of those points elsewhere in the New Testament. (pg 91)”
  • “... confrontation ... between peace through violent victory with Caesar versus peace through nonviolent justice with Christ. (pg 108)”
  • “Advent, like Lent, is about a choice of how to live personally and individually, nationally and internationally. ... Christmas is not about tinsel and mistletoe or even ornaments and presents, but about what means will we use toward the end of a peace from heaven upon our earth. (pg 116)”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • stories of Jesus’s birth were not of major importance to earliest Christianity.
    Highlighted by 71 Kindle customers
  • We see the nativity stories as neither fact nor fable, but as parables and overtures.
    Highlighted by 67 Kindle customers
  • A historical approach means “ancient text in ancient context.” What did these stories mean for the Christian communities that told them near the end of the first century?
    Highlighted by 61 Kindle customers
  • The major theme is a very basic parallel between Jesus and Moses, an interpretation of Jesus as the new—that is, renewed—Moses.
    Highlighted by 60 Kindle customers
  • A parabolic approach means, “Believe whatever you want about whether the stories are factual—now, let’s talk about what these stories mean.” Meaning, not factuality, is emphasized.
    Highlighted by 58 Kindle customers
  • The imperial kingdom of Rome—and this may indeed apply to any other empire as well—had as its program peace through victory. The eschatological kingdom of God has as its program peace through justice. Both intend peace—one by violence, the other by nonviolence. And still those tectonic plates grind against one another.
    Highlighted by 55 Kindle customers
  • The terrible truth is that our world has never established peace through victory. Victory establishes not peace, but lull. Thereafter, violence returns once again, and always worse than before. And it is that escalator violence that then endangers our world.
    Highlighted by 49 Kindle customers
  • Conscious literalists are aware that the events in these stories are hard to believe and yet insist, with varying degrees of intensity, that they are factual. Conscious literalism is modern, grounded in the fact fundamentalism of the Enlightenment.
    Highlighted by 47 Kindle customers
  • Parable as a form of language is about meaning, not factuality. The meaning of a parable—its parabolic truth—does not depend upon its factuality. Parables are thus a form of metaphorical language. The metaphorical meaning of language is its “more-than-literal” meaning, the capacity of language to carry a surplus of meaning. A parable is a narrative metaphor, a metaphorical narrative, whose truth lies in its meaning.
    Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers
  • And there you have the four successive elements of Roman imperial theology—religion, war, victory, peace. You worship the gods, you go to war with their assistance, you are victorious with their help, and you obtain peace from their generosity. And the key phrase from that monument is: “Victory [with] peace secured on land and sea.” For Augustus and for Rome it was always about peace, but always about peace through victory, peace through war, peace through violence.
    Highlighted by 34 Kindle customers
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Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Marcus J. Borg (Author)
  2. John Dominic Crossan (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: HarperOne
Country: USA
Publication Date: October 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-0061430701
Page Count: 272

Classification edit see section history

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