Well, it’s that time of year again. Regular church attendees are going to have to share their pews with people who have finally decided to make it out for their second service of the year. Their belief that Jesus bled and died so they can gain eternal salvation might be unshakable, but it apparently isn’t all that motivating, considering how little these believers seem to do in response. Nevertheless, they can at least be counted on to show up for a retelling of Jesus’s miraculous birth.
But what version will they hear? More than likely, they’ll hear a “Hollywood” version of the tale that incorporates the most exciting elements of the two versions that we read about in Matthew and Luke. A quick Google search turned up this one, which illustrates my point perfectly. But what if someone tried to tell the full version? A version that included every detail that both Matthew and Luke provide?
Honestly, it just can’t be done. I had wanted to attempt it here, but there’s just no practical way to do it. For example, the version I linked to above goes like this:
The Standard Tale
- Mary’s visited by an angel who tells her about the pregnancy (Luke)
- She and Joseph live in Nazareth of Galilee, but are forced to travel to Bethlehem in Judea for a census commanded by the Roman authorities (Luke)
- They’re unable to find normal accommodations and are forced to room in an area intended for livestock. Mary gives birth there and is visited by local shepherds (Luke)
- Wise men far to the east see a star that somehow signifies the birth of the Jewish Messiah (Matthew)
- They travel for an unspecified period until they reach Jerusalem, where they inquire about the child (Matthew)
- These inquiries reach Herod, the ruler of the region, and he asks the wise men to send back word to him once they find the child, so Herod himself can also pay his respects (Matthew)
- The wise men make their way to Bethlehem, find the family, bestow their gifts, and return home via a different route (Matthew)
- An angel tells Joseph to hightail it out of Bethlehem, because Herod’s sending a posse to wipe out all the children 2 years old and under in an effort to stamp out Jesus (Matthew)
- Joseph and his family flee to Egypt and remain there until an angel tells him it’s safe to return, because Herod has died (Matthew)
- Joseph intends to go back toward Bethlehem, but after finding out that Herod’s son is in charge, he takes the family to Nazareth in Galilee (Matthew)
So what’s wrong with this story? I mean, it’s very cohesive, and it makes for a compelling tale. What’s not to like? Its only real problem is that the very books of the Bible that provide its details, contradict its overall narrative.
Two Very Different Stories
Let’s go back to Luke’s version. After Jesus’s birth and the visit from the shepherds, we don’t read about wise men or Herod’s animosity. Instead, Luke 2:22 says that after the days of Mary’s purification were over, the family went to Jerusalem. The “days of purification” are referring to Leviticus 12:1-4, where the Law of Moses stated that a woman was to be considered “unclean” for 40 days after giving birth to a male child. So when Jesus was about 40 days old, Luke claims that they all traveled to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices as thanks for his birth. While there, two elderly people see Jesus and begin proclaiming praise and prophecies concerning Jesus. And there’s no indication that an effort was made to keep any of this quiet, which is very different in tone to what we read in Matthew. Finally, in Luke 2:39, we read “And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” We’ll come back to this point in a moment.
The synopsis we looked at earlier incorporated most of Matthew’s version of the story. As we just read, his story ends very differently from Luke’s. However, it’s also significant to note that Matthew gives no indication that Joseph and Mary are from Nazareth. Matt 1:18 through the end of the chapter talks about Mary’s pregnancy, even though she and Joseph had never slept together, but it never specifies where they’re living. Chapter 2 begins with the sentence “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?'” Of course, it’s possible that Matthew still knew they were originally from Nazareth and just doesn’t bother to tell us that or divulge how they got to Bethlehem in the first place. But there are three context clues that point against such a possibility. First of all, regardless of how far the wise men had to journey, it likely took them quite a while to make the trip. When Matthew says “the east” he certainly doesn’t mean “east Jersualem,” and travel being what it was back then, any journey would have taken considerable time. The second clue is that Herod supposedly kills all the male children of Bethlehem who are 2 and under. So it’s unlikely that we’re supposed to still be thinking of Jesus as a newborn. Finally, Matthew says that when the family was able to leave Egypt, Joseph wanted to go back to Judea (where Bethlehem is). But after finding out Herod’s son was ruling, he became afraid and “went and lived in a city called Nazareth” (Matt 2:23). This is a very strange way to refer to Nazareth, if it’s where Joseph and Mary were already living.
So Matthew gives no indication that Joseph and Mary were just visiting Bethlehem. He never mentions a manger; instead, he references a house that they were staying in. He never talks about the shepherds from the fields, but has wise men who visit the child. He includes a story about Herod slaughtering a town’s children, though no other historical or biblical source ever mentions this. He claims that the family flees to Egypt until Herod’s death, that they want to return to Bethlehem, but finally settle in “a city called Nazareth.”
Luke, on the other hand, says that Nazareth is their home town, and they’re only visiting Bethlehem. He has no story about wise men, but does talk about shepherds from the fields that visit the newborn Jesus. Instead of Herod attempting to hunt them down and a subsequent flight to Egypt, the family travels straight to Jerusalem, where Herod lives. And there’s no effort to keep Jesus’s identity secret while they’re there, as two elderly prophets begin proclaiming who he is. And after making their sacrifices, the family simply goes back home to Nazareth, far from Herod’s reach (not that Luke indicates Herod’s even interested).
Can These Stories Be Put Together?
The main sticking points between the stories are the flight to Egypt and the trip to Jerusalem. On the one hand, Luke is very clear about his timeline: Jesus was only about 40 days old when they went to Jerusalem and then went home to Nazareth. Matthew doesn’t give specifics on how old Jesus was when the family was forced to flee to Egypt, except that it must have occurred before he was 2 years old.
Could the trip to Egypt have happened before the trip to Jerusalem?
No. First of all, considering all the details Luke provides, why would he have left out such an important event? Secondly, this means Herod would have needed to die within the 40 day purification period, but Matthew tells us that this still wouldn’t have been good enough, because Joseph was determined to avoid all of Judea while Herod’s son was reigning. There’s simply no way he would have felt safe enough to travel directly into Jerusalem. That just makes no sense.
Could the trip to Egypt have happened after the trip to Jerusalem?
No. Luke 2:39 is clear that the family went straight back to Nazareth after their trip to Jerusalem. And considering Luke claimed that Nazareth was already their home, why would they have needed to go back to Bethlehem anyway?
In fact, Luke’s claim that the family was from Nazareth creates a lot of problems for Matthew’s account. Nazareth was far outside of Herod’s reach. So if Herod really had hunted Jesus in Bethlehem, the family could have simply gone back to Nazareth rather than flee to Egypt. But this isn’t a consideration in Matthew’s account, because for him, the family has never been to Nazareth until they simply can’t go back to Bethlehem anymore, even after Herod’s death (Matt 2:23).
Additional Problems
I don’t want to spend too much time here, but for completeness sake, I need to mention a couple of historical issues. Both Matthew and Luke say that Jesus is born during the reign of Herod the Great. Historians usually place his death in 4 BCE, which means Jesus would have been born sometime before that. However, Luke says that Mary and Joseph had traveled to Bethlehem, because Quirinius, the governor of Syria, had commanded a census. However, Quirinius didn’t become governor of Syria until 6 CE — 10 years after Herod’s death. You can find additional resources about these two issues here.
Finally, Luke’s claim is that this census required Joseph to travel back to his ancestral home of Bethlehem, since he was of King David’s lineage. But David would have lived some 1000 years before Joseph. It’s ludicrous to think that the Romans would have cared about such a thing, or that they would have wanted their empire to be so disrupted by having people move around like that for a census. It would have been an impossible feat and would have made for a highly inaccurate, and therefore useless, census.
What Do We Make of All This?
The easiest way to understand why these accounts have such major differences in detail is to understand why either writer bothered with a story about Jesus’s birth at all. You have to remember that the writers of Matthew and Luke didn’t know one another and didn’t know that they were both working on the same material. They certainly didn’t know that their books would one day show up in the same collection. Both of them were working with two basic facts: Micah 5:2 seemed to prophesy that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem; Jesus came from Nazareth (John 1:45-46).
Since those two facts were at odds with one another, it’s easy to see how both writers would have been compelled to explain how Jesus could be from Nazareth but still be from Bethlehem. Unfortunately for them, close comparison shows that both versions simply can’t be true.
How would people react if they showed up for church this weekend and were presented with the full details from both of these stories? I like to think it would spur many of them into deeper study. That it would possibly make them question some of the things they’ve been taking for granted. But 2016 has been pretty demoralizing when it comes to the number of people who seem concerned about what’s true, and I’m not sure how many of them would see this information as a call to action. I know there are people who can be changed by facts. Perhaps there aren’t as many of them as I once thought, but I know they’re out there. And with the way information spreads these days, I’m sure they’ll eventually find the facts they’re looking for.
Finding Truth 
What Jewish literature?
LikeLike
Indeed!
LikeLike
So, your argument is that Paul is likely a mythical figure, because he is not mentioned in Jewish literature that does not exist.
That would be a hilariously terrible argument, so please take this opportunity to walk it back and make a different argument.
LikeLike
I’m going to look around the internet for Jewish perspectives on an historical Paul. Here is one:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13232-saul-of-tarsus
LikeLike
@Gary
I should have been clearer, I guess, in my previous comment that Jon picked up on.
It is my understanding there are no first or second century Rabbinic writings mentioning him that I am aware of, and no secular mention of him either.
Considering his status as alluded to in the bible, one would think he was reasonably well known among the Jewish religious community at the time.
And he was also a Roman citizen.
Just a thought ….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your condescension is getting better! 😉
Read the second comment I left clarifying the position a little better.
BTW, how you coming along with that bullet-point list of probable facts for Jesus?
LikeLike
I have repeatedly answered your questions about the evidence for the historicity of Jesus and the basic outline of what scholars have concluded we can be reasonably certain of about Jesus. I’m not inclined to do it all over again for the umpteenth time.
I am not aware of much 1st century Jewish writing. There is Philo, but he was in Alexandria and certainly didn’t write about traveling preachers. Can you identify what Jewish writing from that period you would expect Paul to have been mentioned in and why you would expect some poor traveling preacher to have been mentioned? Perhaps start by identifying other traveling preachers identified in this Jewish literature.
As far as the evidence we do have, apart from the 7 authentic letters of Paul….
Paul is mentioned by Clement (a Christian) in approximately 95. Clement wrote about a letter (or letters) Paul had written. Ignatius and Polycarp also mention Paul. Marcion collected his letters. Paul is obviously a major part of Acts, though the narrative is almost certainly very fictionalized. The forged letters that purport to be by Paul are also third-party evidence of Paul, showing that he not only existed but had a reputation for writing letters to churches and was known to people in many areas.
These all date to the late 1st or early 2nd century.
LikeLike
I am not interested in reading any more ”outlines”. I simply asked for a bullet point list of what YOU consider are the non-negotiable ”facts” for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth.
See if you can compile a list of say …. ten points?
Re Paul:
You are merely parroting christian perspectives.
And sadly, you are beginning to sound more like an apologist every time you comment.
It does not take a genius to recognise that the Paul of epistles is considerably different that the one in Acts.
He was supposedly contemporary to Jesus and would very likely have been in Jerusalem during passover … and the Crucifixion.
If you cannot see any relevance here Jon then I am wondering if there is much point fleshing this out for you any longer?
LikeLike
Do we have any contemporaneous confirmation of the existence of Philo?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gary,
For me, the link you provided on the “historical Paul” has far more authority than any others I’ve seen. Why? Because it’s written from a JEWISH perspective … and after all, the bible is essentially based on the Hebrew people, yes? At least it was until the “Christians” high-jacked it.
LikeLike
While I certainly appreciate the offer to do more work for you, I consider the thousands of words I’ve written on this topic sufficient.
Parroting Christian perspectives?!? What I wrote was purely factual. I didn’t editorialize at all, except to say that “the narrative [of Acts] is almost certainly very fictionalized,” which is a view you clearly agree with. Maybe we’re both apologists!
I have no idea what the rest of your comment means or how it would be relevant to the points I made. Perhaps Paul (along with 100,000+ other Jews) was in Jerusalem around the passover or crucifixion when Jesus was there. Or maybe he wasn’t. We have no evidence either way. Whether or not he was, that doesn’t have anything to do with whether Paul would have been mentioned in 1st century Jewish rabbinical literature.
Your continued unwillingness to cite the Jewish literature you think we should expect Paul to have been mentioned in is instructive. Perhaps it would be best if you stopped making silly arguments that even you cannot defend.
LikeLike
Do we have any contemporaneous confirmation of the existence of Josephus?
LikeLiked by 1 person
In this Jewish article, the Jewish author argues for the idea that Paul never stopped being a faithful Jew. He never abandoned Judaism. For instance, she says that Paul never advised Jews to disobey Kosher laws or to abandon other parts of the Law, only GENTILE converts to the new (Jewish) faith. Doesn’t sound like she believes that Paul was a fictional person:
“Paul didn’t nullify Jewish law, nor did he, as Luther would claim later, place grace above works (that is, to paraphrase crudely, the acceptance of Jesus over the performance of mitzvot), or justification by faith above justification by law (being seen as righteous by God by virtue of your belief, rather than by virtue of your good deeds). Or rather, Paul did do those things—a less Lutheran version of them, anyway—but he didn’t mean for the whole world to do them, too. He attacked Jewish law only in the context of a very narrow debate raging in the earliest decades of the Jesus movement. Some Jewish Jesus-movement activists said that their pagan acolytes had to convert to Judaism before they could join the movement. Paul disagreed in the strongest possible terms (he did everything in the strongest possible terms). He maintained that these gentiles had to follow only the pre-rabbinic equivalent of the Noahide laws—the seven edicts against idolatry, adultery, etc., that all non-Jews are expected to follow. After hearing Jesus’ call—the first and still greatest revisionist, Krister Stendahl, insists that Paul experienced a call, in the manner of a Protestant minister, not a conversion—Paul took it upon himself to roam Asia Minor and preach the gospel to gentiles, and he so opposed their becoming Torah Jews that he devoted most of his letters to assaulting all the other evangelists who thought they should. These, one deduces, had been following him from city to city and telling his congregants that he was wrong about Judaism, which naturally enraged him.”
LikeLike
Jewish article: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/20214/who-was-paul
LikeLike
You can find much more information about Star Wars from Star Wars fan sites than you can from sources that are unconcerned about Star Wars. That doesn’t mean the info on Star Wars fan sites is wrong. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right, granted — but it certainly doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
By the same token, I think it would be foolish of us to dismiss Christian sources when they talk about Paul. We can’t assume that everything they say is accurate, but we also can’t assume all of it is false. As with most things, there’s probably a bit of both in them.
LikeLike
Unless we find evidence to the contrary, I think we should accept that Paul, Philo, and Josephus were real people who wrote real books. Whether or not the books that they wrote were 100% factually accurate is another matter.
I am inclined to believe that Paul truly did meet with Jesus’ brother, James, for two weeks in Jerusalem, due to a lack of embellishment to his story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gary, you might find this presentation interesting:
LikeLike
Speaking of the Nativity Colorstorm, I read this essay from Bishop John Shelby Spong just before Christmas who said, “It is time to recognize that religious truth, like all truth, can only emerge out of human experience. Once that is understood, then religious people will recognize that their exclusive claims to possess some external, divine revelation is nothing but a part of our human security system. These claims also create the mentality that fuels that religious imperialism that, even in the 21st century, underlies human conflict.
The only way for the Christmas yearning for peace on earth to be achieved is for every religious system to face its human origins, and to recognize that all worshipers are nothing but human seekers walking into the mystery and wonder of the God, who is beyond anything that human minds can finally imagine. That would represent a gigantic step both into a new sensitivity and away from the negativity that religion perpetually pumps into the human bloodstream. In our observances of Hanukkah and Christmas this year, that could well be our most important learning.”
CS may have left the building but we can hope younger generations will comprehend what we are all trying to say here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘CS may have left the building but we can hope younger generations will comprehend what we are all trying to say here’
Which is the internal evidence from the Bible is enough to show that the book contains contradictory statements. These contradictions make it very hard to conclude there is a divine source behind the Bible, if one assumes that divine source tells the truth.
LikeLiked by 3 people
What ”facts”?
What is the source of ANY info for the character Saul of Tarsus
LikeLike
As everyone here seems hellbent on championing the historicity of Saul of Tarsus, even with all the doubt surrounding the epistles and so much frakking ludicrous nonsense in Acts, can someone … anyone please supply this ignorant atheist halfwit who seems for all the world to be sawing the tree limb he is sitting on with a link to a single piece of contemporary or secular historical reference.
Just to be clear in my own mind. We are talking about the renowned persecutor of 1st Century Christians, supposedly sanctioned by his superiors.
Just one reference.
Please!
LikeLike
@Jon
I have mentioned the Jewish literature.
There is not a single piece of Rabbinical writing of the time that mentions him.
Neither is there a single piece of secular history that mentions him and considering his notoriety this seems odd.
Consider ….. This is another reason why I seriously doubt all of it.
Philo of Alexandria was born: 25 BCE in Alexandria, Egypt. He died: 47-50 CE. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Jesus is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Jesus’ miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. Philo spent time in Jerusalem where he had intimate connections with the royal house of Judaea. One of Alexander’s sons (and Philo’s nephews, Marcus) was married to Berenice, daughter of Herod Agrippa, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, 39-40. After the exile of Herod Antipas – villain of the Jesus saga – Marcus ruled as King of the Jews, 41-44 AD. But nothing from Philo on Jesus, the other ‘King of the Jews’.
Philo was there when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with an earthquake, daytime darkness, and resurrection of the dead ‘saints’ took place and when Jesus rose from the dead after 3 days. He was there when Jesus ascended into heaven. About thirty manuscripts and at least 850,000 words by Philo are extant. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although Jesus, this Word incarnate, was walking around giving speeches and performing miracles, Philo wrote not one word about him or any of this.
And as far as I am aware he said nothing about Saul of Tarsus either..
Maybe you should stop with the thinly veiled ad homs and acknowledge that regarding ”Paul”, all we have are a few dubious epistles.
Just a thought …
Ark.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of the interesting side lines of such discussions is how they reveal much – enlightenment and ignorance – and also (one would hope) suggest to those involved to rethink their stance on what may be firmly held beliefs.
Personally, I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that absence of evidence may not always be evidence of absence. In the case of religious studies, however, it is often the so-called supplementary evidence that sits alongside the agreed upon ‘facts” that not only contradicts the ”facts” but also weakens the entire case for historicity.
One only has to compare Acts with the Epistles.
I have a hell of a job proof reading my own writing and yet these biblical tales have had hundreds of years of accretion and scholarly attention before the final Seal of Approval was given and yet they still read like ridiculous fantasy.
For all the claims made about there people, especially Jesus of Nazareth and Saul of Tarsus, there should be secular and contemporary evidence to back the tales.
Therefore, it is completely reasonable to ask for supporting evidence, and when there is serious doubt thrown on so much of it by the lay person, let alone a growing number of more qualified scholars in this field, to insist that the current consensus is the final word is not only nonsense but even more arrogant and condescending than the similar charge leveled at those who dispute it.
Ark.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think most of us here believe Jesus and Paul were real guys that myths and legends were eventually based around. Considering everything, we feel that makes more sense than them being complete literary fabrications.
Maybe the fact that there isn’t much mention of Paul in Jewish literature of the time indicates that he wasn’t as a cool of a Jew as he claimed to be or as others claimed that he was – but then, if there isn’t much Jewish literature of the time around today, then maybe it means nothing.
But it doesn’t bother me that someone doubts any part of their existence, except that I’d hate for that discussion be the thing that drowns out what are the bigger issues in my mind, and that is the divine, supernatural; claims made about these blokes, and all that implies.
LikeLike
No, we are talking about some guy who persecuted Christians, then converted to Christianity (or to what would eventually be called Christianity), made a living as a traveling laborer (possibly making tents) and spread Christianity as he traveled.
You don’t learn, do you? This conversation goes the same way every time.
Ark: No contemporaneous historical references.
Jon: What contemporaneous texts still exist that would be likely to mention him?
Ark: I don’t see how that’s relevant.
Jon: You cited a lack of contemporaneous textual references as evidence against historicity, so please explain which texts you think should have mentioned him and why you would expect it to mention him.
Ark: [silence]
Jon: You don’t respond because you cannot identify contemporaneous texts in which we should expect to find them mentioned.
[some time passes]
Ark: No contemporaneous historical references!
Jon: We went over this. Stop making arguments you cannot defend.
Be specific. Which specific rabbinical or secular writer and writing should have mentioned Paul and why? (I will get to the Philo reference momentarily)
Incidentally, since the rabbinical period did not start until about 70 CE (after the destruction of the temple), how would there be contemporaneous rabbinical literature references to Jesus or Paul, both of whom had died before 70?
First, Philo wrote about a number of things, mostly philosophy and major political figures and events, but he damn sure didn’t write about lots of minor traveling preachers. If you disagree, feel free to cite some specific texts from Philo that covered people as trivially insignificant as Jesus and Paul were during their lifetime.
Second, you have no idea whether Philo was in or near Jerusalem when Jesus was born, or when he died. Philo said he traveled to Jerusalem at some point to visit the temple.
And finally, plagiarism is unethical.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nogodblog/2016/10/25-part-q/#comment-2968229647
LikeLike