The Christmas story is like the Star Wars prequels.

[edhopper]

I was on a discussion thread talking about the 3 Star Wars prequel movies. While some defended them, many of us pointed out how bad the story was and how much of it contradicted the three main movies (A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi)
It occurred to me it is like the story of Jesus' birth. The myth makers had to make him special, fulfill certain prophecies and ended up the preacher they write about later. But in doing so, they end up with historical and self-contradictory elements that just make the reader (or viewer in the case of Star Wars) ignore whole parts of it.

Yes this is just thinking out loud and not a concise treatise on the whole thing. It's half-baked, much like the tale of the birth in the manger.

[saltpoint]

1. It's kind of fun to pop in to a

thrift shop once in a while. Sometimes on the knick-knack shelf there are Nativity figurines -- the three wise kings, the cattle, the shepherds, and so on.

I rearrange non-Nativity figurines to form a manger scene. So far not with any Star Wars characters because they're popular and disappear quickly from store shelves.

But once with the Hulk. He stood green and huge with a tragic expression on his face, purple shorts and all.

[edhopper]

2. If you have a smartphone

you should take a pic of that.

I much prefer comic book mythology to biblical mythology.

Better heroes, better message.

[saltpoint]

3. I'm suprrised no one had

grabbed that Hulk figurine. It was kind of impressive.

There have been a couple of stories in local news around the country every few years of someone abducting the Christ child figure from a church lawn's Nativity scene, then sending a ransom note to the Church (copying the local newspaper), saying "The Christ child will not be returned until there is dignity and good will among men and women."

I thought that was a lot more in line with the spirit of the New Testament than just a bunch of ceramic figurines. I'm able to suspend belief when I read a novel or watch a film. Anne Rice's vampires are so well done by the author that I can almost see them. And if Jimmy Stewart says he's walking around with a 7-foot rabbit, by god, I'm cool with that, too.

The Nativity story has many attractive elements, but I've long abandoned the possibility that it is an actual account of events.

[edhopper]

6. But so much of it is just a retread of early stuff

birth in a manger, okay, but flee to Egypt to escape slaying, come on, we've all read about Moses.
Couldn't they at least change the country?

It's like The Spy Who loved me is just You Only Live Twice in the ocean.

[saltpoint]

7. I guess Egypt was the swinging hot spot

for religious refugees at the time. They probably just didn't want to buck the trend.

And it's all the same to the donkey. "Egypt again? Fine. Whatever."

[Warpy]

4. Silly myths surround most ancient figures

and the same myths are recycled over and over again, a veritable treadmill of heroes/demigods having virgin births and working miracles and rising from the dead, especially around the Mediterranean, the myths being tacked on long after they were dead and buried in order to tell people they were different from birth so don't YOU try to be special, you're not.

But determining ability to use the force by a blood test? Really? George, what the fuck were you thinking?

[edhopper]

5. Thankfully

they've abandoned that in the new film.

It's a dumb as a census that has everyone in a country pack up and move to be counted.

As far as myths, I found Homer's to be much more coherent and logical (once we accept the supernatural stuff for the sake of the fiction) than anything in the Bible.

[struggle4progress]

8. The Roman census was an account not only of persons but also of land, livestock, and slaves;

and according to Ulpianus (Censuses, Book 3, as recorded in Justinian's Digest) land ownership was required to be declared in the region where the land itself was, in order that taxes on the region could be offset by lands declared in the census; so persons owning any land might need to travel from where they lived to where they owned land. The penalties for failure to register might, in principle, have been serious: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, for example, apparently included being flogged then sold into slavery

Josephus (Antiquities XVIII) says Quirinius visited Judaea "to make an assessment of the property of the Jews" and that Judas of Gamala led a rebellion against this, as being slavery

So there seems to have been something like a census under Quirinius, and it seems to have been associated with substantial social disquiet. The actual rules and mechanics for such an assessment of property in a conquered territory -- according to Roman law or the intent of officials in the imperial city, according to Quirinius himself or his immediate functionaries, according to local officials, according to the tax assessors and collectors who carried out the actual enrollment, or according to the understanding of the affected population in Judaea -- would, of course, not necessarily have coincided

[edhopper]

9. I am not saying there was no census at all

I am saying no one does a census by asking the entire population to pick up and move to the small town where their family was once from.
Is there somewhere in the Bible where it says Joseph, the itinerent laborer, had land holdings in Bethlehem? The place that he couldn't find a place to stay. But wait, if he owned land...


Trying to make this tale any more than the fabrication it obviously is takes twisting into positions to make a yoga teacher proud.

[skepticscott]

11. And how fucking many people

would have been "of the house and lineage of David", given that David lived a thousand years before the supposed events of the Nativity? How intellectually compromised does someone have to be to defend the legitimacy of the census fable as recounted in the Bible?

[goldent]

12. I agree it is very hard to know how many people

would have known they were from the House of David. And of those, how many truly were from the House of David.

On that PBS show that does genealogy research on celebrities, it seems like half of them are descendants of some royalty, George Washington, etc. (unless there was a family story that they were descended from royalty, in which case they are not).

The one thing I've learned is that our ability to reason about events 2000 years ago is greatly hampered by our living in the present times. Likewise I suppose people living 2000 years ago would have great difficulty in understanding why people would wait in lines outside a theater waiting to see a performance of Star Wars.

[skepticscott]

15. And your point is what?

We know a great deal about how the Romans thought and acted, from abundant and direct evidence. We know, we do not have to guess or speculate from a modern perspective, that the Romans favored order, and that calling for a census in which every person in the Empire was required to travel to be counted in the city where their ancestors lived a thousand years before (as opposed to being counted right where they were) would have been utterly chaotic and unworkable. A far better and more sensible explanation is that that part of the census story was simply invented to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to fulfill an OT prophecy.

And no, the Romans would have had no difficulty at all understanding people being drawn to a spectacle and packing a theater or stadium to witness it, since they did the same.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

16. Congruence with earlier prophecies

Yes, I agree that a number of odd items in the gospels are ex post facto attempts to make Jesus' life fit earlier prophecies. This would include having a Galilean (north part of the country) being born in Bethlehem (near Jerusalem); coming out of Egypt after the flight; Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Probably several other incidents that I'm not recalling.

And then there's all the elements from the myths of the Mediterranean gods that die seasonally and are resurrected, just like the vegetation....

[goldent]

17. Years ago, the state I lived in...

Last edited Sun Dec 27, 2015, 08:22 PM - Edit history (1)

required you to get new car license plates every year. OK, a little wasteful but I guess they had prisoners making them. Couldn't order them by mail. OK, so we have to make a trip to the DMV. So when do you do this? Oh, anytime during the month of March, along with EVERY OTHER RESIDENT of the State. Yep, everyone's license plates expired on the same day. I'm sure it was very efficient for someone. Well, it was a yearly news item, around the last week of March, to see pictures of the lines snaking out of the DMV. Every year the license plate colors were different, which was helpful for the police to know if you didn't make it in time. And this was a government that presumably was on our side!

The Roman census is exactly something an occupying force would do, just to make sure the people knew their place. A little inconvenient for the people, but how it simplifies the job of the census taker and tax collector! It reminds me a little bit of the some of the voter suppression tactics of today, with college students not being able to vote in their local precinct. It wouldn't surprise me to see home registration worked into immigration legislation. See what you can learn from the Bible?!

[skepticscott]

18. Ah, NOW I get it

You couldn't have made that more clear if you'd tried.

[edhopper]

19. Did you have to travel

to the town of your birth or where you bought the car to get the lisence plate?

[goldent]

20. I've never heard of that. In fact, as I remember, you could travel to any

DMV office and perhaps reduce your wait time (as an aid to any 4th millennium historian reading this, we did NOT have mobile apps to help us find the DMV with the shortest wait time - that wasn't possible until about 2005 and by then the process had changed). There was some grumbling as people stood in line, but I guess we didn't know how good we had it, not having to travel.

I don't know if the Roman's required license plates on the chariots, but unless there is conclusive proof to the contrary, I think we can pretty much take it as fact that they did because of how organized and efficient they were (vanity plates is another story ). Now that we've established that, I wonder what we can conclude about their registration process, without having to guess or speculate. Given the Roman's favored order, there is no way they'd do it like we did. Probably they based it on the owner's birthday, date of registration, or zip code.

[edhopper]

22. So you still want to hold that

this ridiculous census story, with no historical documentation is likely true?

If that helps you out, go with it.

[saltpoint]

10. 'Found this piece about the

likelihood of a virgin birth:

http://www.vice.com/read/the-science-behind-the-virgin-birth


There is the far, entirely remote, and extremely small chance, but the circumstances that would bring it to bear would themselves be extremely unlikely.

The virgin birth is defended as a "miracle," but in actual real life human experience, the process involves a penis and a vagina fairly prominently.

[Arugula Latte]

31. It's the age-old excuse:

"GOD did it."

Unfortunately for generations of young teen unwed mothers who followed, that excuse got prominently used up by Mary, and then was basically unavailable to assuage all the pissed-off moms and dads whose little angel was no longer pure and "sin-less."

[saltpoint]

33. Very good point. As most men and women

understand the process of making babies, an abstract Entity is not required.

I think of the unwed mothers you reference, and the shame heaped upon them by their families or their communities. Or their churches. Having to leave under mysterious circumstances to stay with relatives in another state, etc.

And no one to speak in their behalf.

It's a dismissive and cold-hearted way to treat young people at a time when they most need to see their own families defend them, support them, and publicly affirm them.

[Arugula Latte]

35. Yes. And of course the double standard is always there.

Not much happens to the sperm donors, so to speak.

[saltpoint]

36. Also true. The "sperm donors"

very often are not sent away or shunned.

A lot of communities won't like it much, and the fundie churches in particular won't like it much, but what's probably needed is a much more progressive and comprehensive way to explain to young people all of what's at stake in their sexual and/or reproductive lives.

In the age of a world wide web, there's really no excuse why a comprehensive resource couldn't be available.

I'd love to see the absence of judgment and punishment, particularly for young women who become pregnant and need significant support. In nine months, that baby will be better off if great effort is made to support its mother right now.

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. I actually made the mistake of watching the prequel triology this Christmas...

...and the sad part is, even the Bible contains better dialogue than any of George Lucas' amateurish screenplays.

[edhopper]

14. That's only because

it's been polished so many times through the ages.
And any Jar Jar Binks types were put aside in the non-canonical gospels.

But think how easier it would have been for them if the magi were Jedi.

"These aren't the Family you are looking for".

[goldent]

21. Are the prequels really that bad?

I've heard that a lot and I thought it was maybe just the elite fans being elitist. I just saw 'the force awakens' and even some of the dialogue in that one made me cringe a little.

[Act_of_Reparation]

25. They are beyond bad.

They are objectively awful films, and the depth of their failure goes well and beyond the usual ridiculous fanboy criticisms. When they are at their best, they are boring and unmemorable. At their worst, they are laugh-out-loud stupid. Lucas' writing and direction is so poor he failed he failed to establish a main character in the first movie. It's two hours and twenty minutes long... a long time to sit twiddling your thumbs wondering who in the hell you should be rooting for.

[goldent]

27. Well sooner or later I will watch them.

I will set my expectations accordingly.

[edhopper]

29. To be fair

the prequels look great, spectacular special effects and the action scenes are very good at times.
But the characters and story doesn't work. partly for what Act says.
But not just the fan boys, but anyone familiar with the original trilogy, will just scratch their head at the inconsistencies with the what will come later. It's like Lucas wasn't the same guy who wrote the original films and just made new shit up.

[Goblinmonger]

32. The only way to watch is the Machete Order

New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, Return of the Jedi.

Phantom Menace isn't on there because you don't need it and it sucks.

[Act_of_Reparation]

34. Phantom Menace is bad...

...but for me Attack of the Clones is worse.

[rug]

23. With little effort, you cold rearrange the posts in here to similate the StarWars prequels.

[edhopper]

24. How was "Lips"?

[rug]

26. Fantastic! A wonderful time was had by all

It's a small club and the interaction with the audience was hysterical. That is the main reason to go imo.

The emcee was Blackie O'Nasty, really talented, really funny. There were a bunch of women from Marlboro, New Jersey celebrating an 18th birthday and she called them the "future white women of America". There was a Russian guy in his 60s there for his birthday with his wife and daughter and he was mercilessly roasted. She called him Big Daddy and told his wife she'd give her a break and show her husband the upstairs.

Here's Blackie from last New Year's. Lot of lip syncing but she also sang in her own voice really well.

There were about nine women - and one man, the Russian - who were celebrating their birthdays Saturday. Each one was brought up on stage and sat in a chair and commented on, some more raunchily than the other. Our waitress, Melinda, told my daughter to call Social Services on us.

The menu said, "The more you drink the better we look."

Food is good too.

My daughter was in heaven.

Thanks for asking.

(Oh, this morning we went to 10:15 Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral and Cardinal Dolan was the celebrant. His sermon was on the Holy Family. My daughter hated it.)

[edhopper]

28. Sounds like great fun

Maybe your daughter would have enjoyed the sermon more if he had mentioned Star Wars.

[rug]

30. Hah, her brothers keep talking about Star Wars so she dislikes it by proxy.