I agree with a lot of that. It's wrong to treat the Gospels as biographies; they plainly are not intended as such. And my faith does not hang on a literal interpretation - mostly because I don't think such a thing exists.
However, I am also not remotely convinced by what seem to be very superficial critiques and/or hold the text to a different standard than any other ancient source.
What I do think is interesting is the dating of Quirinius' governship and how that fits with Luke and the possible translations and what else we know of Roman governing.
I remember a very interesting insight from @tclune a long time ago - the church could have had a single harmonised Gospel if it wanted one; for a while the Syrian church was using the Diatessaron, which is a mashup of the four Gospels in one. But instead it chose to keep the four different perspectives.
At the same time I also recognise the danger of 'sceptical overreach' - ultimately I think the only truly sceptical position is that we just don't know. Speaking as someone who isn't committed to either inerrancy or literalism, I think it is tempting - but also lazy - for me just to say 'This is difficult to understand -- ooh, I know, the writer must have made a mistake / was writing figuratively according to conventions that are lost to us today'. (Not that I have done anything like that anywhere in this thread ...)
Luke had at least four main sources as he was writing. Mark, Q, Matthew, and then his own personal sources. It is important to note to whom Matthew and Luke were written. Matthew wrote to a Jewish Christian Community. Therefore, it was important to him to show how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. Luke was addressed to a Gentile individual or community. Therefore, it was important to him to place the Nativity in a historical context. Of course, as a physician, he also explored the healing miracles more. Luke also seemed to favor the female side of the story.
A very speculative thought as I went to check on @BroJames's query, belatedly.
The Annunciation was to Mary in Nazareth (Luke 1: 26-27) and from Matthew (1:18), when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; - no place mentioned. While they were betrothed, could it be that Joseph lived in Bethlehem and travelled to Nazareth to collect Mary, returning to Bethlehem with his betrothed to be registered? That although betrothed they were not living together or even in the same place? That bit in Matthew 1:25: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, doing a lot of work to describe a collection of Mary from Nazareth? There is no mention of Joseph until he and Mary travel to Bethlehem in Luke 2:4.
This is not actually what is said in Borg and Crossan who build a lot on the Annunciation being located in two different places in the gospels. It was just I picked up the book to check for BroJames, read something and checked against the Biblical accounts
Do Borg & Crossan discuss the question if the translation of Luke 2.1?
The Greek is αὕτη ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου. This has usually been translated as ‘this was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria’ but it can also be translated as ‘this was the census before Quirinius was governor of Syria’.
There is no mention in Borg and Crossan that there could be an alternative translation in the chapter discussing the census.
For that chapter they are comparing Virgil's Aeneid and also Luke's own reference to the uprising in 6CE in Acts 5:37 in Gamaliel's speech. Lots of looking at the reasons why Luke and Matthew might be choosing different things to include in their gospels to highlight the message they are conveying, which is what both The First Christmas and The Last Week discuss.
No, that doesn't work. You are insisting Luke contradicts something Matthew doesn't say.
Matthew does not say that the Magi visited Jesus as a neonate. In fact, the story and the language imply that Jesus could not have been that young.
Luke emphasises that the Jewish Law was followed concerning rites after childbirth.
No, but Matthew says the Magi visited Jesus' family in Bethlehem. Luke maintains that they didn't return to Bethlehem after Jerusalem, going instead to Nazareth. Both accounts are internally consistent, but to harmonize them with each other (kind of pointless, but important to some people) requires the Magi visiting Jesus and Mary prior to the Jerusalem trip.
The key here is Luke 2:39: When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. [NIV]
If Luke here really means that they went from Jerusalem back to Nazareth then that conflicts with Matthew's account of the Magi visiting the infant in Bethlehem. Conversely, if Luke is simply saying that J & M followed the Law, whilst still residing in Bethlehem, then returned to Nazareth, there is no conflict.
This is where my ignorance of Greek becomes a problem for me.
Lest you think I'm playing with translations, the Greek word "ὡς" translated as "when" is meant to tie to clauses together. In other contexts in can be translated as "like" or "as". In other words it would be deceptive to say "When I completed my business in London I returned to Luton" if there were a multi-month (or possibly multi-year) interval between those two events when you were avoiding a squad of government assassins. The nativity of Jesus is one of those stories where everyone just "knows" how it's supposed to go so they don't bother actually reading it.
I don't think you're playing with the translations. And thank you for the Greek:
"ὡς"
"when" or "like" or "as".
Hmmm... so after the Temple, they went back to Nazareth. I think insisting that Luke means they definitely weren't in Bethlehem after this point before returning to Nazareth (I.e. they weren't in Bethlehem when Matthew says they were) is making that one word do a lot of work. However, that is a better argument than implying that Matthew puts the Magi before the Temple as that's not what Matthew says.
It's making the word do the work it's meant to do, give a temporal connection between two phrases. Here's another example of Luke using ὡς in this way:
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
I suppose it could theoretically be argued that what Luke is trying to tell us is that at some indefinite future point after hearing Mary's greeting, possibly months or even years later, the infant John the Baptist "leaped in [ Elizabeth's ] womb", but that seems an incredibly strained reading. I start out with the premise that authors aren't trying to be deliberately cryptic (unless they're writing in a genre where that's standard).
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
Again I suppose it's theoretically possible that Jesus and Simon got out of that boat, wandered around Gennesaret for a few weeks to see the sights, then got into a boat (either the same one or a different one) and then decided to "put out into deep water", but it seems like a deliberately obtuse way of reading the text.
It is important to note to whom Matthew and Luke were written. Matthew wrote to a Jewish Christian Community. Therefore, it was important to him to show how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. Luke was addressed to a Gentile individual or community. Therefore, it was important to him to place the Nativity in a historical context.
This seems a little glib, given that it's Luke and not Matthew who goes into detail about the post-birth ritual purification required by the law of Moses. You'd think such details would be unimportant or unintelligible to a Gentile audience.
This seems a little glib, given that it's Luke and not Matthew who goes into detail about the post-birth ritual purification required by the law of Moses. You'd think such details would be unimportant or unintelligible to a Gentile audience.
Except that Luke would likely have gone into detail about the purification rite so that the Gentile audience would better understand what was happening. Besides, for Luke, it was the set up for the meeting of Simeon and Anna.
If we assume that Joseph went back to Bethlehem and lodged with immediate family members, what was the contemporary custom regarding living with his family versus being a separate unit? If the assumption was that she would join the in-laws, then it would make sense to do so in the run up to childbirth for support during and after the birth.
If Joseph was in the Nazareth area for work they may have then gone back there once the immediate new born stage was over, which would coincide with completing the rituals. If things were rather cramped in the ancestral home it would also make sense.
I think we might be getting rather far from the text, though it's certainly interesting. I'm not aware of any Jewish customs that actually required living with one's in-laws--I suspect this would be a matter of choice based on space available, future needs and plans, and the personalities of the people involved. Basically like they are for most Westerners today, then.
And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town Nazareth.
Does that state or imply that nothing else happened in between?
We struggle to imagine how, if Luke knew about the visit of the magi, the slaughter of the innocents and the flight to Egypt, he could have passed over those events without mention.
I mean, look at the Luke birth narrative. Everything in that is maximally sunny, hopeful, and "Good news! God is keeping his promise and sending a Messiah!" That looks like authorial choice to me. He doesn't even touch on Joseph's reaction to finding out his fiancee is pregnant--and you know that had to happen in real life, if Joseph and Mary are real people at all. But Luke glides over it. The worst thing that happens to anybody in his narrative is the comic punishment of Zechariah for doubting the angel--a priest condemned to temporary silence (and after watching my own clerical husband with laryngitis, believe me, it's a hoot).
It appears that conflict, struggle, and gloom 'n' doom are not on his agenda. And that's a valid choice. There are no literary super-cops who can force him to include topics that some readers might find fascinating but that come into direct conflict with the tone he wants to set. He can pick and choose, and he does--as all writers do, who are retelling real-world events. And readers who don't like it can find a different author.
Matthew chooses differently, for whatever reason. He highlights the dark, the scary, the tragic. So we get Joseph's reaction, which could have gone badly, badly wrong for Mary if not for the intervention of an angel. We get the taxation scheme, which is at the best a major burden on the family and a constant reminder that the nation is conquered territory. We get the massacre at Bethlehem, and the flight into Egypt. We get Joseph's fear of a repeat performance by Archelaus, and the move to Nazareth to avoid this.
We do NOT get Mary's peaceful visit to Elizabeth, the joyful Magnificat, the comic turns in the Zechariah story, the happy visit of the shepherds that has no bad outcomes at all. Everything is in the service of gloom 'n' doom. The arrival of the Magi is a brief ray of light quickly drowned in the darkness of Herod's response. I wonder, in fact, if Matthew only told the story because it's the set-up for Herod's evil. (Okay, yes, I can see some theological stuff he's probably doing, but really, the constant-looming-disaster thing is so strong that I'm almost justified here.)
That tone is also a valid choice, narratively speaking. Say he's wanting to emphasize that God came into the world to save us from the powers of darkness (this is hypothetical, I'm not trying to argue what his specific Gospel-writing purpose is, that's a whole nother thread). It would make sense then for him to choose aspects of Jesus' nativity that support that thesis. Just as Luke may be trying to emphasize the "good" aspect of "Good News."
And so both select the events that work for them. And that's okay. They aren't newspaper reporters bound to tell you everything that went down, which in this world is always a mixed bag of good and evil. Nobody has charged them to be as objective as possible, or to report everything that a putative reader might have an interest in. This is a different genre than straight reportage. Picking and choosing is allowed. The only real limits on their authorial freedom would be "making shit up," which would be an offense against their central character's focus on truth--or shaping the narrative in such a way and to such an extent that it became, effectively, a lie about Jesus--that it made him look like something he is not. And you can't do that if you are writing about someone who claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and whom you believe is actually alive and paying attention to what you do. Because that will get you the hairy eyeball real quick.
If we assume that Joseph went back to Bethlehem and lodged with immediate family members, what was the contemporary custom regarding living with his family versus being a separate unit? If the assumption was that she would join the in-laws, then it would make sense to do so in the run up to childbirth for support during and after the birth.
If Joseph was in the Nazareth area for work they may have then gone back there once the immediate new born stage was over, which would coincide with completing the rituals. If things were rather cramped in the ancestral home it would also make sense.
Luke also tells us that Joseph and Mary went to Passover in Jerusalem every year, which indicates that whenever they travel they do it together. It also means, for those who insist on harmonizing Luke's nativity with Matthew's, that the flight to Egypt must have been a relatively short thing, less than a year. Possibly significantly less, depending on when you date the birth of Jesus and that according to Josephus Herod died not too long before Passover.
The evidence that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great consists entirely of Matthew's nativity account. So whether Jesus was born during Herod's reign or the Quirinius census depends on whether you consider Matthew or Luke the more reliable source.
This is an interesting point. If, for the sake of argument, we ignore Matthew's reference to Herod, what evidence do we have of the approximate year of birth for Jesus?
For a start, we have indirect evidence from Luke 1, verse 5, which states that John the Baptist was conceived during "the days of King Herod of Judea." By implication, Luke also dates the conception (& presumably the birth) of Jesus to the same period.
Do we have any other evidence? It is surmised that the crucifixion took place around 33CE. If Jesus had been born whilst Quirinius was governor of Syria, that would mean that he was in his mid 20s at crucifixion. This in turn means that he would have had to start his ministry when he was barely out of his teens. That seems a bit young and I would have thought that if that were the case, we would see hints of criticism in the gospels (where we see comments about him being a Galilean among other criticisms).
On the whole, I think that a birth under Herod seems the most plausible and so the Quirinius dating stands out as unlikely.
It's fun and sometimes instructive to try and thrash these things out, and I do believe they are based on historical substance, with a special preference for Luke in this respect, but it would indeed be a shame if any attempt to stitch the Gospels into one two-dimensional, seamless, factually accurate picture (presumably on the debatable grounds that they could not otherwise be "true") blinded us readers to a third dimension, that of the theological message of the evangelists.
Very much this!
One of the things I got from Borg & Crossan was a deeper appreciation for the two nativity accounts as "parabolic overtures" to their respective gospels - introducing themes that would then be developed.
No, that doesn't work. You are insisting Luke contradicts something Matthew doesn't say.
Matthew does not say that the Magi visited Jesus as a neonate. In fact, the story and the language imply that Jesus could not have been that young.
Luke emphasises that the Jewish Law was followed concerning rites after childbirth.
No, but Matthew says the Magi visited Jesus' family in Bethlehem. Luke maintains that they didn't return to Bethlehem after Jerusalem, going instead to Nazareth. Both accounts are internally consistent, but to harmonize them with each other (kind of pointless, but important to some people) requires the Magi visiting Jesus and Mary prior to the Jerusalem trip.
The key here is Luke 2:39: When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. [NIV]
If Luke here really means that they went from Jerusalem back to Nazareth then that conflicts with Matthew's account of the Magi visiting the infant in Bethlehem. Conversely, if Luke is simply saying that J & M followed the Law, whilst still residing in Bethlehem, then returned to Nazareth, there is no conflict.
This is where my ignorance of Greek becomes a problem for me.
Lest you think I'm playing with translations, the Greek word "ὡς" translated as "when" is meant to tie to clauses together. In other contexts in can be translated as "like" or "as". In other words it would be deceptive to say "When I completed my business in London I returned to Luton" if there were a multi-month (or possibly multi-year) interval between those two events when you were avoiding a squad of government assassins. The nativity of Jesus is one of those stories where everyone just "knows" how it's supposed to go so they don't bother actually reading it.
I don't think you're playing with the translations. And thank you for the Greek:
"ὡς"
"when" or "like" or "as".
Hmmm... so after the Temple, they went back to Nazareth. I think insisting that Luke means they definitely weren't in Bethlehem after this point before returning to Nazareth (I.e. they weren't in Bethlehem when Matthew says they were) is making that one word do a lot of work. However, that is a better argument than implying that Matthew puts the Magi before the Temple as that's not what Matthew says.
It's making the word do the work it's meant to do, give a temporal connection between two phrases. Here's another example of Luke using ὡς in this way:
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
I suppose it could theoretically be argued that what Luke is trying to tell us is that at some indefinite future point after hearing Mary's greeting, possibly months or even years later, the infant John the Baptist "leaped in [ Elizabeth's ] womb", but that seems an incredibly strained reading. I start out with the premise that authors aren't trying to be deliberately cryptic (unless they're writing in a genre where that's standard).
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
Again I suppose it's theoretically possible that Jesus and Simon got out of that boat, wandered around Gennesaret for a few weeks to see the sights, then got into a boat (either the same one or a different one) and then decided to "put out into deep water", but it seems like a deliberately obtuse way of reading the text.
It is important to note to whom Matthew and Luke were written. Matthew wrote to a Jewish Christian Community. Therefore, it was important to him to show how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. Luke was addressed to a Gentile individual or community. Therefore, it was important to him to place the Nativity in a historical context.
This seems a little glib, given that it's Luke and not Matthew who goes into detail about the post-birth ritual purification required by the law of Moses. You'd think such details would be unimportant or unintelligible to a Gentile audience.
The first part of your argument just doesn't work.
Matthew describes the Magi visitation to a child who is older than the 40 days.
The second part is more interesting. As we know, Luke says:
When/As Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.
Now I have no problem with reading this as saying they went directly back to Nazareth from Jerusalem. That clearly makes sense.
However, up to this point there is no contradiction with Matthew. Matthew says (essentially) Jesus was born in Bethlehem and the Magi came later to visit him sometime before his second birthday.
Matthew places them in Bethlehem until that visit then having them returning to Nazareth via Egypt.
You are maintaining that the only way to understand Luke is that he means the Holy Family went directly from Jerusalem to Nazareth. I'm just not convinced by that.
Geographically, a trip with a newborn from Bethlehem-Jerusalem-Bethlehem makes sense. Socially, if Joseph had kin in Bethlehem, staying there a while makes sense.
Absent other information, just taking Luke's version, a journey Bethlehem - Jerusalem - Nazareth is a sensible reading but even without any other infomation it could easily mean they did Jerusalem as a short trip with multiple members of the extended family. Then went back to Nazareth. There are very good human reasons for thinking this. Now Luke's wording would still suggest heading back to Nazareth a few days later - not the months implied by Matthew. But if Luke didn't know about the Magi, for example, then he's linking the bits he does know about - I.e. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Law was followed, and then Jesus grew up in Nazareth.
None of this makes Luke correct but I just don't buy your insistence that Luke's phrase must mean an immediate return without the possibility of Matthew's account of the Magi. Therefore one of them is wrong. Of course Luke could mean that they left Bethlehem shortly after Jesus's birth (I.e. After the trip to the Temple) I have no problem with that, I just don't think that's the only reading nor does it follow that therefore Luke contradicts Matthew.
What you are saying is "Luke says they went back to Nazareth after the Temple therefore Luke and Matthew are at odds with each other and cannot both be correct." That doesn't work, whereas, if you said "Matthew has the Magi visiting the infant Jesus in Bethlehem and if they were still in Jerusalem after the Temple visit, then Luke's phrasing is a bit odd as it implies otherwise" I would have no disagreement with you. Note here, Matthew does not place the Magi in Jerusalem before the Temple visit.
The issue of dates - I.e. Herod vs Quirinius is a much bigger issue for the two accounts and much more interesting.
Matthew places them in Bethlehem until that visit then having them returning to Nazareth via Egypt.
No, Matthew doesn't have them "returning to Nazareth" because Matthew doesn't put them in Nazareth in the first place. He specifies that Joseph and Mary only went there after they returned from Egypt. You're reading things into the text that it doesn't say because you think it's supposed to be there. Matthew starts out Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and clearly thinks of that as their "home turf". Note the contrast. Luke regards Nazareth as "their home town" so he needs to provide an explanation for what they were doing in Bethlehem. Matthew, on the other hand, seems to regard Bethlehem as Joseph and Mary's home town and feels compelled to explain why they'd go to Nazareth.
You are maintaining that the only way to understand Luke is that he means the Holy Family went directly from Jerusalem to Nazareth. I'm just not convinced by that.
I'm maintaining that's the most straightforward reading of Luke's text as written and that the other readings suggested so far seem to derive from motivated reasoning. No one applies the same reasoning to any of the other examples I've provided of Luke's use of ὡς to indicate that one thing immediately followed another.
None of this makes Luke correct but I just don't buy your insistence that Luke's phrase must mean an immediate return without the possibility of Matthew's account of the Magi. Therefore one of them is wrong. Of course Luke could mean that they left Bethlehem shortly after Jesus's birth (I.e. After the trip to the Temple) I have no problem with that, I just don't think that's the only reading nor does it follow that therefore Luke contradicts Matthew.
I'm just going from the account as it exists. I don't buy that if you squint real hard at your secret decoder ring you'll find the hidden message concealed in the words Luke (or Matthew) actually chose to write.
What you are saying is "Luke says they went back to Nazareth after the Temple therefore Luke and Matthew are at odds with each other and cannot both be correct." That doesn't work, whereas, if you said "Matthew has the Magi visiting the infant Jesus in Bethlehem and if they were still in Jerusalem after the Temple visit, then Luke's phrasing is a bit odd as it implies otherwise" I would have no disagreement with you. Note here, Matthew does not place the Magi in Jerusalem before the Temple visit.
Well no, because Matthew doesn't have Jerusalem on his itinerary for the Holy Family. If you want to harmonize Luke and Matthew, that means the Magi visited Mary and Jesus within a month (give or take) of his birth. (Breaking this out a bit, Matthew says that the Magi visited Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem, Luke says that the Holy Family traveled to Jerusalem "when the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses" and went to Nazareth when they were done in Jerusalem. If both are correct the only time the Magi could have visited Jesus would be within 40 days of his birth.)
Of course, if you allow that one of them is wrong about some of these things there's a lot more latitude available, but making that concession seems anathema to some posters here.
Do we have any other evidence? It is surmised that the crucifixion took place around 33CE. If Jesus had been born whilst Quirinius was governor of Syria, that would mean that he was in his mid 20s at crucifixion.
Our main time referent for the Crucifixion is that it happened during the governorship of Pontius Pilate, so sometime between 26 CE and 36 CE. If Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great that would make him at least 29 when crucified and possibly as old as his early 40s, depending on how much time there was between Jesus' birth and Herod's death. If Jesus was born during the Quirinius census that would make him between 20 and 30 years old when crucified.
I was told (dunno if it's True™) that Luke received a lot of his information about the birth of Jesus from Our Blessed Lady herself.
I've been thinking about this.
The legend as I heard it many times in my evangelical youth was that Luke got his information about the birth of Jesus from Mary whilst he was in Jerusalem when Paul was under arrest. According to Acts, Luke would have gone to Jerusalem with Paul in about 57CE. At that point, we don't know where Mary was or even if she was still alive. Even if she bore Jesus when she was in her mid-teens (quite possible), she would have been in her 70s by then. This in a time and place where life expectancy was not that great. The odds on Mary being still alive are not good (although by no means impossible).
We also have to consider the story that Mary accompanied John to Ephesus. The bit in John's gospel where Jesus places his mother into the care of the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved seems to me to only make sense if it relates to something that the first readers would have understood, so I give a certain weight to this tradition. But if this were true, we don't know WHEN Mary went to Ephesus.
You're reading things into the text that it doesn't say because you think it's supposed to be there.
I'm doing no such thing. All Matthew says is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He is completely silent on whether we should expect his parents to be there at the time. Equally, whilst Matthew explains why they didn't return to Bethlehem, he offers no explanation as to why Nazareth. (Other than a theological one).
A simple analogy would be my own mother. Her parents both lived in Southampton and she lived most of her life in Southampton. However, she was born in Oxford. You could accurate write each of the following:
Mary was born in Oxford and then grew up in Southampton.
When Mary was born, her father, was Absent-without leave (from the Army) for a weekend to visit her in Oxford.
Mary, like her parents, lived her life in Southampton.
All those statements are true. The key to understanding it is that it was 1944 and my grandmother was evacuated to Oxford late in pregnancy because of the on-going bombing.
Both Matthew and Luke place the birth in Bethlehem. Matthew offers no other information here. Luke tells us that both of Jesus' parents travelled from Nazareth because of the census and thus this places them in Bethlehem for the birth. Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus as growing up in Nazareth.
I have no problem with examining what Luke tells us about the census and the timing but using Matthew's story of the Magi in this way doesn't work.
At that point, we don't know where Mary was or even if she was still alive. Even if she bore Jesus when she was in her mid-teens (quite possible), she would have been in her 70s by then. This in a time and place where life expectancy was not that great. The odds on Mary being still alive are not good (although by no means impossible).
The last scriptural mention of Mary is in the first chapter of Acts (I think), where she's present for the selection of Judas' replacement. After that, if she was involved in the early church it does not seem to be considered worth mentioning.
Equally, whilst Matthew explains why they didn't return to Bethlehem, he offers no explanation as to why Nazareth. (Other than a theological one).
He also offers a political explanation; that Nazareth was not ruled by Archelaus. More to the point Mark's explanation seems more concerned with explaining why Joseph and Mary didn't return to Bethlehem than it is with why traveled to Nazareth specifically. Authors explain things they think need to be explained and don't explain things they think need no explanation.
I have no problem with examining what Luke tells us about the census and the timing but using Matthew's story of the Magi in this way doesn't work.
Yeah, that's my point. I agreed earlier that there were three significant points of agreement between the two stories, but the rest of the details are wildly different and in some cases unworkably contradictory.
Might be worth mentioning that in pre-modern cultures, if you're a woman who survives the child-bearing years, there's basically no good reason to expect you to die early afterward. Because the biggest killers for women in those societies are childhood illnesses (that's true for everbody) and pregnancy-related causes (which a menopausal woman is at no further risk from). Of course you could get run over by a donkey, but the major risks drop.
Equally, whilst Matthew explains why they didn't return to Bethlehem, he offers no explanation as to why Nazareth. (Other than a theological one).
He also offers a political explanation; that Nazareth was not ruled by Archelaus.
No. The explanation here is why they don't return to Bethlehem. which is what I said. It is not an explanation of why Nazareth in particular. Luke tells us that both Joseph and Mary had come from there to Bethlehem so it's obvious.
The rest of your paragraph I don't understand at all. As I've said before, the Gospel writers were not writing biographies and editorial choices often appear to be for theological reasons. Thus I read nothing at all into Luke mentioning of Shepherds and not Magi, Matthew's description of the Magi visit but not the Shepherds and John mentioning neither.
It feels like your desperately trying to find disharmony between the accounts because Luke (apparently) says they went straight back to Nazareth.
The thing for me though is that Matthew dates Jesus' birth at the end of Herod's reign. Luke connects Jesus' birth to a census and Quirinius. So what is the evidence for the dates of Herod? Is there a stronger case for 4BC or 1BC for Herod's death? What are the dates of Quirinius' governship and why? Does luke mean something specific by 'governor' and is it what we think? What evidence do we have about Roman Censi? How does this compare with Luke's account?
Might be worth mentioning that in pre-modern cultures, if you're a woman who survives the child-bearing years, there's basically no good reason to expect you to die early afterward. Because the biggest killers for women in those societies are childhood illnesses (that's true for everbody) and pregnancy-related causes (which a menopausal woman is at no further risk from). Of course you could get run over by a donkey, but the major risks drop.
Well put. I'll see if I can find the data but life expectancy for say, a 50 Yr old woman is probably pretty good. We know Mary was at the crucifixion which is traditionally dated around 30 years post Jesus's birth. I.e. Mary was very likely post menopausal...
I apologise that I can't link to the full text as I had to use my university access to read it.
Anyway they studied modern hunter-gatherers in the 20th century. I.e. populations whose lifestyle is unchanged for thousands of years. They posit an average life expectancy for someone aged 45 of around 20 years. Thus, when we see Mary at the Cross, there's a very good chance that she could live another two decades at least and then be available to be a source for Luke.
Having just looked, there's quite a lot of contemporary literature from pre-industrial times about women living beyond 70. (Much to the surprise of chauvinists it seems who thought men were stronger...). So yeah, if Mary survived the child-bearing years, (which the NT writers record she did) then it is very credible that Luke could talk to her.
@alienfromzog, Book 18 of Josephus’ Antiquities begins as follows, in Feldman’s translation for the Loeb Classical Library:
Quirinius, a Roman senator who had proceeded through all the magistracies to the consulship and a man who was extremely distinguished in other respects, arrived in Syria, dispatched by Caesar to be governor of the nation and to make an assessment of their property.
A footnote explains that Quirinius was a “legatus Augusti pro praetore”, but the word Josephus uses in Greek is “dikaiodotes”, which is not the standard Greek translation of the Latin legatus.
A few pages further ahead, Feldman says in a footnote, "The census can thus be dated as having taken place in AD 6." Josephus' text reads "the thirty-seventh year after Caesar's defeat of Antony at Actium" (Ant. 18:26).
Feldman uses the word "census" only in the footnote. In his translation of Josephus' text, he writes "the registration of property."
I am puzzled as to why Old Man Herod in very poor health, would be troubled by the birth of Jesus. Was he expecting to live long enough for Jesus to challenge him.? Would it really be a good idea for him to kill someone chosen by God?
I am puzzled as to why Old Man Herod in very poor health, would be troubled by the birth of Jesus. Was he expecting to live long enough for Jesus to challenge him.? Would it really be a good idea for him to kill someone chosen by God?
The simplistic Nativity we learn as children misses so much of the richness of the story. It's not just a baby but the Magi who have come asking. This is a proper noun. There's a big hint in the second half of the verse:
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
A significant part of the concern (for both Herod and the political elite in Jerusalem, if maybe not every single person in Jerusalem) was that Judea was on the front line between the two superpowers of the day - Rome and Parthia (Persia) - who while not actively at war were less than friendly, and both had involved themselves in civil wars and rebellions in the other empire. It's a situation that could be described as a Cold War.
Herod himself had been given the throne by the Romans after Antony sent the legions into the region to recover territory lost to a Parthian attack in 42BC. It isn't exactly re-assuring if your political position depends on Roman support when high ranking Parthian advisors come from the east seeking a new-born king when that isn't the son of the current king. It wouldn't be the first time, or the last, that there was a military uprising in support of "the true king" even while that king was still an infant, and for that king (or at least those who take up arms in his cause) to have the support of the Parthian empire has the very real danger of turning Judea into a battle ground between the two super powers. Such Parthian meddling in Roman vassal states stoking up civil unrest and rebellion was consistent with close on a century of interactions between the empires (OK, Rome was a Republic for part of that time, but a mere technicality), just as Rome had been doing the same in Parthian states.
In those circumstances, anything other than being disturbed by the arrival of the Magi seeking a king would be unusual.
Thank you for that @Alan Cresswell - that's a better and more succinct summary than I could have managed.
This is a great example of cultural context. Matthew would have assumed his original readers understood what he wrote - hence me highlighting the Proper Noun.
The arrival of the Magi is a very worrying sign.
AFZ
P.s. the best evidence we have suggests Magi rode horses and never camels...
No nativity story in Mark. Why do we think this is ?
Two theories:
a) Linked with Mark's abrupt ending, some of the original manuscript was lost.
b) Mark's gospel, being a fairly basic document focussing on what Jesus did and the events of Holy Week (and it doesn't have much of the "famous" teachings), didn't need any fancy elaboration about the birth of Jesus.
Whilst I wouldn't be surprised at a), I am inclined to go for b).
Both Matthew and Luke have reasons for presenting the birth of Jesus as they do. Matthew is showing Jesus to be the new Moses; Luke is drawing parallels and differences with other epic birth narratives in Roman and Greek culture.
No nativity story in Mark. Why do we think this is ?
Two theories:
a) Linked with Mark's abrupt ending, some of the original manuscript was lost.
b) Mark's gospel, being a fairly basic document focussing on what Jesus did and the events of Holy Week (and it doesn't have much of the "famous" teachings), didn't need any fancy elaboration about the birth of Jesus.
Whilst I wouldn't be surprised at a), I am inclined to go for b).
Both Matthew and Luke have reasons for presenting the birth of Jesus as they do. Matthew is showing Jesus to be the new Moses; Luke is drawing parallels and differences with other epic birth narratives in Roman and Greek culture.
I go for c} He was born in Nazareth and nothing of note happened before he started his mission.
No nativity story in Mark. Why do we think this is ?
Two theories:
a) Linked with Mark's abrupt ending, some of the original manuscript was lost.
b) Mark's gospel, being a fairly basic document focussing on what Jesus did and the events of Holy Week (and it doesn't have much of the "famous" teachings), didn't need any fancy elaboration about the birth of Jesus.
Whilst I wouldn't be surprised at a), I am inclined to go for b).
Both Matthew and Luke have reasons for presenting the birth of Jesus as they do. Matthew is showing Jesus to be the new Moses; Luke is drawing parallels and differences with other epic birth narratives in Roman and Greek culture.
I go for c} He was born in Nazareth and nothing of note happened before he started his mission.
Given that the only accounts of Jesus’s birth that we have agree that he was born in Bethlehem, I’d be very reticent to argue from Mark’s silence on the subject that Jesus was born in Nazareth. One could as easily argue that Mark was aware of stories being handed down that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and he didn’t correct that.
The most we can reliably take from Mark’s silence on the subject is that he tells us nothing one way or the other about Jesus’s birth. Wherever that birth happened, it’s apparently irrelevant to the story he wants to tell.
I go for c} He was born in Nazareth and nothing of note happened before he started his mission.
That is such a leap:
"Mark doesn't mention Jesus' birth therefore Luke and and Matthew are wrong."
Of course it's possible that Luke and Matthew are wrong but arguing from Mark's silence is a weak argument. Especially given that Mark is silent on so much. It's not even the case that Mark has so much narrative detail that this is a glaring omission.
Both Matthew and Luke have reasons for presenting the birth of Jesus as they do. Matthew is showing Jesus to be the new Moses; Luke is drawing parallels and differences with other epic birth narratives in Roman and Greek culture.
There's another difference. Everyone in Luke's nativity (except for the angels) is a peasant, a nobody. Joseph, Mary, shepherds, etc. Zechariah and Elizabeth are the closest we get to anyone with status in Luke's nativity and it's clear that they're pretty low on the priestly totem pole. The only mentions we get of various potentates is as a date marker. "In the time of Herod king of Judea . . . " "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree . . . " " . . . while Quirinius was governor of Syria." In other words it's a narrative that lifts up the humble and brings the rulers down from their thrones, to borrow from Mary's song where this theme is explicitly stated.
Matthew, on the other hand, is full of royal intrigues, visiting mystics with gifts of fabulous luxury goods, government assassins, and international travel. In other words it's the kind of narrative geared towards an audience of higher social standing than Luke's.
Another interesting thing that's become regarded as canonical despite not being specified in scripture is that there were three Magi. The exact number of Magi is never actually mentioned in Matthew's description. I suppose it's easier to represent artistically, having one Magus for each of the treasures given to Jesus.
Another interesting thing that's become regarded as canonical despite not being specified in scripture is that there were three Magi. The exact number of Magi is never actually mentioned in Matthew's description. I suppose it's easier to represent artistically, having one Magus for each of the treasures given to Jesus.
I don't think it's considered canonical by anyone apart from card-makers and nativity play-writes.
I think it very unlikely that there we're only three. I think it would have been a small group who travelled together. The Magi were extremely important in Persia, a very powerful group. Which is why Herod (and all Jerusalem) were disturbed!
Of course, the gifts have of huge symbolic meaning as well.
Another interesting thing that's become regarded as canonical despite not being specified in scripture is that there were three Magi. The exact number of Magi is never actually mentioned in Matthew's description. I suppose it's easier to represent artistically, having one Magus for each of the treasures given to Jesus.
I don't think it's considered canonical by anyone apart from card-makers and nativity play-writers.
I think it very unlikely that there were only three. I think it would have been a small group who travelled together. The Magi were extremely important in Persia, a very powerful group. Which is why Herod (and all Jerusalem) was disturbed!
Of course, the gifts have of huge symbolic meaning as well.
I think referring to "royal intrigues, visiting mystics with gifts of fabulous luxury goods, government assassins, and international travel" is maybe a bit overstating. I mean, it sounds like James Bond, and we're more likely to be talking the lowest level soldiers, three people and a donkey if they're lucky tramping through the desert, and so on.
As for why Jerusalem was disturbed--
Whatever Herod's paranoid reasons, I think Jerusalem was disturbed for the same basic reasons that anybody living with a mentally ill and abusive parent is. You watch the moods of that person, and if they're getting all het up for any reason whatsoever, you freak out and do your best to walk softly around them, and pray they won't see you. God forbid they should notice you and explode into violence. And they could (and have, and will).
I think referring to "royal intrigues, visiting mystics with gifts of fabulous luxury goods, government assassins, and international travel" is maybe a bit overstating. I mean, it sounds like James Bond, and we're more likely to be talking the lowest level soldiers, three people and a donkey if they're lucky tramping through the desert, and so on.
But that's the story Matthew wanted to tell. If you find it overstated, that's his fault. Absent from Matthew's account are shepherds, mangers, Temple purification, . . . any of the commonplace, everyday things that Luke highlights. Instead we've got prophecies that trouble the counsels of kings and mystics from afar bearing expensive and exotic luxury goods. We never actually see any of those "low level soldiers" in Matthew's account, just Herod giving orders. The soldiers are assumed by our imagination. We know someone had to carry out those orders, but they're unimportant to Matthew. The focus of Matthew's nativity is almost entirely aristocratic.
The focus of Matthew's nativity is almost entirely aristocratic.
I don't completely agree. The focus is on Jesus as the New Moses and Herod as the New Pharoah. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that the scenes that don't focus on Joseph and Jesus are set in Herod's Palace.
The focus of Matthew's nativity is almost entirely aristocratic.
I don't completely agree. The focus is on Jesus as the New Moses and Herod as the New Pharoah. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that the scenes that don't focus on Joseph and Jesus are set in Herod's Palace.
That's not inevitability, that's an authorial choice.
The focus of Matthew's nativity is almost entirely aristocratic.
I don't completely agree. The focus is on Jesus as the New Moses and Herod as the New Pharoah. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that the scenes that don't focus on Joseph and Jesus are set in Herod's Palace.
That's not inevitability, that's an authorial choice.
He didn’t say the part you bolded was inevitable. He said that once the choice was made to focus on the part you bolded, it was “almost inevitable that the scenes that don't focus on Joseph and Jesus are set in Herod's Palace.”
I think referring to "royal intrigues, visiting mystics with gifts of fabulous luxury goods, government assassins, and international travel" is maybe a bit overstating. I mean, it sounds like James Bond, and we're more likely to be talking the lowest level soldiers, three people and a donkey if they're lucky tramping through the desert, and so on.
But that's the story Matthew wanted to tell. If you find it overstated, that's his fault. Absent from Matthew's account are shepherds, mangers, Temple purification, . . . any of the commonplace, everyday things that Luke highlights. Instead we've got prophecies that trouble the counsels of kings and mystics from afar bearing expensive and exotic luxury goods. We never actually see any of those "low level soldiers" in Matthew's account, just Herod giving orders. The soldiers are assumed by our imagination. We know someone had to carry out those orders, but they're unimportant to Matthew. The focus of Matthew's nativity is almost entirely aristocratic.
It's not his fault if you're reading stuff into it--which is what I'm seeing. Really, you call an ordinary family fleeing on foot through the desert "international travel"? Try "refugees." And "government assassins" for a nameless random squad of soldiers told off to do a dirty, inglorious job? You make it sound like they're ninjas, swooping through the palm trees. In any army I've ever heard of, it's the lowest of the low who get such jobs--the ones who have no pull and can't get out of it. No special skill is needed for murdering the infants of unarmed families. As for "intrigue"--how does Herod talking to himself inside his own deranged skull constitute an intrigue? Or are you taking his consult with the local temple yes-men to be a conspiracy? I read them as saying whatever they can to get the hell out of there, like sensible people. Turn his attention to Bethlehem! Get his eyes off us. As for expensive, exotic goods--you do realize that all three of those items were commonly used at the temple on a daily basis? And that quite ordinary families might possess the spices as funeral ware? Doubtless their more expensive belongings, yes--but hardly the over-the-top extreme luxury you're making out. Bah, I have a plastic baggie of both myself, and it cost me no more than ten dollars.
It's not his fault if you're reading stuff into it--which is what I'm seeing. Really, you call an ordinary family fleeing on foot through the desert "international travel"? Try "refugees."
In what sane definition of the term does being a refugee mean never crossing an international border?
And "government assassins" for a nameless random squad of soldiers told off to do a dirty, inglorious job? You make it sound like they're ninjas, swooping through the palm trees. In any army I've ever heard of, it's the lowest of the low who get such jobs--the ones who have no pull and can't get out of it. No special skill is needed for murdering the infants of unarmed families.
Now who's reading stuff that's not there? Killing people on behalf of the state for political reasons is what makes someone a "government assassin". If they don't often live up to the pretensions of the James Bond franchise that's not my fault. If you prefer the term "government death squads", that's fine. It amounts to much the same thing.
I also think you're underestimating the status of the military units assigned such duties. Killing off the regime's enemies, real or imagined, isn't a job you can trust to just anyone. Historically death squads are elite units.
As for "intrigue"--how does Herod talking to himself inside his own deranged skull constitute an intrigue?
Matthew doesn't really provide us with Herod's interior monologue, just an occasional hint of Herod's supposed emotional state. Presumably this is derived from his interactions with others, not via telepathy.
As for expensive, exotic goods--you do realize that all three of those items were commonly used at the temple on a daily basis? And that quite ordinary families might possess the spices as funeral ware? Doubtless their more expensive belongings, yes--but hardly the over-the-top extreme luxury you're making out. Bah, I have a plastic baggie of both myself, and it cost me no more than ten dollars.
I'm not sure the institutional purchasing power of the Jerusalem Temple or ease of acquisition by someone living in a globalized economy where material goods are relatively cheap is a good measuring stick of value for how easy it would be for a first century peasant to acquire imported luxury goods.
I mean, you've probably got nutmeg in your house that you didn't even have to launch a military campaign to obtain, but that doesn't prove that kind of thing never happened.
Comments
However, I am also not remotely convinced by what seem to be very superficial critiques and/or hold the text to a different standard than any other ancient source.
What I do think is interesting is the dating of Quirinius' governship and how that fits with Luke and the possible translations and what else we know of Roman governing.
AFZ
I remember a very interesting insight from @tclune a long time ago - the church could have had a single harmonised Gospel if it wanted one; for a while the Syrian church was using the Diatessaron, which is a mashup of the four Gospels in one. But instead it chose to keep the four different perspectives.
At the same time I also recognise the danger of 'sceptical overreach' - ultimately I think the only truly sceptical position is that we just don't know. Speaking as someone who isn't committed to either inerrancy or literalism, I think it is tempting - but also lazy - for me just to say 'This is difficult to understand -- ooh, I know, the writer must have made a mistake / was writing figuratively according to conventions that are lost to us today'. (Not that I have done anything like that anywhere in this thread ...)
The Annunciation was to Mary in Nazareth (Luke 1: 26-27) and from Matthew (1:18), when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; - no place mentioned. While they were betrothed, could it be that Joseph lived in Bethlehem and travelled to Nazareth to collect Mary, returning to Bethlehem with his betrothed to be registered? That although betrothed they were not living together or even in the same place? That bit in Matthew 1:25: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, doing a lot of work to describe a collection of Mary from Nazareth? There is no mention of Joseph until he and Mary travel to Bethlehem in Luke 2:4.
This is not actually what is said in Borg and Crossan who build a lot on the Annunciation being located in two different places in the gospels. It was just I picked up the book to check for BroJames, read something and checked against the Biblical accounts
There is no mention in Borg and Crossan that there could be an alternative translation in the chapter discussing the census.
For that chapter they are comparing Virgil's Aeneid and also Luke's own reference to the uprising in 6CE in Acts 5:37 in Gamaliel's speech. Lots of looking at the reasons why Luke and Matthew might be choosing different things to include in their gospels to highlight the message they are conveying, which is what both The First Christmas and The Last Week discuss.
No, but Matthew says the Magi visited Jesus' family in Bethlehem. Luke maintains that they didn't return to Bethlehem after Jerusalem, going instead to Nazareth. Both accounts are internally consistent, but to harmonize them with each other (kind of pointless, but important to some people) requires the Magi visiting Jesus and Mary prior to the Jerusalem trip.
It's making the word do the work it's meant to do, give a temporal connection between two phrases. Here's another example of Luke using ὡς in this way:
I suppose it could theoretically be argued that what Luke is trying to tell us is that at some indefinite future point after hearing Mary's greeting, possibly months or even years later, the infant John the Baptist "leaped in [ Elizabeth's ] womb", but that seems an incredibly strained reading. I start out with the premise that authors aren't trying to be deliberately cryptic (unless they're writing in a genre where that's standard).
Here's another one from Luke.
Again I suppose it's theoretically possible that Jesus and Simon got out of that boat, wandered around Gennesaret for a few weeks to see the sights, then got into a boat (either the same one or a different one) and then decided to "put out into deep water", but it seems like a deliberately obtuse way of reading the text.
This seems a little glib, given that it's Luke and not Matthew who goes into detail about the post-birth ritual purification required by the law of Moses. You'd think such details would be unimportant or unintelligible to a Gentile audience.
Except that Luke would likely have gone into detail about the purification rite so that the Gentile audience would better understand what was happening. Besides, for Luke, it was the set up for the meeting of Simeon and Anna.
If Joseph was in the Nazareth area for work they may have then gone back there once the immediate new born stage was over, which would coincide with completing the rituals. If things were rather cramped in the ancestral home it would also make sense.
This is the crux in terms of whether the narratives can reasonably be harmonised or not. Luke writes Does that state or imply that nothing else happened in between?
We struggle to imagine how, if Luke knew about the visit of the magi, the slaughter of the innocents and the flight to Egypt, he could have passed over those events without mention.
I mean, look at the Luke birth narrative. Everything in that is maximally sunny, hopeful, and "Good news! God is keeping his promise and sending a Messiah!" That looks like authorial choice to me. He doesn't even touch on Joseph's reaction to finding out his fiancee is pregnant--and you know that had to happen in real life, if Joseph and Mary are real people at all. But Luke glides over it. The worst thing that happens to anybody in his narrative is the comic punishment of Zechariah for doubting the angel--a priest condemned to temporary silence (and after watching my own clerical husband with laryngitis, believe me, it's a hoot).
It appears that conflict, struggle, and gloom 'n' doom are not on his agenda. And that's a valid choice. There are no literary super-cops who can force him to include topics that some readers might find fascinating but that come into direct conflict with the tone he wants to set. He can pick and choose, and he does--as all writers do, who are retelling real-world events. And readers who don't like it can find a different author.
Matthew chooses differently, for whatever reason. He highlights the dark, the scary, the tragic. So we get Joseph's reaction, which could have gone badly, badly wrong for Mary if not for the intervention of an angel. We get the taxation scheme, which is at the best a major burden on the family and a constant reminder that the nation is conquered territory. We get the massacre at Bethlehem, and the flight into Egypt. We get Joseph's fear of a repeat performance by Archelaus, and the move to Nazareth to avoid this.
We do NOT get Mary's peaceful visit to Elizabeth, the joyful Magnificat, the comic turns in the Zechariah story, the happy visit of the shepherds that has no bad outcomes at all. Everything is in the service of gloom 'n' doom. The arrival of the Magi is a brief ray of light quickly drowned in the darkness of Herod's response. I wonder, in fact, if Matthew only told the story because it's the set-up for Herod's evil. (Okay, yes, I can see some theological stuff he's probably doing, but really, the constant-looming-disaster thing is so strong that I'm almost justified here.)
That tone is also a valid choice, narratively speaking. Say he's wanting to emphasize that God came into the world to save us from the powers of darkness (this is hypothetical, I'm not trying to argue what his specific Gospel-writing purpose is, that's a whole nother thread). It would make sense then for him to choose aspects of Jesus' nativity that support that thesis. Just as Luke may be trying to emphasize the "good" aspect of "Good News."
And so both select the events that work for them. And that's okay. They aren't newspaper reporters bound to tell you everything that went down, which in this world is always a mixed bag of good and evil. Nobody has charged them to be as objective as possible, or to report everything that a putative reader might have an interest in. This is a different genre than straight reportage. Picking and choosing is allowed. The only real limits on their authorial freedom would be "making shit up," which would be an offense against their central character's focus on truth--or shaping the narrative in such a way and to such an extent that it became, effectively, a lie about Jesus--that it made him look like something he is not. And you can't do that if you are writing about someone who claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and whom you believe is actually alive and paying attention to what you do. Because that will get you the hairy eyeball real quick.
You can make all kinds of speculations, but all we know from Luke is that both Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, after that they went together to the Temple in Jerusalem, and when they were done there they both returned to "their home town" (πόλιν ἑαυτῶν) of Nazareth. Interestingly ἑαυτῶν is a plural possessive ("their" rather than "his" town) indicating Mary also considers Nazareth home.
Luke also tells us that Joseph and Mary went to Passover in Jerusalem every year, which indicates that whenever they travel they do it together. It also means, for those who insist on harmonizing Luke's nativity with Matthew's, that the flight to Egypt must have been a relatively short thing, less than a year. Possibly significantly less, depending on when you date the birth of Jesus and that according to Josephus Herod died not too long before Passover.
This is an interesting point. If, for the sake of argument, we ignore Matthew's reference to Herod, what evidence do we have of the approximate year of birth for Jesus?
For a start, we have indirect evidence from Luke 1, verse 5, which states that John the Baptist was conceived during "the days of King Herod of Judea." By implication, Luke also dates the conception (& presumably the birth) of Jesus to the same period.
Do we have any other evidence? It is surmised that the crucifixion took place around 33CE. If Jesus had been born whilst Quirinius was governor of Syria, that would mean that he was in his mid 20s at crucifixion. This in turn means that he would have had to start his ministry when he was barely out of his teens. That seems a bit young and I would have thought that if that were the case, we would see hints of criticism in the gospels (where we see comments about him being a Galilean among other criticisms).
On the whole, I think that a birth under Herod seems the most plausible and so the Quirinius dating stands out as unlikely.
Very much this!
One of the things I got from Borg & Crossan was a deeper appreciation for the two nativity accounts as "parabolic overtures" to their respective gospels - introducing themes that would then be developed.
The first part of your argument just doesn't work.
Matthew describes the Magi visitation to a child who is older than the 40 days.
The second part is more interesting. As we know, Luke says:
Now I have no problem with reading this as saying they went directly back to Nazareth from Jerusalem. That clearly makes sense.
However, up to this point there is no contradiction with Matthew. Matthew says (essentially) Jesus was born in Bethlehem and the Magi came later to visit him sometime before his second birthday.
Matthew places them in Bethlehem until that visit then having them returning to Nazareth via Egypt.
You are maintaining that the only way to understand Luke is that he means the Holy Family went directly from Jerusalem to Nazareth. I'm just not convinced by that.
Geographically, a trip with a newborn from Bethlehem-Jerusalem-Bethlehem makes sense. Socially, if Joseph had kin in Bethlehem, staying there a while makes sense.
Absent other information, just taking Luke's version, a journey Bethlehem - Jerusalem - Nazareth is a sensible reading but even without any other infomation it could easily mean they did Jerusalem as a short trip with multiple members of the extended family. Then went back to Nazareth. There are very good human reasons for thinking this. Now Luke's wording would still suggest heading back to Nazareth a few days later - not the months implied by Matthew. But if Luke didn't know about the Magi, for example, then he's linking the bits he does know about - I.e. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Law was followed, and then Jesus grew up in Nazareth.
None of this makes Luke correct but I just don't buy your insistence that Luke's phrase must mean an immediate return without the possibility of Matthew's account of the Magi. Therefore one of them is wrong. Of course Luke could mean that they left Bethlehem shortly after Jesus's birth (I.e. After the trip to the Temple) I have no problem with that, I just don't think that's the only reading nor does it follow that therefore Luke contradicts Matthew.
What you are saying is "Luke says they went back to Nazareth after the Temple therefore Luke and Matthew are at odds with each other and cannot both be correct." That doesn't work, whereas, if you said "Matthew has the Magi visiting the infant Jesus in Bethlehem and if they were still in Jerusalem after the Temple visit, then Luke's phrasing is a bit odd as it implies otherwise" I would have no disagreement with you. Note here, Matthew does not place the Magi in Jerusalem before the Temple visit.
The issue of dates - I.e. Herod vs Quirinius is a much bigger issue for the two accounts and much more interesting.
AFZ
No, Matthew doesn't have them "returning to Nazareth" because Matthew doesn't put them in Nazareth in the first place. He specifies that Joseph and Mary only went there after they returned from Egypt. You're reading things into the text that it doesn't say because you think it's supposed to be there. Matthew starts out Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and clearly thinks of that as their "home turf". Note the contrast. Luke regards Nazareth as "their home town" so he needs to provide an explanation for what they were doing in Bethlehem. Matthew, on the other hand, seems to regard Bethlehem as Joseph and Mary's home town and feels compelled to explain why they'd go to Nazareth.
I'm maintaining that's the most straightforward reading of Luke's text as written and that the other readings suggested so far seem to derive from motivated reasoning. No one applies the same reasoning to any of the other examples I've provided of Luke's use of ὡς to indicate that one thing immediately followed another.
I'm just going from the account as it exists. I don't buy that if you squint real hard at your secret decoder ring you'll find the hidden message concealed in the words Luke (or Matthew) actually chose to write.
Well no, because Matthew doesn't have Jerusalem on his itinerary for the Holy Family. If you want to harmonize Luke and Matthew, that means the Magi visited Mary and Jesus within a month (give or take) of his birth. (Breaking this out a bit, Matthew says that the Magi visited Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem, Luke says that the Holy Family traveled to Jerusalem "when the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses" and went to Nazareth when they were done in Jerusalem. If both are correct the only time the Magi could have visited Jesus would be within 40 days of his birth.)
Of course, if you allow that one of them is wrong about some of these things there's a lot more latitude available, but making that concession seems anathema to some posters here.
Our main time referent for the Crucifixion is that it happened during the governorship of Pontius Pilate, so sometime between 26 CE and 36 CE. If Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great that would make him at least 29 when crucified and possibly as old as his early 40s, depending on how much time there was between Jesus' birth and Herod's death. If Jesus was born during the Quirinius census that would make him between 20 and 30 years old when crucified.
I've been thinking about this.
The legend as I heard it many times in my evangelical youth was that Luke got his information about the birth of Jesus from Mary whilst he was in Jerusalem when Paul was under arrest. According to Acts, Luke would have gone to Jerusalem with Paul in about 57CE. At that point, we don't know where Mary was or even if she was still alive. Even if she bore Jesus when she was in her mid-teens (quite possible), she would have been in her 70s by then. This in a time and place where life expectancy was not that great. The odds on Mary being still alive are not good (although by no means impossible).
We also have to consider the story that Mary accompanied John to Ephesus. The bit in John's gospel where Jesus places his mother into the care of the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved seems to me to only make sense if it relates to something that the first readers would have understood, so I give a certain weight to this tradition. But if this were true, we don't know WHEN Mary went to Ephesus.
I'm doing no such thing. All Matthew says is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He is completely silent on whether we should expect his parents to be there at the time. Equally, whilst Matthew explains why they didn't return to Bethlehem, he offers no explanation as to why Nazareth. (Other than a theological one).
A simple analogy would be my own mother. Her parents both lived in Southampton and she lived most of her life in Southampton. However, she was born in Oxford. You could accurate write each of the following:
Mary was born in Oxford and then grew up in Southampton.
When Mary was born, her father, was Absent-without leave (from the Army) for a weekend to visit her in Oxford.
Mary, like her parents, lived her life in Southampton.
All those statements are true. The key to understanding it is that it was 1944 and my grandmother was evacuated to Oxford late in pregnancy because of the on-going bombing.
Both Matthew and Luke place the birth in Bethlehem. Matthew offers no other information here. Luke tells us that both of Jesus' parents travelled from Nazareth because of the census and thus this places them in Bethlehem for the birth. Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus as growing up in Nazareth.
I have no problem with examining what Luke tells us about the census and the timing but using Matthew's story of the Magi in this way doesn't work.
AFZ
The last scriptural mention of Mary is in the first chapter of Acts (I think), where she's present for the selection of Judas' replacement. After that, if she was involved in the early church it does not seem to be considered worth mentioning.
He also offers a political explanation; that Nazareth was not ruled by Archelaus. More to the point Mark's explanation seems more concerned with explaining why Joseph and Mary didn't return to Bethlehem than it is with why traveled to Nazareth specifically. Authors explain things they think need to be explained and don't explain things they think need no explanation.
Yeah, that's my point. I agreed earlier that there were three significant points of agreement between the two stories, but the rest of the details are wildly different and in some cases unworkably contradictory.
No. The explanation here is why they don't return to Bethlehem. which is what I said. It is not an explanation of why Nazareth in particular. Luke tells us that both Joseph and Mary had come from there to Bethlehem so it's obvious.
The rest of your paragraph I don't understand at all. As I've said before, the Gospel writers were not writing biographies and editorial choices often appear to be for theological reasons. Thus I read nothing at all into Luke mentioning of Shepherds and not Magi, Matthew's description of the Magi visit but not the Shepherds and John mentioning neither.
It feels like your desperately trying to find disharmony between the accounts because Luke (apparently) says they went straight back to Nazareth.
The thing for me though is that Matthew dates Jesus' birth at the end of Herod's reign. Luke connects Jesus' birth to a census and Quirinius. So what is the evidence for the dates of Herod? Is there a stronger case for 4BC or 1BC for Herod's death? What are the dates of Quirinius' governship and why? Does luke mean something specific by 'governor' and is it what we think? What evidence do we have about Roman Censi? How does this compare with Luke's account?
AFZ
Well put. I'll see if I can find the data but life expectancy for say, a 50 Yr old woman is probably pretty good. We know Mary was at the crucifixion which is traditionally dated around 30 years post Jesus's birth. I.e. Mary was very likely post menopausal...
AFZ
Hee hee.
This is an interesting paper:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11891933/
I apologise that I can't link to the full text as I had to use my university access to read it.
Anyway they studied modern hunter-gatherers in the 20th century. I.e. populations whose lifestyle is unchanged for thousands of years. They posit an average life expectancy for someone aged 45 of around 20 years. Thus, when we see Mary at the Cross, there's a very good chance that she could live another two decades at least and then be available to be a source for Luke.
Having just looked, there's quite a lot of contemporary literature from pre-industrial times about women living beyond 70. (Much to the surprise of chauvinists it seems who thought men were stronger...). So yeah, if Mary survived the child-bearing years, (which the NT writers record she did) then it is very credible that Luke could talk to her.
AFZ
Quirinius, a Roman senator who had proceeded through all the magistracies to the consulship and a man who was extremely distinguished in other respects, arrived in Syria, dispatched by Caesar to be governor of the nation and to make an assessment of their property.
A footnote explains that Quirinius was a “legatus Augusti pro praetore”, but the word Josephus uses in Greek is “dikaiodotes”, which is not the standard Greek translation of the Latin legatus.
I see that Josephus dates this term to 7 AD.
So, does that mean Josephus is at odds with Luke? Or does it only conflict with Matthew putting the Nativity just before Herod's death?
If so, how do we weigh one against another?
AFZ
Feldman uses the word "census" only in the footnote. In his translation of Josephus' text, he writes "the registration of property."
The simplistic Nativity we learn as children misses so much of the richness of the story. It's not just a baby but the Magi who have come asking. This is a proper noun. There's a big hint in the second half of the verse:
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
AFZ
Herod himself had been given the throne by the Romans after Antony sent the legions into the region to recover territory lost to a Parthian attack in 42BC. It isn't exactly re-assuring if your political position depends on Roman support when high ranking Parthian advisors come from the east seeking a new-born king when that isn't the son of the current king. It wouldn't be the first time, or the last, that there was a military uprising in support of "the true king" even while that king was still an infant, and for that king (or at least those who take up arms in his cause) to have the support of the Parthian empire has the very real danger of turning Judea into a battle ground between the two super powers. Such Parthian meddling in Roman vassal states stoking up civil unrest and rebellion was consistent with close on a century of interactions between the empires (OK, Rome was a Republic for part of that time, but a mere technicality), just as Rome had been doing the same in Parthian states.
In those circumstances, anything other than being disturbed by the arrival of the Magi seeking a king would be unusual.
This is a great example of cultural context. Matthew would have assumed his original readers understood what he wrote - hence me highlighting the Proper Noun.
The arrival of the Magi is a very worrying sign.
AFZ
P.s. the best evidence we have suggests Magi rode horses and never camels...
As depicted in the traditional Orthodox Nativity icon.
As I was saying, so much of Western tradition around the Nativity diverges significantly from what both Matthew and Luke say.
AFZ
Two theories:
a) Linked with Mark's abrupt ending, some of the original manuscript was lost.
b) Mark's gospel, being a fairly basic document focussing on what Jesus did and the events of Holy Week (and it doesn't have much of the "famous" teachings), didn't need any fancy elaboration about the birth of Jesus.
Whilst I wouldn't be surprised at a), I am inclined to go for b).
Both Matthew and Luke have reasons for presenting the birth of Jesus as they do. Matthew is showing Jesus to be the new Moses; Luke is drawing parallels and differences with other epic birth narratives in Roman and Greek culture.
I go for c} He was born in Nazareth and nothing of note happened before he started his mission.
The most we can reliably take from Mark’s silence on the subject is that he tells us nothing one way or the other about Jesus’s birth. Wherever that birth happened, it’s apparently irrelevant to the story he wants to tell.
That is such a leap:
"Mark doesn't mention Jesus' birth therefore Luke and and Matthew are wrong."
Of course it's possible that Luke and Matthew are wrong but arguing from Mark's silence is a weak argument. Especially given that Mark is silent on so much. It's not even the case that Mark has so much narrative detail that this is a glaring omission.
There's another difference. Everyone in Luke's nativity (except for the angels) is a peasant, a nobody. Joseph, Mary, shepherds, etc. Zechariah and Elizabeth are the closest we get to anyone with status in Luke's nativity and it's clear that they're pretty low on the priestly totem pole. The only mentions we get of various potentates is as a date marker. "In the time of Herod king of Judea . . . " "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree . . . " " . . . while Quirinius was governor of Syria." In other words it's a narrative that lifts up the humble and brings the rulers down from their thrones, to borrow from Mary's song where this theme is explicitly stated.
Matthew, on the other hand, is full of royal intrigues, visiting mystics with gifts of fabulous luxury goods, government assassins, and international travel. In other words it's the kind of narrative geared towards an audience of higher social standing than Luke's.
Another interesting thing that's become regarded as canonical despite not being specified in scripture is that there were three Magi. The exact number of Magi is never actually mentioned in Matthew's description. I suppose it's easier to represent artistically, having one Magus for each of the treasures given to Jesus.
I don't think it's considered canonical by anyone apart from card-makers and nativity play-writes.
I think it very unlikely that there we're only three. I think it would have been a small group who travelled together. The Magi were extremely important in Persia, a very powerful group. Which is why Herod (and all Jerusalem) were disturbed!
Of course, the gifts have of huge symbolic meaning as well.
AFZ
I don't think it's considered canonical by anyone apart from card-makers and nativity play-writers.
I think it very unlikely that there were only three. I think it would have been a small group who travelled together. The Magi were extremely important in Persia, a very powerful group. Which is why Herod (and all Jerusalem) was disturbed!
Of course, the gifts have of huge symbolic meaning as well.
AFZ
As for why Jerusalem was disturbed--
Whatever Herod's paranoid reasons, I think Jerusalem was disturbed for the same basic reasons that anybody living with a mentally ill and abusive parent is. You watch the moods of that person, and if they're getting all het up for any reason whatsoever, you freak out and do your best to walk softly around them, and pray they won't see you. God forbid they should notice you and explode into violence. And they could (and have, and will).
But that's the story Matthew wanted to tell. If you find it overstated, that's his fault. Absent from Matthew's account are shepherds, mangers, Temple purification, . . . any of the commonplace, everyday things that Luke highlights. Instead we've got prophecies that trouble the counsels of kings and mystics from afar bearing expensive and exotic luxury goods. We never actually see any of those "low level soldiers" in Matthew's account, just Herod giving orders. The soldiers are assumed by our imagination. We know someone had to carry out those orders, but they're unimportant to Matthew. The focus of Matthew's nativity is almost entirely aristocratic.
I don't completely agree. The focus is on Jesus as the New Moses and Herod as the New Pharoah. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that the scenes that don't focus on Joseph and Jesus are set in Herod's Palace.
That's not inevitability, that's an authorial choice.
It's not his fault if you're reading stuff into it--which is what I'm seeing. Really, you call an ordinary family fleeing on foot through the desert "international travel"? Try "refugees." And "government assassins" for a nameless random squad of soldiers told off to do a dirty, inglorious job? You make it sound like they're ninjas, swooping through the palm trees. In any army I've ever heard of, it's the lowest of the low who get such jobs--the ones who have no pull and can't get out of it. No special skill is needed for murdering the infants of unarmed families. As for "intrigue"--how does Herod talking to himself inside his own deranged skull constitute an intrigue? Or are you taking his consult with the local temple yes-men to be a conspiracy? I read them as saying whatever they can to get the hell out of there, like sensible people. Turn his attention to Bethlehem! Get his eyes off us. As for expensive, exotic goods--you do realize that all three of those items were commonly used at the temple on a daily basis? And that quite ordinary families might possess the spices as funeral ware? Doubtless their more expensive belongings, yes--but hardly the over-the-top extreme luxury you're making out. Bah, I have a plastic baggie of both myself, and it cost me no more than ten dollars.
In what sane definition of the term does being a refugee mean never crossing an international border?
Now who's reading stuff that's not there? Killing people on behalf of the state for political reasons is what makes someone a "government assassin". If they don't often live up to the pretensions of the James Bond franchise that's not my fault. If you prefer the term "government death squads", that's fine. It amounts to much the same thing.
I also think you're underestimating the status of the military units assigned such duties. Killing off the regime's enemies, real or imagined, isn't a job you can trust to just anyone. Historically death squads are elite units.
Matthew doesn't really provide us with Herod's interior monologue, just an occasional hint of Herod's supposed emotional state. Presumably this is derived from his interactions with others, not via telepathy.
I'm not sure the institutional purchasing power of the Jerusalem Temple or ease of acquisition by someone living in a globalized economy where material goods are relatively cheap is a good measuring stick of value for how easy it would be for a first century peasant to acquire imported luxury goods.
I mean, you've probably got nutmeg in your house that you didn't even have to launch a military campaign to obtain, but that doesn't prove that kind of thing never happened.