Christmas: historical fact or theological invention? Ben Witherington & S Thornton - Unbelievable?

Unbelievable?

Premier Unbelievable?

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2014

⏱️ 81 minutes

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Summary

Matthew and Luke both tell the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. The stories share some details in common but also vary in others. Where did they get their information from, and should we regard them as historical or merely "theological"? Stephen Thornton is a liberal Bible tutor who believes that none of the details of the Christmas story are historically true. Rather, stories of the virgin conception, the shepherds, the wise men etc contain "deeper meanings" that were written down as a "teaching aid" to the early church. Ben Witherington III is New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary. He says that the Christmas stories certainly contain deep meaning, but only because they have a basis in historical events, and that Stephen's approach is out of date. For Ben Witherington www.benwitherington.com You can email Stephen Thornton [email protected] Watch the video promo for Unbelievable? the Conference 2012 DVD http://youtu.be/6g-5jTMeZew Order it at http://www.premier.org.uk/dvd For more Christian/non-Christian debate visit http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable or get the MP3 podcast http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx or Via Itunes You may also enjoy: Unbelievable? 9th January 2012 - Is there scientific evidence for the star of Bethlehem? Hugh Ross, Jeff Zweerink, Mark Kidger and Norman Bacrac Unbelievable? 22 Dec 2007 - Did Christians steal Christmas? Did Christians steal Christmas? Join the conversation: http://www.premiercommunity.org.uk/group/unbelievable and via Facebook and Twitter

Transcript

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0:27.0	To donate, search for Tier Fund No Going Back.
0:30.0	Well, good afternoon and welcome along to Unbelievable. That's unbelievable with a question mark.
0:35.6	I'm your show host Justin Briley this Saturday afternoon and just a couple of days now to Christmas.
0:41.2	I wonder, are you ready? Has the turkey been prepared?
0:44.7	Have the presents all been wrapped? How are you celebrating Christmas? Well, however you're
0:49.2	celebrating, I do hope you enjoy today's show and perhaps you're listening via the podcast which you can
0:54.9	find of course at the website premier dot org dot UK slash unbelievable many
1:00.9	resources there for anyone who's interested in Christian
1:03.7	apologetics theology Bible study it's all available from from their links to
1:09.4	things like the DVD of our conference earlier this year that was unbelievable the conference 2012 with some great speakers including John
1:18.3	Lennox, Krijkandaya, Michael Green, Hugh Ross, Ken Samples, Bonnayal Kuhn, and more.
1:24.7	So Premier.org. UK slash unbelievable if you'd like to check that out and indeed many of the
1:30.8	past shows of this show and I like to call this the program that gets
1:35.0	Christians and non Christians talking. Normally the format is a Christian and a
1:38.5	non-Christian but we also do a format where we bring to Christians perhaps of
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