About the Author: Tom Hall
A contemporary version of the Lord's Prayer adapted from the prayer book of the Anglican Church of New Zealand.
"I'm worth as much as you," while true, Yearns upward much as Eve's son Cain; and vainforever proves such self-promotion.
I trust it will come as news to very few that the canonical gospels offer us two Christmas stories, and to those who have actually read the accounts it is clear that the two bear little resemblance to one another. To be sure, the names of the infant, his mother, his nominal father, and the place of birth are the same; but nearly all the other details stand in striking and irreconcilable conflict. Does this mean that Matthew’s narrative or Luke’s—or both—are simply to be rejected as wildly unreliable? Not if we adopt the strategy of understanding the two tales not as failed attempts at history, but as brilliantly conceived and wonderfully effective parables.