Bored With the Christmas Story

The Christmas story we’ll tell and celebrate this week is the same story that’s been told for the past two-thousand years. Nothing has changed about it. And because nothing has changed, there’s an inherent danger presented to us—boredom.

You might be bored with that story right now. Even thinking ahead to going to a church service, listening to the same songs, hearing the same passage or passages of Scripture being read might be enough to make you wish you could just fast-forward through all that same old, same old.

But you don’t have to be bored with it, if you don’t want to. You can resist the boredom by reminding yourself of the actual story. This isn’t a rebellion against the Christmas or anything like that—I think we’re still free to enjoy all that fun. It’s a chance to remember where we came from and why Christmas has any meaning for us at all.

For thousands of years, God’s people had been struggling as they followed him. The struggle didn’t start with Moses, and it didn’t start with Abraham. Adam and Eve found that they struggled in the garden. This pattern continued through Abraham, through Moses, into the judges, kings, and prophets. God’s people had a hard time finding a consistent footing as they tried to follow keep in step with him.

The result was exile. First, a spiritual one, then a physical exile.

While reflecting on the human condition, the prophet Jeremiah said that, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV). The teacher in Ecclesiastes said that, “The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live” (Ecclesiastes 9:3, NIV). The prophet Isaiah, speaking a word of condemnation and warning over God’s people, made clear their fate if they continued in their folly as he said, “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes” (Isaiah 6:9-10, NIV).

If this wasn’t enough, God’s people continually found themselves “outside” of where and what they were made for. First, Adam and Eve were removed from the garden and prevented from returning. Next the new people of God were in slavery for 400-years in Egypt. Next, they were unable to find the promised land as they wandered the wilderness. Next, because of Moses’s disobedience—and the disobedience of an entire generation of Israelites—they were unable to finally enter the newly found promised land. From there, their exile continued as God’s people found themselves under judges and kings who treated them poorly, resulting in another exile, this time to Babylon.

Within this struggle, though, there was a hope laid out for God’s people. A hope that he would make all things new. A hope that this pattern of exile would finally end. Long before the apostle John wrote Revelation, the prophet Isaiah talked about a new heavens and a new earth. 2 Chronicles and the prophet Malachi both shared a similar hope of God doing something that he hadn’t done before—perhaps arriving to rule and reign as the true king.

After the last words of the Old Testament there were many, many years where the people waited. They knew what had been promised, and they held out hope for the promise, but it wasn’t always easy. They grew restless. They started to wonder if God was really going to do what he said he was going to do. Generation after generation would pass down this hope, reminding those who came after of what was promised. And then something miraculous happened.

Paul tells it like this:

Who [Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11, NIV)

God stepped into this world in a way he had never done before. In the ancient past God was just a little bit removed from his people. Sure, he was walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, and he was going before them in the exodus, and he was present in the temple, and the prophets were his mouthpiece, but he was still unapproachable in some real sense. That is, until, he made himself nothing. God—the one uncreated being in the entire universe—became like those he created—you and me. He became a human being in the person of Jesus. He became what he was not, so you and I could be finally be what we were created to be—fully human.

Not only that, but as a human being he humbled himself—even to the point of death on a cross. God, himself, not only willingly stepped into humanity, but willingly stepped into death. Because of that he has been exalted above everyone and everything else. All honor and glory belongs to him.

This all happened because God became a human being. The cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the exaltation, the second coming, and the new heaven and new earth, are all a result of what happened on that first Christmas day.

How can we be bored with a story like that?

This story we’re a part of, this story that we get to tell and pass on to our kids, this story that makes everything else we believe in a reality is worth leaning into in a fresh way each year. We might be bored with doing the same things year after year, but let’s not confuse that with being bored about the God of the universe becoming a human being.

That was a miracle, and miracles are never boring.

Hebrew, Greek, and Luke 3:4b-6

One of the great things about giving your time to biblical studies and regular bible reading is—like with most things—you start to see things you never saw before.

I remember being blown away away when someone (a book or someone giving a lecture, I can’t remember for sure) first showed me how the New Testament writers regularly quoted the Old Testament. It was presented to me that the writers, more often than not, quote from a Greek translation instead of quoting directly from the original Hebrew (and/or Aramaic). I was blown away at first, because it seemed wrong.

Why in the world they quote from a translation when the original Hebrew was right there? Isn’t it wrong to be quoting authoritatively from a translation?

However, the more I was taught (and the more I thought about it) the more it made sense.

The writers of the New Testament were largely writing to a Greek speaking and reading world. Note: they weren’t necessarily writing to Greeks; they were writing to Greek speakers—that’s an important distinction to make. So, as you are already thinking to yourself, they wrote to those Greek speakers and readers in the language they knew—Greek. Therefore, it would make sense for the New Testament writers to quote the Old Testament from a language their readers knew as well—Greek.

Fair enough—that makes sense.

If you were writing to someone who knows German and you want to quote to them from something that was originally written in a different language, but then was translated into German, you would more than likely quote from the German translation rather than the original language.

What gets even more interesting, however, is when you begin to come across those places in the Bible where the New Testament writers quote a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, but that Greek translation of the Old Testament quotation differs from the original Hebrew Old Testament.

A great example of just this situation comes from the Isaiah 40:3-5 quotation in Luke 3:4b-6.

As you can see below, the quotation in Luke is quite similar to both the Hebrew and the Greek texts of Isaiah 40:3-5. However, there is a difference with one meaningful phrase near the end.

Isaiah 40:3-5 (Hebrew OT)
A voice is calling in the wilderness, “Clear the way of Yahweh! Make a highway smooth in the desert for our God! 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall become low, And the rough ground shall be like a plain, and the rugged ground like a valley-plain. 5 And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all humankind together shall see it, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-5 (Greek OT)
The voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make the paths of our God straight!” 4 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled, and all the crooked ways will be made straight, and every rough spot a plain; 5 and the glory of the Lord will be seen, and all flesh will see the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken.

Luke 3:4b-6
as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight! 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled, and the crooked will become straight, and the rough road will become smooth, 6 and all flesh will see the salvation of God.’ ”

Do you see it?

In the original Hebrew section of Isaiah, we see the words: “And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all humankind together shall see it.” In the Greek translation of that same section we see the words: “and the glory of the Lord (Yahweh) will be seen, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” Note, there difference there. Instead of the glory of Yahweh (the Lord) being revealed—as it says in Hebrew (…all humankind together shall see it (the glory of Yahweh)—it’s the salvation of God being revealed in Greek. And, lastly, as Luke quotes this section of Isaiah, he does so in Greek, so naturally we find the words: “and all flesh will see the salvation of God.”

Two main questions for us remain:

1. How should we deal with general situations like this?

2. How should we deal with this situation in particular?

First, I think we should admit that this sort of thing is a reality with the biblical text. Christianity and the Bible are historically verifiable things. We are not dealing with some teaching or some artifact that’s originality cannot be found. This is not some esoteric or existential belief system that we just have to take for granted or leave behind. Christianity and the Bible are firmly rooted in history. Therefore, when we look back in history and discover odd things like this that we didn’t imagined existed before, our first response should not be to run away from them. We have nothing to fear from applying the historical method of discovery to Christianity or the Bible. Christians welcome this because our faith is in a historical event—the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, then our faith is nothing.

The fact is, this sort of thing—differences in the textual translations (from Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek)—has taken place, so we must receive it. The great thing about not running from something like this is that we discover that it’s not a distraction or obstacle to our faith—it’s actually one of the wonderful features of what we believe. We can literally watch our brothers and sisters of old in action as we examine texts. We see how the texts have differed from one another and we can interact with them.

Lets then settle it once and for all—the textual change from Hebrew to Greek does not have to be a stumbling block to our faith. In fact, it can actually help us root our faith in the historical accuracy of those who’ve gone before us.

Second, our goal is not to come up with a way to smooth out this difference in the text, so it disappears, so we don’t have to deal with it. Remember, we are not afraid of the historicity of Christianity or the Bible. Our goal is to reckon with it, and see if it changes the way we should look at the text.

Quick recap: We saw in the original Hebrew of Isaiah 40 that the writer wrote about the glory of Yahweh (the Lord) being seen be all people. Then, in the Greek translation of Isaiah 40, we saw that the writer wrote that the salvation of the Lord (Yahweh) is actually the glory that will be seen by all people; but “the salvation” wasn’t in the Hebrew text. Lastly, in Luke 3, we see Luke quoting Isaiah 40 but using the Greek text, so he writes about the salvation of the Lord being seen by all people.

Are any of the texts saying something contradictory to the others? We may be tempted to say, yes, but really they aren’t. All three texts talk about the glory of Yahweh. The only difference is that Isaiah 40 (Greek) identifies the glory of Yahweh as his salvation. So, is there a difference in the texts? Yes. However, the difference is not one of contradiction, but of expansion (or explanation).

It’s not as if we’re missing something once we get to Greek from Hebrew. What we have is an expansion (or explanation) of what’s being talked about in the Hebrew. Isaiah surely spoke of the glory of Yahweh. And he said that all people will see it. However, when it came time to translate that text into Greek, the translator(s) (who most certainly knew biblical Hebrew better than anyone alive today) identified the glory of the Yahweh that everyone will see as the salvation of God.

What, then, should we do with this?

I think we should take our que from the New Testament writers, themselves. Did Luke have a problem with quoting the Greek of Isaiah 40? Absolutely not. After all, he did it. Therefore, should we have a problem with it? Absolutely not. The discomfort may come in when we recognize that Luke was authoritatively quoting from a translation that we wouldn’t know about if we didn’t consult the Greek translation of the Old Testament. If you are made uncomfortable by this, then let it be—it’s okay to be uncomfortable. That being said, don’t let the discomfort push you from the reliability of the text. Instead, allow it to draw you in. The Bible is way more interesting and exciting than we often admit or even realize.