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 
One of the recurring bits of schtick that comes up on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ involves one of the boys posing a preposterous question along the lines of, “If the material in Superman’s caped suit is from Krypton and therefore indestructible how did Ma Kent cut the pieces to sew it in the first place?” Then, they all proceed to outdo each other by coming up with explanations that are ever more absurd and hysterical.”
When it happens on TV, I laugh my ass off; but it’s happening here which is plain sad — and it causes me to doubt both the intelligence and the faith of my Christian brethren. (Not that I haven’t been doing THAT for fifty years and more!!!)
Back when I was a mere youth getting religious instruction, I was told that the gospel writers had Jesus born in a manger to show his solidarity with the poor, given homage by kings to demonstrate his dominion over the entire world and fleeing to Egypt to indicate his compassion for the foreigner. None of my teachers ever suggested that the accounts included those details because they were literally true.
In the seventh chapter of John (Oh no, now you’ve got ME doing it! I’m actually dredging up scripture to make a point — Egads!) the religious authorities are depicted as saying, “Search the scriptures. Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”(v 52) but the entire POINT of the chapter is to indicate that the people who didn’t ‘get’ Jesus were the ones who take things literally.
Jesus himself made this claim: “You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” He basically ignores the entire debate about whether he comes from Bethlehem or Nazareth or from deep in the heart of Dixie. His teaching is that the place he’s “from” is “from God” which is a claim that can’t be tested literally.
So don’t try!
Paul
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but cap’n, isn’t your answer just as much an effort in trying to make the bible/jesus workout as Dave’s? You just see the flaws and Dave is trying to make it be without flaws.
It’s still the same bible you’re defending. You’re just one step removed. You say it’s messed up, but it wasn’t intended to be taken literally. problem solved… well then couldn’t it mean most anything then? and how do we know what parts mean what?
Dave is saying that each account must be true so he squishes ’em together, and tosses in a few other parts or tosses a few out as needed.. problem solved… except it isn’t really.
all this leads me to a question I’ve asked believers many times before and no one has ever bothered trying to answer it. What contradiction couldn’t be explained away in the manner you two are doing with this? can you provide an example?
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A point that Christopher Hitchens once made, was that much of the Bible was what an elite group of Israelis would have liked the Israelites to have believed, but the actual beliefs of the average, illiterate Israelites were all over the place, as evidenced by all of the Asherah poles that had to be destroyed.
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Luke also mentions, in the same passage, a temple or synagogue in Nazareth, yet there’s no evidence there was ever one there.
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While I can’t test where he’s from, in light of the fact that no one has ever proven he ever existed, I believe I can definitely prove he’s not, “from God.”
Luke 20:37, which I won’t bother repeating here, has Yeshua grouping all four of my favorite people into a single sentence: Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel, all of whom modern day archaeologists have concluded, based on cumulativly hundreds of years of research in the field of biblical archaeology, never existed. Anyone sent by an omniscient god, would have known that.
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William, have heard – and many jokes start this way, but this isn’t one of them – about the store clerk in one of the major bookstores here in America, who was recently fired for filing the store’s Bibles in the Fiction section? It was in the news just last week. I think she had the right idea.
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yes, i do remember hearing about that, though I don’t recall where. When i was a christian something like that wouldn’t have bothered me – of course I would have thought they were mistaken or ignorant… Oh, how the tables have turned.
I wonder if it were the koran that were put in the fiction section if the christians would have had any heartache. I think I know the answer – at least for the vast majority of Christians.
Well, truth is truth whether we recognize it or not – and it’s the same with fiction. Put it on whatever shelf you like – it doesn’t change what it is.
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@William
“It’s still the same bible you’re defending.”
I have, as you may or may not know, visited Nate’s very interesting ‘site many times — and I’ve made many comments. Over and over I have made comments to the effect that Christians often make the mistake of putting their faith in the Bible instead of putting their faith in God.
God is perfect, infinite and everlasting. The Bible is flawed, limited and very much a product of the era and culture in which it was composed. As far as I can tell, a great number of people have elevated the Bible to such an unwarranted position of reverence that they are at great risk of committing the sin of idolatry.
Allow me another analogy. The Bible is like a drug store. Obviously, the purpose of a drug store is to make sick people well; but if patients were encouraged to go into the dispensary and pick medicines out at random and take them at random times and in random dosages they would not get well. They would get very, very sick. Very likely they would die — and many a believer has died a spiritual death because s/he misused the Bible (or followed the guidance of a preacher who was misusing the Bible.)
To continue with the analogy, we know that the drugs in the drug store will only help you if they’ve been prescribed to you by a competent physician and you administer the drugs exactly as instructed by your doctor. That is how it is with physical health and that is how it is with spiritual health. Unless you’re guided by someone who actually has faith in God, the Bible will never make you well — only sicker.
Please visit my blog, http://reflectionsofacatholicchristian.wordpress.com/, and read a few of my posts. You will see that I do, in fact, “administer” scripture all the time — but I worry about folks who read the passages without getting a proper interpretation.
Call me arrogant but I know myself to be a person who has faith in God. I can make good use of the Bible — many people who have no faith and have never really repented are “using” the Bible and making idiots out of themselves — idiots that you atheists have no trouble ridiculing.
Paul
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I have to question the caliber of a god who creates an instruction manual that requires an interpreter.
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@arch Oh but the Interpreter wouldn’t question that ! 🙂
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Sure, with employment down, he needs the work.
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great to see all the comments… i do apologize for not trying to respond to more comments, i simply do not have the time. wanted to get to one of arkenaten’s posts:
1. you said, “Luke claims that Nazareth was built upon a hill and they want to sling him to his death from it. Nazareth is not built on a hill and the nearest point to throw anyone down is 4km away.”
the geography is not exactly simple, and the matter is complicated by tradition (the traditional site for the slinging that may not, after all, be the site). nazareth is built on a hill, though not the top of the hill… and nearby there is a perpendicular cliff that is a good candidate for the actual site.
2. “It is also worth remembering that the population Luke’s ‘city’ has been conveniently scaled down from a few thousand to include a 25 family hamlet to a one family farm to the site of a nearby Roman Garrison hypothesis you mention ,which has been roundly refuted btw but I’ll’lll be blowed if I can find the link.”
the nazareth of ancient history has not been nailed down by archaeology. of course, this is not an uncommon thing, and archaeology in Israel (as well as many other places) is sometimes a slow-moving enterprise.
3. “So if we say for argument’s sake it was a tiny hamlet, straightaway this is in conflict with Luke. If we go with the city as stated, there is no archaeological evidence at all.”
i am not ready to say “no archaeological evidence at all,” as the roman garrison theory may be “roundly refuted” by one person? two people? anyone?
4. “Were the residents unaware that they had a god in their midst?
Did the parents make no mention of the visit by the Magi?
What about the slaughter of the innocents and the family;s flight to Egypt.
That story must have been known and still the residents of this Nazareth are unaware that they had a god man living in their midst even after they returned home.”
the residents were either unaware or unbelieving. even if mary told her neighbors about the magi, they may not have believed, particularly because that happened years before in bethlehem. with all the violence in israel at that time – by the kings, and by the roman empire – the slaughter of the innocents may not have been more than a news blip, and that from years before.
5. “It becomes more and more difficult to square away the Lucan account with reality.
And even Catholic archaeologist Father Bellarmino Bagatti found nothing to support Luke’s version and neither has any other archaeologist. In other words…someone made it up.”
today, it is difficult to find someone who is neither a christian apologist nor someone out to discredit the bible, who might judge luke fairly. this was awhile ago, but sir william ramsay – a skeptical prof. of archaeology from oxford – thought his research on paul’s journeys as described in the book of acts (written by luke) would reveal luke to be an inaccurate historian; instead, he was amazed at luke’s accuracy, and his research led him to become a christian.
one last comment/question: i find some of your statements to be “sweeping” in their pronouncements – words and phrases like “roundly refuted” and “nothing,” as if these matters are clear cut, black-and-white issues. maybe you could comment as to whether you really believe that, or if this is rhetoric?
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william, you wrote: “What contradiction couldn’t be explained away in the manner you two are doing with this? can you provide an example?”
maybe i’m not getting your question. this seems a little like asking me to look at a big bowl of fruit and tell you which item in the bowl is not a fruit.
also, i don’t think i’ve tossed out anything yet. i may have to say “i don’t know” to something, or, as you have suggested, add some things in. in doing so, i may be wrong about this or that speculation. i have been wrong once or twice in my life :).
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nate, you asked: “Since you don’t believe in Hell, what do you believe the point of the gospel is? What’s it saving people from? Is there a Heaven, and if so, will everyone be there?”
actually, i do believe there is a hell, i simply don’t think that there will be any person burning there for all eternity. if there is more interest in this topic, i will try to write more, but for now, suffice it to say that i find only slight biblical evidence for the “eternal damnation” position, and a lot more evidence for people being saved by God’s grace. the image of hell, when it is used, typically is an image of perishing, i.e. ceasing to exist, like something being burned up in a fire. the position i lean toward, without holding onto tightly, is what often is called annihilationism. when the bible uses the words “perish” and “destroy”, as it does on numerous occasions when life after death is discussed, i believe that’s exactly what is intended – annihilation – rather than meaning “living in hell forever.”
the gospel and salvation are for life with God for eternity. i really don’t know if everyone will be there. i believe there will be more people there than lots of christians might think – perhaps even a few agnostic atheists ;). the gospel also is for life here and now. following the way of Jesus might not yield power and popularity, but i do believe it yields peace and joy.
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Dave, why do you think that hell only pops up when the Jews meet the Greeks, with their concept of an “underworld” where the dead go after they’ve finished living?
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@ CaptainCatholic: Your position, sir, is unassailable–just as is the position of the Guerrilla fighter–have no position to take and your position can’t be taken; where the opposition brings force, melt away so that he has nothing to hit, then strike back in a way he has no defense for.
Seriously, what defense is there for “ahh, but you misuse/misinterpret the bible”? Everyone uses that line and they all have the correct interpretation. I was brought up believing that “the bible interprets itself” if you pray, study, meditate, and have faith…”here a little, there a little; precept upon precept; line upon line”. Of course, we were told the correct way in which “the puzzle that is the bible” is assembled.
I have to agree w/ KCChief1 about the ultimate utility of having an instruction book for mankind (or a medicine cabinet for mankind) that isn’t clear. But, I suppose we all know that–even JC said that the parables were NOT to make things more clear, but more UNclear so that only those called by God could understand.
You seem to argue that, considering the flawed nature of the bible, we shouldn’t bother ourselves over ultimately unimportant contradictions…whereas I’m coming from the angle of “if even basic narratives of something as important as the Birth of the Saviour are contradictory, how can one have faith in any of it? How does one decide what to believe and what to label as faulty? Doesn’t I Tim. 3 say ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for reproof, instruction in righteousness, etc?” But, of course, if you choose not to defend that scripture (back to the military analogy), then the blow of Logic spends itself in futility.
Clever, but unconvincing and unhelpful. I mean, if it is all unfalsafiable Faith, then why do you (or why should anybody else) think Christianity is correct and not Islam or Judaism or Hinduism? And why Catholocism as opposed to one of the dozens of forms of Protestantism?
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eSell – RE: “the position of the Guerrilla fighter”
I think Ali said it best: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!”
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I responding via iPhone right now. I’ll make some general comments here and give you a more thorough response later.
You seem to have made a number of assumptions I don’t share. One obvious example is that you’re looking at this conversation as ‘combat’. I suppose you expect that everyone on the thread. no matter their belief, is looking for vindication: “Ah hah! Gotcha!! I’m right, you’re wrong, I win!”
Not interested.
Nate selected ‘Finding Truth’ as his blog name. ‘Combat’ isn’t going to help anybody find truth. Debating just causes everyone to dig in to their original position and listen less for something useful that someone else might say.
Jesus, by my understanding, revealed the truth (or some aspect of it) to his disciples, intending that they would promulgate that truth to others after he died.
I don’t see any reason to believe that Jesus gave reading assignments to his disciples. You might say that he taught without a textbook. He quotes scripture from time to time, but he also makes claims for which there is no Biblical support. He’s surrounded by people who attempt (with as little success as today’s religious folk) to fit an understanding of everything they experience in life into the narrow confines of scripture.
There main beef with Jesus is that he refuses to be as Biblically constrained as they are! Jesus lived and died a devout Jew, but he was constantly pointing out the fact that there were plenty of non-Jews who had more faith and understanding than the authorities in his own Faith Tradition.
But you know all of that already….
Paul
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Paul,
I’ll checkout your blog when I have a moment. Thanks for the invite.
I will say that, while I think your particular view on Christianity is more appealing in the sense that it doesn’t seem to begrudge or demonize those who don’t share in that same particular view as much as the fundamentals I grew up with, I do still think it has its flaws.
As I stated earlier, in many ways it is a similar defense as Dave’s and others – as well the more fundamental, literalist groups I was once party to.
We used to defend the bible by trying to force sense and logic out of passages that clearly conflict. You, seeing the problems in the bible, just side step the force and take up the “it doesn’t mean what it says, but means this or that…” or “you’re just not understanding it correctly, etc” because to you it IS god’s word and since god is perfect and doesn’t make mistakes then the bible must be true in a spiritual or figurative sense – since it obviously isn’t literally accurate – where Dave and the groups I knew want it to be true in a literal sense.
The problem I have with your view is like Esell points out, you make a defense without actually having to make any real points. You’re defending the bible by saying god never meant it to be taken literally. Well which parts? How do you tell which parts are literal and which are not? Why cant all the parts about jesus be figurative – just some personification of morality?
Why couldn’t Islam and all other religions also be true? The bible may look like it condemns any other religion, but does it? Maybe we’re not reading it with holy enough eyes. This type of argumentation can go on forever about anything an no one can “disprove” it, so it’s the perfect defense if you don’t really want to be accountable for anything or get anywhere.
What is the process for understanding the bible correctly, if it can’t be understood like any other book?
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Dave – “maybe i’m not getting your question.”
We’re, or we were, discussing the differences in Matthew’s and Luke’s birth stories. I’m saying that if we read each account as they are written, then they appear to conflict with one another. I believe them to be contradictory.
You say that we should mesh them together to get a better or more complete understanding of the events.
I think that in order for you to be correct, you’re having to ignore a few details from each story while creating a few more to make a combination of the two differing stories into one big more detailed story.
I am asking if anyone who maintains that position that could provide an example of a contradiction that couldn’t be explained away in a similar way.
For example, someone could offer the following as a contradiction: Source A: Peter went to school Tuesday morning. Source B: Peter went to the hospital Tuesday morning and then went home.
Someone could say these are the same stories from different perspectives because Peter could have gone to school, but then went to the hospital soon after and then went home because he was sick.
Or they could say that Peter went to the hospital and then went to school (still morning time) and went home after that.
Or someone could say that Peter is a med student and the hospital is his school, and after his education went home…
Or like Paul’s position, sources A & B weren’t talking about physical places or literal times of the day. The point is that Peter went places and did things and learned things. We should learn from peter and not be idle or content to rest until we have also been productive…
I’m sure we could imagine others. And I’m asking if there is any contradiction that we couldn’t explain away by inventing connecting pieces. Do you have any example?
I ask because I cannot think of one. I ask because I think it also illustrates how much you’re having to create (and how much Paul is having to dodge) in order to prevent these stories from being in conflict. I ask because I want to point out that the bible (god’s word) needs a lot of human help in order to be in harmony. What contraction couldn’t be defended in a similar fashion?
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And Paul, I think better analogy is the bible is like the directions for a particular drug, where god is supposedly the producer and author of the drug and its directions.
The directions are written in such a way that no one agrees on how exactly to take the drug and then the drug manufacturer gets to blame the user for not following a cloudy set of instructions – when in reality, the drug manufacturer is to blame for publishing unclear directions for something so important.
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Not only an excellent point, William, but a well-orchestrated rebuttal!
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william, i’ll do my best to answer, though i’m not confident i fully understand what it is you are seeking.
if one birth account said: “Jesus was born on december 25, 0004, in nazareth, at st. mary’s hospital,” and another account said that “Jesus was born on december 25, 0004, in bethlehem, at st. joseph’s hospital,” that would be an example of something that was clearly contradictory.
typically, we don’t really have that kind of detail, however, and so connecting pieces need to be at least considered.
what details do you think i’m ignoring in either matthew or luke related to the nativity?
finally, in your example, one way to clear up the “contradiction” is to go ask peter what happened. unfortunately, we do not have that luxury with the bible.
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@Arch
Ali also said, “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.”
😉
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Dave, thanks for the response.
And you’re right, I would also say that was a good example of a contradiction, but people could say that the different accounts you posit are going off of different calendars – so no contradiction on that point.
They could say that St Joseph’s hospital is just a Bethlehem branch of St Mary’s in Nazareth, so in a sense, they’re both correct on the hospital.
Or perhaps Mary was an unfortunate woman who went into labor at one hospital but had to be transferred when jesus was stuck in the breach and needed the medical attention of the specialized doctor’s at the other hospital.
But that’s one of the points. When we have conflicting accounts, we could invent anything to keep them from conflicting – especially if we can use the “anything is possible for god” trump card, and then tell any skeptics that they cannot prove their made up band-aid is untrue.
And correct. We don’t have access to Peter, to Paul’s 500, to any of the “eye witnesses” to cross-examine and we don’t have god or jesus or angels speaking with us directly to confirm the bible or to let us know whether we’re understanding it all or not. We have the bible and what we can compare to it – whether it be itself, known history or through science. There are instances where it fails in each.
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