From the Bible to the carols

MICHELE MARR

Last week, one of my mother’s neighbors gave me a music box that

plays “Silent Night” ensconced in an elaborate nativity scene.

There are the familiar characters and settings: Mary and Joseph

stand and stoop in a hay-strewn stable, doting on the infant Jesus,

who is not asleep, but looks quite lively in his manger.

Shepherds tend their sheep not far outside the stable’s entrance.

Three men, two wearing crowns, one wearing a jeweled turban, ride by

on their steeds. They are clearly meant to represent the three wise

men, or magi, more commonly called kings.

The less familiar creatures and surroundings are what really catch

the eye.

Outside the holy family’s modest resting place is a nomad’s blue-

and white-striped tent next to a Hellenistic triumphal arch behind

which, on shelves of Palestinian rock, stand large stone buildings

embellished with multiple turrets topped by blue-and-white,

red-and-white, and red-and-gold-striped Byzantine onion domes.

An ivory-skinned magus rides a white stallion, a magus wearing a

turban rides an elephant and the third, his skin the color of rich,

dark chocolate, rides a camel.

“A horse and an elephant!” a friend of mine protested when I

described the music box to her. “The Bible doesn’t say anything about

any of the three kings riding on a horse or an elephant.”

Of course, my friend is right. The Bible doesn’t tell us how the

magi -- or astrologers if we’re to judge from the word magoi in the

Greek text -- traveled at all, or even how many of the magi there

were.

So much of what we think we know about the birth of Jesus and his

infant years we have gleaned from Christmas carols and nativity plays

as much as, or more than, from the Bible.

I never realized that as much as I did two Christmases ago, when

one of my mother-in-law’s brothers brought a Christmas quiz that he’d

read in the Los Angeles Times to our family’s holiday gathering.

The quiz was a shortened version of a quiz the pastor of

Woodbridge Community Church had e-mailed to Los Angeles Times

religion reporter William Lobdell.

Lobdell wrote in his “Getting Religion” column, where the quiz was

published, “I won’t tell you what I scored -- my license as a

religion columnist might be revoked.”

After taking the quiz myself, I felt the same way. But like those

in Beckwith’s congregation who took the quiz, I had fun and I also

learned from it.

For example, the Bible doesn’t tell us how Joseph and Mary got

from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The image of Joseph walking protectively

alongside Mary as she rides a donkey has been impressed on us by

Christian folklore and art.

It is the gospel writer Luke who tells us that, because there was

no room in the inn, Mary laid her son in a manger following his

birth. There is no innkeeper in Luke’s account, or in Matthew’s

either.

Lowing cattle may have awakened the baby Jesus, but if they did,

the Bible doesn’t tell us so.

The quiz got me to pay much closer attention to what is actually

written in Scripture, what comes from extra-biblical texts and

whether those texts are received as trustworthy Christian texts.

Admittedly, much of the embroidery of legends or carols is

harmless detail drawn from an imagination straining to fully see what

was only recorded in part. But it’s a good thing to be clear about

what is borne out by Scripture and what is not, nonetheless.

If you’d like to test your own prowess for discerning the

Christmas story as told by the authors of the gospels from the

Christmas stories of carols or, say, “Charlie Brown’s Christmas,” let

me know.

If you send me an e-mail, then I’ll send you a quiz. And you can

keep your score to yourself. Just don’t cheat; it’s a closed-book

quiz. Have fun.

And remember the words of encouragement Beckwith sent to Lobdell

with the quiz, “If your score is low like mine, take heart. It’s not

what you know that counts; it is whom you know that counts!”

Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year! I’ll be back here on

Jan. 15.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.