Infancy Gospels
This episode contains two Infancy Gospels, which are apocryphal stories surrounding Jesus’ birth and childhood. It is impossible to identify the author or date of writing of these creative works, but they represent stories that may have been in the popular imagination of Christians in the Early Church period. This genre is similar to the modern-day video series “The Chosen,” as they both represent imaginative retellings of real stories with the theological worldview of the author underpinning the narrative.
The first Infancy Gospel presented here is the Protoevangelium of James. This story begins before Jesus’ birth and seems to have been written in order to explain some of the apparent inconsistencies in the Bible. For example, the story casts Joseph as an older man who already has sons. This explains how Mary could remain a sinless and pure virgin while Jesus could still be Joseph’s son. It also helps provide a reason that Mary, and by extension Jesus, was not immediately ostracized for having a child out of wedlock.
Like any good work of historical fiction, the Protoevangelium of James weaves in and out of the fixed points of the Nativity story in the Bible. Readers will encounter the Magi and Herod’s killing of children alongside proof of Mary’s virginity and an assertion that the Zachariah killed at the altar in Hebrews was the father of John the Baptist.
The second story presented in this episode is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This picks up after James’ work, focusing rather on the early life of Christ. It attempts to fill in details of Christ as a child, though the Jesus we encounter is very different from the one in the Bible. He curses his neighbors, berates his teacher, and kills and blinds people. It is likely that this story was written or strongly influenced by Gnostic, as Jesus assigns power to the letters of the Greek alphabet, perhaps explaining why Eusebius categorizes this as untrustworthy.
Regardless of their authenticity, both Infancy Gospels represent a window into the popular narratives surrounding Jesus from the Early Church period. Without blogs, streaming video, or the printing press there are precious few documents that have survived from this period to provide a sense of what popular Christianity may have looked like.
If you would like to read more of the writings of the Early Christian Fathers, please visit ccel.org to view the full collection.
