Discrepancies In the Nativity Story

[Enlil-An]

It recently came to my attention that the birth narratives of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke are irreconcilably contradictary. According to Matthew, the Savior and his parents are from Bethlehem, stay there for two years after Jesus' birth, fly to Egypt to escape King Herod, and arrive at Nazareth for the first time once Herod is dead. In Luke, Mary and Joseph are from Nazareth, travel to Bethlehem for the census, stay there only a month during her purification according to Levitical law, and then return back home to Nazareth. There is no flight to Egypt, no wise men following a star, no death decree by Herod.

After reading these narratives closely, it becomes obvious that Matthew and Luke are telling two totally different, contradicting stories. Both of them can't be true. The prophet, Nephi, prophesied that Jesus' mother would be from Nazareth but only says that Jesus would be born in "the land of Jerusalem". There are no other places in the standard works that specify where Jesus was born or how he got there.

My question is, has anyone else here noticed this and how do we reconcile it with the Church's position that the Bible is the word of God (originally written by inspired men) and that the only errors in it are mistranlations and interpolations here and there?

[Just_A_Guy]

I see little here that is actually mutually exclusive, and no reason the accounts could not both be "true" (if incomplete).

Matthew is writing to Jews, and trying to convince his Jewish readers that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy. The tale of Herod is crucial to this theme--Jesus' Egyptian background and the slaughter of the children at Rama (about ten miles from Bethlehem) were, per Matthew's interpretation, foretold. (By the way, Matthew does not say that either Mary or Joseph were natives of Bethlehem. It just says Jesus was born there.) Similarly, the story of the wise men reinforces Jesus' status as king to a naturally skeptical Jewish readership.

Luke is writing to Gentiles. The Gentiles didn't have unfulfilled prophecies about a king of kings, so Luke didn't need to waste time trying to explain how Jesus fit into that mold.

[Enlil-An]

While Matthew might not specifically say that Mary and Joseph are from Bethlehem, a close reading of the story shows that this is so. There's no mention of the census or any trip from Nazareth. After Jesus is born, they're still in Bethlehem two years later when the wise men find them and the only reason they leave is because Herod threatens Jesus' life. After Herod's death, they left Egypt, but Matthew makes it clear the only reason they didn't return to Bethlehem (home) was because Herod's son was ruler in Judea, so Joseph took his family and "he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth".

Luke's gospel says that Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, staid there a month (not two years) and then immediately returned to Nazareth after presenting the baby Jesus to the temple.

Herod's decree, the wisemen, the star, the flight to Egypt; are all from Matthew's gospel. These elements of the story do not appear in Luke's. Likewise, the census, the trip to Bethlehem, the manger story, the shepards; these all appear in Luke but not Matthew. The only things that both accounts agree on is the virgin birth and that Jesus was born at Bethlehem. Other than that, they are completely different stories.

[Just_A_Guy]

Ah, I see your point re the end of Matthew 2 and "turning aside".

I'm still unconvinced that Matthew's account positively rules out Joseph's and/or Mary's origins as being Nazarene. All it really implies is that after returning from Egypt Joseph first thought to live somewhere in Judea. That doesn't mean Joseph and Mary were from there; it could just as easily mean that while in Egypt they determined that Jesus should be brought up in close proximity to Jerusalem.

That said, I'm not sure that the Church's official position is that the only factual errors in the Bible came through mistranslations. I'm very comfortable with the idea that the original authors of the Bible wrote the truth as they understood it, but that some portions of the Bible were written based on either misinterpretation of a revelation or else unreliable hearsay.

[Justice]

Enlil-An, I guess the important question is what's the take home lesson you're trying present us with?

[Enlil-An]

There are a lot of problems with Matthew's account. For one thing, the idea that Joseph would avoid Judea by turning aside into Galilee because the new ruler of Judea was Archelaus, a son of Herod is not historically viable because the ruler of Galilee at the time was Herod Antipus (another son of Herod).

Second, many of the prophecies Matthew quotes to support the authenticity of his story were never recognized as messianic prophecies, are often taken out of context, and are quoted from the Greek Septuigent (not from the original Hebrew) and don't mean what he says they mean when taken from the original Hebrew writings.

For example, Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 to show that the virgin birth was predicted in scripture. The problem is that the scripture he quotes is the Greek translation which uses the word parthenos (an ambiguous Greek word meaning either "young girl" or "virgin"). The original Hebrew reading uses the word aalmah which simply means "young girl" (the Hebrew word for "virgin" is betulah) and would not be construed by anyone reading Hebrew to mean that a baby would be born from a virgin.

Also, Matthew claims that it was "spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene" when no such prophecy in ancient scripture exists. I'm sure that we could suppose (like the Bible Dictionary does) that this prophecy exists in one of the lost books of scripture but if the Jews of Matthew's day had a copy of this lost book then why do the Jews of John's gospel have such a problem with Jesus coming from Nazareth. In one case (John 7:52), when Nicodemus tries to stick up for Jesus, the Pharisees retort, "Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet."

I think if Matthew believed that Joseph and Mary originally came from Nazareth, the wording in his gospel would not be, "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth" after returning to Israel from Egypt.

The historians' arguement is that the fact that Jesus was from Nazareth was always an embarassment to early followers of Jesus (who believed him to be the Messiah) because Jewish tradition held that the Messiah would come out of Bethlehem. So Matthew and Luke, determined to make Jesus the legitimite Messiah of the Jews, concocted their own accounts (or borrowed stories from two seperate oral traditions) of how Jesus was both from Bethlehem and Nazareth (John didn't care where Jesus was from and one of the major themes of his gospel is that if you're worried about where Jesus comes from, you won't be able to recognize him for what he really is) and came up with two totally different renditions.

It doesn't bother me so much to believe that the Bible was originally written (or copied) by unenlightened men who were writing several years after the original stories were written. But many of the Joseph Smith translations seem to be completely oblivious to these discrepencies and the fact that all the LDS student manuals and scripture commentaries I've ever read keep trying to force these two birth narratives to fit together bothers me because now I feel that nothing can be taken at face value anymore, even if it comes from a general authority...which is a disturbing thought...

[Justice]

So, sum up in one sentence what you're trying to say you gather from all this. I'm a bit slower than most, and I still don't really know what you're trying to say.

[bytebear]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

My question is, has anyone else here noticed this and how do we reconcile it with the Church's position that the Bible is the word of God (originally written by inspired men) and that the only errors in it are mistranlations and interpolations here and there?

How do you know that either book isn't mistranslated? But, from what I understand, the story of Christ's birth was transferred orally before it was ever written down. Clearly neither Luke nor Matthew were witnesses to the events, so they are telling the story from what they know. There are other apocrophal versions out there as well that were not canonized. Why do we accept the gospes as they exist? Because that is what we have. Joseph Smith asked God about apocraphal writings and the Lord told him they had some truth, but were not vital to the church. Similarly, I think small discrepancies in the Bible are also not all that important, and we may not ever know the complete story of Jesus' birth and upbringing until we meet him and find out first hand.

[Enlil-An]

So, sum up in one sentence what you're trying to say you gather from all this. I'm a bit slower than most, and I still don't really know what you're trying to say.

The last paragraph of my last post sums it up.

I think small discrepancies in the Bible are also not all that important, and we may not ever know the complete story of Jesus' birth and upbringing until we meet him and find out first hand.

Little discrepancies don't bother me but whole narratives that completely contradict eachother call the entire gospel(s) into question. There are other things in the gospels which can't be reconciled and the more one sees them the more one starts looking at the New Testament as a very flawed (human) book full of conflicting views of doctrine and history.

It would bother me less if LDS scholars would touch on these things instead of shying away from them. I just don't understand the Church's literalist approach to the Bible.

[bytebear]

Originally Posted by Enlil-An

The last paragraph of my last post sums it up.

Little discrepancies don't bother me but whole narratives that completely contradict eachother call the entire gospel(s) into question. There are other things in the gospels which can't be reconciled and the more one sees them the more one starts looking at the New Testament as a very flawed (human) book full of conflicting views of doctrine and history.

It would bother me less if LDS scholars would touch on these things instead of shying away from them. I just don't understand the Church's literalist approach to the Bible.

I don't understand your believe that the chruch has a literalist approach to the Bible. The chruch does not believe in inerrancy of the Bible as many other Christians do. They acknowledge that the authors may be mistaken or input opinion. For example, Paul says women shoud not speak in church. I believe that was his opinion, and not doctrine. Yet it is canonized. The church does not pick and choose what parts of the Bible to accept or reject (although I believe the Lord told Smith that the Song of Solomon was not scripturally sound). Since there is no modern doctrine to clarify the events of Christ's birth, we can only come to our own conclusions. So, I have no problem with Luke recounting the story differently that Matthew, because they may have heard and/or understood the story differently.

What about the versions of the First Vision? Some people told the story slightly differently, and sometimes even contradictory, but it was to their understanding. I am sure if you told the story, you might tell it differently too, but that doesn't mean the story is false.

The bigger point is this: God does not give us all the answers. He presents truth through imperfect means, and it is up to us to decide through the witness of the Holy Ghost what truth is. You should not just read the Bible blindly and believe it. You should seek out truth, and confirm it through study and prayer.