THE BIBLE:THE BELIEVERS GAIN

The event shines across the centuries like a beacon. In a Bethlehem stable, a child was born, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger. But the rude circumstances could not conceal an extraordinary birth. Angels filled the sky, praising God and proclaiming peace on earth. Amazed shepherds came to honor the babe. Wise men from the East, guided by a miraculous star, arrived to do homage with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

To Christians—and perhaps to a good many others at this time of year —the familiar details seem etched on the heart. Yet they have been questioned by liberal scholars for years. Though often believers themselves, these scriptural experts have challenged nearly everything in the Nativity story: the angels, the star, even the wise men. As recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the only one to mention them, the Magi are not the familiar three kings of Christmas legend (later piety gave them names, ages, races and crowns), but rather an unspecified number of astrologers, perhaps from Babylon. Even in that guise, some critics suggest, their existence is questionable, possibly merely a preaching device used by the evangelist to suggest the import and universality of the astonishing event: God become man.

The Nativity is hardly alone among biblical stories to come under the scrutiny of scholars. Even more than the Gospels, the Old Testament has been subjected to exhaustive investigations going back into the 18th century. Faced with mounting scientific evidence for evolution, many biblical critics long ago moved away from belief in the "six days" of creation reported in Genesis. More crucially, especially for the Christian doctrine of original sin, they began to regard Adam and Eve as prototypes of humanity, not real people who committed some terrible primordial sin. Genesis to the contrary, said the scholars, the flood that Noah escaped did not cover "all the high mountains under the whole heaven"; nor was Jonah actually swallowed by a "great fish."

In the judgment of many biblical scholars, especially mainstream Protestants in the U.S. and Europe, a number of these scriptural issues have long been resolved. But others are still being examined. Roman Catholics especially, who contributed little to biblical research for centuries after the Reformation, are enthusiastically at work, encouraged by Vatican II to re-examine the Scriptures. They are embracing a wide variety of biblical opinions, some of them as liberal as Protestant views. Germany's Hans Küng, for example, has joined those rejecting the belief that Christ was born of a virgin. As Catholics swing away from the right, Protestants have been nudged by new research toward a more traditional view. In 100 licensed sites in Israel, archaeological digging continues to turn up new evidence that the Bible is often surprisingly accurate in historical particulars, more so than earlier generations of scholars ever suspected. By establishing physical settings of scriptural accounts and certain details of corroboration (finding horned altars like those mentioned in 1 Kings 1: 50, for example) recent archaeology has enhanced the credibility of the Bible.

Fundamentalists and other conservative churchmen never needed such corroboration. To them a literal biblical faith is a badge of honor, and their battles in its name have