Mary and the Manger

Jesus Appears on the Planet

But for this post, we'll see what that was like for Joseph and Mary.

Early Spring, 5 BC

Ah, Mary.
What do we know about Mary?
Mary was a young girl--a virgin--who had been betrothed to a man named Joseph.

She had been found to be "with child" even though she had never "known a man." Today's popular Christianity looks upon Joseph as a young single man getting married for the first time ever. But Christians of the first and second centuries knew of Joseph as a middle-aged or elderly man who was entering his second marriage, and already had four sons and two or three daughters. That's what we know from some of the earliest non-biblical writings of Christians.

From the tribal culture, some of which still existed among these descendants of a wandering Aramean people, we know that a second wife was customary for men who had become wealthy. A second home was constructed for the second  wife, who would start a second family for the wealthy man. But we see no indication of this among the available evidence.

Popular Christianity today looks upon Joseph as a poverty-stricken peasant. But Joseph was a carpenter by trade, who also owned a thirty-acre tract outside of Nazareth, which was dry-farmed by the family to bring in extra income. In this case we should probably assign Joseph and his family as part of the lower-middle class, just above the poverty level of non-landed peasants. If Joseph's first wife had died, perhaps in childbirth, Joseph would need a new wife to help him raise his many children.

Which brings us to the picture above. Here is Joseph with four sons and two daughters, on their way to Bethlehem to look for a place to stay for the eight of them while they register for the Roman tax rolls and pay their taxes. No wonder the inn-keeper had no room for them!

Angels and Announcements

Along with Mary, this ordinary family experienced some astounding events. The Archangel Gabriel had appeared to Mary to tell her that she would bear a son born of God. Joseph had a dream telling him to accept Mary and her child rather than to quietly divorce her. Shepherd boys showed up at Jesus' birth telling of a whole nighttime chorus of angels announcing that the Messiah -- the Lord -- had been born in Bethlehem. 

Shepherds of that time would watch their sheep by night in the early spring when lambs were being born. And Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod the Great, who died early in the year 4 BC. From these facts I propose that Jesus was born in the early Spring of 5 BC. (6 BC is also a possibility) His actual birthday is unknown, and December 25 is an unlikely date for his birth. But we as the church picked the 25th to celebrate his coming, in part to destroy an ancient pagan festival on that day.

On the eighth day after his birth, Jesus was circumcised in accordance with the Old Testament commandment. The painting below shows some unlikely growth for a baby less than eight days old. But it does show Joseph as an elderly man, which would be more correct. The other man in the painting may be the person appointed to perform ritual circumcision.

Forty days after his birth, Jesus was presented in the temple, as the first male to open the womb of Mary. Catholic and Orthodox belief is that Mary had no more children, and in fact no sexual relations with her husband Joseph. But the Bible is silent on this. Many Protestants believe that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were sons and daughters of Mary. But early church tradition places these as the offspring of Joseph's first wife. For further study, I recommend the book Jude and the Relatives of Jesus by Professor Richard Bauckham.