Cherry Tree Carol: Redux
To preface this, Sharon is a big Mixdorf fan.
That said, upon reading his comments on this song, Mixdorf, Sharon's reaction was one of, "who says it's just some narrative that has no connection to anything? It's a traditional song. What if it has a long history behind it and come connection to something bigger that we just don't know about?" On Sunday night, she got around to looking it up in Wikipedia. The history went a lot farther back than even she realized. It's actually directly from one of the gospels, albeit not one of the gospels that made it into our modern day Bibles-the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. The very interesting history of the song is here. My favorite part of the article is at the end, when it details the song retelling's differences from the actual "events:"
...Joseph's truculence is unrelated to any dismay over Mary's pregnancy, but has to do with an inability to reach the fruits of the palm and a concern over the family's lack of water.
posted by Dan @ 5:24 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Sharon is far less prone to unsubstantiated outbursts than I, and so perhaps wiser.
Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew? Talk about awkward greetings. "Hey, you look really familiar. Are you Matthew? NO! For the last time! I'm Pseudo-Matthew! Kind of like Matthew, but without all the perks."
Weird stuff from that WIKI post.
Joseph gets mad either:
a) because he can't reach the fruit and his family lacks water (good Joseph)
or
b) because he thinks his wife slept around.
and is only assuaged when:
a) a voice from Mary's womb commands the tree to lower a branch
or
b) an angel appears to put him straight
after which the story jumps ahead to a point where a toddler Jesus relates his own destruction while sitting on Mary's knee.
Weird and freaky in many ways.
I'm glad there is more to this song than just that couple's rendition on Dan PR, but the background behind it doesn't make me feel any better about it. It may make it ever weirder.
The "Pseudo" part owing, of course, to the fact that it is a supplementary gospel, with the intention of filling out a little more detail about the lives of these characters in the primary gospels, in this case, Matthew.
For any of us interesting in learning more about the Bible (hmm-wonder who that could be), reading some of those additional Gospels sounds like a must, and maybe even a good starting point.
I know a fair amount about this and a few of the other gospels, and not just from The DaVinci Code. Go for the joke and get smacked down.
Interesting stuff to be sure. The logic of what went into the New Testament is pretty fascinating. You'd have a hard time getting the average thumper to understand that what they take as literal/near literal truth and ultimately the word of God, is a very political and dubious construction.
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