The first post in this series can be found here.
In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth, we aren’t told how or why Joseph and Mary are in Bethlehem. We also aren’t told exactly how old Jesus was by the time the wise men came, but it’s possible that he was already a year or two old. And by the time they do arrive, Joseph and Mary are staying in a house (Matt 2:11). In 2:13-15, an angel tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus into Egypt because of Herod. Then, once the threat was over, we’re told in verses 19-23 that they moved from Egypt to Nazareth, as though it was the first time they had ever been there. In fact, verse 22 says that Joseph wanted to go back to Judea, but was afraid of Herod’s successor.
Luke’s account is pretty different. In Luke 2:4, we see that Joseph and Mary were already living in Nazareth, but had to go to Bethlehem for a census. Several scholars have been puzzled by this reasoning, but that in itself is nothing conclusive. Luke agrees that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he says there was no room in the inn, so Jesus was laid in a manger after his birth. Luke has shepherds that visit, but there’s nothing about Herod or the wise men.
According to Luke, the family of three stays in Bethlehem until Mary’s time of purifying was over (Lev 12:1-8); this would have been about 6 weeks. Then they travelled to Jerusalem to perform the purification rituals. Once that was completed, they returned to Nazareth (Luke 2:39).
This is not merely an instance where Matthew provides more information than Luke – Luke actually doesn’t allow an opportunity for going to Egypt – nor does there seem to be any reason to. In Luke’s account, Joseph and Mary obviously weren’t concerned about Herod, because they went right into Jerusalem. In order to agree with Matthew, we could say that after their trip to Jerusalem, they returned to Bethlehem, where they met the wise men and were warned about Herod. But this disagrees with Luke 2:39 (where they go straight back to Nazareth), and it also doesn’t make any sense. If their home was in Nazareth, as Luke says, why would they return to Bethlehem?
We could also try to find agreement by saying that they left Bethlehem for Jerusalem, went to Nazareth, and then fled to Egypt. But Matthew says that Herod’s murder of the infants only happened in Bethlehem, so there would be no need to leave Nazareth. In fact, if they left Bethlehem to escape the infanticide, why not just go straight to Nazareth?
Here’s what I think: Jesus was from Nazareth. Jews believed that the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), as seen in John 1:46, when Nathanael asks if anything good can come out of Nazareth. So Matthew and Luke both needed to have Jesus born in Bethlehem. Matthew simply had Joseph and Mary start out there. But then he needed a reason to have Jesus come to Nazareth, so he devised Herod’s slaughter of the infants, which no historian ever recorded, even those who weren’t fans of Herod. In creating the infanticide, he also found an opportunity to work in the “out of Egypt” “prophecy” that we talked about earlier.
Luke decided to start Jesus out in Nazareth and used a census to bring him down to Bethlehem. Again, most scholars have been puzzled by this since it also seems a little contrived. [Note: After all, Luke says they needed to go to Bethlehem for the census because Joseph was of David’s lineage. But David lived a thousand years before these events – can you imagine the upheaval that would occur if every family had to go back to the hometown of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand father (could be more, depending on the genealogy you use) every time there was a census?] Once Luke had them in Bethlehem, it simply makes sense for Mary and Joseph to wait there until they could present Jesus at the temple. From there, they simply went home to Nazareth.
The bottom line is that these accounts are widely divergent when it comes to the details. The most likely explanation seems to be that they were written by two people who knew that Jesus was from Nazareth, but came up with different ideas about how he could have been from Bethlehem too.
In the next post, we’ll look at the conflicts surrounding Jesus’s genealogy.
Finding Truth 
“you weigh the evidence against it. ‘well, this agrees with the bible, so i know it;s true’ and ‘well, this disagrees with the bible, so I know it’s not true.”
That’s EXACTly what Mr.Twister does — he has no objectivity.
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“Yawn….two long posts of rhetoric from William without addressing any issues – just stating his claims. Let me know when theres something new. Officially bored again”
well, there’s nothing else to discuss. It’s cut and dry and says what it says.
and that’s a good point about “stating claims…” seems like a similar point has been made…
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Herod loved his family members so much that he had several of them executed. And his concerns for a smooth succession weren’t so great either, because he left his estate in such a mess that his sons sought Rome’s help in adjudicating the right to inheritance, which ultimately split the kingdom in three.
Luke’s failure to mention the slaughter and exile would be a serious omission of fact or plain out sloppiness—the equivalent of reading a biography that fails to mention Napoleon’s exile on Elba, or Vladimir Lenin’s exile in Western Europe, or Otto Frank’s incarceration at Auschwitz, or Benazir Bhutto’s exile in Dubai, or Nelson Mandala’s imprisonment on Robben Island.
So, given that neither Luke nor any other historian (or NT writer) mentions the slaughter; no archaeological evidence lends support to such an event having occurred; and that Matthew has a propensity to embellish facts and invent “fulfilled prophecies” out of whole cloth—I think there’s more than sufficient reason to doubt his claim that such an event ever took place.
Going to Judea during the reign of Herod Archelaus was fraught with danger. His opening act was a Temple massacre that left thousands dead the day before Passover. And things didn’t improve much during the rest of his tenure. As for being lost in the crowd, Luke 2:42-47 reports that twelve-year-old Jesus sat in the temple amazing everyone with his teaching capabilities for three days after the festival had ended. To think that such a thing would have somehow escaped Herod’s notice requires a special kind of faith, to say the least.
And the archaeological evidence for a Bethlehem in Galilee during the Herodian Dynasty is quite firm:
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/168010065/dig-finds-evidence-of-pre-jesus-bethlehem
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” ~John Adams
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“Luke’s failure to mention the slaughter and exile would be a serious omission of fact or plain out sloppiness—the equivalent of reading a biography that fails to mention Napoleon’s exile on Elba, or Vladimir Lenin’s exile in Western Europe,”
Yawn….. more babbling nonsense, The purpose of Luke its to tell the story of Jesus Life. it hardly means he needed to report on every atrocity in Israel that in the end did not affect his life. Weak and forever weak begging. Do you ever improve?
“I think there’s more than sufficient reason”
Theres the problem Ron. You saying you think this or that about the Bible is lightweight stuff. Its like Justin Bieber thinking theres sufficient reason to egg his neighbors house – its a given due to your bent and bias. 😉
“Going to Judea during the reign of Herod Archelaus was fraught with danger. His opening act was a Temple massacre that left thousands dead the day before Passover. ”
NO jew could avoid going there forever Ron. you can beg whine plea on bended knee . take out the hankies, look sad for the cameras, put a sigh around your chest saying please pity my argument. Your point is still DOA. A Jew HAD TO GO there to offer sacrifice at least on a visit. it was a requirement of their religion. Get it? THE HAD to go to the temple and thats where it was. Would they be wise not to live there? Yes and thats why Joseph decides to live elsewhere.Could they avoid ever visiting the temple at Jerusalem? No they were jews. get a clue, read a book buy time with a rabbi.
” As for being lost in the crowd, Luke 2:42-47 reports that twelve-year-old Jesus sat in the temple amazing everyone with his teaching capabilities for three days after the festival had ended. To think that such a thing would have somehow escaped Herod’s notice requires a special kind of faith, to say the least.
To think that you have some kind of point regarding Jesus going down there TWELVE YEARS LATER takes more than faith. it requires a strong upper and lower lip to keep me from laughing till my sides hurt.
“And the archaeological evidence for a Bethlehem in Galilee during the Herodian Dynasty is quite firm:”
and the archaeeological evidence Jesus was born there is NADA Plus zip and minus nought
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Exactly and thats why you are so desperate now that the fact that the map and the gospels accounts indicate they had to go through Judea and if so would go to the temple. the fact that they had to have passed though Judea has you in such turmoil you have beg and plead
why? Because another one of Nate;s alleged controversies just went belly up and worse yet again by me pointing out things you and yours did not know
‘
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There is no archaeological evidence that Jesus was born anywhere—or ever existed at all, for that matter. We have no birth records, no portraits, no statues, no journals or teachings bearing his signature, no arrest warrants, no court documents, no trial transcripts, no execution decree, no coroner’s report, no death certificate, no bill of sale for a burial chamber made out to one ‘Joseph of Arimathea’, no sworn affidavits traceable to any identifiable witnesses of a resurrected man, and most important of all, no resurrected man.
In other words, we have {} for someone who’s touted to have been the most important and influential person to ever walk this planet. Instead, we’re presented with a book of empty claims about a god-man: one who apparently failed to impress even the people of his own time that he was what he claimed to be. Of what use is a deity that can’t produce convincing evidence of its own existence? Such a deity is either impotent, or clueless… or perhaps it exists only within the minds of superstitious men.
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Mike, there are a couple of problems with your last comment — at least, it seems that way to me.
While it’s true that a history of an individual does not have to include every single incident in the person’s life, it should cover the major ones. To tell Jesus’ birth narrative, but not tell about Herod’s hunt for him and the time he spent in Egypt, especially when talking in detail about his first trip to Jerusalem is a major oversight. To add one more analogy to Ron’s others, it’s like a biography of Lincoln leaving out the assassination or the Gettysburg Address.
And remember, you believe that God inspired both accounts of this birth — why would he not make sure they mesh together? When we talk about well-written biographies, shouldn’t these be the very best?
Secondly, you’ve said that Jews went to Jerusalem each year in fulfillment of Mosaic law. And you’ve used this to say that Jesus and his family would have gone there frequently enough that they would not have been afraid to go while Archelaus was reigning (maybe even when Herod was reigning?), despite fearing for their safety from the rulers there. But in Second Temple Judaism, most Jews did not believe they needed to actually visit each year (especially not all 3 times per year that Deuteronomy talks about). Some of them even believed that a once in a lifetime visit was sufficient (http://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2392/).
Therefore, there’s no reason to think that Mary and Joseph would have taken Jesus to Jerusalem at all while they were afraid of the authorities. Luke’s account, with Anna telling all kinds of people that she saw the Messiah, seems crazily inappropriate if Herod and (later) Archelaus were looking for him.
Even if we put all that aside and assume that they really did go to Egypt, and that they were unafraid to go to Jerusalem on occasion, why did they need to stay in Egypt until Herod’s death? The slaughter of the innocents only happened in Bethlehem. If they simply went back to their home (as Luke claims) in Nazareth, they would have been perfectly safe.
Most Christians simply say they don’t know how this issue resolves, they just believe that it does. I applaud you for actually putting forth an explanation, but I honestly think it has too many problems to be plausible. Do you feel it’s at least possible that the explanation you’ve provided may not be the right one?
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“Do you feel it’s at least possible that the explanation you’ve provided may not be the right one?”
You get an A+ for diplomacy, Nate, especially since we both know the answer to that one before you ask. It’s abundantly clear here, who walks the higher ground.
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“perhaps it exists only within the minds of superstitious men”
I’d lay Vegas odds on that!
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I’m surprised there was no mention (neither in the post or recent discussion) about the Herod/Quirinius problem. It might actually explain the descrepancy quite nicely: Luke doesn’t have to report the flight to Egypt or Herod’s massacre, because he’s set his narrative in a time when Herod is already dead. Writing Gospel fanfiction to mash the two accounts together just creates more problems, it flies in the face of what was historically likely.
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Hi Dan,
Thanks for the contribution! And here’s a link on the problem for anyone who would like more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius
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Again, I’m not going to read 236 comments, so possibly this has already been discussed. (Nate, I’m jealous of you…….I never get that many responses………but then again, I cut them off after a few trips around the mulberry bush……..)
In any case, it’s been answered, here:
https://humblesmith.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/do-the-details-of-jesus-birth-agree-in-matthew-luke/
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Man, I don’t know what it is about the amount of comments I tend to get here. I still haven’t decided if it’s a blessing or a curse… 😉
As to the differences between Luke and Matthew, I’m afraid I still see them as big issues. I still agree with the comment I left on your article a couple of years ago.
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