For those of you who follow the publication of books, there is a new one that you may wish to keep track of. It is called “The Infancy Narratives,” and it was written by none other than Joseph Ratzinger, the head man of the Roman Catholic faith. This is the third book in a trilogy having to do with the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Now I say Jesus of Nazareth when it could also be Jesus of Bethlehem. But that is a small matter about which Jesus calls his hometown.
It is a source of amazement to me that the Pope, now in his 86th year, could find time to write three books. I suppose that he is required to look after the fortunes of perhaps something on the order of a billion Catholics and to care for their souls so that they will all reach Heaven. But there you have it. Joseph Ratzinger, the German Pope, has written a third book, along with all his other duties, in his 86th year, which makes him sort of a phenomenon.
In his third book, Ratzinger makes two or three claims that are unusual. In the first instance he contends that in the sixth century, a monk or some other lofty preacher made a mistake in calculating the age of Jesus. Ratzinger contends in his latest volume that Jesus is somewhat older than we have imagined. I have not read the book, but off hand it seems to me that Ratzinger would contend that Jesus was as much as ten years older than we thought him to be. I imagine that for the faithful this may come as shocking news. But there you have it, coming from the highest authority in the Catholic faith.
But there are more subjects in the book that might also shake your faith. In the first place, it is contended in the latest volume that the birth of Jesus did not necessarily take place in the winter. Apparently it could have taken place any time during the year. So the story about “away in a manger” may have no credibility. It could be that Jesus was born on a warm spring morning or in the heat of a Palestinian summer.
Now comes a very shocking disclosure in the book. It is contended in the Pope’s latest book that there were no animals present at the birth of Jesus, which means that for two thousand years the greetings of the animals may not have occurred at all, so says the Pope. According to legend, there were oxen and asses present at the birth of Jesus. But according to the latest version by the Pope, there were no animals present at the birth.
But that is not all. The Pope does not mention the North Star guiding worshipers to the site of the birth of Jesus. In addition, he does not mention the three wise men bringing gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. These are significant omissions.
But then the book goes on to make another very dubious claim. In this section of the book, it is contended that the birth of Jesus had nothing to do with sexual intercourse between his parents. According to Joseph Ratzinger, Joseph and Mary lived together but they did not enjoy connubial bliss. From what Ratzinger has to say, they did not ever consummate their marriage.
Can you imagine Joseph, ostensibly Jesus’ father, going to the marketplace and having friends and neighbors pointing to him and saying that he never consummated his marriage? I suppose Joseph in refuting such a claim would point out that Jesus and James were his sons. Beyond all of this debate, has anyone including the Pope, ever interviewed Joseph on the question of Mary’s virginity? This is an area that needs much further investigation.
Presumably Mary was concerned, more than anything else, with the preservation of her virginity. Sooner or later, even without the benefit of sexual intercourse, Mary became pregnant. The usual suspects were named, including the Holy Ghost. Did the Holy Ghost cuckold Joseph? But according to Ratzinger, Mary, the mother of Jesus, must have continued to preserve her virginity. So much so was this the case that a few years ago, the Vatican declared that Mary was “a perpetual virgin.”
The fact of the matter is that Mary had a second son named James. Whether he proceeded Jesus or whether he was the second son is unclear to me. But I am not a Biblical scholar.
It appears that, according to Ratzinger, Mary became pregnant by the actions of a divine creature such as the Holy Ghost. Presumably she went through all of the pains of pregnancy, and at its end she produced Jesus. The question that arises here is why the divine creatures required Mary to go through nine months of pregnancy. Why could they not just produce Jesus on the spot as a miracle?
But if Mary was “a perpetual virgin,” we are left in doubt about whether or not she yielded her virginity to her lawfully wedded husband Joseph. Is this where James came from? I do not have an answer for you. Perhaps if Joseph Ratzinger writes a fourth volume, he might tell us. As it is, I am left in the dark. Everyone knows that I am the ultimate ecclesiastical authority on these matters.
Mary’s giving birth to Jesus occurred more than 2,000 years earlier than the discovery of artificial insemination. So we can rule that concept out and we are left only with the thought that Mary became pregnant as a result of the workings of the Holy Ghost or some other creature.
As you have imagined by this time, I am a skeptic on Mary’s virginity. Why would a man marry a woman who intended to keep her virginity throughout her life? That is not the purpose of marriage.
Now I have one more thought having to do with the birth of Jesus. If the birth of Jesus occurred at some other time than December 25, why could it not be that the birth of Jesus took place in April, perhaps on April 16th? The thought that goes through my mind on this subject has to do with the Pope’s birthday, which occurred on April 16, 1927. If it could be argued that the birth of Jesus occurred on the same day as the birth of Joseph Ratzinger, could this not be an indication that His Holiness Joseph Ratzinger has a claim on sainthood? Could this be his miracle? I realize that this is a Machiavellian thought, but Ratzinger could well be a fellow given to Machiavellian ideas. The Pope is now in his dotage and I would tend to accept the idea that Ratzinger has a desire towards sainthood. This would be a way that he could leave his mark on the Church of Saint Peter.
According to the Vatican, there will be a million copies of this book printed. So there is no need to rush to your bookstore before they run out. As I said, I am a skeptic on the matters of perpetual virginity and the fact that Mary and Joseph lived their lives without ever enjoying sexual intercourse. But I am a non-believer. So those thoughts are not recognized by the deities such as Joseph Ratzinger.
The fact that the Church ascribes perpetual virginity to the mother of Jesus has always baffled me. Why do they not ascribe it to Jesus himself? Is it because of his involvement with Mary Magdalene? Are there other signs that Jesus was married? The celibacy of the Catholic clergy, I suppose, is a sign that the Church still worships at the altar of celibacy. Mark me down as baffled as to why the Church ascribes perpetual virginity to Jesus’s mother but not to himself.
This, then, is my book report on Joseph Ratzinger’s latest volume called “The Infancy Narratives.” I am at a loss to know why the superpowers did not merely invent Jesus. They could have saved Mary the trials and tribulations of her pregnancy. And it might do something – a very little something – to assuage my unbelief on religious matters. So this is the book report that I have thought about for the last week or so. Upon reading “The Infancy Narratives,” which I do not propose to do, I may have something further to say on this subject, but I doubt it.
E. E. CARR
November 27, 2012
Essay 720
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Kevin’s commentary:
I have a few thoughts here. First, I wonder who has written more — Pop or the Pope? They are of similar ages and clearly both are quite prolific.
Regarding the contents of the book, I have two major reactions. The first of these is positive. Scholars have known for a while now that pretty much every element of the Jesus birth story on the 25th in the manger with the north star etcetc has been lifted from other religious or pagan traditions. There is a pretty enormous corpus of evidence to this end. That’s all well and good, it makes sense that to spread a religion you sorta adapt it to the local belief system to make it plausible and then roll from there. Lots of pagans liked the 25th because it’s near the winter solstice and it’s when they celebrated Yule, for example. Plus there are also lots of internal issues with the story, regarding shepherds deciding to tend their flock at night, the North Star not being visible from the Middle East in December, yadda yadda. So the good news is that all that’s out the window! Christianity’s a little more plausible! Huzzah!
The second major reaction is negative, in that if Christ’s birthday was off by 10 years then I was really born in the year 2000, not 1990. Every date ever recorded is wrong by ten years!