https://ehrmanblog.org/why-it-didn't-hap ... sus-birth/
In the previous post I began to discuss (as a review for many readers of the blog) the historical problems with the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. The point of the discussion is that the stories cannot be accepted as historically accurate. This is a huge issue mainly for fundamentalist Christians and conservative evangelicals – and those they have managed to persuade that if a story does not describe what actually happened, then it is worthless and should simply be thrown out.
For others – whether theologians, pastors, parishioners, or simply lay-folk interested in Christianity – the stories are important for other reasons, for example in the ideas they are trying to convey.
In any event, here is the second post dealing with the historical problems that arise when you compare the two accounts to one another.
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It may be possible to reconcile these accounts if you work hard enough at it. I suppose you’d have to say that after Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth, as in Luke, they decided to move into a house in Bethlehem, as in Matthew, and a year or so later the wise men arrived, leading to the flight to Egypt, and a later decision, then, to relocate again to Nazareth. But if that is the way you choose to read the two accounts, you should realize that what you’ve done is create your own “meta-narrative” — one not found in any of the Gospels. That is, you have decided to write a Gospel of your own!
Moreover, this approach doesn’t solve other historical problems posed by the texts, problems that appear nearly insurmountable, no matter how many meta-narratives one decides to create.
For purposes of illustration, I’ll focus on the problems of Luke (although Matthew also has a few: how exactly, for example, does a star stop over a particular house?). Let’s start with the census. We know a lot about the reign of Caesar Augustus from the writings of historians, philosophers, essayists, poets, and others living about that time. In none of these writings, including an account written by Caesar August himself about his own reign, is there a solitary word of any empire-wide census. And indeed how could there have been one? Think about it for a second: are we to imagine the entire Roman Empire uprooting for a weekend in order to register for a census? Joseph returns to the town of Bethlehem because he’s from the lineage of David. But King David lived a thousand years earlier. Everyone in the empire is returning to the home of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier? How is that possible? How would people know where to go? If you had to go register to vote in the town your ancestors came from a thousand years ago, where would you go?!? And are we to imagine that this massive migration of millions of people, all over the empire, took place without any other author from the period so much as mentioning it?
There are other historical problems with the account. We know for instance — from the Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, and several inscriptions – that Quirinius was indeed the governor of Syria. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until ten years after King Herod had died – even though Luke makes their rules contemporaneous.
But enough has been said to make my point. Not only do the two accounts of Jesus’ birth stand at odds with one another, they are also not historically credible on their own terms.
What then do we do with the stories? Probably the best thing to do with them is to consider what they emphasize. They are not meant to convey precise history lessons for those of us interested in ancient times. Both Matthew and Luke – but in different ways – stress a couple of fundamental points in their accounts of Jesus’ birth: his mother was a virgin and he was born in Bethlehem. What matters in these stories are these basic points. Even though he was born, his birth was not normal; and even though he came from Nazareth, he was born in Bethlehem.
The importance of the first point is fairly obvious: it shows that even though Jesus was like the rest of us, he was also different. His mother was a virgin; his father was God himself. This point is especially stressed by Luke (see Luke 1:35; Matthew emphasizes that Jesus was born of a virgin because the Scriptures predicted he would be; Matt. 1:23, quoting Isa. 7:14). The importance of the second point is obvious only if you are already intimately familiar with the Jewish Scriptures. For the Hebrew prophet Micah indicated that a savior of Israel would come from Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2). Both Gospel writers knew this prophecy – Matthew explicitly quotes it (Matt. 2:6). But both also knew that Jesus came from Nazareth (see also Mark 1:9; 6:1; John 1:45-46). How could he be the Savior, if he came from Nazareth? Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was the Savior. And so, for them, even though he came from Nazareth, he was actually born in Bethlehem. But the ways they both get him born in Bethlehem stand at odds with one another and with the historical record that has come down to us from antiquity.
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I have been making the point that historical accuracy is certainly important for historians, but that it may *not* be the most important thing about biblical stories for other people. I’ve been trying to explain this point because I am setting up my explanation of what I came to believe when I stopped being a conservative evangelical who thought that every word of the Bible had to be literally true. I came to a different view of the Bible. I don’t hold that later, different view any more, for other reasons. But to explain how I became a liberal Christian, and stayed that way for years, this is the back story.