A Christmas story

One of the greatest stories on earth is the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, of his life and death and of his resurrection.

This enduring story is at the very heart of western civilisation and is the reason this time of year is so widely celebrated, even if some have forgotten the fact. Jesus Christ is perhaps the most well-known person ever to have lived, even if today he may have to compete with superstars and rock stars in the popularity stakes.

For sure, though, the popularity and persistence of the most compelling story ever told is nothing short of miraculous when you consider that for millennia its telling happened without television, film, radio and podcasts to pass it from generation to generation. It came down to us via the written word and the tomes scribed by Jesus Christ’s disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the four evangelists credited with the authorship of the gospels in the New Testament. I have always been amazed by the acceptance that the scribes would have different stories “according to” each of them, and also that people do not question the veracity of the dozens of versions of the English Bible, alone, in existence.

If we consider that millions of Christians are not English speakers, then, there must be hundreds more versions of the Bible in other languages. According to one Christian website I consulted, at least some part of the Bible has been translated into 3,500 languages, comprising 680 languages with complete translations, over 1,500 languages with the complete New Testament, and more than 1,000 with some Bible portions and stories.

How alike the stories are would be very hard to determine. Anyone who has had to do translations would know that there are different approaches that focus on what the effect of the translation might be. For example, is the translation going to be word-for-word or is it going to capture the essence and impact of the story by making it relevant to a local culture, say? And if it is to be told to children, how do you make the telling appropriate?

Thousands of versions of the Bible may have appeared over the last 2,000 years and they will most probably continue to appear, because the Bible stories were all written in other languages to start off with. Apparently, there are over 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts, over 10,000 Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts and more than 19,000 in ancient languages such as Latin, Coptic, Syriac and Aramaic. Imagine new generations of Christians coming along and seeking to find new ways of making the stories contemporary and producing updated versions in all those languages from the various sources, using new words and expressions that allow believers better to understand the Jesus story. The result is maximum multiplication.

Personally, I find that updating of the stories off-putting. Part of my education as a Roman Catholic was being able to follow the mass in Latin. It and the quaintness of the English language used in our prayer book were part of the mystery of Christ’s begetting. It exported one to another intellectual and emotional plain, along with the rituals of the mass, culminating in the transcendental moment when the bread and wine of the Eucharist become the body and blood of Christ,
Corpus Dei. Modern, plain English versions just lack the mystery, for me, at least.

Jesus did not approve of those hell-bent on being rich, but the Bible is good business. In spite of the dwindling numbers of churchgoers, the Bible remains the biggest money-earning publication of all time, with an estimated five billion copies sold and distributed to date. And supporting those lucrative sales are the many value-added products, such as the countless number of religious TV channels and radio stations dedicated to religion.

It is interesting to note, however, that film was the medium that led the way in modern times in bringing God and the wonderful stories of the life of Jesus and others to younger people. The Hollywood film studios almost definitely understood the power of the big screen at the box office to shape human sentiment, and the big, regular blockbusters did just that, telling stories that painted the Romans and even the disciples as more or less good, human, wise, weak, wilful, treacherous, etc. Every Christmas and Easter the TV channels compete to broadcast some version of the many biblical films they have archived.

Christmas is also the most important time of year for many traders and moneylenders. All that ritualistic shopping, the giving and getting and making merry may not have been what St Nicholas had in mind when he started his Christmas-time giving to children some 1,600 years ago and gave birth to the cult of Father Christmas and his reindeer flying through frosty skies delivering gifts to expectant children all over the world. But it underpins the story of the baby Jesus, and it is the ubiquity of that story that enabled the Bible to become perhaps the most influential book in history.