How about putting Herod back into our sanitized Christmas?

[El Supremo]

...Another danger of sentimentality is that we tend to lose interest in the parts of the story that are not so comfortable. We smile at the warm cozy nativity scene, but have you ever spent a night in a barn? Or given birth in a barn? The reality is very different. Most scholars suggest that in Luke's account it's not just that the inns were full but that Mary and Joseph were forced to take the barn because their family had rejected them. Joseph has relatives or friends of relatives in Bethlehem. So rather than being received hospitably by family or friends, Joseph and Mary have been shunned. Family and neighbors are declaring their moral outrage at the fact that Joseph would show up on their doorsteps with his pregnant girlfriend.

Read it all here: http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_archives&mode=current_opinion&article=CO_041222_carroll_wallis

[Valerie5555]

1. Wondered if George W. Bush also reminded you of King Herod or vice versa.

:D

[El Supremo]

2. Only if it proves out that he OKed the election fraud.

But he sure has enough blood on his hands!

[Valerie5555]

3. Highly doubt that Herod won any political office by means of a rigged

election, but * may should remind people of Herod in how he killed many an Iraqi baby boy either by accident or design, through his wars.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The BBC and Terry Jones already did, last Saturday

"Let's Hear It For The King Of Judea"

Terry Jones asks: "What has the King of Judea ever done for us?"

Let's face it, King Herod has had a bad press. Ask most people today what he is known for and they will only mention the Massacre of the Innocents referred to in the Gospel of St Matthew.

But this is the only reference to the event. Terry thinks there's more to be said about a ruler who was known as Herod the Great.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/11_november/17/radio4_sat18.shtml

30 min audio here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/rams/sat1030.ram
(probably available unfil 10:30 this week, ie Christmas Day)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Herod's already included

December 28 is the Day of the Holy Innocents.