Word: godly
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...most rancorous areas of the new scholarship. Brown found no merit in it. "Every line of Matthew's infancy narrative echoes Old Testament themes," he argued. "Are we to think that he accepted all that background but then violated horrendously the stern Old Testament [rule] that God was not a male who mated with women?" Other scholars claim that Luke especially might have been familiar with pagan models closer to the spiritual interaction that today's Christianity believes marked Jesus' conception...
Rather, they see the destination as having been a theological necessity. Bethlehem had been King David's hometown. And in a confused 1st century theological landscape in which many Jews expected a mighty new leader but disagreed on his nature, David's biblical status as God's "anointed one" (or "Messiah") provided a potent precedent of divinely sanctioned kingship. Binding Jesus to him by family (through Joseph) and birthplace consolidated that definition, which then matured into Christianity's far grander messiahship. Says White: "No Bethlehem, no David. No David, no messianic prototype. Matthew and Luke both understood that...
...under age 2. That "Slaughter of the Innocents" is a near replay of a much earlier infanticide: Pharaoh's murder of all the male infants of Israel in Exodus. Jews would recall that Pharaoh's most famous escapee (via those bulrushes) was Moses, who eventually received the Law from God at Sinai. Through the echoing narrative, Matthew was arguing for Jesus as Moses' successor. Says The Birth of Christianity's Crossan: "One of the things Matthew's going to do later in his Gospel is have Jesus up on a new mountain giving a new law. We call...
...entire known world was a possible horizon for Christ's kingdom. It was a delicate line. The adult Jesus would later put it nicely (although Luke may have inherited this particular phrase from the earlier-written Mark): "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God...
...star-studded Nativity scene at London wax museum MADAME TUSSAUDS elevated soccer god David Beckham to biblical status last week, exhibiting wax figures of him and his wife Victoria, a.k.a. Posh Spice, as Joseph and Mary. As pop singer Kylie Minogue hovers angelically, Hugh Grant and Samuel L. Jackson appear as shepherds while Tony Blair, George W. Bush and Prince Philip portray wise men in the display, which will stay up until January. The Vatican has called the scene blasphemous. And with Posh as the Virgin, the church may have a point...