>>Mitch, I came across your post and I'd like to comment. I hope you don't mind.<<
Of course not. I'd like to address the birth narratives for now and save Isaiah for later. But first, I'd like to tell a story.
When I was much younger, I once stayed out past my curfew with my friend, Todd. When I arrived home (Todd was with me), we were confronted by my mother with the question: "Where have you been?". I answered, "Mike's house", while Todd simulaeneously answered "The movies". We looked at each other, then I said "We were at Mike's house, then we went to the movies". As you can probably guess, we were at neither the movies or Mike's house, but rather at the house of a friend whom I had been forbidden to hang out with by my parents, and our conflicting accounts were fiction. I was lucky that I had harmonized them quickly or I might have gotten in trouble.
The outline you give of the birth narratives is the most common harmonization of them that I have heard. We have from the gospels two entirely different stories, and we put them together with a clever: "Well, they both happened!". For the bulk of the narratives, this type of harmonization is possible, if not probable.
Why not probable?
First let's look at just how different these stories are:
In Matthew, we have no shepherd's, no manger, no census.
In Luke, we have no magi (wise men), no gold, frankencense, and myrr, no slaughter of the innocents, no fleeing to Egypt.
In fact, the only commonality between the two stories seems to be a virgin birth foretold by angels, born in bethlehem, ended up in nazareth.
Next, let's look at some oddities that occur when you try to harmonize these stories:
In Luke, everybody but Mary was astonished at the shepherd's news that Jesus was to be a savior (2:18). But in Matthew an Angel had already debriefed Joseph on the situation (1:21).
In Luke, it is clear that Joseph and Mary are from Nazareth already at the time of the birth, "their own city" (2:39). But Matthew has him starting out in Bethlehem, fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod, then returning to the land of Israel. But Joseph is still afraid of the new King Archelaus, so he get's instructed in a dream to go to Nazareth, where he "settled" (2:21-23).
In Luke, Joseph and Mary take Jesus after his birth every year to Jerusalem for the passover festival (2:41). But in Matthew (2:22) Joseph was afraid to go there.
Next, let's look at what we can find in secular documents to corroborate these stories:
Matthew 2:1 tells us that Jesus was born when Herod was king. We know that this was Herod the Great because Matthew mentions his successor, Archelaus, in 2:22. Herod the Great ruled from 37BC to 4BC, when he died. If we read Matthew's story closely we see that Jesus was probably born about 2 years prior to Herod's death, so let's call it 6BC.
Luke tells us that Jesus was born during the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria (2:2). This is not an incidental to the story, as the census that Quirinius called was the whole reason Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem. When was Quirinius made Governor? It was in 6AD when Archelaus was removed from office. The census was taken so that Rome could have an accounting of the assets of his office when he first stepped in.
Josephus confirms these datings in his writings. From Antiquities 17:355
Archelaus's country was assigned to Syria for purposes of paying tribute, an Quirinius, a man of highest rank, was sent by Caesar to take a census of things in Syria and to make an account of Archelaus's estate.
From Antiquities 18:1-2
Quirinius was a man of the Senate, who had held other offices, and after going through them all achieved the highest rank. He had a great reputation for other reasons, too. He arrived in Syria with some others, for he was sent by Caesar as a governor, and to be an assessor of their worth. Coponius, who held the rank of knight, was sent along with him to take total command over the Jews. And Quirinius also went to Judaea, since it became part of Syria, to take a census of their worth and to make an account of the possessions of Archelaus.
Josephus also confirms that Archelaus rules for 10 years before he is disposed of, in Antiquities 17:342-344
In the tenth year of Archelaus's government the leading men in Judaea and Samaria could not endure his cruelty and tyranny and accused him before Caesar...and when Caesar heard this, he went into a rage...and sent Archelaus into exile...to Vienna, and took away his property.
And in Antiquities 18:26, Josephus also confirms again the Quirinius takes a census to account for Archelaus' old property
Quirinius made an account of Archelaus' property and finished conducting the census, which happened in the thirty-seventh year after Caesar's defeat of Antony at Actium.
Now, without quibbling too much about dates, it should be very clear that Quirinius became governor and took a census years after Herod the Great was dead. Both of these historical people figure prominently in the gospel accounts, Herod in Matthew, and Quirinius in Luke. This is a very clear contradiction unless you assume that a long-dead Herod was persecuting the baby Jesus.
I would hope that the above is enough to convince you that the two birth narratives are irreconcilably at odds. I'd be happy to answer any possible objections you might have. But next, we should look at the context of the writings of the stories:
But first, and old joke:
Four college freshmen were up late studying for a physics final one night, and subsequently overslept, missing the test. They approached their professor after class and told him that they had suffered a flat tire on their car, and asked to be allowed a make-up exam the next day. The professor agreed.
The next day the students came to take the test and found that they had been seated each in different corners of the room. The test before them had only one question on it: "Which tire was flat?".
Both Matthew and Luke were written close to the same time, using the Gospel of Mark as a source. It is not surprising to find that their narratives match pretty well with Mark's for most of Jesus life. However, there are two places where they diverge: prior to Jesus' ministry (including his birth), and after finding the empty tomb. Keeping this in mind, it is easy to see why Matthew and Luke don't match in their birth narratives... they couldn't use Mark as a source! It is interesting to note that the last 12 verses of Mark (16:9-20) were not included in the original document, a later addition. Ask me about that on another post if you want details.
Also addressing context, keep in mind that the main points on which Matthew and Luke do agree are taken from old testament scripture: Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the virgin birth (although this was also probably helped by the pagan traditions of virgin births for their man/gods).
Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to cover most of the main issues.
-Mitch |
