Christmas with Thomas & The Beatles

In 2010, BDJ's Cellar presented 2 special Christmas Podcasts; one based on the Nativity story in the Gospel of Matthew, the other on Nativity according to the gospel of Luke.

This left us in a predicament for 2011: the other 2 gospels in the Bible (Mark and John) don't speak about the birth of Jesus, so we ran out of Nativity stories. Or did we ? For 2011, we resorted to ancient texts, which were - for good or bad reasons - not included in the Bible. Nonetheless, these texts originate from the earliest days of Christianity.

The earliest of these gospels, is the so called Infancy Gospel of Thomas; just what we need for a Christmas Podcast !

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas was written by the early Christians to document the first twelve years of Jesus's life, bridging the gap left in the second chapter of Luke. The story was popular enough to survive in numerous translations, redactions, and parallel stories, for more than a thousand years. The text may even have influenced the authors of the Koran.

In the early passages of the story, Jesus shows a disturbing tendency to kill off his playmates when they displease him. He eventually learns to channel his divine abilities in more constructive ways and realizes his calling.

So why was this gospel not accepted by the Christian Church Fathers ? To modern readers, it appears to be a simplified, shortened version of the gospels that we know from the Bible; some similarities of 'Thomas' with Mark, Matthew and Luke:

- Jesus can do anything, and knows everything. Performs miracles in public.
- Jesus has full control over life and death, raises the dead on various occasions.
- People around Jesus don't really understand who he is, or what he stands for.
- Jesus does not comply strictly with all Jewish rituals.
- Jesus seems less concerned with the Here & Now, but more about the spiritual life (right and wrong)
- His mother Mary does not play a significant role in his life.
- and so on.

I suppose the Church Fathers were not so much concerend with matching the gospels, but more about the Infancy Gospel not matching the dogma's that the church fathers themselves developed in the early days of the church. And they may have wanted to dodge a difficult question: if Jesus did all these things as a child, why don't Mark, Matthew and Luke speak about them ?

Frankly speaking, in the Bible or not, these are captivating and amusing stories from the Early Days; never set to music of any kind before, BDJ's cellar is proud tho present this world premiere Podcast.

Text: Thomas the Isrealite.
Narrator: Bart D. Ehrman: American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Music: George Harrison, the Beatles, Julian Lennon
Production: BDJ