Monday, December 06, 2004

Chidushim on Jesus

As Dov Bear points out, the most famous Jewish carpenter in history is on the cover of both Time and Newsweek. You have to subscribe to read the Time story, so no comment, but the Newsweek one says nothing new. In fact, the only really interesting thing I've seen or read in recent years on Jesus (and I have to admit, that's not much) was the BBC's 3-part account of his life (now at least a couple of years old), which raised revolutionary theory after revolutionary theory. The two bits I most remember:

  • Presenter Jeremy Bowen explained that Jesus was most probably born in a kind of a cave, quite unlike the stable as we think of it today. It seems that caves under the houses back then were used as stables. The houses were separated mostly into two levels - people slept upstairs, whereas the animals were kept downstairs. Apparently, an old translation of the word 'inn' (I can't remember any more in which language) means 'upstairs'. There was no room at the inn, there was no room upstairs, so they slept in the stable with the animals.
  • The theory that the star of Bethlehem was an astrological, rather than an astronomical event.

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