My argument about the historical frame of the Christmas stories and of Simeon’s prayer in particular has been subjected to sustained criticism by Peter Wilkinson, who is certain that at least in the latter case there is reference to the salvation of the nations.

Since Peter is unconvinced by the exegetical arguments, it may help to explore what is going here at the hermeneutical level. One way to account for the disagreement would be to view it as a question of how much respect we have for contextual boundaries. Peter takes the popular line that contextual boundaries may be disregarded in order to preserve traditional interpretations. We naturally want the Christmas stories to be about us. We have a hard time accepting the idea that the traditional discourse of Christmas—the carols, the readings, the nativity plays, the evangelistic sermons, not to mention the doctrine of incarnation—is all a massive over-determination of the texts. I take the view, on the other hand, that contextual boundaries should be respected, even if this means that traditional interpretations are weakened, sidelined, deferred or rejected.

My Kindle book Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective is selling like hot mince pies on Amazon, which is quite a bit less than hot cakes but much more festive. Can you think of a better way to make a loved one very happy at Christmas for just $3.29 (or the equivalent in pounds and euros)? One person who has read it and found it “fascinating” is Andrew H, though he was surprised by the lack of hope in the ending and had this question to ask:

I wonder if I may ask though… how does one get their name into the book of life. I felt the ebook ended quite abruptly with little hope as you simply stated that people and non-martyred believers will be resurrected, and depending on their name being written in book of life they will be annihilated.

I’d be interested in your thoughts, as this seems quite depressing and arbitrary if not downright scary.

The true meaning of Christmas—as a Christian rather than a pagan celebration—is represented in the popular imagination most commonly by the serene tableau of the radiant baby Jesus in a manger, surrounded by his parents, a few inquisitive cherubs, rustic shepherds, and resplendent wise men, proffering their fabled gifts. Children’s nativity plays introduce a slight blur of movement and some noisy singing, but otherwise it is an overwhelmingly static moment—an ensemble of devout medieval personages, a clumsy arrangement of wooden figures—fixing the presence of the incarnate God. Static and comforting. The fact that representations of the biblical scene are often now banned from public places ought to release a whiff of subversion into the festive air, but even that caustic and disturbing smell is likely to be masked by the heady, sweet traditional scents of Christmas—mulled wine, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, sage and onion stuffing oozing from the end of the turkey.

It’s taken me a little while to get round to responding to a comment by Al Shaw regarding my argument that the main storyline of the New Testament effectively culminates in Constantine. Al writes:

One of my areas of concern is that you appear (to my mind) to place too high a view of the Constantinian moment in the history of the people of God, and even imply that it was in some sense a fulfillment of the gospel narrative of Christ’s vicory and reign over the nations.

I have addressed this very important criticism in a number of posts now, some of which are listed at the bottom of this piece. But it is an evolving argument, and I am happy to try to answer it again, though still only in a rather sketchy fashion.

I will be attending a small conference on Douglas Campbell’s The Deliverance of God later this week at King’s College London, and I lugged my copy of his monstrous book all the way from Dubai with a view to doing some necessary revision. Unfortunately, I have also just acquired a copy of Marcus Borg’s much lighter and much less demanding Speaking Christian: Recovering the Lost Meaning of Christian Words, and I accidentally started reading that instead. I probably won’t get very far with it this week, but chapter 2 (“Beyond Literalism”) has a section on Borg’s “historical-metaphorical understanding” of the Bible, and I was curious to see how it compares with a narrative-historical understanding.