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The headline to the December 13th issue of Newsweek is: “Religion: The Birth of Jesus
From Mary to the manger, how the Gospels mix faith and history to tell the Christmas story and make the case for Christ” I would like to take a break from our current study of contemporary Christian issues to look at this reading. I will probably address this with multiple posts, so make sure you read all of it! 
The link to the entire article is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6653824/site/newsweek/ . I will use some quotes, but if you want the story in context here it is. I also believe it is the cover story for the Dec 13 issue. We bgein…
After an interesting introduction, including a translation of the passage in Luke, Meacham comes to this statement:
“Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, some scholars treat the Christmas narratives as first-century inventions designed to strengthen the seemingly tenuous claim that Jesus was the Messiah.”
This sentence is important, for this is his springboard into the discussion of the validity of the Gospel accounts.
His setup for this article is along the lines of “did you know” type article. He makes statements about how many people believe in the virgin birth of Christ, and that there has been a lot of discussion as to religions things this year, so he wants to enlighten us to the controversy that surrounds this story. His attempt, he believes, is to educate us about the history surrounding the birth of Christ.
The biggest dig I think he takes here is to take a quote from “Rev. H. B. London, a vice president of James Dobson’s conservative Focus on the Family organization in Colorado Springs” who says that we have a child like faith and do not doubt the Scriptures. In its placement, one could make the conclusion that Meacham is trying to contrast “educated truth” with Christians with “child-like faith.”
