Questioning the First Christmas: the Nativity Story in Early Christian Traditions – four online talks by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
posted on 06/09/2024
We are all familiar with the scene: a babe laid in a manger under the loving gaze of the Virgin Mary, his mother, and the protective watch of Joseph the carpenter.
Oxen and a donkey and a few sheep make up the stable-setting of the picture too. There are shepherds, in wonderment, on their knees, their eyes full of tears. And three splendidly-costumed foreigners, kings or wise men, tentatively approach bearing precious gifts for the new-born child. Overhead a host of angels rejoice and a brilliant star lights up the sky. We see this image replicated every Christmas on a million cards and in thousands of Nativity sets. But the scene as we know it is never depicted in the New Testament. It is a creation of a later age.
This stimulating series takes a deep-look at the Christmas story we think we know and shows how the birth-story of Jesus is, in fact, a series of separate narratives and varying traditions that were intended to appeal to different peoples in Jewish or Greco-Roman society. Our lecturer, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, is both a professor in ancient history and an ordained priest.
They take place every Thursday from 28th November–19th December at 4.30pm (London) and, including Q&A, will probably last just under an hour. They are available for viewing for eight weeks after the last episode is streamed (13th February 2025).
Register for the webinar series for £55
The talks
1. Oh Little Town of ... Bethlehem or Nazareth? (28th November 2024)
This lecture looks at the two very different Nativity stories that have come down to us in the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke. Both evangelists approach the Nativity story from widely discriminate angles and both craft the story with specific agendas, with Matthew writing for a Jewish audience and Luke for a Gentile readership. The result is a 'story' full of discrepancies. But does this matter? Was there ever meant to be a single nativity story?
2. Virgin Birth(s)? (5th December 2024)
What did the early Christians make of the story of Jesus' birth from a virgin-mother? This lecture sets the notion of virgin birth in its ancient context by looking at miraculous birth stories from Greco-Roman and Near Eastern mythologies. The lecture also analyses the term 'virgin' in its original context and explores the development of the role of Mary in early Christian thought. Finally, the lecture asks what makes the virgin birth story of Jesus special?
3. How was Jesus Born? (12th December 2024)
None of the canonical gospel accounts of the Nativity provide us with a narrative of Jesus' birth itself. The evangelists 'look away', as it were, at the moment Mary delivers her divine-child. But that did not stop early Christians thinking about the nature of the physical reality of Jesus' birth. Did Mary have pain? Did she remain a virgin postpartum? Did Jesus experience a regular human birthing? In the years after the Gospel accounts were written, other non-canonical texts appeared in which Christians tried to answer these questions.
4. How Many Wise Men Can You Count? (19th December 2024)
The story of Magi, the 'three wise men', is an integral and much-loved part of Christmas. It is the moment of 'epiphany' when Jesus is recognised by those outside his race as being the son of God. Very much linked to the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, artists from the earliest times envisaged that there were three magi and their images were quickly disseminated throughout early Christian art – they even received names: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. But there were other earlier traditions that told a very different story. This lecture uncovers early Syriac and Armenian Nativity stories which shed unexpected light on the gospel narrative.
Image: The Nativity, Antoniazzo Romano (1480s), The Met ©
The speaker
Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Chair of Ancient History and Persian Studies at the University of Cardiff and specialist in the history and culture of Iran, the ancient Near East and Greece. He has published widely on Iran, Greece and the history and cultures of the ancient world. Books include Creating a Hellenistic World, King and Court in Ancient Persia, The Culture of Animals in the Ancient World, The Hellenistic Court, Designs on the Past: How Hollywood Created the Ancient World and, in 2022, Persians: the Age of the Great Kings. His latest publication is Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther, Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible and his next publication is about the forgotten queens of Egypt. He has contributed to TV documentaries and BBC radio programmes and is a regular reviewer for The Times and Times Higher Education.
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