There's More to the Christmas Story...

Light of the World, Amy Jill Levine
This is an Advent book with a twist. The author is Jewish, and teaches New Testament classes at a university. As a Jew, she knows the Old Testament history behind the heritage, customs, and forebears of the main characters in the Christmas story: Zechariah and Elizabeth, and then Mary and Joseph, and finally the young Jesus, and also the historical events that help anchor the story to what was happening in the area that is now the Middle East.

Levine also gives more than a cursory reference to the women involved in the story, including the involvement of Elizabeth, who would give birth to the boy known later as John the Baptist, and other Biblical women, including Moses' sister Miriam, Deborah, Hannnah, Anna (St. Anne, mother of Mary), and another Anna, a prophet who meets Jesus as an infant when he is presented at the temple. She weighs the differences between the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, and discusses the erroneous details we have given to events like the arrival of the Magi (they are never referred to as Kings, nor do we know how many there were).

I enjoyed Levine's threading of the events approaching the Nativity back to details mentioned in the Old Testament, and the explanation of traditional Jewish customs and how this would have affected each of the main characters in a story we have all learned by heart. Recommended if you are looking for a new aspect to Advent devotions.