19 March 2024
The third section of the chapter on collectivism begins with a reference to the next book we'll be looking at (Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes). The issue is the birth of Jesus. All of our Christmas imagery comes from Victorian England, not from the Hebrew culture. The Holy Family were hardly alone; individualism is a very seductive lie we tell ourselves.
First of all, Rome allowed a significant time latitude for those obliged to travel to pay the poll tax. This wasn't sprung as a surprise on the couple expecting a child. They didn't travel alone by any means, but surely moved along with their clan. The folks in Nazareth joined up with others along the path until they arrived in the Jerusalem area with quite a crowd of close kin. Bethlehem was at that time a suburb of the Judean capital. They arrived for some festival and simply stayed for a few months until the baby was born, which birth was attended by lots of supporting female relatives; this was their clan's ancestral home, after all.
You should not imagine Paul wrote his letters at a private desk or table alone in some room. The ancients seldom wrote because the cost of training for penmanship was so high (materials were very expensive) and so arduous (it had to be clear and tiny to avoid wasting materials) that you would need to make this your sole career. Paul would have dictated his letters to a scribe in a nice open place with good lighting and probably some human traffic. Paul's companions would likely have listened in and even offered comments. Six times Paul mentions a co-author, it seems, but we never talk about them that way.
Paul always had an entourage, as everyone else did while traveling. At the least, he always had a partner. When he lost Barnabas, he didn't travel until Silas joined him. That brief passage down to Athens alone saw Paul struggling when he arrived. He wisely avoided ministering in Corinth until he had a couple of trade guild partners and time to build up a support community. And there's no reason to imagine he didn't have the advice of his team when he wrote the Corinthian letters.
This alone would explain the apparent variations in tone and style of Paul's letters scholars have noticed.
We may struggle to grasp how Christian conversion in some countries is most often a family affair. On the one hand, the words of Jesus challenge us to follow Him in the face of opposition to everyone close to us. At the same time, household conversions in the New Testament are so common that we cannot avoid them. Surely you remember the Philippian Jailer? Lydia and her household? There appear to be others.
We are in no position to judge the faith of those who choose to participate in conversion as part of a group deciding together. The testimony of missionaries (not just the one author of this book) indicate that the whole family genuinely serves Christ with full faith after a group conversion, and not just the adults. Do we doubt that God can work this way?
Comments
Dan D.
Leaving us with questions like that at the end are paramount to reforming our thinking away from Big Eva, Victorian England, etc. Thank you.
A. Probst
Would Joseph and Mary likely have had others with them as they fled from Herod's soldiers with the baby Jesus?
CatRez
Given the Hebrew way of life at that time and place, it's highly unlikely that they went alone. Even if not a close relative, it would not be hard to find a countryman with family in tow migrating for any number of reasons, and they would have stuck together and ended up in a Jewish community somewhere.
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