We all have our own mental images of what that first Christmas may have looked and felt like, don’t we? As kids, we probably thought it was very similar to the Christmas pageants many of us were in (or at least had seen). Fluffy sheep, an adorable angel chorus that mumbled their way through the verses of Go Tell It On the Mountain but almost shouted the chorus each time through, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds wearing bathrobes, and a white plastic doll to play Jesus.
Maybe as we got older, our images changed. We had a better idea of what people would have been wearing, and perhaps even that they would have looked like people from the Middle East. We came to realize that places where animals are kept tend to be neither clean nor particularly nice-smelling, “manger” isn’t a fancy word for “crib,” and hay doesn’t exactly make for a soft place for a newborn to sleep.
Maybe we even realized along the way that Jesus’s birth would have been like any other childbirth—with labor, amniotic fluid, a bit of blood, an umbilical cord that needed to be cut, breastfeeding, and exhaustion.
I may be late to the party, but I just discovered Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator a few days ago. It uses AI to take a description you type and then it builds a picture for you, in pretty much any style you choose. For people like me who have wide imaginations but zero artistic skills, it provides a new outlet for creativity.
And since I’m a theology nerd, it can really bring many of my theological “what if’s” to life.
Below are seven different AI-generated images I’ve created over the last couple of days. Bing allows the creator the image rights, so feel free to use and share as you wish. My only request is that as often as possible you link to the image or to the article if you share. If not, though, no worries—the Internet Police won’t tell Santa to put you on the naughty list or anything!
Image #1
In this, Mary and Joseph are in the bombed-out remains of Gaza City with their newly-born infant Jesus. There has indeed been suffering on both sides of the Israel-Hamas war that’s been raging since the beginning of October, but the thousands of Gaza Palestinian civilian residents who have dealt for years with living in an open-air prison and who now have seen their homes and businesses destroyed along with thousands of other innocent neighbors killed—it’s heart-wrenching. This picture imagines the Prince of Peace being born in a place of war.
Image #2
This image takes Mary and Joseph through time—still wearing traditional first-century garb, but in a modern city. With no other place to go, they have found an alley, where Mary is enduring labor. Joseph is doing the best he can to help by rubbing her back, but first-century men were likely even more clueless than many present-day men when it came to childbirth.
Image #3
An interesting thing I discovered while trying different written descriptions of what I was envisioning is that by typing that it was Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in the picture, the AI automatically put them in Biblical clothing. However, unless I specifically requested for the Holy Family to have a darker skin tone and dark hair, I would end up with a family of Caucasians every time.
This speaks volumes to our typical mental image of White Jesus, as AI begins with images and descriptions that are already out there in the world and tries its best to synthesize them with what it’s being told to do.
Image #4
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the…newspaper? After Mary and Joseph held their newborn, they needed a place for him to lie down. Present-day city alleys tend to be a bit short on mangers and hay, but they usually have plenty of boxes and old newspapers. Just as they did their best with what they had in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph here make do with what’s around them. A man stands in the background, taking in the scene—perhaps a fellow resident of the alley? A modern-day shepherd?
Image #5
Many folks don’t realize that Bethlehem today is a West Bank town populated by Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian. For that matter, many people don’t realize that there is such a thing as Palestinian Christians. The State of Israel (not to be confused with the biblical kingdom of Israel) has built a giant wall meant to separate Israel from the Palestinian West Bank. This wall blocks in Bethlehem on three sides. If the Magi were to come to pay homage to the newborn King today, they would be blocked by the Separation Wall.
Image #6
Another image of the 3 Wise Men trying to visit Jesus (a tidbit—the Bible never tells us how many Wise Men there were, though folks have always assumed it was three just because there were three gifts). I love this one as it takes a cross-section of the wall so you can see both the Magi and the Holy Family.
Image #7
This last Christmas Eve scene is a little more fun. I envisioned the shepherds as present-day bikers at the Bethlehem Bar, with a biker “angel” announcing the birth of Jesus and telling them where they can find him. No wings, no flying, and no “biblically accurate” image with hundreds of eyes all over, but rather a guy in white biker garb standing on a pool table to get their attention. He probably yelled something a bit more colorful than “Behold!”.
Merry Christmas
My hope is that these images were thought-provoking, perhaps revealing a new edge to an old but beautiful story. Wherever you may be, may the wonder of the Incarnation bring you hope and wholeness in an often fractured world. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill to all.
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