Footnotes

1.

Mithraism was a mystery religion that arose in the Mediterranean world at the same time as Christianity. Temples to the god Mithra, who was thought to have sprung from the rock, were built underground, in imitation of caves. See David Ulansey, “Solving the Mithraic Mysteries,” BAR 20:05.

2.

Thammuz is an Eastern pagan deity associated with Adonis.

Endnotes

1.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 78.6.

The term apologist refers to early Christian writers who tried to defend and promote their faith in their writings. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr explains why he believes Jesus should be understood as the Messiah of the Old Testament.

2.

Protoevangelium of James 17–21, quoted in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 1, Gospels and Related Writings, rev. ed., English trans. ed. by R. McWilson (Tübingen: Mohr, 1990; Cambridge, UK: James Clark & Co. and Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1991), pp. 433–435.

3.

Origen, Contra Celsum 1.51.

4.

Jerome, Epistle 58.

5.

For the location of the cave in the first-century town, see Shemaryahu Gutman and A. Berman, “Bethléem,” Revue biblique 77 (1970), pp. 583–585. The excavation of the cave is reported by Benjamin Baggati, “Recenti Scavi a Betlemme,” Liber Annuus 18 (1968), pp. 181–237.

6.

Nevertheless, I disagree with Mason’s reading of both accounts. In both instances Mason’s approach is decidedly unsophisticated. He is oblivious to the distinction between source and redaction in Matthew 2:1–12 and fails to appreciate the real import of Matthew 2:16–18, which is revealed by the “fulfillment” quotation of Jeremiah 31:15. This citation focuses on Ramah, which for Jeremiah (40:1) was the place where the Jews to be deported to Babylon were assembled. The slaughter of the babies has much more to do with the flight into Egypt than with Bethlehem itself.

7.

See John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (Doubleday: New York, 1995), p. 209; William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998).

8.

Psalms of Solomon 17.21–24. For this theme in other texts, see Collins, Scepter and the Star, pp. 49–73.

9.

See J.D.G. Dunn, “Messianic Ideas and Their Influence on the Jesus of History,” in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992), pp. 373–376.

10.

See John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew—Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1, The Roots of the Problem and the Person (New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 216–219.