There Was No Virgin Birth and Christmas Wasn't Celebrated Until 330AD, Irish Religious Writer Insists in New Book

If you wonder why our Bishops have lost the Faith, it might be because they have anti-Catholic blasphemers like Keenan as 'advisers'!

From the Irish Independent

By Sarah Mac Donald

A new book from an Irish publisher has challenged the traditional understanding of Christmas, claiming Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem, there were no Wise Men or shepherds, and no manger.

As annual preparations are getting underway in primary schools across the country for Covid-adapted Nativity plays, author Peter Keenan contends that Christmas wasn’t celebrated before 330AD and that our contemporary view of the religious feast has more to do with 19th century sentimentality promoted by Charles Dickens and Britain’s Prince Albert than the life of Jesus.

In his book published by Columba Books, Mr Keenan argues that the Virgin birth is not factual, but the consequence of an error in the translation from Hebrew of the Prophet Isaiah’s writings.

He also highlights in The Birth of Jesus the Jew - Midrash and the Infancy Gospels that the 25th of December was believed to be the birthday of Mithras, a mythical Persian sun god, born in a cave of a virgin mother and a divine father.

Originally from Dublin, Mr Keenan studied for the priesthood but left before ordination. He was an adviser to the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales for 16 years and now lives in Cork.

In the book, the former teacher of moral philosophy highlights how Jesus and Queen Elizabeth II share “an odd distinction”. She has two birthdays – the official one in June when she troops the colour, and her real one, April 21. Jesus, on the other hand, has two birthplaces – the official one, Bethlehem, and the real one, Nazareth.

He blames Biblical literalism for people’s willingness to accept unhistorical narratives about Jesus’s early years and notes that one academic has described the refusal to deal with discrepancies in the Gospels as “a Gentile heresy”.

However, parish priest Fr Paddy McCafferty dismissed Keenan’s views.

Speaking to Independent.ie, the Ballymurphy priest said: “The Virgin birth is essential to the Christian faith and believed by all Orthodox Christians.”

He said that if Mr Keenan is saying there was no Virgin birth, “he is denying the Apostle’s Creed, one of the foundational statements of faith which says that Jesus was ‘born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit’. That is what we believe.”

He said he would not be recommending the book to his parishioners or telling local schools to rethink their nativity plays; rather he would tell them not to waste their “valuable time reading this nonsense”.

“The Christian faith has stood for 2,000 years and has resisted all sorts of attacks and all sorts of heresy. Our Blessed Lady was a virgin, and she remained a virgin ever after - that is the ancient faith of the Christian Church. That was not invented or made up,” Fr McCafferty said.

Mr Keenan told Independent.ie people are entitled to believe in the virginal conception but said, “it should not be the litmus test for calling yourself a Christian”.

He added that in his opinion the overwhelming historical evidence for the virginity of Mary is not credible. This has been discussed in academic circles for a long time and he said his book was making those arguments accessible to the general public.

He believes the two Infancy Narratives of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are primarily faith testimonies having little to do with ‘remembered history’. After the birth, Luke has the family return to Nazareth and Matthew has them fleeing to Egypt, migrating later to Nazareth.

“Both accounts cannot be historical, and the truth is that neither is factual,” Mr Keenan said.

“The why of Jesus’ life is what mattered to Matthew and Luke, and they articulated that significance as ‘parable’, not history.”