Curiously, only two of the four Gospels mention Jesus’ birth, and they provide diverging accounts. The traditional manger and shepherds in Luke; the wise men, massacre of children, and flight to Egypt in Matthew, the palm trees in James’ Protoevangelium, the cave, or the house, or the stable.
According to the Christian mythographers who “invented” the myth of the “divine birth”, there are four answers of the question “where did Jesus’ birth take place?”.
a) One story says that he was born in a cave, which was dedicated to Adonis, as it is depicted in Christian iconography. The first clear evidence of veneration comes from the third century, when the theologian Origen of Alexandria visited Palestine and noted, “In Bethlehem there is shown the cave where [Jesus] was born.” Early in the fourth century, the emperor Constantine sent an imperial delegation to the Holy Land to identify places associated with the life of Christ and hallow them with churches and shrines. Having located what they believed was the site of the Nativity grotto, the delegates erected an elaborate church, the forerunner of the present-day basilica. Hercules’ (among many other deities’ myths) story also matches perfectly to that of Jesus.
In the apocryphon Protevangelion of James, we read of a different version of Jesus’ birth, that while being the couple 3 miles from Bethlehem, Mary said to Joseph, “take me down from the ass, for what is in me presses to come forth” and Joseph replied, “Whither shall I take thee for the place is desert?”, but again Mary said to him, “Take me down, because that which is within me mightily presses me”. Then Joseph took her down, found a cave nearby and went to find a midwife. This version proves that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, but in the desert in a cave. The Protoevangelium tells the story of Mary’s birth and childhood, her betrothal to Joseph and the birth of Jesus. The account of Jesus’ birth follows Matthew and Luke’s account, but there are some extra details: Mary rides a donkey to Bethlehem, there is no mention of an inn as such, and the stable where Jesus is born is in a cave.
The same states Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history according to which Jesus was born in a cave. (154:3 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 3 ch 11) and that on that spot Constantine built a marvelous temple.
Tertullian, Jerome, Justin Martyr (see Farrar’s Life of Christ p 38) and other Fathers say that Jesus was born in a cave and that the heathens celebrated also the birth of their Lord and Savior Adonis in this very cave in Bethlehem. (see Higgins, Anacalypsis vol 2 p 98) In antiquity it was a well-spread myth a deity or Savior to be born in a cave, like Mithra, Dionysus, Hercules, Zeus, Abraham (see Calmet’s Fragments, Abraham), Bacchus of India, Aesculapius, Adonis, Apollo, Hermes (see Dunlap’s Mysteries of Adonis p 124), Attys (see Dunlap’s Mysteries of Adonis p 124) etc.
b) In a stable of an inn,
c) Or in a house, as there were no rooms available when they stopped to pass the night, as it is also depicted in the related Christian iconography. According to Matthew, Jesus was born in a house, but according to Luke, he was born in a stable
Matthew described the arrival of the wise men from the East: When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:10-11). Mark and John do not discuss the birth of Christ. They surely knew the details, but chose to write about other things
Luke 2:4–7 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
d) In “The Infancy Gospel of Matthew” which is copied in the Quran (Pseudo-Matthew Gospel 20 and Quran 19:23-27), it is reported that Mary on her way to Bethlehem sat under a palm tree and ate its dates and it was there she gave birth to Jesus. In 1992 archaeologists working on a road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem discovered the ruins of a church, that of the “Kathisma of the Theotokos” (The sitting of Mary) built in 451. This church commemorated the place where Mary according to the Gospels had stopped to give birth to Jesus. On the floor of this church there was a mosaic showing three palm trees full of dates (see “Away in a manger or under a palm tree”? Mustafa Akyol New York Times 12/21/2017 Opinion Section), demonstrating that the early Christians believed in a third version of the Jesus’ birth and that it was known to Arabs during Muhammad’s era too. The Phallic significance of the palm is well known, and in its connection with the bo-tree we have the perfect idea of generative activity, the combining of the male and female organs, a combination intended by the Hebrew legend when it speaks of the tree of life, and also of “the knowledge of good and evil.” “The palm-tree,” says Dr. Inman, “is figured on ancient coins alone, or associated with some feminine emblem. It typified the male creator, who was represented as an upright stone, a pillar, a round tower, a tree stump, an oak-tree, a pine-tree, a maypole, a spire, an obelisk, a minaret, and the like.” The Palmyra Palm is the kalpa-tree, or the “tree of life” of the Hindu paradise, and this was not the only kind of tree with which the idea of life was thus associated. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/opinion/manger-jesus-birthplace-islam.html
Can anybody “enlighten us” where Yehoshua was finally born, as the mythographers who wrote the Gospels were in deep confusion?
Approved ~ Primus Pilus
Δεσμώτης
Article URL : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/jesus-tomb-archaeology