The second of our Newman Advent Seminars (10th December 2014) will be exploring the nativity story from Luke’s perspective. We will be asking what was his contribution to the story with which we are so familiar from our Christmas cards and school nativity plays? Would he view the developments of ‘his’ story as positive or negative?

Alongside the seminars, we are creating a series of nativity wordclouds that, in a very visual way, display key words in each account; the most common being the most prominently displayed. This week, we are featuring the nativity according to Luke (click to enlarge).

The text used for the wordcloud is taken from the NRSV and covers Luke 1:5-2:52. This means the total number of words (2,450) is almost twice that used for last week’s Matthew wordcloud (see below). Although the Nativity story does not really begin until Luke 2:1, most of chapter 1 (excluding the preface; vv. 1-4) has also been included as it contains not only the account of the Annunciation (vv. 26-38), but (like Matthew’s genealogy) important theological and thematic cues that set the scene for the actual birth story.

As we noted last week in the wordcloud for Matthew’s account, care needs to be taken as translation issues, as well as other factors, can skew one’s reading. Nevertheless, as a bit of fun, wordclouds can be useful in pointing to general characteristics and identify possible avenues of exploration.

SOME DISTINCTLY LUCAN THEMES?

A quick comparison between the wordclouds of Matthew and Luke reveals a greater prominence to women’s names in Luke. Interestingly, although Zechariah (John the Baptist’s father) is fairly prominent, Joseph is much smaller (bottom right-hand corner beside ‘came’). Other interesting features is the fairly prominent use of ‘womb’ (κοιλία – which can also refer to ‘belly’ or ‘stomach’) which also might suggest the foregrounding of women and the part they play in this story (compare this with Matthew’s account). Both ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ feature strongly as does the characteristically Lucan ‘Spirit’ and ‘angel’.

Scanning the wordcloud reveals many more words that are typically associated with the ‘Christmas story’; ‘praising’, ‘festival’ , ‘peace’, ‘joy’ and even the perennial Christmas feature, ‘relatives’!!

CHRISTMAS AND THE TEMPLE

One of the questions we will asking on Wednesday concerns the place of the Temple in the nativity story (and the wider writings of Luke in his Gospel and Acts). Take some time to see how many words associated with the Temple and priesthood you can find in the wordcloud.

Come to the seminar on Wednesday (Newman University, 7.00pm) and explore with us some of these themes and more. Everyone is welcome and refreshments are provided. For more details click here.

ANOTHER WORDCLOUD NEXT WEEK

Next week we will be presenting one more nativity wordcloud, but this time it will not be from the New Testament, but from an important, but later Christian development of the Christmas story.

Wordcloud produced using wordle.net