Saturday, December 20, 1997

Ancient 'gospel' gives additional details on Jesus' birth

By MICHAEL J. PAQUETTE / Religion News Service

-- It's the Christmas story you probably haven't heard before.

The characters are much the same: There's Joseph, Mary, the Magi, and, of course, the newborn Jesus. There's also a donkey, a trip to Bethlehem and a star in the east.

But that's about where the similarities end between the familiar accounts of Jesus' birth and the one told in the Infancy Gospel of James, a noncanonical book about Mary and the birth of Jesus purportedly written by Jesus' half brother.

The ancient Infancy Gospel includes these fascinating details about the Nativity:

-- Two of Joseph's sons accompanied their father and Mary as they traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the Roman census.

-- Halfway through the trip -- before reaching Bethlehem -- Mary delivered Jesus in a cave by the roadside.

-- While Mary was in labor, Joseph ran off to find a midwife.

-- As Mary gave birth, Joseph experienced a sort of time warp in which all activity around him appeared momentarily suspended.

-- Eventually, two midwives arrived at the cave. The second midwife, named Salome, performed a physical examination of Mary to assuage her doubts that a virgin had given birth.

Although some material does overlap the gospel accounts of Jesus' birth as told in Matthew and Luke, "it (the Infancy Gospel) tells a very different and much more detailed story," writes Ronald F. Hock in the newly published "The Life of Mary and the Birth of Jesus" (Ulysses Press).

The Infancy Gospel of James is a protevangelium, or pre-gospel, because it begins well before the life of Jesus; it is part of the Apocrypha, a variety of early Christian writings that did not make it into the New Testament. The uncomplicated story, which focuses on the life of Mary and stresses her piety and purity, ends with the birth of Jesus. It does not include any of Jesus' teachings nor does it recount the major events of his life or death.

"It's kind of fluff," Hock, a religion professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said in an interview.

"It's a simple story and more sentimental than profound. It doesn't meet the requirements of what theologians would like in a document," he surmised when asked why the Infancy Gospel is not part of the Bible.

"But," he added, "there's nothing heretical about it."

In addition to providing the most intricate account of Jesus' birth, the Infancy Gospel is filled with details about Mary's parents, childhood and relationship with Joseph:

-- Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne, were only able to conceive after being visited by a heavenly messenger.

-- At age 3, Mary was sent to the Temple in Jerusalem, where she spent the rest of her childhood being fed by an angel.

-- Joseph, described as an old carpenter with grown sons, was chosen to take care of Mary after a dove flew from his staff and perched on his head.

-- While Joseph was off building houses, Mary spent her days with other virgins spinning thread to make the Temple veil.

-- When Mary's pregnancy was discovered, Joseph was accused by the Temple priests of sexually violating the virgin left in his care.

But above all else, the slim gospel painstakingly stresses that Mary was a virgin even after Jesus' birth.

"The Infancy Gospel was written to praise Mary and explain why she was chosen to be the mother of God," said Hock.

Yet to many scholars, the author remains a mystery.

Hock believes the text was written during the second century -- well after the death in 62 A.D. of James, Jesus' half brother -- because of the author's use of a specific literary style, called an encomium, which follows strict rules of compositon and was used during that era to praise subjects. Because of the author's "confusion about the geographic relation of Bethlehem to Jerusalem and Judea," Hock also writes that the author was "a stranger" to the Holy Land.

"(The author) is obviously a Christian, obviously someone with a significant level of education...a capable writer," said Hock. "He is someone who knows the Gospels...but feels free to change and elaborate as he feels is required."

As an example, Hock points to the controversy surrounding whether or not Jesus had siblings, as mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Jerome, a 4th-century biblical scholar, interpreted those references to mean Jesus' cousins, not his brothers, and "strongly objected to the Infancy Gospel's assertion that Jesus' brothers were children of Joseph's earlier marriage."

On that basis, Jerome, an extremely influencial church father, rejected the Infancy Gospel.

"The Gospel of James was condemned in the West and as a result it didn't have the same afterlife as in the East," said Nicholas Constas, a professor of early Christian and Byzantine studies at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass. "Without question," he added, among Christians the Orthodox give the Gospel of James the greatest attention.

"I think there's a certain kind of theological and symbolic value to the narrative that justifies its inclusion into the life of the church," he said.

An example of the Infancy Gospel's incorporation into Orthodoxy, Constas said, is "an iconographic tradition where this whole (Infancy Gospel) has been illustrated." He cited some of the frescos in Panagia Tou Arakou, a late 12th-century Byzantine church in Cyprus.

In addition, the Orthodox celebrate feastdays based on events found only in James' gospel, such as Anne's conception of Mary, the birth of Mary, and Mary's entrance into the Temple.

However, the Infancy Gospel is not free from controversy within Orthodoxy.

"There are a couple of moments or episodes that are not necessarily heretical but are questionable, and as such were kind of edited out" of the life of the church, Constas said.

Joseph's "suspension in time" during the birth of Jesus and the "amazing moment when Salome inserts her hand into Mary's womb" to certify the virgin birth are two such example, he said.

So then, how trustworthy an account of the life of Mary and the birth of Jesus is the Infancy Gospel of James?

"When writers in the ancient world wrote narratives, one of the criteria they had to meet was plausibility rather than accuracy," said Hock. "So there wasn't an expectation that this happened but rather that it could have happened and that was good enough."