Rediscovering Christmas
by AJ Sherrill

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Christian non-fiction

After being a Christian for many years, it’s nice now and then to attempt to slow down and take a look at a well-known, often-heard or portrayed account from the Bible in a new light. That’s what this book promises to do. And indeed, are were several different deep dives into historical context and translation in this book that give insight to aspects of the “Christmas story” that most people may never have heard before. Much of it I have, however, from various sources, including my own recently retired pastor, in his attempts to not preach the same sermons every year at Christmas time. This is not a fault of the book or author, of course, it only means the book is probably better for someone who is newer to Christianity or has simply only viewed the surface of the events surrounding the birth of Christ.

The author makes some assertions about the intentions of biblical writers (Luke in particular) that I have never heard before; he may have taken some liberties and made some assumptions, but he often states some of these things as fact. I couldn’t help but question some things as I read (which of course we’re supposed to do as Christians). As an example, this quote from chapter 1: “Jesus is brought into being by the creative breath of God’s Spirit.” It seems to imply that Jesus did not exist before Mary conceived, but of course that isn’t true. He was/is God and has existed for eternity. Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he only meant to say that Jesus was brought into “earthly existence” by the creative breath of God’s Spirit, and I was nitpicking without intending to. Whatever the case, between this and my notes in the previous paragraph, this book did not quite resonate with me like it was intended to. Because of some of the uncertainties I had about some of what I read, I don’t know that I could, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone, but I will say that if you do read it, be sure to go to the Scriptures to verify anything you’re not certain of (which, again, you should do with anything that a fallible human professes about God or the Bible).

Thank you to Netgalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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