The First Christmas

\Considering the time of year I thought this was a good choice for my nonfiction book this month. Along with my goal of a certain amount of pages a year, I thought it would be nice to read at least one nonfiction book a month.  I am aware that doing so is going to significantly impact the amount I actually read in pages, because it simply takes me forever to read a nonfiction book.  It takes far more concentration on my part to read and with four kids yelling at me all the time, that is indeed a challenge. 

Borg and Crossan look at the birth stories of Jesus from the New Testament to get to the heart of what these stories mean mainly from the prospective of when they were written, but they do go into what it means for present day Christians and also for the future.  It is very obvious that the authors are Christian.  They search for the "TRUTH" while acknowledging that the stories are not "FACT."  They point out that as post-enlightenment creatures, it is difficult for peoples today to see the difference in those two words.  Too many believe that if it isn't fact than it is not true, so even among Christians if you say the story of Christ's birth is not factually correct in the Bible then they take that to mean it can't be true.  I do not agree with the idea that Christ is the only way to enlightenment, but I can really appreciate the fact that truth can be truth without fact.  A story can be truth, it can bring about a change in us that makes us better people; it can even teach faith facts without being historically fact. 

Genre: Religious Non Fiction
Grade Level:  Adult
Pages: 258