According to Luke, Jesus' parents took him back to Nazareth when he was just over a month old, whereas according to Matthew the family lived in Bethlehem for two years before moving to Egypt and then to Nazareth. This discrepancy simply cannot be reconciled.
For those who hold to the inerrancy of the Bible, you are like the black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail...."It's just a flesh wound...!!"
2007-12-21 14:27:24 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
"When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord [cf. 2:22-24,27], they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong" (2:39,40a, NIV). So Joseph, Mary, and Jesus spent little more than a month in Bethlehem before returning to Nazareth.
Matthew's account, on the other hand, is quite different. By the time the Magi from the east arrived to worship the infant Jesus, two years had elapsed since his birth (2:7,16). The Magi found the young Jesus and his mother Mary in their house (2:11). "When they had gone" (v. 13, NIV), Joseph was warned by an angel in a dream that Herod would try to have Jesus killed, so he took the family to Egypt (2:13-18) prior to moving to Nazareth (2:19-23).
What say you to that, Father?
2007-12-21 14:52:13 · update #1
He was able to do both, it was a miracle.
2007-12-21 14:30:45 · answer #1 · answered by Buke 4 · 2⤊ 2⤋
According to Luke, Jesus' parents took him back to Nazareth when he was just over a month old, whereas according to Matthew the family lived in Bethlehem for two years before moving to Egypt and then to Nazareth.
Really? All I see is that they went back to Nazareth after about 40 days. It doesn't say that they stayed there does it? Since Bethlehem was the town where Joseph had to go to to participate in the census it could easily be that they went back to Nazareth to visit Mary's family and then went to Bethlehem where Joseph might have had family. The Bible doesn't say. It does say that after they were coming back from Egypt Joseph apparently changed his mind about where they were going to live and went to Nazareth.
Matthew 2:19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead." 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."
2007-12-21 22:43:06 · answer #2 · answered by Martin S 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Luke does not say that Jesus returned with His parents to Nazareth when He was a month old. It says that they returned when the laws of Father God had been done. The laws of Father God required that prophecy be fulfilled. Therefore Joseph and his family came up from Egypt after Bethlehem. I am sure that the authors of the Gospels did not want to keep repeating each other as long as the facts were there.
2007-12-21 22:39:58 · answer #3 · answered by martha d 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Luke didn't talk about the Magi. And Matthew didn't talk about Egypt. It does not mean that there were no Magi, and that they did not go to Egypt. I would imagine that they would go to Nazareth in order to get what they could for the trip to Egypt, and also to show the new baby to the relatives and what friends they had.
But neither account refuted the other. They merely didn't talk about the same things. So again, I do not see your point in this one either. Other than, this is what many Atheists think is proof of errancy, when it is actually a lack of thinking. Atheists WANT to believe that the stories are not the same. It does not, by this account, mean that they are right about it.
That being said, I still believe that the Bible is not inerrant.
2007-12-21 23:01:00 · answer #4 · answered by Christian Sinner 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is no inconsistencies, but here how it looks according to you:
According to Matthew Chapter 2 - The infant Christ was taken into Egypt
According to Luke Chapter 2 - The infant Christ was not taken into Egypt
However, the account of Luke does NOT state that he was NOT taken to Egypt and none accounts are inclusive in content.
Here is a possible solution:
Journey of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem
Birth of Christ
Presentation in the Temple
Return to Bethlehem
Flight into Egypt
Return to settle in Nazareth
Both accounts agree with that view. If you consider it on a logical point of view, this is acceptable solution. Therefore, there are no inconsistencies.
2007-12-21 22:42:45 · answer #5 · answered by checkmath 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When the Wise men found Jesus he as already 18 months old. It was not until they were planning on returning to Herod that God told them in a dream to go another way. So when Herod discovered that the Wise men were not going to tell him where Jesus was that he decided to kill every male child 2 years and younger. Now Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were living in Nazareth at this point. But God told Joseph in a dream to go to Egypt because Jesus' life was in danger. So yes they first lived in Nazareth until Jesus was around 2 years old but then they lived in Egypt until Herod died and then they returned to Nazareth.
2007-12-21 22:39:49 · answer #6 · answered by zoril 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No discrepancy, Jesus lived in all these places during that period. The Bible clearly spells out they were traveling. What is so hard to understand about that?
Also note that Bethlehem is only ten Kilometers northwest of Nazareth. Nazareth is the main town and Bethlehem is a suburb. For example many people that live in a community just outside of L.A. will still say they are from L.A. because that is the primary city. Bethlehem is just a satellite village of Nazareth.
Gotcha! Nice try however. And you better check that flesh wound.
2007-12-21 22:32:11 · answer #7 · answered by mikearion 4 · 1⤊ 2⤋
I don't hold to inerrancy by any means - I adhere to redaction criticism. But even with that in mind, there is no reason to assume that Jesus spent years in Bethlehem and Egypt before returning to Nazareth. According to conventional scholarship, Herod died with weeks of the birth of Christ. "Egypt" was probably Gaza, just miles south of Bethlehem, and the stay probably lasted just over a month. The popular image of Jesus camping out along the Nile with the Pyramids of Giza in the backdrop is a modern fantasy.
2007-12-21 22:38:01 · answer #8 · answered by NONAME 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Egypt.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/135/story_13569_1.html
2007-12-21 22:30:32 · answer #9 · answered by Justsyd 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Well, it says in fulfillment of prophecy that "Out of Egypt I have called My Son", and from there He apparently grew up in Nazareth. Dude, take a chill-pill for all these "simply cannot be reconciled" questions. You're putting too much effort into your disbelief, and it's really showing.
2007-12-21 22:38:25 · answer #10 · answered by Wired 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Tibet, if Nicholas Notovich is to be believed, although it appears at some point he took a holiday with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea to Britain and built a church in Glastonbury.
2007-12-21 22:34:51 · answer #11 · answered by Jonathan 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋