The First Days of Jesus E-Book

Andreas J. Köstenberger

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A bright star. A lowly manger. Shepherds keeping watch over their flocks. Everyone knows at least something about the first Christmas. But there's more to the story than what can be contained on a greeting card. Investigating the social, cultural, and political background to the New Testament narratives, this prequel to The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived explores the real meaning of Christ's birth in a fresh and compelling way. Perfect for those looking for something to read during Advent, this book combines scholarly insights with warm reflections in order to inform the mind and stir the soul.

Leseprobe

THE FIRST DAYS OF JESUS

THE STORY OF THE INCARNATION

ANDREAS KÖSTENBERGER & ALEXANDER STEWART

FOREWORD BY JUSTIN TAYLOR

The First Days of Jesus: The Story of the Incarnation

Copyright © 2015 by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Alexander E. Stewart

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Adam Green

Cover image: Robby Sawyer

First printing 2015

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4278-7 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4281-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4279-4 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4280-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Köstenberger, Andreas J., 1957–

The first days of Jesus : The story of the incarnation / Andreas Köstenberger and Alexander Stewart ; foreword by Justin Taylor.

    1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-4335-4281-7 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4279-4 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4280-0 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4278-7 (print)

1. Jesus Christ—Nativity. 2. Messiah—Prophecies. 3. Jesus Christ—Messiahship. I. Bible. English. Selections. English Standard. 2015. II. Title.

BT315.3

232.92—dc23                   2015014384

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

CONTENTS

Cover ImageNewsletter SignupEndorsementsTitle PageCopyrightContentsList of Charts, Diagrams, and MapsForeword by Justin TaylorIntroduction: Separating Fact from FictionPart 1: Virgin-Born Messiah  1 The Long-Awaited Messiah: Son of Abraham, Son of David  2 God with Us, Born of a Virgin  3 Conflict between Two Kings and Two Kingdoms  4 Exile, Holocaust, and Nazareth: Prophecies FulfilledPart 2: Light of the Nations  5 Two Miraculous Conceptions  6 God at Work Again at Last! Deliverance for Israel  7 Israel’s Restoration  8 The Humble King Is Laid in a Manger  9 The First Witnesses: Shepherds10 Light of Revelation for the Gentiles: Further WitnessesPart 3: Incarnate Word11 Preexistence: The Word Was God12 Witness: A Man Named John13 Incarnation: The Word Became Flesh14 Culmination: The Law, Grace, and Truth15 The King’s Rejection and ReturnEpilogueAppendix: Messiah Is Coming! Second Temple Jewish Messianic ExpectationsAdvent Reading PlanGeneral IndexScripture IndexAncient Sources Index

LIST OF CHARTS, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS

The First Days of Jesus According to Matthew, Luke, and John

Matthew and Luke in Harmony

Advent Reading Plan

Herod’s Temple in the Time of Jesus

Herod’s Temple Complex in the Time of Jesus

Jesus’s Birth and Flight to Egypt

Herod’s Temple in the Time of Jesus

Herod began construction of this magnificent temple in 20/19 BC, during the eighteenth year of his reign. The main construction phase was completed within about a decade. Detailed descriptions of the temple exist in Josephus ( Jewish Antiquities 15.380–425; Jewish War 5.184–247) and in early rabbinic writings (esp. Mishnah, Middot). The Roman army under Titus destroyed the temple during the capture of Jerusalem in AD 70. The temple was 172 feet (52 m) long, wide, and high (about 16 to 20 stories tall).

Herod’s Temple Complex in the Time of Jesus

When the Gospels and the book of Acts refer to entering the temple or teaching in the temple, it is often not a reference to Herod’s temple itself, but rather to this temple complex, including a number of courts and chambers that surrounded the temple. These latter structures were the great and wonderful buildings referred to by the disciples in Matt. 24:1; Mark 13:1–2.

• • •

• • •

• • •

Jesus’s Birth and Flight to Egypt

As the time drew near for Jesus to be born, a mandatory Roman registration made it necessary for Joseph to return to his ancestral home of Bethlehem. There Mary gave birth to Jesus, and later, wise men from the East came to worship him. The wise men’s recognition of a new king, however, troubled King Herod and the ruling establishment in Jerusalem, and Herod the Great sought to kill Jesus. Joseph and his family escaped to Egypt and stayed there until Herod died. When they returned to Palestine, they settled in the remote district of Galilee, where Jesus grew up in the village of Nazareth, to avoid the attention of the rulers in Jerusalem.

FOREWORD

One New Testament scholar described the Gospel of Mark as a “passion narrative with an extended introduction.”1 This is why Andreas Köstenberger and I coauthored The Final Days of Jesus: if you want to understand who Jesus is, you have to understand the most important week of his earthly ministry.2 The Gospel writers, like Jesus himself, set their faces to Jerusalem and refused to look back (Luke 9:51, 53).

But something built into the human spirit wants to go back, to see how it all started. God himself, of course, begins the biblical storyline, “In the beginning” (Gen. 1:1). And the story of Jesus, as the preincarnate Word, likewise starts, “In the beginning” (John 1:1).

Although we would never complain about how the Spirit of God chose to guide his inspired writers, we sometimes wish the narrative of Jesus’s first days would slow things down and add some more detail. Obviously we cannot add more chapters to the Bible. God has given us everything we need to worship him in a way that pleases and glorifies his great name and equips us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16–17). But we can slow down. And we can go deeper. This is where Köstenberger and Stewart, gifted biblical theologians and New Testament scholars, can help us.

People say that familiarity breeds contempt, but when it comes to Bible reading, I’ve found that familiarity is more likely to produce laziness. I tend to skim when I already know the story. How many times in my life have I read or heard preached the following familiar words?

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1–7)

We’ve heard it so many times that we assume we know what it all means.

But then we start to ask questions. Who was Caesar Augustus? When did he rule? Over what exact area did he rule? Why did he want all the world to be registered? Who was Quirinius? Is the Syria in this passage the same as the modern country of Syria? Don’t some Bible scholars say that Luke’s history about the timing of the census is inaccurate here? Why did Joseph have to go to Bethlehem instead of registering in Nazareth? How big was Bethlehem? Why did Mary need to go with him? And why doesn’t it say she rode on a donkey—is that in another account, or is that just what we’ve seen on TV? How exactly is betrothal different from engagement? Where is the innkeeper? And what kind of an “inn” was this—a cave, a room in a house, or an ancient hotel?

These are fourteen questions off the top of my head, and we’ve only covered seven verses. As we keep reading, the questions keep coming. Even though we’ve read or heard it dozens of times, it is humbling to recognize just how much we still don’t know.

The book you hold in your hands has no gimmicks or clever sales pitches. It won’t reveal a “gospel” you never knew. (If it did, you should throw it away [Gal. 1:8].) It doesn’t purport to finally disclose the secrets of Jesus’s childhood or what he did in Egypt. Instead, it takes us back to Scripture, the only infallible source with an account of how God became man and dwelt among us.

I think you will find several benefits in reading The First Days of Jesus:

First, this book can help you slow down. The biblical narrative contains details that you probably haven’t noticed before. These details reflect historical realities you probably didn’t know before. And these biblical and historical realities have implications for your life that you probably haven’t thought of before. Köstenberger and Stewart guard us from racing through familiar words and guide us in seeing what we have not yet fully seen.

Second, this book can help you go deeper. The incarnation—God become man—is a deep mystery. Pastor-theologian Sam Storms poetically captures some of the paradoxes at play:

The Word became flesh!

God became human!

the invisible became visible!

the untouchable became touchable!

eternal life experienced temporal death!

the transcendent one descended and drew near!

the unlimited became limited!

the infinite became finite!

the immutable became mutable!

the unbreakable became fragile!

spirit became matter!

eternity entered time!

the independent became dependent!

the almighty became weak!

the loved became the hated!

the exalted was humbled!

glory was subjected to shame!

fame turned into obscurity!

from inexpressible joy to tears of unimaginable grief!

from a throne to a cross!

from ruler to being ruled!

from power to weakness!3

The wonder of the incarnation deserves a lifetime of thought, and this book is a faithful resource to prompt deeper reflection on the foundation of our salvation.

Third, this book can help you make connections. Even though the Bible devotes only four and a half chapters (out of 1,189) to Jesus’s first days, Köstenberger and Stewart show us that the incarnation is the hinge of redemptive history—with the Old Testament leading up to it and the rest of the New Testament flowing from it. Reading this book will help you see how the whole story line fits together.

C. S. Lewis once confessed that in his own reading, “devotional books” did not produce in his mind and heart the results they promised. He suspected he was not alone: “I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”4 You may want to contextualize away the pipe depending on your own preferences and convictions, but I think the advice is sound, and I found this to be the case when reading The First Days of Jesus.

This is not the dry-as-dust formula of dumping data and dates onto the pages of a book. This is not a book of theology void of history or a volume of history minus theology. It is a work of confessional theology rooted in historical investigation and devoted to a careful reading of Scripture, all designed to help us worship our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope you find this book as meaningful and fruitful as I did.

Justin Taylor Maundy Thursday, 2015

1 Martin Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ (1892; repr., Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), 80.

2 Andreas J. Köstenberger and Justin Taylor, with Alexander Stewart, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014).

3 Sam Storms, “The Most Amazing Verse in the Bible,” February 20, 2010, http://www.samstorms.com/all-articles/post/the-most-amazing-verse-in-the-bible.

4 C. S. Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 1970), 205.

INTRODUCTION

SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year—at least according to Andy Williams’s famous rendition of Edward Pola and George Wyle’s Christmas song that can be heard in malls and on radio stations across America throughout the month of December. Pola and Wyle provide several reasons for this assertion:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

With the kids jingle belling

And everyone telling you, “Be of good cheer.”

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s the hap-happiest season of all,

With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings

When friends come to call.

It’s the hap-happiest season of all.

There’ll be parties for hosting,

Marshmallows for toasting,

And caroling out in the snow.

There’ll be scary ghost stories

And tales of the glories of

Christmases long, long ago.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

There’ll be much mistletoeing

And hearts will be glowing

When loved ones are near.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.1

For all of the shallow reasons that Williams sings about, he rightly taps into many people’s perceptions of Christmas as a sentimental time to reconnect with family and friends. This superficial sentimentality sums up Christmas for many people in our modern Western culture.2

CULTURAL CHRISTMAS

When you think of Christmas, what first comes to mind? Perhaps you think of the manger scene with shepherds and wise men, presents, a Christmas tree, decorations, shopping, relatives, Santa Claus, Christmas cards, snow, caroling, or the January credit card bill. Despite what some Christians may want to believe, Christmas, as celebrated by many Americans, is a cultural, not a religious holiday. If Jesus were to be completely removed from the equation, Americans could continue to celebrate Christmas with hardly an interruption. People would still decorate their houses and workplaces, give and receive presents, take the day off work, go to parties, stand in line with their children or grandchildren to see Santa Claus at the local mall, listen to wonderful songs on the radio about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jack Frost, and world peace, and watch an endless stream of movies featuring Santa Claus as the main character. These are some of the ways in which we celebrate Christmas in America (and other countries have their own Christmas traditions). Christians, of course, may also attend a special Christmas pageant at their church, maybe even with some live animals. Even live animals, however, can’t compete with the main feature of Christmas for every child: presents!

Cultural Christmas doesn’t need Jesus. There is too much money at stake for retailers to depend upon a first-century Jewish messianic baby to bring in the revenue. The financial side of Christmas has thoroughly shaped and molded its cultural expression. Our economy needs Christmas. What would happen if Americans stopped overspending and going into debt each December? As every economist would tell you, the economy would be dealt a serious blow. Even families that try to scale back find it very difficult because of all the expectations from relatives and friends. Although other countries and cultures have Christmas traditions of their own, at least in America (and much of the Western world), Christmas is synonymous with commercialism.3

THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS

Christians, of course, have not allowed the almighty dollar or superficial sentimentality to take over Christmas without a fight. Throughout the month of December, churches proclaim the real reason for the season through special services and events. We know it’s all about Jesus (or at least it once was all about Jesus), and we want it to be all about Jesus again.

We engage in this battle for Christmas, however, with one hand tied behind our back—solidly rooted in the very culture that is obscuring or ignoring the original reason for the season. We find ourselves making up spiritual reasons for our cultural practices. For example, we give gifts to each other to remind ourselves of God’s great gift of Jesus to the world or of the gifts of the wisemen to Jesus. That may sound nice, but is it true? Or do we give gifts because our parents did and everyone else we know does? What kind of parent would you be if you didn’t give your child a Christmas present? Or—God forbid—if you didn’t celebrate Christmas at all? Very little is intrinsically spiritual with these kinds of expectations; they are almost entirely cultural. Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with observing such rituals. The difficulty comes in trying to understand and communicate accurately thereal significance of Jesus’s birth as a human child when its true meaning is buried beneath so many layers of culture-related traditions.

Examples abound. What does the decoration of an evergreen tree have to do with Jesus’s coming to earth to rescue God’s creation? We may tell ourselves that it symbolizes everlasting life because it is ever-green, but is that really the reason we set up a Christmas tree each year? Similarly, we may point to candles as a symbol of Jesus as the Light of the World, holly as a symbol of the crown of thorns that was placed upon Jesus’s head, the color red as a symbol of Jesus’s blood shed on the cross, the Yule log as a symbol of the cross, mistletoe as a symbol of reconciliation, and bells as a symbol for ringing out the good news. Even if some of these associations and symbols date back centuries, they fail to explain why we incorporate these traditional elements in our Christmas celebrations today. If we’re honest, we have to admit that we celebrate Christmas the way we do primarily because of our cultural traditions, even though they have little (if any) real connection to Jesus’s actual coming to this earth as a baby.

Now please don’t misunderstand what we’re trying to say here. We are not advocating that all true Christians reject these traditions as mere trappings of culture. Far from it. Traditions can be deeply meaningful and enhance our spiritual experience, and as long as they don’t clash with biblical information, they can certainly be used to celebrate key events such as the birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary. So if you are looking for an argument against the use of Christmas trees or the giving of presents, you are reading the wrong book (though the Puritans made a pretty good run at it; these pious forebears rejected Christmas observances on account of their religious beliefs).4 We’re simply trying to draw attention to the difference that exists between the traditional ways in which we celebrate Christmas based upon our culture and the reality and significance of Jesus’s coming to this earth to enact God’s grand rescue plan to restore and reclaim humanity. In this regard, it’s helpful to recognize the many ways in which our cultural traditions, often unintentionally, distort our understanding of the actual import of Jesus’s coming as the long-awaited culmination of God’s plan.

GOING BACK IN TIME

In order to appreciate the significance of Messiah’s coming—and so to understand the true meaning of Christmas—we need to travel back in time, back to the first Christmas, before this event even carried that name. We can’t offer you a time machine (sorry!), but we can point you to the earliest written witnesses to the first Christmas: the canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke. (Mark’s Gospel picks up the story of Jesus when he’s a grown man and does not discuss Jesus’s birth. John’s Gospel does not mention Jesus’s birth directly but surprisingly contributes quite a bit to our understanding of the significance of Jesus’s coming—more on that later.) These Gospel authors wrote their accounts on the basis of others’ eyewitness testimony; neither Matthew nor Luke (nor even John) was there on that fateful night in Bethlehem. Luke even explicitly alerts his readers to his use of eyewitness testimony in his preface:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.5

Luke provides an account of a careful ancient historian motivated by a desire to present an accurate narrative of the events surrounding Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection in order to strengthen his readers’ faith. Similarly, while Matthew says nothing of his sources, his Gospel would have likely begun circulating by the late AD 50s to early 60s, early enough that surviving eyewitnesses could still have provided oral source material and confirmed the published contents of his Gospel.

The fact that Matthew and Luke were personally absent from the events they record does not lessen the value of their testimony. Their Gospels reveal a concern for careful and accurate reporting; one detects a complete lack of the fanciful and over-the-top types of stories that various gnostic authors invented about Jesus in the second century.6 The Gospels are akin to the ancient genre of bios, or biography, not fiction.7 Although we cannot know for certain which eyewitnesses passed on the accounts, likely candidates include Jesus’s mother, Mary, as well as his half-brothers James and Jude, both of whom (especially James) served as leaders in the early church and would certainly have known the stories surrounding Jesus’s birth. We can safely assume that Joseph had died by the time Jesus began his public ministry because none of the Gospel accounts mention him, but Joseph must have passed on his account of the angel’s messages to others, whether Mary, his sons, Jesus, or some other close friends or relatives.

The New Testament Gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth—the so-called infancy narratives—provide a different perspective than most modern popular presentations. They are far richer and deeper than can be communicated in a children’s Christmas pageant, a still manger scene on a fireplace mantle, or a Christmas card. The baby would not have had a halo and—despite the famous line from “Away in a Manger,” “but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes”—almost certainly would have cried.

Perhaps the hardest aspect of Jesus’s coming for modern readers to appreciate is its Jewish context, particularly its connection to the Old Testament. Even as the Gospel infancy narratives are more meaningful than contemporary cultural versions, they lack many of the details that have been added over the centuries. For example, they don’t tell us about the nature of the stable (cave, open-air, wood, etc.); whether there even was a stable; whether or not animals grazed nearby; or how many wise men traveled to Bethlehem. The wise men almost certainly did not arrive on the night of the birth, as most mass-produced manger scenes depict, and a star most likely would not have been suspended right above the roofline. A careful reading of the New Testament infancy narratives in their historical context will help you separate fact from fiction and clear away the brush so you can truly encounter and be changed by the Christ of Christmas.

A GUIDEBOOK

One might best describe this book as a guidebook for reading and encountering the Gospel infancy narratives. No book, no matter how well written, could ever function as a substitute for the narratives themselves, so each chapter will begin with the relevant text of Scripture to be discussed. Each chapter will examine a section of the biblical text with an eye toward proper understanding and application. Sometimes this will require attention to historical and cultural details. At other times it will require looking at connections with the Old Testament or later events in Jesus’s life. We aim throughout to present the most important information in a clear and understandable way in order to enable you to grasp and be changed by a biblical understanding of Christmas.

In our companion book, The Final Days of Jesus, we set forth two complementary ways of reading the Gospels, vertically and horizontally.8 Reading the Gospels vertically means reading each one (or at least a portion of it, such as its infancy narrative) from beginning to end as a self-contained story in its own right. Reading the Gospels horizontally means exploring how each presentation relates to the others in a complementary fashion, jointly witnessing to the same historical reality, statements, and events. Both types of reading are valuable; both should be done sequentially. In the present case, since both Matthew’s and Luke’s infancy narratives (not to mention John’s prologue) are so unique and coherent, it makes sense to start with a vertical reading of their respective accounts and to draw horizontal connections once we have completed the vertical readings. This will involve comparisons of various aspects of the Matthean and Lucan infancy narratives, such as their respective genealogies or other elements in their stories; it will also involve comparisons of Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts on the one hand and John’s on the other.9

In that vein, our approach to the biblical text will essentially be biblical, exegetical, historical, and devotional. Biblical means that we will look at how the infancy narratives connect with Old Testament prophecies and in some cases point forward to later fulfillment. We will also try to consistently relate the infancy narratives to the larger story of Scripture.

Exegetical means that we will give careful attention to the words of the actual text.10 While a biblical approach looks at the entire forest, an exegetical approach carefully examines the individual trees.

Historical means that we will situate and discuss the infancy narratives within their first-century context in ancient Palestine. Critics of Christianity often use a supposedly historical approach to mock certain aspects of the infancy narratives. Some of this criticism is patently superficial and skeptical and stems from a prior rejection of any possibility of God’s supernatural intervention in history. If God exists, however, we have no reason to rule out the possibility of supernatural events such as the virgin birth or angelic appearances simply out of a misguided desire to be historical or scientific. Beyond these biased critiques, some scholars raise legitimate historical questions that we will address, such as the dating of Quirinius’s census that precipitated Joseph’s and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem and the differences between Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’s birth.11

Finally, devotional means that we will aim to discuss the scriptural texts in such a way that you, the reader, will be drawn closer to God. We don’t write simply to convey information; we want you to be delivered and transformed by the same God who has delivered and is transforming us. This devotional aspect does not imply that we will ignore difficult issues or reject logic and rational argument. Christianity, rightly understood, does not entail a rejection of reason!12 Our attention to the devotional aspect of this material rather emphasizes the fact that, especially in a case like Jesus’s birth, information alone is insufficient. The technological revolution we are witnessing in our lifetime notwithstanding, an increase in knowledge by itself will never be able to fix humanity’s greatest problems—sin, alienation, and death. Only God can do that. We hope that this book will draw you closer to the One who did not abandon a rebellious creation but set out to rescue it at great expense to himself. God’s plan of redemption was conceived even before creation, was set in motion the moment humanity rebelled against its Creator, and was accomplished by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. It will achieve its consummation when Jesus returns to reclaim and restore God’s creation once and for all. What a glorious day that will be!

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s rewind so that, with the help of sound historical research and a careful reading of the relevant texts, we will be able to put ourselves in the place of the people who lived at the time when the original Christmas—the birth of the Christ-child—took place.

1 Edward Pola and George Wyle, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” performed by Andy Williams, Columbia Records, 1963, record.

2 See the helpful booklet containing a series of messages by Josh Moody, pastor of College Church, How Christmas Can Change Your Life (Wheaton, IL: College Church, 2013). Audio versions of these messages are available at http://www.college-church.org/av_search.php?seriesid=101.

3 Both Linus and Lucy lamented this fact long ago in A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). Linus: “Christmas is . . . getting too commercial.” Lucy: “We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.” Charles M. Schulz, A Charlie Brown Christmas, directed by Bill Melendez, aired December 9, 1965, on CBS.

4 See Andreas J. Köstenberger, “A Puritan Christmas,” Biblical Foundations (blog), December 16, 2006, http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/a-puritan-christmas.

5 Luke 1:1–4.

6 Gnosticism was the first Christian heresy, both denying the goodness of material substance and thus Jesus’s human flesh and denying Jesus’s full and ultimate divinity.

7 See the classic work by Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 2004). Andrew T. Lincoln argues that the genre of ancient biography allowed for legendary embellishment in infancy narratives. Born of a Virgin? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 2013), 57–67. However, Matthew and Luke doubtfully invented Jesus’s virgin birth independently; they more likely passed on the traditions they had received about Jesus’s infancy, traditions that family members preserved and that were widespread in earliest Christianity. Richard Bauckham cogently argues that we can trace Luke’s genealogy in particular back to Jesus’s immediate family members. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (London: T&T Clark, 1990), 315–73. For an extensive discussion of ancient historiographical practices, see Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary: Introduction and 1:1–2:47 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2012), 51–220.

8 Andreas J. Köstenberger and Justin Taylor, with Alexander Stewart, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 18–19.

9 See chaps. 1 and 10 (especially the section, “Matthew and Luke in Harmony”) and chap. 14, respectively.

10 The word exegetical comes from the Greek and means literally, “leading or drawing out.” Using an exegetical approach is roughly synonymous to what we mean by engaging in inductive Bible study. On this issue, see R. Alan Fuhr and Andreas J. Köstenberger, Inductive Bible Study: A Method for Biblical Interpretation (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, forthcoming).

11 Quirinius’s census is mentioned in Luke 2:2.

12 This is the underlying premise of Andreas J. Köstenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh Chatraw, Truth Matters: Confident Faith in a Confusing World (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2014); and the book by the same authors, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2014).