Working out of Matthew ...

I spend a good deal of time with my bible - as a skeptic of course. From time to time, I will post my critique of a biblical story, asking simple questions and hopefully, provoking further thought on the part of the reader. Today, I will be working out of the New Testament, namely, the first 2 chapters of Matthew.

Matthew (and as such, the New Testament) begins with the genealogy of Jesus. I won't say much on this topic except that it is nearly impossible to reconcile with the genealogy given in Luke. What I will mention, however, is that the seeming purpose of these genealogies is to show that Jesus is a descendant of the Davidic line through Joseph in accordance with prophesy, but since Joseph was not actually Jesus' father (virgin birth), the genealogy doesn't prove anything of the sort. It's funny. If the writers of the New Testament had not lifted the idea of "virgin birth" from other mythologies, their account would actually be more credible in this instance. In other words, if Joseph and Mary had conceived like normal people, "prophesy" would have been fulfilled.

From there, we move to the birth of Jesus. Joseph, suspicious (and rightfully so) as to how his wife had conceived without his doing, "had in mind to divorce her quietly" (Matthew 1:19). But, just in the nick of time, an angel of the lord came to Joseph to let him in on the holy ghost's fertility and all was not lost. This raises a fairly simple question. Why wouldn't god just send the angel to Joseph before Mary became pregnant? Why wait until he was just about ready to divorce her and then pipe up? Why would a loving, understanding god let a "righteous man" (Matthew 1:19) think, even for a second, that his wife was an adulterer? I'll tell you why. Because the bible was not divinely inspired. It was written by men and as is their nature, they were looking to pack as much drama into the story as possible.

And it continues ... After the birth, a few Magi "from the east" (this is a little vague for my taste) came to Jerusalem and inquired about the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1-2). We don't really know whom they talked to, but apparently word of the birth of the "King of the Jews" spread and King Herod found out. Herod was not pleased to hear this news, but swallowing his concern, he slyly asked the Magi to report back to him of the baby Jesus' location so he too could worship him (he was trying to trick the Magi, because he wanted to kill Jesus). The Magi, after placing some gifts before Jesus and worshiping him, never went back to Herod, because they were "warned in a dream" not to do so (Matthew 2:12). After this, the lord tells Joseph to "escape to Egypt" to keep Jesus away from Herod. "When Herod realized that he was outwitted by the Magi," (I'm not sure how acting on a warning from a dream qualifies as witty) he launches a campaign of infanticide in order to weed out Christ (Matthew 2:16). This all happens so as to fulfill prophecy (Matthew 2:15 and 17).

This story raises a number of questions. First, what is the point of the Magi? If these Magi hadn't appeared seemingly out of thin air "from the east" to give gifts to Jesus, would Jesus not have been able to minister 30 years later, die and come back to life? In fact, had the Magi never come into the story, perhaps many lives would have been saved. After all, it was because of the Magi that Herod became aware of this whole enterprise. If he hadn't found out about Jesus, maybe he wouldn't have slaughtered hundreds (thousands? we don't really know, but it doesn't matter because none of this actually happened) of babies. But, this apparently needed to happen in order for prophecy to be fulfilled, which once again calls into question the benevolence of god. Jesus was sent to this world, allegedly, to save people, but in order for his entry into the world to fulfill a nonsense prophesy, hundreds of families had to suffer the horror of their children being slaughtered during the head hunt for this messiah. This is not benevolence. It's downright cruelty.

At the end of Matthew 2, Herod dies, and Jesus returns to Israel. Again, I ask a simple question. Why didn't god just wait until Herod died and then send down Jesus to earth? Wouldn't that have been a great deal more peaceful? Perhaps each year when we celebrate Christmas, we ought to have a moment of silence for all of the slaughtered youth at the hands of King Herod.