The day before Christmas, prominent TV outdoorsman Bear Grylls jumped to his X account to falsely claim that Jesus’ mother Mary was a “Palestinian” and that she and Joseph were “refugees” when they traveled to Bethlehem, where Christ was born. This is a common trope where liberals warp the Biblical story of the birth of Christ to support their agenda.
One common method is to distort the story by saying Christ’s earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were either homeless, refugees, or immigrants. Some, like Grylls, make the incorrect claim that the couple were “Palestinian.” Grylls started his fallacious statement by saying that Christians were celebrating the “birth of a Middle Eastern refugee” who “changed the course of the world forever.”
He continued by saying “This is just a short extract from near the beginning of the adventure. When Maryam, a young, poor, and no doubt terrified Palestinian girl, gives birth in a run-down animal pen, to a baby who was foretold for hundreds of years.” However neither of these claims are true. Marry was neither a “refugee” or a “Palestinian girl.”
We continued “Yet she was not alone. And she never would be. Because this was the moment that God Almighty broke into our fallen world in person… To many of us, it is undoubtedly: The Greatest Story Ever Told. This line is commonly trotted out to push a modern-day policy of immigration amnesty. The argument is that: If Jesus Christ’s parents were immigrants, how can today’s American Christians be against open borders?
However, Christ’s parents were not “immigrants.” Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem for tax reasons. The couple had made their way home to register for a government census so that they could be assessed their tax bill. The reason is outlined in the Book of Luke, Chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world…And everyone went to their town to register.”
The Scriptures go on to explain that “So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.” No genuine reading of this passage can conclude Christ’s family intended to “immigrate” to Bethlehem.
Joseph and Mary were not in town to “immigrate” to Bethlehem. They were there to be identified and registered by the government to pay taxes . Even if they did intend to move to Bethlehem in the Christmas story, they would still not be “immigrants” because both Nazareth and Bethlehem are in the same country. The identity of ‘Palestinian’ did not exist at the time.
See the Community note which demolishes Grylls post:
Brutal. pic.twitter.com/beHqPdcCSt
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 24, 2024
But Grylls’ mischaracterization of the birth of Christ is the same lie passed around by leftists for decades. Christ’s family was not “homeless” or “poor.” They owned a home and Joseph worked as a carpenter for a living and had a middle-class lifestyle for his day. All of these claims are cynical efforts to use Jesus for their own political goals. However even after being shut down Grylls still seems proud of his false representation of the birth of Christ, and his post remains live.