Episode 1.4: The Stranger

The fourth episode of the first season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast was posted on November 1, 2017. You can listen to the episode and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

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SHOW NOTES

This episode is based on Luke 1:26-38 in the New Testament of the Bible. (Click the references to read the original story). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the episode.

The ancient trope of the Divine visitor

The New Testament letter to the Hebrews includes this encouragement:

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:2)

In Greek myth, Baucis and Philemon are an aged couple who offer hospitality to the gods Zeus and Hermes when they are traveling through their area. They are greatly rewarded for this while their neighbours are punished.

The verse is making a direct reference, it would seem, to the story of the visit of the three angels to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18:1-15. But, beyond that immediate reference, it refers to a basic assumption that was very common in the ancient world. There are many stories told by many ancient Mediterranean peoples about gods and other divine beings traveling about in this world disguised as human beings. These incognito travelers are often rejected in the communities through which they pass only to be accepted and offered hospitality usually by some unlikely local inhabitant. Probably the best known such myth is the myth of Baucis and Philemon.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of “Annunciation” is fairly typical of the depiction of this event in Christian Tradition.

The story in the Gospel of Luke of the visit of the angel Gabriel to a young maiden named Mary is not usually understood to be an example of this ancient trope. I think that this is partially because Luke fails to explicitly state that the angel was not immediately recognized as such by the young woman. The assumption that Mary did immediately recognize him as an angel is also enhanced through a long tradition of Christian art. There have been many depictions of the visitation to Mary down through the centuries and, in all of them, Gabriel is quite unmistakably an angel. He has the halo and the wings and the bright shining robe and there is no question who he is and who he represents. But I would note that Luke never describes what Gabriel looks like in his text and, when he wrote, the artistic flourishes associated with angelhood did not really yet exist. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that both the writer and the first readers of this gospel imagined the angelic visitor as first appearing on the scene in quite human form. They likely also would have naturally connected it with the common trope regarding offering hospitality to strangers.

I took that assumption and ran with it in this episode. And, when I did that, I found it quite hard to ignore the parallels between the story in the Gospel of Luke and the story of Abraham and Sarah in the Book of Genesis.

Is Luke creating an intentional parallel?

There is no question in my mind that, throughout his gospel, Luke makes regular use of Old Testament passages and stories to fill in the blanks of his account of the life of Jesus. The examples of this are too many to list here and I go through many of them, particularly in Luke’s account of the nativity, in my book, Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee.

I would note the following parallels between the story in Genesis and the one in the Gospel of Luke:

• Both Mary and Sarah should not have been able to have children, although for different reasons: Sarah, because of her advanced age, and Mary because of her virginity.
• Both Sarah and Mary respond to the promise of a child with incredulity.
• In both cases, the angelic response appeals to the limitless power of God. To Mary, Gabriel says, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37) To Sarah, the angel says, “Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14)

I do not think that these parallels are accidental on Luke’s part. I believe that he is quite intentionally playing up the similarity between the two stories and I have tried to bring this out in my account.

Media and acknowledgments

“AhDah” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

“Magic Forest” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Many thanks to Gabrielle McAndless for playing the role of Mary in this episode.

The text of this episode has also been published in my book, “Caesars Census, God’s Jubilee.” The book is an examination of the entire Nativity Story as told in the Gospel of Luke and as contrasted with the rather different Nativity Story that is told in the Gospel of Matthew. The book is available in paperback through Amazon and the e-book is available in many places where e-books are sold. See the links below:

• Amazon.ca link
• Amazon.com link
• Kobo link
• Smashwords link

And, finally, here is a video version of this story from an old Nativity pageant:

This is the original promotional post for the episode.