The Infancy Gospel of James: An Alternative Christmas Story

Protoevangelium of James 1 - 25

WARNING: TOXIC VAGINA, NON-SEQUITURS

CONTEXT: ~ 6 BCE Several twists on the nativity narrative of the New Testament, including the origins of Mary’s relationship with Joseph, her guardian 

This Nativity themed manuscript was for several centuries one of the most popular versions of the Christmas narrative, more widely read perhaps than the two “official” New Testament gospels (Matthew, Luke) that eventually made the final cut. The Infancy Gospel of James book was also influential in the shaping of “Mariology,” the worship of Jesus’s mother as a separate deity – especially prevalent among Catholics (and much disdained by Protestants). 

While it contains a few familiar elements found in current canonical New Testament gospels (Matthew and Luke), it also includes some very strange additions. 

In this gospel:

• · A much older Joseph is teen Mary’s guardian rather than her fiancé.
• · Mary and Joseph undergo the Old Testament ordeal of drinking a foul magic potion to prove her virginity – her very obvious pregnancy notwithstanding. 
• · Mary’s holy vagina scorches the hand of a midwife who disbelieves her virginity claims after giving birth.
• · The archangel Gabriel is involved in the annunciation and conception rather than the “holy ghost” of the official New Testament version.

As is often the case with scripture, there are stark discrepancies between commonly held Christian traditions and the accounts in officially sanctioned gospels. One of the reasons for this disconnect is that dozens of “extra-Biblical” sources were recognized and officially sanctioned for centuries before falling out of favor. You might say they were acknowledged as true, and then were declared not true. As a result, a lot of the material in non-canonical sources was already widely disseminated, which is to say, common knowledge.1 Even long after the apocryphal books were officially renounced, many story elements live on in the memories of the faithful. The Infancy Gospel of James is one of the most beloved and influential of these works.

Let’s look at the bizarre Infancy Gospel of James tale, followed by a discussion about the key story elements that came to be embedded in Christmas theology without ever appearing the New Testament. 

THE CORE NARRATIVE: CHRISTMAS IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Joachim is a rich man, but childless. During a big day of public sacrifices, he is berated by a priest for offering atonement gifts to the Lord when he has failed to procreate as instructed by YHWH. After scouring all Hebrew writings, he confirms that he is indeed the only righteous man in the history of Israel to have no children. Distraught, he disappears into the desert for forty days and nights to fast and pray.2 

For unexplained reasons, Joachim doesn’t mention this sudden sabbatical to his wife Anne, who concludes he is dead and goes into mourning. As long as she is already grieving, she multi-tasks by also lamenting her barren womb. She prays fervently.3 After some poetic weeping, an angel appears and informs her she will shortly conceive. Not only that, the entire world will know her child. 

As Anne is promising to dedicate the child to the Lord, Joachim arrives home to discover his wife will be giving birth without requiring his seed. Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem troubled by this stressful state of affairs – which would normally require that the unfaithful wife be stoned to death. Instead, he goes a bit overboard with animal sacrifices (but who can blame him). He calls for ten unblemished lambs, twelve calves and a hundred male goats to be barbequed to thank the Lord.

Seven months later, Anne delivers a precocious child who is immediately blessed by the Temple priests.4 Mom won’t let little Mary’s feet touch the ground and only allows pure children to play with her. 

A few years later, Joachim throws a huge party for the entire nation of Israel and the high priests receive the three year old Mary into the Temple. The kid turns out to be quite a dancer, and all Israel loves this celebrity prodigy living in the Temple rent free. Not only is she the official guest of the priests, but she is provided with her meals by angels. 

This situation changes when Mary turns twelve, at which point the Temple priests begin to fret that she will defile the Temple with her menstrual blood.5 Chief Priest Zechariah – married to Mary’s cousin Elizabeth - blows the Lord’s holy trumpet, summoning all the widowers in Israel. He asks the old men to take young Mary off the hands of the Temple priesthood before she hits puberty. The lucky winner of the ‘tween girl will be chosen by a sign, related somehow to the staves the men are carrying.

An elderly widower named Joseph wins the contest by virtue of a dove flying out of his staff and landing on his head. Despite this clear sign, he is reluctant to take on the responsibility:

But Joseph refused, saying, “I have sons and am an old man, but she’s young. I won’t be a laughingstock among the people of Israel.” – IGJ 9:2

Perhaps overreacting, the High Priest threatens Joseph with being swallowed up by the earth.6 Preferring to live, old Joe eventually takes Mary home and returns to his work elsewhere as a home builder. He is never betrothed to Mary, but signs on as her court appointed guardian.

When Mary is sixteen she is recruited to spin the purple and scarlet wool for the Temple veil.7 While thus engaged, she is advised by another angel that she is about to give birth to a savior. She is to call him Jesus.8 

While Mary seems cool with the pregnancy, the much older Joseph is not. Arriving home from his building site, he is primarily concerned he will be blamed for not protecting her virginity. 

“Who has done this evil thing in my house? Who has defiled the virgin? Aren’t I reliving the story of Adam? For as Adam was glorifying in the hour of prayer, the serpent came, found Eve alone, and deceived her, and now it’s happened to me!”9 – IGJ 13:1

In spite of being obviously with child, Mary continues to insist she is a virgin. Joseph comes around to believing her after a discussion with an angel in a dream. The priests, on the other hand, are having none of it. They bring both Mary and Joseph before the tribunal, where they are made to drink a bitter magical testing potion and sent into the wilderness. To their surprise, both survive the shamanic ordeal and the priests grudgingly clear them of charges.10

With Mary approaching the end of her term, the couple heads to Bethlehem for the Census. Unfortunately, Mary’s time comes when she is en route. As Joseph searches for a mid wife, all creation is frozen except for him. In this vision, everyone around him is standing still, looking up. After a bit, things un-freeze and he fortuitously notices a couple of midwives who happen to be walking by. They are recruited after Joseph’s awkward and unconvincing description of the situation.

Joseph tells them: “And I said to her, “Mary was nurtured in the Temple of the Lord, and it was decided by lot that she would be my wife, yet she’s not my wife; but she’s conceived from the Holy Spirit.”

And the midwife said, “Really?”11 – IGJ 19:1

After the midwife’s initial virginity probe more or less confirms Joseph’s claim, the future savior is born in a cave. A bright cloud envelops the scene, followed by a blinding light. When the light goes out, the bouncing baby messiah appears and the rest is history.

Next, Salome – the other midwife – expresses doubts about how Mary can possibly remain a virgin after giving birth. She announces her intention to verify the situation via a follow up examination of Mary’s vagina. The unnamed first midwife tells Mary to brace herself for an invasive post natal inspection.

Salome sticks her hand into Mary’s vagina and it is scorched and withered as punishment for not believing the sketchy claim. 

“Salome inserted her finger into her nature..”

- IGJ 20:1

But her hand heals after an angel instructs her to touch the baby.’

The story of the Magi is inserted at this point, virtually the same narrative as the Gospel of Luke version. Once Mary and her cousin Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist) hear of Herod’s infanticide order, they manage to hide. A mountain opens for Elizabeth to conceal herself within. Unfortunately, her husband Zacharias is murdered by Herod’s agents, who come looking for the future Baptist. The other priests discover blood splattered around the altar and conclude the Head Priest has been killed. After three days of mourning they elect Simeon to take his place.

The infancy Gospel of James ends on this abrupt and unsatisfactory note. .

THE CATHOLIC OBSESSION WITH GOD’S SON’S MOTHER’S HYMEN

This gospel purports to be authored by James, a half brother of Jesus.

“Now I, James, wrote this history in Jerusalem when there was a commotion over Herod’s death. I went into the wilderness until the commotion in Jerusalem had died down. I was glorifying the Lord God, who gave me the wisdom to write this history.” - Infancy Gospel of James 25:1

There are all kinds of reasons this claim is impossible, but I will spare you that discussion. The critical takeaway is that the author’s assertion is an indication of the polemical origins of the document. There are several key theological elements the Infancy Gospel of James seeks to modify, the most high profile of which is the perpetual virginity of Mary.

On closer analysis, the term “perpetual” doesn’t quite capture the full nuance of the concept. “Dual” or “both before and after” is more accurate. For the Church officials who obsess over women’s sexuality, it’s not enough that she has avoided intercourse in the process of conceiving the underperforming savior of mankind, she must also remain an eternal virgin after childbirth.

The problem is there are several very clear scriptural contradictions in the canonical New Testament. For one, there are multiple references to Jesus’s siblings, both brothers and sisters.

“Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” – [KJV] Mark 6:3

There is also a clear reference to Joseph having had sex with Mary.

“When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.” – [KJV] Matthew 1:24-25

It is this New Testament account that the Infancy Gospel of James seeks to counter with an alternative narrative. It is essential to point out that the selection of any one of these writings over the other was altogether an arbitrary matter. It is ironic that the centuries-long devotion of Catholic women to Mary as a deity in her own right is rooted in scriptures that were ultimately declared apocryphal by the Church around 500 AD.

The perpetual virginity trope goes beyond the biological absurdity of the claim, rooted in a deep misogyny that is a core characteristic of the Abrahamic religions. Without going into a full examination of the mindset, I will summarize it: Mary is the anti-Eve, balancing the inherent sin of Eve’s sexuality with her pureness. That is why Mary must not been to have engaged in sex. She has purified mankind by negating Eve’s original sin.

It’s really fucked up.

______________________________ NOTES ______________________________

1. Here is one example: Most Christians know the name of Mary’s mother is Anne (since promoted to St. Anne), but not because that information is in the Bible. Rather, her name is found only the Infancy Gospel of James, which was kicked out of the Bible. Most Christians assume the information must be in the New Testament, but it isn’t. Similarly, most Christians know the names of the three “wise men,” but that information is not in the Bible either. There is likewise no stable, no animals and no little drummer boy in the biblical Christmas story.

And so on.

2. Forty days and nights is an arbitrary time frame that appears in the Great Flood Cycle, Moses’s extended stay with YHWH on Mt. Sinai and in Jesus’s sojourn in the desert. Numerology was a popular practice in the ancient Middle East. The number 40 was associated with testing or trial.

3. In her prayer, Anne references the story of Abraham’s wife Sarah in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. Both women are barren until old age (although age is skewed unrealistically upward in the Torah), at which point YHWH intercedes. Sarah gives birth to Isaac at the age of 90 in Genesis 21. Based on her identification with Sarah, it is reasonable to conclude that Anne is also advanced in years.

4. There is a subtle geographical problem here. The story strongly implies proximity to “the Temple,” which can only refer to the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Nazareth is located in the hinterlands a hundred miles away. James claims to be writing the Infancy Gospel account in Jerusalem and the event take place there. Much of the traditional Jesus of Nazareth narrative in the New Testament is called into question.

5. A recurring obsession in the patriarchal Jewish culture.

6. The High Priest invokes an incident in the Book of Numbers, in which rogue Levites and Reubenites named Dathan, Abiron, and Korea rebel against the original High Priest Aaron. The mutineers are angry that the priests are acting too holy, placing themselves above the rest of the chosen. The Lord comes down and has them either swallowed up by the earth or burned. In this case, the priest would seem to be implying that he has the same powers to deal with dissention.

7. Early paintings depict Mary and her friends engaged in this activity. The intent is to establish a connection between wool working and expected standards for wifely industriousness. 

8. To an English speaker, this sounds like a bigger deal than it was. Jesus (Iēsous) is merely Greek for Joshua, a very popular name in ancient Israel. The name honors Moses’s famous Old Testament Field Marshall, so there was no shortage of Joshuas around. Note that Greek was the written language of the scholarly elite, but Joshua ben Joseph (Jesus) would have spoken Aramaic, a variation of Hebrew and the vernacular of the people. He would not have answered to “Jesus.”

9. This reference to the Garden of Eden myth is typical of a Christian trope that links pure Mary with not-pure Eve. The central element is female sexuality. By depriving Mary of her sexual identity, she becomes the antidote to Eve’s sinfulness.

10. This seems to be a variation of the Trial of the Bitter Water (Numbers 5:11-31), normally used to test a woman for faithfulness.  The recipe consists of holy water mixed with dust from the Temple floor.

11. That is what most people would say after Joseph’s lame explanation.