The Shepherd, the Angel, and the Scientist

It’s often observed by preachers that shepherds were a popular object of humour in the time of Jesus. Living and sleeping outside of regular society, shepherds were uneducated and perhaps just a little unwashed.

Have you heard the one about the shepherd and the angel?

Shepherds, too, were written as comic parts in the European ‘mystery plays’ (biblical and theological dramas) of the Middle Ages. It’s a small step from these dramas to pantomime, those raucous plays that are central to the British Christmas season. We can imagine the staging of the moment prior to when, as Luke tells it, the angel ‘stood before’ the shepherds.

One shepherd to the other, with over-dramatic searching to left and right:

An angel? Where??

And, as in every good pantomime, the audience bellows:

It’s behind you!

Silly shepherds.

Whether or not the claim about first-century shepherd jokes is true, their place as social outsiders is accepted by researchers of biblical culture. Shepherds were recruited from the lowest strata of society and lived at its margins, amongst animals and human outcasts. Farmers suspected them of encroaching on their fields and crops; villagers suspected them of being bandits.

And according to the biblical story, these were the people to whom God sent angels announcing the birth of Jesus. Knowledge was entrusted to the untrustworthy.

This story of untrustworthy shepherds who turned out to know the truth has a curious parallel in the recent history of science. 

In 1986, a disaster at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine (then USSR), sent radioactive clouds billowing across Europe. Rain from the clouds fell on farming land, including land that was grazed by sheep - rendering them unsafe for human consumption.

It was a calamity for the sheep-farming communities of Cumbria in the north-west of England.

Government scientists were sent in to advise the sheep farmers, and their advice turned out to compound the disaster. At the heart of the problem lay the scientists’ failure to listen to the farmers. The farmers knew things that the scientists did not. They knew things that called ‘proper’ science into question. But because they were only shepherds, no-one listened to them.

The scientists initially told the farmers that the radioactive materials would degrade quickly, and that things could return to normal within three weeks. This turned out to be untrue. The scientists had failed to take account of the specific soil conditions of the area: they were alkaline, unlike the acidic types of soil that had been used in experiments. This changed the behaviour of the radioactive chemicals.

Scientists also advised the farmers to bring their sheep down off the hilltops, where the radioactive deposits were greatest. In vain the farmers explained that sheep were not so easily cajoled. ‘They think you stand at the fell [hill] bottom and wave a handkerchief and all the sheep come running’, complained one.

The farmers watched in dismay as the scientists set up unrealistic experiments, penning sheep up in ways that changed their eating patterns and health, and holding them too loosely – too far from the equipment – when they tried to measure their radioactivity. 

Eventually, some shepherds came to suspect that the patterns of radioactivity reported by the scientists were not explicable by Chernobyl alone, but indicated leaks from the nearby British nuclear plant, Sellafield. After denials and delays, they were proven to be correct.

It is thanks to a sociologist named Brian Wynne that we know the story of the Cumbrian sheep farmers. Since he listened to the shepherds, and published what they said, scientists and government in the UK have started to improve their cooperation with different public groups. Researchers are slowly becoming aware of the importance and value of what Wynne called ‘vernacular, lay knowledge’ in developing science that is valid in all social contexts.

Other examples of lay knowledge include patient groups and communities with experience particular diseases and conditions, or transport users giving input to the development of new technological systems. Meanwhile, citizen scientists have put the issue of river and sea pollution on the agenda for public debate. The voices of ordinary people matter.

Luke does not write about what became of the shepherds’ voices. Did the people in the towns and villages believe them when they said that they had seen an angel? Or perhaps they replied, in the words of another stock pantomime phrase:

Oh no you didn’t!

As it turned out, the shepherds were not so silly. Science is catching up with the insight of the gospel: that ordinary people - and what they know - matter very much indeed.

Discussion Questions

• This is a story about who we trust to tell us things. Can you think of any other situations where ordinary people’s voices have been, or are, suppressed?
• Who are the ‘shepherd’ outsider figures in Christian communities? How can they be brought closer in?
• How do we discern between those outsider figures who have truths to tell and those who offer lies or conspiracy theories?

Sources/Further Reading

Sabine Huebner, ‘“In that region there were shepherds living in the fields …”: An Occupation on the Margins of Society’. In: Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament. Cambridge University Press; 2019:115-134. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/papyri-and-the-social-world-of-the-new-testament/in-that-region-there-were-shepherds-living-in-the-fields/4A9B868E5FB593A73EF4317C387D6DF7 - not open access.

Wynne, Brian. "May the Sheep Safely Graze?" (1996) https://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/~sallen/jayne/Wynne%201996%20sheep.pdf

Stilgoe, Jack, Simon J. Lock, and James Wilsdon. "Why should we promote public engagement with science?." Public understanding of science 23.1 (2014): 4-15. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963662513518154 - Open access