I am blogging from EWTN HQ in Alabama where I have come to record some TV programs.

One of the pleasures of a visit to EWTN is dinner in the common dining room where you get a chance to meet and converse with various interesting guests. Tonight around our table were myself and author/editor Mike Aquilina and Father Mitch Pacwa SJ.

Father Mitch is one of the smartest and most learned people you can ever hope to meet and we had a great time talking about the dating and authorship of the gospels and speculating about the historical background of the gospels. I asked him about the Protoevangelium of James–the early Christian text from which we learn about the birth and childhood of the Virgin Mary. He agreed that it was from the church in Jerusalem and very likely records the memories of Jesus’ extended family who–the early traditions tell us–were part of the Jerusalem church in the first decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD

Now here’s a detail that only a linguist like Fr Pacwa would know: a bit of evidence that Luke’s gospel was written by the physician Luke (and not some later editor or author) is hidden in the parable of the camel going through the eye of a needle. The saying is recounted in all three of the synoptic gospels, but Luke uses the word for a surgical needle while Matthew and Mark use the word for a sewing needle. Cool!

Tomorrow I’ll be recording two shows for Women of Grace  with Johnette Williams. These will air during the Advent/Christmas season and I’ll be talking about my two books on the infancy narratives: The Mystery of the Magi  and The Secret of the Bethlehem Shepherds.

I’ll be blogging more about these books in the run up to Advent.