Enslaved Child Shepherds, Watching Their Flocks by Night
Children Among the Shepherds in Luke's Gospel
As a father and as a New Testament scholar, one of my favourite things to do with my kids is read stories from the Bible that have been adapted for children. I find a lot of these adaptations to be less inspiring than the actual biblical text itself, but I read them because every now and then you come across a story that approaches something from a different perspective.
This was the case recently when I read one story about a shepherd boy who was looking after his father’s sheep and came across the angelic message to the shepherds as found in the infancy narrative of Luke 2:8–20. I was delighted to be confront with the idea of a child shepherd looking after the flocks at night.
You can imagine my surprise when I read a recent article by Amy Lindeman Allen that argues that based on Hebrew Bible traditions and Graeco-Roman sources, it’s likely that Luke’s Gospel envisions children among the shepherds in the infancy narrative.
You might have heard it preached that shepherds were a “dishonest” or “rough” group of people. This caricature is largely one-sided, and emerges from debates in the Babylonian Talmud about herdsmen. But this does not support other evidence that we have which argues that shepherds were simply “ordinary folk who work with animals.”1
There are numerous places in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament where children or youth are associated with shepherding. David is of course the most well-known (1 Samuel 16:11; 17:15, 33-36). But, Rachel also had tended her father’s sheep (Gen 29:6), a practice “expected of non-adult daughters in the ancient near Eastern world.”2 Even Joseph’s description of his own family suggests that he and the brothers had looked after “livestock from [their] youth” (Gen 46:34).
Graeco-Roman sources also attest that children were ideal caretakers of smaller animals because of their size. For example, Dr. Allen draws attention to the ancient Roman scholar Marcus Varro who says “For herds of larger cattle older men, for the smaller [animals] even boys... Thus on the range you may see young men, usually armed, while on the farm not only boys but even girls tend the flocks.”3 From this Dr. Allen concludes that when Luke talks about shepherds in the second chapter of his Gospel, it is very likely that children are envisioned (perhaps overseen by a number of adults).
One important aspect that Dr. Allen draws attention to is that not only was shepherding an occupation of impoverished children but also of enslaved ones as well. It was significant, then, that the message of the kingdom of God, a message of “good news,” had come to child shepherds who may themselves have been enslaved. As Dr. Allen points out, “By placing shepherds at the heart of this angelic proclamation, Luke entrusts the message of a child savior to those who most deeply and personally understand both the dependencies and the gifts of childhood—children themselves. In the ears of such children, marginalized in so many ways on account of their age and limited abilities to contribute to their household production, the message that God has come into the human world in the form of a child must be heard with “great joy” indeed.” (Page 252)
In a way then, the Kingdom of God does seem to belong to the poor and children, as Jesus says in Luke 18:16, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
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Robert C. Tannehill, Luke (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996) 65 (cited in Allen 2021, page 233 n. 9)
Allen 2021, page 244.
Varro, On Agriculture, 2.10.2-3 cited in Allen 2021, pg. 246.
Love the thought that the news of Jesus birth was not just told to those who would spread the good news, but told to those who would understand and be directly impacted by the gospel message.