Anglican Church leader says Christmas contains “legend”

[EdwardK]

Hmmm….. See what you think yourself:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JHPSTTVO4EG5FQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQ UIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/20/nwise120.xml

Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) is the leader of the Anglican Church, which has 77 million Christians worldwide – bigger than any other church other than the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

[Train]

There's already a thread about this here (http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=27684&highlight=Archbishop+Williams+legend).

Here's a link to the transcript of the interview: transcript (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BN00FC0WHLFSNQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQ UIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/20/nwise220.xml)

The article in the Telegraph is very misleading, IMO. The reporter spins Williams as throwing doubt on the entire Christmas story, but actually Williams was just trying to separate what's in the Bible from later embellishments.

Here's an example. The article states that Williams said that the Three Wise Men were nothing but a legend. It quotes Williams: "Matthew's gospel says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that's all we're really told. It works quite well as legend."

But the actual quote is this: "Well Matthew's gospel doesn't tell us that there were three of them, doesn't tell us they were kings, doesn't tell us where they came from, it says they're astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire. That's all we're really told so, yes, 'the three kings with the one from Africa' - that's legend; it works quite well as legend."

Williams didn't say that the whole thing was legend, just that the later embellishment of them being 'three kings with the one from Africa' was a legend.