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...animals. Luke did not include any. The ox and ass first appeared much later, in artistic renderings like a 4th century Roman sarcophagus that shows them peeking over the side of Jesus' crib. Cute as it was, the image served an interreligious enmity, employing for Christian purposes God's annoyed statement in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah that "the ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows its master's crib, but Israel has not known me." By contrast, the camels that pop up in many Nativities are relatively innocent. A passage from the medieval compendium of saints' lives...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

...actual birth announcement is in Luke 2: 11. An angel proclaims, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy ... for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." And "suddenly," Luke continues, "there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

...experts interpret these lines? As you might guess, they wonder where Luke got them. The first angel's language, some note, was less biblical than ... imperial. Brown called it "a christology phrased in a language that echoes Roman imperial propaganda." Recent scholars have said it is a near parody of one of the Emperor's titles at the time: "Son of God, Lord, Savior of the World, and the One Who Has Brought Peace on Earth...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

...resemblance accidental? Some of the more left-leaning interpreters doubt it. They claim that as Luke's Nativity went on, it became more openly critical of the Roman system and supportive of the struggles of its poorer Palestinian subjects. Mary's Magnificat, for instance, reprises some of the more radical sentiments of the Hebrew Bible: "[God] hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree/ He hath filled the hungry with good things;/ and the rich he hath sent away empty...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

Exegetes like Eden Theological Seminary's Patterson think the angel's birth announcement embodies the hope that Jesus' coming kingdom will turn political as well as religious worlds upside down. "Luke can't be saying anything other than 'You think you have a son of God in Augustus?'" he says. "'You think you have a savior in the Emperor? It's all foolishness. If you want to know the peace of God, not the Pax Romana, you have to look somewhere else.'" Since the '60s, such readings have inspired Christian social activists from civil rights preachers to Catholic liberation theologians...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

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