[Just_A_Guy]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

If we only had Matthew's gospel (like many early Christians in the 1st century), we would naturally assume that Jesus' family was from Bethlehem.

We would assume wrongly, for as I've already pointed out Matthew makes no such statement.

It's obvious that the Savior's parents in Matthew's gospel are from Bethlehem. It was their home. That's why they stayed there so long after Jesus' birth.

The notion of their having "stayed so long" is pure inference. The term used throughout the story of Herod is "paidion", which properly means "infant".

That's why they were planning to return there after Herod's death.

The notion that they were planning to return "there" is, again, pure inference. Matthew says only that they were going somewhere in Judea. Jerusalem would have been the logical choice as the place to raise the Son of God.

Nephi isn't wrong at all. Nephi doesn't say what city the Savior was to be born in.

He does say it would be in the Land of Jerusalem. You're going to have to do some powerful arguing to convince me that Nephi would consider Nazareth (part of Galilee, which was part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel which fell to the Assyrians nearly a century before Nephi's day) as part of the "land of Jerusalem".

Matthew says Joseph moved to Nazareth because he was afraid of Herod's son who became ruler in Judea which is not a valid excuse for him to "turn aside" into Galilee because one of Herod's other sons was also a ruler in Galilee.

Another inference. Matthew does not say Joseph feared Archelaus because he was Herod's son. He merely notes that Archelaus reigned "in the room of his father Herod".

Luke says that Jesus' parents already came from Nazareth and had to travel to Bethlehem because of the census of Quirinius which is not a valid excuse for getting Jesus to Bethlehem because Roman census' didnt require people to register at the town of their ancestory (not to mention the fact that the census took place in 6 AD the same year that Herod Archelaus - the ruler of Judea Joseph was trying to avoid in Matthew - was banished and seven years after Joseph Smith said the Savior was born).

Some good points there. Here's another one: Why is Luke going to make such an elementary blunder about Roman census practices in a book written for the benefit of . . . subjects of Rome?

(John practically denies the idea that Jesus was born at Bethlehem)

Source? And why is John more reliable on this point than modern-day Apostles of Christ? None of them were there at the nativity--so why is John so special?

and since their accounts can't be trusted in the slightest, chances are the Savior was never born in Bethlehem at all.

This line of argument seems highly questionable. Allow me to demonstrate the same logic with a different fact pattern:

My wife and I are in a crosswalk when we both become victims of a hit-and-run, where the driver does not stop. I say we were hit by a Ford Expedition. She thinks it was a Chevy Suburban. Since my wife's and my accounts differ, the the logical inference is . . . we obviously weren't hit by any kind of SUV--notwithstanding the testimonies of additional witnesses who say that it was an SUV. Right?