Was Jesus Really Born in Bethlehem?

Summary

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman

Episode: Was Jesus Really Born in Bethlehem?

Date: December 10, 2024
Host: Megan Lewis
Guest: Dr. Bart Ehrman

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Bart Ehrman and host Megan Lewis examine the longstanding tradition that Jesus was born in Bethlehem but raised in Nazareth. They explore the historical plausibility of the Gospel nativity stories and dissect why the Gospel writers, especially Matthew and Luke, sought to place Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. The discussion uncovers contradictions and theological motivations in the birth narratives, highlights the use of Hebrew Bible prophecies, and addresses how later traditions expanded on the New Testament accounts. The episode offers valuable insights into the methods of historical analysis applied to the Gospels and what these discrepancies reveal about early Christian beliefs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bethlehem vs. Nazareth – Why the Contradiction?

• 00:55-04:20 – Bart recalls his early assumptions about Jesus’ birth and his shift during graduate school after noticing contradictions between Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ origins.
  • Bart Ehrman [03:08]:
    "For most people they're the same question, but for me, they're two different questions. The why he was born in Bethlehem ... I simply assumed that Matthew was right that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem... But unfortunately, his parents lived in Nazareth and so that somehow he had to be born there."
  • The "how" is handled very differently in the two Gospels.

Matthew’s Version

• 04:26-06:24 – Matthew's Gospel presents Joseph and Mary as residents of Bethlehem.
  • The wise men visit them in their house (not a manger), and King Herod’s massacre of the innocents leads the family to flee to Egypt. On returning, they settle in Nazareth only because Herod’s son now rules Bethlehem, not because they originally lived in Nazareth.

Luke’s Version

• In contrast, Luke begins with Joseph and Mary residing in Nazareth.
• A (historically dubious) empire-wide census forces them to travel to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born. After a short stay, they return directly to Nazareth.

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2. Historical Plausibility and Narrative Contradictions

Problems with Luke’s Account

• 06:24-09:47 – The census described by Luke is historically unsupported:
  • No Roman census forced people to return to ancestral towns dating back a thousand years.
  • Quirinius was not governor of Syria at the time when Herod was king.
  • The idea of a heavily pregnant woman making a 100-mile journey is highly implausible.
  • Bart Ehrman [08:27]: "It doesn't say she walked, but I don't know what options there were... People of their socioeconomic class, rural people who are living in a small hamlet, Nazareth, almost certainly didn't have livestock."
• Bart Ehrman [10:01]: "The early Christians generally understood that Jesus came into the world in a way that fulfilled scripture... they started looking through the Hebrew Bible to find places that talked about a future ruler of Israel."

Why Did Jesus Need to Be Born in Bethlehem?

• To fulfill prophecy — particularly Micah 5:2, interpreted by early Christians to mean the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. Both stories are constructed to align Jesus’ birth with this perceived scriptural necessity.

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3. Further Implausibility and Literary Motives

• 13:10-15:55 – Bart details further difficulties:
  • The logistics of an empire-wide census are beyond belief.
  • The genealogical requirement to register in a long-dead ancestor's birthplace is improbable.
  • No evidence such a census ever took place.
  • Bart Ehrman [13:10]: "If everybody is registering where they can trace their family line back a thousand years and everybody in the Roman Empire is doing that... there are 60 million people who are traveling to their homes from a thousand years earlier. Really?"
• Bart concludes these are literary fictions designed to show Jesus fulfilling scripture, not factual history.

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4. Other Accounts and Alternative Locations

• 16:56-19:01 – Megan asks about non-canonical stories:
  • Bart Ehrman [17:06]:
    "We definitely have other accounts of Jesus birth outside the New Testament. We don't have any that are independent of the New Testament."
  • The Proto-Gospel of James places Jesus' birth in a cave outside Bethlehem; later, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew expands on this. But these are not independent traditions.

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5. Nazareth as “Nowhere” and the Motif Problem

• 19:01-20:40 – There are no obvious non-theological reasons Jesus would be born anywhere but Nazareth; the Gospel of John even reflects how strange it seemed for greatness to come from Nazareth.
  • Nazareth wasn't mentioned in the Old Testament, the works of Josephus, or ancient maps.
• Bethlehem is chosen for prestige (associated with King David and prophecy), which made narrative sense for those trying to establish Jesus' messianic credentials.

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6. Incompatibility of Matthew and Luke’s Stories

• 21:00-27:46 – The hosts explore the irreconcilable differences between the two Gospels’ narratives:
  • In Luke, the family returns to Nazareth within 40 days after circumcision and purification in Jerusalem.
  • In Matthew, the family flees to Egypt, stays for years, and only settles in Nazareth after Herod’s death.
  • Attempts to harmonize the two debase their individual theological messages.
  • Bart Ehrman [26:08]: "You just don't talk that way... These ways of reconciling things, it's just the only reason to think that... is because you don't think there can be a contradiction. And if you don't think there can be a contradiction, you've got to make sure there's no contradiction. And so you just start making stuff up."

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7. Distinct Theological Agendas

• 27:46-29:58 – Each Gospel has its own message:
  • Matthew: Stresses fulfillment of prophecy and parallels between Jesus and Moses (flight to Egypt, slaughter of innocents, out of Egypt comes the savior).
    • Bart Ehrman [27:55]:
      "When you read Matthew's narrative of Jesus, it's constructed in order to show that Jesus was the new Moses... you're not looking at what Matthew's trying to tell you about Jesus."
  • Luke: Constructs a gentler story without Herod’s violence, focused on diligent observance of Jewish law and ritual.

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8. Historical Investigation vs. Literary Appreciation

• 30:04-30:57 – Bart concludes that contradictions need not threaten one’s appreciation of the Bible. Understanding each author’s intent is key, rather than trying to mash the stories together or worrying about historical “accuracy.”
  • Bart Ehrman [30:04]: "People don't need to be afraid of these contradictions. If you're interested in knowing what a book says... you need to interpret it for what it says. And if it contradicts some other book... you might want to know... what really happened. But also you're reading story. And if you don't understand the story, what's the point of reading it?"

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [13:10] Bart Ehrman:
  "If everybody is registering where they can trace their family line back a thousand years... there are 60 million people who are traveling to their homes from a thousand years earlier. Really?"
• [21:00] Megan Lewis:
  "...kind of like having, instead of having Spider-Man be living in New York City, which is this huge impressive place, having him in like, I don't know, Hagersville Mountains, Burlington, Kansas..."
• [26:08] Bart Ehrman:
  "You just don't talk that way... And so like, yeah, I just think, you know, these ways of reconciling things, it's just the only reason to think that the only reason is because you don't think there can be a contradiction. And if you don't think there can be a contradiction, you've got to make sure there's no contradiction."
• [30:04] Bart Ehrman:
  "People don't need to be afraid of these contradictions... The meaning of the Bible is its meaning. It isn't like whether this happened or not. It's what this author is trying to say."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:55 – Introduction to the Bethlehem and Nazareth question
• 03:08 – Bart on childhood assumptions vs. scholarly skepticism
• 04:26 – Matthew's narrative breakdown
• 06:24 – Luke's census and its problems
• 08:27 – The impracticality of the journey for pregnant Mary
• 10:01 – Scriptural fulfillment as motive for Bethlehem nativity
• 13:10 – Implausibility of the census logistics
• 16:56 – Non-canonical birth accounts
• 19:01 – Why not just Nazareth? Prestige & ancient perceptions
• 21:00 – John’s take: Nothing good from Nazareth
• 23:02 – Matthew’s theological agenda and literary construction
• 27:46 – Canonical harmonization risks losing Gospel distinctiveness
• 30:04 – Literary meaning vs. historical fact

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Audience Q&A (Selected Highlights)

• Passover and Crucifixion Timing ([34:55-37:03])
  • Jesus’ crucifixion at Passover is multiply attested and historically probable. If it were purely symbolic, Jesus would likely be aligned with Yom Kippur, not Passover.
• Mark’s Abrupt Ending ([37:19-39:36])
  • The original Gospel of Mark likely ended with the women’s fear and silence, with later scribes adding longer endings for closure.
• Theological Novelty of the Trinity ([41:46-43:52])
  • Most pagans likely found Trinitarian doctrine strange; monotheistic tendencies did exist, but not with Christianity’s sophisticated philosophical infrastructure.

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Conclusion

• 43:58-44:39 – Bart recaps that the nativity accounts reflect theological, not strictly historical, concerns. Contradictions reveal the diverse aims of the Gospel writers, cautioning modern readers to appreciate each story’s unique message, instead of prompting fruitless harmonization attempts.

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Summary Takeaways

• The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are irreconcilable; each author crafted their story for theological, not historical, reasons.
• Bethlehem’s role as Jesus’ birthplace is driven by early Christian scriptural interpretation (mainly Micah 5:2), lending messianic credentials.
• Attempts to harmonize conflicting accounts misunderstand the objectives of the Gospel writers and obscure their individual theological messages.
• Examining scriptural contradictions helps modern readers better understand the motivations and beliefs of early Christians and the nature of the Gospels as literary works.

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To explore these topics further, visit bartehrman.com and listen to more episodes of Misquoting Jesus.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Most of us know the story Jesus was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth. Both Matthew and Luke agree on this. But key details raise questions for scholars today. Dr. Bart Ehrman and I dive into why Gospel writers place Jesus birth in Bethlehem. Was it historical fact or shaped by theology? Why does Luke have Mary travel 100 miles while pregnant? And why does Matthew's story send the family fleeing to Egypt? Let's Explore. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, the only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. Bart, hello. How are you doing today?

[A]

I'm doing well, thanks. Yep, Christmas is bearing down upon us. How are you doing?

[B]

Not prepared. Good, but not prepared. Which kind of describes my general state of life to be honest. Not prepared.

[A]

We're doing it in London as we normally do with Sarah's family. We are like tied up until we get in the evening of the 23rd and family's coming to our place. You talk about unprepared. Oh my God. We've let everybody know we're unprepared.

[B]

We will have just arrived. There might be suitcases, right? Excellent. Well, today we are going to be talking about specific detail from the Christmas narratives that is looking at the locations of Nazareth and Bethlehem. Why was Jesus born in one and then moved to another? Really, what is going on there? Then coming up after that we have some news on a recent event Barthes did for the Biblical Scholars Academy which looks at the earliest accounts of Jesus appearance. And then finally we will take some audience questions. I say we. What I mean is I'm going to ask them and Bart is going to answer them.

[A]

He's going to try to answer them.

[B]

I think he normally do A pretty good job, to be honest, so we

[A]

don't edit them out. You know, maybe we should, like, when I say something really cool, we should just like, hey, editor, take that one out, will you?

[B]

I should say we haven't said this. I don't think, like, Bart doesn't know what I'm going to ask him beforehand for the interview. I will send him questions ahead of time and make sure I'm on the right track. But for the listeners questions, I just, like, surprise him with whatever is in the inbox that particular week. So it's always exciting.

[A]

Yeah, it is for me.

[B]

Now then, Bart, when did you first start thinking about why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, or indeed if he was born in Bethlehem?

[A]

Well, yeah, those are two different questions for me. For most people, they're the same question, but for me, they're two different questions. The why he was born in Bethlehem. I simply assumed that Matthew was right that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. So there's this passage in Micah 5 2, one of the old Testament prophets. It doesn't say the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, but it does say that a Savior will come out of Bethlehem. And Matthew says that that's why Jesus had to come from Bethlehem. And so I just assumed that's why. But unfortunately, his parents lived in Nazareth and so that somehow he had to be born there. When did I start wondering if it was right or not is another thing. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I really paid serious attention to the fact that Matthew and Luke get Jesus born there in different ways. They both say he's born there even though he came from Nazareth, but they make it happen in different ways. And one of the stories, Luke's we're going to be talking about it, I think is implausible for how he got there. But it's interesting that you had these two ways that are actually contradictory as well. So one of them is implausible and the two of them are contradictory. And that made me start thinking, yeah, maybe that isn't what happened.

[B]

So could you tell us what the different methods are for getting Jesus to be born in Bethlehem? How do Matthew and Luke deal with

[A]

that in Matthew's Gospel? As I mentioned, I think last time, our last podcast, in Matthew's Gospel, there's nothing to indicate anything other than that's where Joseph and Mary are from. In fact, there are clear indications they are from Bethlehem. That's where they live. One indication is that when the wise men come, they've been on the road for A long time, apparently, because they find Joseph and Mary in a house and King Herod finds out when the star appeared, that started leading them to find Jesus. And based on that, he has the children killed who are two years and under. And so that suggests that when the wise men show up, he hasn't, you know, just been born the day before he's. So they're there. They're in Bethlehem. That's where they live. They're in a house. And even a clearer indication of that is they have to escape from Herod's wrath because Joseph finds out in a dream that Herod will try to kill the boy. And so he takes Jesus and Mary and they go down to Egypt. You know, it's a long journey. They go down there, they stay there till Herod dies, and then they come back to Israel. But we're told that they decide they cannot come back to Bethlehem because now Herod's son Archelaus is the king and he's worse than his dad was. And so they have to relocate. And so then they go to Nazareth. The fact that they planned to go to Bethlehem in Judea is an indication that's where they're from. And so the Nazareth thing is where they end up relocating. It's not where they originally from in Matthew, but in Luke's Gospel, they are from Nazareth. Joseph and Mary, they're from Nazareth. And there's a worldwide census under Caesar Augustus that they have to go register for the census. And it turns out that since Joseph is from the lineage of King David, he has to register where King David was born, which is Bethlehem. And so they make this trip, this hundred mile trip down to Bethlehem, and while they're there, she gives birth and then they return home a month and a half later.

[B]

Would Luke create this census? Was that something that happened regularly in the Roman world? Would that have made sense to his readers?

[A]

Well, it may have made sense to his readers because, you know, Luke's readers are kind of like, you know, people today reading the news, you know, they hear something, they just think, yeah, okay, that's what happened. Most people don't dig very deeply into the kind of reality of the situation. There were censuses in the Roman world, but at that point in time, there had never been a worldwide census. It says it's a worldwide census. And I mean, surely the author doesn't want you to think it's happening in Japan or something. And I think he's got to mean the Roman Empire. Later, a couple centuries later, there were actually, actually attempts to do A world like an empire wide census, but not during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Absolutely not. And moreover, the author, Luke tells us this happened when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Luke also says that this is the time when Herod was the king. So there are all sorts of problems with this all over the map. Maybe we can talk at greater length, but at this point I'll just point out that Quirinius was not the governor of Syria when Herod was the king of, of Judea. He didn't become the governor of Syria for 10 years after that. You got these kind of. We got that. And we're going to notice some other problems with Luke's own narrative. Why does he do all that? Why does he come up with the census if there wasn't one? Well, because he has to get Jesus born in Bethlehem, but he knows he came from Nazareth. Well, how could that possibly happen? Why, if your, if your parents are from Nazareth and why were you born in Bethlehem? He comes up with a story to make it plausible in his readers minds that he actually was born in Bethlehem.

[B]

So a couple of questions based on that. Deal with the first one first. Would it have been plausible to an ancient audience for a heavily pregnant woman to walk 100 miles or a government census? Because having been in the past a very heavily pregnant woman, two things, walking that much is going to bring on labor. And I don't want to walk anywhere when I'm very heavily pregnant. It's very difficult. Would this not have given people some pause?

[A]

Well, it doesn't say she went willingly, so I'm not sure why she had to go at all actually, because it'd be the man who has to register. But I guess he didn't want to leave her alone. But this doesn't seem like a very good choice and. But you know, it doesn't say she walked, but I don't know what options there were. I guess that's probably why they have her riding a donkey in the movies, because it doesn't really make sense. I would say the people of their socioeconomic class, rural people who are living in a small hamlet, Nazareth, almost certainly didn't have like livestock, you know, a donkey they could cry down. So I don't. So I guess you're assuming that they walked. And you know, it's like a lot of stories that you read, a lot of stories that just don't make any sense if you actually kind of push them literally. This is a bit that I think people haven't really thought much about what this would Entail, we assume, you know, she's fully pregnant because she gives birth, you know, when they get there. Sounds like the night they get here, there's no room in the inn. And so they get there and she gives birth. And so, you know, maybe she was seven months and she. He was like. Like maybe it did induce the. But, you know, if it's a hundred miles, which it is from Nazareth to Bethlehem, thereabouts. I mean, I don't know if you walk two miles an hour. I guess if you walk 10 hours a day, yeah, take about a week or so. But I can't imagine the pregnant, fully pregnant women walking 10 hours a day. So I don't know. I don't know an answer to that one. I don't know what. But people read that today and they don't think about it either. And I just think people probably didn't think about it.

[B]

And my second, probably more pertinent question to people who don't have my brain, why exactly does Luke have to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem? Why does Jesus have to be born there? What is wrong with Nazareth?

[A]

Yeah, what's wrong with Nazareth? So I think the deal is, is that the early Christians generally understood that Jesus came into the world in a way that fulfilled scripture, that he was the God's chosen one, the Messiah, and that he was the Savior. So he was special. You know, I think most followers of Jesus came to believe that because of the resurrection, they came to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead. That showed them that he was God's chosen one. That showed them that in some sense he's the Messiah, the future Messiah, the future King of Israel. And so they started looking through the Hebrew Bible to find places that talked about, you know, a future ruler of Israel. And they found these places where, like in Isaiah 7, they thought it refers to the Messiah being born of a virgin. Or Isaiah 53 talking about Messiah being killed for others. Or Micah 5:2, the Messiah is going to come from Bethlehem. You pick, you know, you find places. None of these places, by the way, that I just mentioned, actually uses the term Messiah. So Micah 5:2, that talks about salvation coming out of Bethlehem, there's no reference to Messiah, but followers of Jesus started finding him referred to in the Scriptures and started saying that he fulfilled these scriptures. That is particularly obvious with Matthew's Gospel because he comes out and points it all out. You know, this happened to fulfill the scripture. This happened to the Scripture. And he quotes these passages. Luke doesn't do it that way. So he does it in some ways he does it more subtly and kind of makes it more interesting. You know what you ask reading why is he getting born of Bethlehem? Luke doesn't tell you, but he's writing for a Christian audience, knows full well why he gets born of Bethlehem. That's what the understanding of Micah, chapter 5, verse 2 in Christian circles.

[B]

Thank you very much. We're going to take a very brief break and then we'll be back to continue our conversation on why on earth Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Think you've got Jesus parables all figured out? Think again. These aren't just simplistic, moralistic tales. They're some of the most enigmatic and provocative teachings in all of scripture. But if you're only seeing them through a modern lens, you're missing half the story. Rediscover these stories as they were originally understood in their historical and cultural context with New Testament and Jewish studies scholar Dr. Amy Jill Levine. In her intriguing course the Parables of Jewish Insights into Gospel Ethics, Humor and Provocation, you'll explore the teachings of Jesus, examining the social, ethical and economic implications that are often overlooked. Today, if you're ready to dive into the real meaning behind the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and more, this four lecture series will take you deeper than you've ever gone before. Visit barterman.com forward/parables that's P A R A B L E S to learn more or sign up today. And don't forget to use discount code mjpodcast for a special offer. So before we had our break, you were talking about the implausibility of Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem to give birth and why it was necessary for that to happen. Are there other implausibilities in Luke's account that maybe aren't included in Matthew?

[A]

Yeah, I'd say they're bigger ones. They're the ones that are really implausible. The Mary thing traveling seems like kind of unlikely, but you know, it's possible. Of course it's possible. These other things, man, they don't strike me as particularly possible. The idea that Caesar Augustus taxed the entire Roman Empire. The reason you take a census in the ancient world either was to figure out how many soldier age males there are so you can know how large your armies can be. That's one major reason. And the second reason is for taxation purposes. So you realize you know where you can get the tax revenues from depends on the census. So there's this census and it's the entire world we're told, which again, I, you know, must mean the Roman Empire. The thing is that Joseph has to go to Bethlehem because he's from the lineage of David, who was the king. And so apparently you have to go to where your lineage started. Well, that's a little bit weird on a number of accounts. One thing is David himself had a lineage. Why do you start with David? Why not go to his great great grandfather? Where was he born, you know, that kind of thing. So there's something about David that is important. Secondly, David lived a thousand years before Joseph. So if everybody is registering where they can trace their family line back a thousand years and everybody in the Roman Empire is doing that, we're talking about a 60 million person empire. There are 60 million people who are traveling to their homes from a thousand years earlier. Really? And not only that, but how do they know where their ancestor from a thousand years came from? I have no idea where my great great grandfather was born. And I've got technology. People always seem to think that Jews, like, kept genealogies. Like every Jewish family had these scrolls with their genealogy. No, that's not true. It's not true. How do you even know where somebody was born? And just even today, when we theoretically could figure out, I guess. But if somebody asks you, you know, tells you we got this new government coming in, and yeah, I got a new tax here from this government, and all right, everybody in America, you got to go register for where your ancestors came a thousand years ago. All right, where are you going to go? You have no idea. But everybody in the Roman Empire seems to know. And so, like they. And so it just is implausible, especially because, of course, there's no record of that happening at all. No record of a census under Caesar Augustus, no way that Quirinius could have governor if Herod was the king. You just kind of go down the list. The whole thing's implausible. You say, why did Luke give us this story? Because it's a story. It's not history. It's a story. And the story is meant to show that Jesus really did fulfill the scriptures. He was born in Bethlehem, even though everyone knew that he came from Nazareth. So it's a literary fiction. It's not a historical event.

[B]

Do you think, or is it possible that Luke included some of these details like Quirinus being governor of Syria and Herod being the king to give historical gravitas to what he was saying? Or is it more window dressing to provide atmosphere?

[A]

I think it's both, but it's certainly Trying to ground it in history, which Luke does. And you think, well, yeah, but somebody could check, right? Didn't they know? No. I mean if I tell my students that something happened in Nixon's administration, they have to go look up Nixon. I mean, they don't know. I mean these are people from. Vietnam is like ancient history. So you could say things that they have no clue. I mean 911 was in, you know, it was 23 years ago. People just don't, you know, they don't check their history books and they don't even have books in the ancient world. Many, they don't have library many. And most people can read. And so like you say something like that and almost nobody's going to notice. Probably nobody notices or even thinks to look.

[B]

Do we have. And I don't know what the answer to this is, so this is going to be really interesting. Do we have non canonical stories about Jesus birth that give alternative birth locations?

[A]

Yeah, no, that's a good question. We definitely have other accounts of Jesus birth outside the New Testament. We don't have any that are independent of the New Testament. So our later accounts are all based on elaborating stuff going on in Matthew and Luke. The two most important accounts. The first one is called the Proto Gospel of James that scholars prefer to give in the Latin title because that shows you're sophisticated. And so we call it the Protevangeliyem Jacobi. So it means the Proto Gospel James.

[B]

Much easier to say as well.

[A]

Yeah, so I tell my students, you know, learn a few of these phrases because then you'll show your parents, you know, that they're spending their tuition money wisely. Protevangeliucobi the Proto Gospel is because most of this gospel is talking about the events leading up to Jesus birth, but the birth itself is narrated in a spectacular way. I guess we've had an episode or two on this, but it is in Bethlehem rather it's outside of Bethlehem before they get there. Mary goes into labor and Joseph finds a cave for her to give birth in so she can do it in private. But it's outside of Bethlehem, not actually in Bethlehem, which is interesting. That account was more popular in the eastern part of Christianity and the Greek speaking part of Christianity in the early centuries. The more popular account a little bit later is in the western part, Latin speaking, which is called the Gospel of Pseudo Matthew, which is a kind of an expansion of the Proto Gospel of James. But it also has these interesting stories. So we do have stories, but they're not independent of each other.

[B]

So are there any reasons, aside from the theological reasons that we've already talked about for Jesus to have been born anywhere other than Nazareth? Did women regularly travel maybe to see family and give birth in their family homes? Or, or is this just an entirely fictional account because of the theological reasons?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's a fictional account because I think both Matthew and Luke are confronted with a problem that they believe that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem because of the prophecy of Micah 5, but they know that he came from Nazareth and so they've got to get him there. They both come up with ways of doing it, but they get get it done in very different contradictory ways. You see what part of the problem is actually in a different gosp Gospel, the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, Jesus, there's no account of his birth, nothing about his mother being a virgin. But John, like the Gospel of Mark says that Jesus came from Nazareth. And in John's Gospel it ends up being a kind of an issue because people are saying what good can come out of Nazareth? How can anything good come out of Nazareth? And it's making fun of Nazareth. And the reason people would make fun of Nazareth is, well, people who had heard of it is because almost nobody else had heard of it. It was a little one horse town that nobody. It wasn't even a one horse town. I mean it was a little hamlet that is not mentioned in the Old Testament. It's not mentioned in the writings of Josephus, who gives us an extensive history of that part of the world of Israel at the time. It's not on any map. I mean it's a no place place. If you want to say, you know, where the Savior of the world came from, you know, where did the Son of God get born? You're not going to say Nazareth. You might, you know, you might say Jerusalem, capital city or Bethlehem because of Micah 5, maybe say Rome because it's the capital of the emperor. You come up with something spectacular, you don't come up with Nazareth. And so people I think were trying to explain how it is the Son of God came from Nazareth. Well, he was actually born in Bethlehem.

[B]

It seems kind of like having, instead of having Spider man be living in New York City, which is this huge impressive place, having him in like, I don't know, Hagersville Mountains, Burlington, Kansas, where

[A]

my mom came from. Not likely. Spider man, come on, man.

[B]

So if there are all of these reasons for Jesus having been born in Bethlehem, I wanted to ask why Matthew took the route he did to get him from Bethlehem to Nazareth. Luke takes a pretty direct route. They just go home. Why did Matthew include the slaughter of innocents and the fleeing to Egypt and all of that additional stuff?

[A]

Well, it's interesting on a number of levels. One is that it contradicts Luke for reasons we'll probably talk about in a second. So it's a contradiction with Luke about how Matthew does it. Why does Matthew do it throughout his account, the first two chapters of Matthew, as I pointed out, Matthew stresses that everything happens in order to fulfill Scripture. It begins with a genealogy that traces Jesus line back to King David. He's supposed to be a son of David, and traces him back to Abraham to show that he's actually Jewish. He goes back to the father of the Jews. And so this is all part of scripture being fulfilled here. But then, you know, he's born of a virgin. She marries a Virgin because Isaiah 7:14 said he had to be born a virgin Bethlehem, because of Micah, chapter five, verse two. You kind of go down the list. He says all of this. He says to fulfill scripture. And one of the scriptures that he quotes is that out of Egypt have I called my son. This is Hosea 11:1, the Prophet Hosea in the Old Testament just read him, it's clear as day. He's talking about the Exodus event under Moses where the son of God, Israel is taken out of Egypt. God saves them from their slavery before giving them the promised land. And so out of Egypt have I called my son. Matthew says that is fulfilled with Jesus who comes up out of Egypt. It's another way of fulfilling Scripture. The way the sequence works is Matthew has to figure out how to get him raised to Nazareth. If his parents came from Bethlehem, he has to figure out how to do it because everybody knows he came from Nazareth. So how do you get him there? Well, you come up with a story about a king trying to slaughter him and he escapes. He escapes down to Egypt. And then when the king dies, he goes and resettle where he was because another king's there. So he goes up to Nazareth.

[B]

Is it possible to reconcile the. The direct journey home that you see in Luke and the very circuitous routes that they take in Matthew? Or are these just completely contradictory?

[A]

So I don't think you can reconcile them. I know people try and you know, when I was a conservative evangelical, I certainly tried. But if you look at it closely, this is when my students do these kinds of comparisons of these two accounts, I say look closely about when they end up in Nazareth and whether it's plausible to put the two together. In Luke's account, Jesus is born eight days later, he is circumcised, but then they do go to Jerusalem. So Bethlehem is not far from Jerusalem. I mean, it's an easy. It's an easy walk. Easier than Nazareth. It's pretty close. So there's a rule in the book of Leviticus that after 32 days, the woman who has given birth, she's ritually impure because of giving birth, just as a woman is impure every time she menstruates. And there's a little thing that she does, a little ceremony to bring back her purity. And there's a purity ritual for somebody who's given birth and takes place 32 days later. And it's an offering of a couple of doves in the temple in Jerusalem. So she does that, they go to the temple, offers the doves, and then we're told when they'd fulfilled all the rights that were required, they went to Nazareth, went back home to Nazareth. Okay. In Matthew's account, there's nothing about them fulfilling these purification rites or then immediately going back to Nazareth. In Matthew's account, they're around for a while, apparently, because the magi come after having following the star for almost two years, and they find him in a house. Herod finds out, sends out the troops, slaughters the innocents in order to fulfill scripture quotation from Jeremiah that this was what Jeremiah predicted would happen, that the innocents would be slaughtered. Joseph, Mary and Jesus escape. They go down to Egypt, 400 miles. They stay there until Herod dies, then they come back. They can't resettle in Bethlehem. And so they go to Nazareth. Okay, so whatever that is, you know, three, four years after the birth, if you just kind of add it all up, how does that happen exactly? If Luke is right, they went directly back to Nazareth. If Luke's right, they went back directly to Nazareth after 40 days. Then how do they have time to go down to Egypt and be down there and then come back? You can't reconcile the two. Although people do try.

[B]

How do people try and reconcile that it's 400 miles from Bethlehem to Egypt. That's a long journey for 40 days.

[A]

Well, it is. And yeah, so they got that 400 miles. Then when they come back, of course they go to Nazareth. So that's 500 miles. This is quite a trip here. And that's just the time they're on the road, presumably walking. I mean, how else? Right. So how do you reconcile these two? Well, somebody this week Pointed out to me a conservative Christian apologist who was taking me on, on this point, who's trying to insist that I was just kind of, you know, making, making things say they didn't say. He said, look, Luke does say that when they fulfilled the rights of purification, that they went back to Nazareth, but he doesn't say that day.

[B]

He doesn't say that they explicitly did not go to Egypt first.

[A]

That's exactly right. This is exactly his argument. He thought I was an idiot for saying that they. You can't reconcile these, because of course you could throw in the Egypt. He just didn't mention that part. You know, if I told somebody when I graduated from fourth grade, I moved to North Carolina. And then somebody points out, bart, when you graduate from fourth grade, you moved to Lawrence, Kansas, and then after high school you moved to Chicago and after college you moved to New Jersey, and then you moved to North Carolina. Oh yeah, well that's what I meant. When I graduated from fourth grade, I went to moved to Carolina. You just don't talk that way, you know, and so like, yeah, I just think, you know, these ways of reconciling things, it's just the only reason to think that the only reason is because you don't think there can be a contradiction. And if you don't think there can be a contradiction, you've got to make sure there's no contradiction. And so you just start making stuff up. You kind of add this trip to Egypt to Luke as well. Why not?

[B]

Josh, my husband, does a lot of anti apologetic work or counter apologetics, I guess, online. And one of the things he always says is that apologists aren't trying to find what's probable, they're trying to find what is plausible. Any plausible explanation that could potentially be true is preferable to there being an actual contradiction in the text.

[A]

And in some cases that's right just what's plausible. In other cases, just like just in the wildest remotest possibility of being right. It's like it's not even plausible particularly. But you know, so you can do that if that's what you choose to do? Yes, you're free to do that. You will absolutely miss the point of both Gospels because by putting them together into one long narrative, you're ignoring what each one is trying to say.

[B]

For our memories. We did cover this last week, but could you refresh us on the individual messages for Luke and Matthew and how their narratives really help drive those home?

[A]

Well, the Matthew thing about going down to Egypt, I think is the most Obvious example, Matthew wants Jesus to be fulfilling prophecies because that shows that he really is the Messiah, because he's fulfilled scriptural prophecies. There are problems with that because these passages that he's always quoting don't say anything about the Messiah. When you read these passages in their Old Testament context, they're not predicting anything about the future. So in terms of like a future Messiah. So the virgin birth, the Bethlehem thing, the slaughter, the innocents fulfill Scripture because Jeremiah said that Rachel will be weeping for her children, for they are no more, you know, and then. And then out of Egypt I have called my son. So the point of Matthew. Just stick with Matthew here. When you read Matthew's narrative of Jesus, it's constructed in order to show that Jesus was the new Moses. And so the way it works is in the story of Moses in the Old Testament, Moses is born when there's a foreign king who's like, very jealous of his power, and so he has to be hidden. But then he miraculously survives. Moses then is raised up and he saves the people of Israel from Egypt. So Jesus is miraculously born. The king tries to kill him, just like the Pharaoh tries to kick Moses, he raises, and then he's going to bring salvation to the people. And so Moses came out of Egypt with the people. Jesus came out of Egypt. Moses goes through the Red Sea. The next thing happens, Jesus, he goes through the waters of baptism. After Moses goes through the Red Sea, he goes up Mount Sinai and gives the law. After Jesus gets baptized, he goes up on the Mount and gives the sermon on the mount, and he quotes Moses and gives a new interpretation of Moses. And so this whole thing is trying to show Jesus as Moses. And you miss that if you start throwing in everything from Luke. And it's not the point Luke's trying to make. It's not that Luke would disagree necessarily that Jesus is like a new Moses. I don't know if you'd agree or disagree, but it's not that that's a contradiction. But if what you're trying to do is combine to. You're just making something up and you're not looking at what Matthew's trying to tell you about Jesus, or on the other hand, Luke.

[B]

Thank you very much. I am out of questions for today. Is there anything that you wanted to add before we moved on?

[A]

Just that something I had said last time is that people don't need to be afraid of these contradictions. If you're interested in knowing what a book says, a book of the Bible or a book of anything, you need to interpret it for what it says. And if it contradicts some other book, you know, if it's talking about a historical event and there's a contradiction, you might want to know if you're historically interested, well, what really happened? Either this happened or that happened, or the other way around, that happened, but this didn't happen, or neither one of them happened, but they both couldn't happen because they're contradictory. So on a historical level, you might be interested in what really happened, but also you're reading story. And if you don't understand the story, what's the point of reading it? The meaning of the Bible is its meaning. It isn't like whether this happened or not. It's what this author is trying to say. And so you should try and find out what the author has to say, which means sticking to this author and not pretending he's saying something some other author is saying.

[B]

Thank you very much, Bart. We are going to go to our weekly events and highlights section and then Bart has some listeners questions to answer.

[A]

Welcome to our upcoming highlights and Events segment where we catch up on Bart's courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.

[B]

So if you've been with us for a little bit or you've been paying attention, you'll know that Barth recently set up the Biblical Studies Academy, which is a group of people who are interested in the study of the Bible but are not necessarily academics themselves. And one of the things that Bart is doing is like a scholars spotlight talk. And actually he just did one, I think December 2nd for that group explicitly. And you were talking, but about how Jesus got here, the earliest accounts of Jesus appearance in the world. What kinds of things does that kind of talk include?

[A]

Well, of course, you know, this time of year people, you know, think about the nativity of Jesus and the stories in Matthew and Luke about him being born of a virgin as we've been talking about here. But you know, he comes into the world in other places too, because he was here. How did he get here? And so what that talk is about is different understandings of how Jesus got here. It's interesting when you read Mark, there's no birth narrative, nothing about Jesus being born of a virgin. And early on in Mark, his mother doesn't seem to understand who he is. Did Mark know there was a virgin birth? Maybe he didn't even know. And what about John in the Gospel of John? Again, there's no virgin birth, but there's an incarnation Matthew, Mark and Luke don't say anything about Jesus pre existing and then coming into the world. In John, he not only pre exists as coming into the world, he created the world and then he became a human being. That's very different from being born of a virgin or just kind of being a person who's born as it seems to be the case with Mark. Then you get the Gospel according to Paul where Jesus does seem to be a pre existent being, you know, but he's not like on a level with God until after his resurrection. And so you get these different understandings of how Jesus came into the world. And they're important because they help us understand, understand how these early Christians were theologically trying to make sense of who Jesus was.

[B]

Excellent, thank you. And will you be doing regular events like this for the bsa?

[A]

Yeah. So this Biblical Studies Academy is, it's a great thing. It's so great I wish I had thought of it, but I didn't. But you know, we have semester long courses going on where people can with university professors, just like a university course. But you can do it online. We're just finishing one now and we've got one coming up in the spring that'll be an introduction to the the New Testament by the scholar who co wrote my recent edition of my New Testament textbook, Hugo Mendez, who's a really, really good scholar and a fantastic teacher. So we have these semester long courses, but we also have discussion groups and people can listen to lectures and talk about them together online. And they, and so there's back and forth, but there's also this, these lectures that I give once a month. I'm not sure I'll give all of them, but I give some of them. Most of them maybe, I don't know. So the people belong to the bsa. There's a monthly charge for it, but you get all of this, you get all of this just as part of the package. And so these monthly lectures are kind of fun because I get to pick a topic and then give a webinar.

[B]

And if you're interested in finding more about this, you can go to bartehrman.com BSA and there is a 14 day free trial if you want to give it a go, see if it's something that you think you'll benefit from. And you, if you do opt for that trial, you'll be able to stream Bart's recent webinar on the earliest accounts of Jesus. So definitely go take a look.

[A]

Now it's time for questions from listeners where BART answers Real questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart erman.com Ask Bart

[B]

alright then, first question. The gospel of Mark is the earliest written surviving account of Jesus crucifixion. The questioner says, I think this isn't my area of expertise. It gives a date for the event at Passover. Do historians accept this timing? Or might Jesus have been crucified at some other part of the year? And then much later when people asked when did it happen, the early Jewish Christians assigned a time at Passover for more symbolic reasons?

[A]

That's a very good question. And I think the answer is that probably they did not come up with the idea later. There's two reasons for that. One that is pretty good and one I think is really good. So the pretty good reason is that the association of Jesus dying around the time of the Passover is multiply attested through all of our sources. John has a completely different account of which day during Passover he dies. Different time of day, different day. Matthew, Mark and Luke all know about this Passover thing. AAPostle Paul, our first author, talks about Christ as our Passover. And so I think it's deeply rooted in the tradition in independent sources. So that's an important thing. But the second thing is that the symbolism of the Passover actually creates problems rather than solving problems. Because the idea is that Jesus is the Passover lamb. You know, Jesus is the lamb who dies for the sins of the world. The problem with that is the Passover lamb was not an atoning sacrifice. The death of the lamb did not forgive sins within ancient Israel. The sacrifice for sins came on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. And so if you had Christians later who wanted to make up the idea that Jesus was killed as an atoning sacrifice, at the time that happened within Judaism, they would have had him die on the day of atonement on Yom Kippur rather than during the Passover. I think this is a historical event. I think Jesus Nazareth probably did go to Jerusalem during a Passover feast. There'd be crowds there. He could preach his message. I don't think he's planning on getting crucified, but he raised the ire of the officials and they arrested him and crucified him.

[B]

Thank you very much. A listener is asking about the ending of Mark. You explained very well that you like the idea that Mark ended with chapter 16, verse 8. What do you think about the other endings, the shorter and longer ones, and maybe also a Possible original ending.

[A]

So for those who don't understand the question, in Mark 16, Jesus has died and he's been buried. And on the third day, the women are going to the tomb. They're going to anoint him, give him a proper burial rites, now that they've got an opportunity after the Sabbath to do that. And they're. They're worried about, you know, how are we going to roll the stone away? And they're. But they arrive at the tomb and the stone is rolled away and there's nobody there. Jesus is not in the tomb, but there's a young man there who tells them that Jesus has been raised and that they're to go tell the disciples and Peter that he's been raised, that he'll meet them in Galilee. But then it ends by saying the women fled from the tomb. They didn't say anything to anyone because they were afraid. Boom, it ends. Most people who read that are a little bit shocked that it ends there because they think, well, you know, didn't he, like, appear to anybody? Didn't the women tell anybody? Didn't the disciples go and see him in Galilee? How could it end there? And that reaction is exactly the reaction that scribes had when they were copying Mark because they knew Matthew, Luke and John, where Jesus appears to his disciples. And so they got to that point, they said, what? It can't end there. And so different scribes added different endings. There are actually several endings that we have. The one that's most familiar, because it's in older English translations like the King James, is an additional 12 verses where the disciples do go to Galilee, they do meet with Jesus, he does have a conversation with them, and then it ends there. So I think what happened is that scribes realized that it was an abrupt ending. As I said, there's a shorter ending that occurs other than those 12 verses. Sometimes you have manuscripts have both that shorter ending and the longer ending. Sometimes the oldest manuscripts don't have have any of those endings. I think Mark meant it to end there. I don't think there was an ending that was lost or something. I don't think any of these other endings could possibly be it. Because when you study them, they're not in the same style or theology as Mark. But I think that Mark ended it there precisely because one of his points in his entire Gospel is that nobody got it. Nobody understood that Jesus had to die for sins and be raised from the dead. And at the end, the disciples still don't understand. And so it's like, make kind of makes you wake up, say what? Which is great because then it makes you think about it.

[B]

Thank you very much. Next question. As I understand Pauline and early church theology through the actions of humans being free will, Judaism needed a new covenant as a sort of course correction. That new covenant came in the form of Jesus. Is there anything in revelation or other scriptures to suggest that there couldn't be a new new covenant? So a new covenant after Jesus. The example given is that Jesus return will happen and it will be one of judgment. What is preventing God from changing the rules of the New Testament the way that Judaism's rules were changed?

[A]

Very good question. My sense is that Paul and the other authors of the New Testament did not think God changed the rules. Their point is that this is what was predicted all along within the New Testament. The argument is that there's continuity with Judaism and that the covenant with the Jews was looking forward to the covenant with Jesus. So when it's called a new covenant, it doesn't mean that it's an unexpected covenant. That's why, for example, in Matthew and Paul and lots of other places in the New Testament, there's an emphasis on Jesus fulfilling scripture. It's not that he's contrary to scripture, it's that scripture was predicting him them. Most Jews didn't buy that because that's not really the way traditionally Jews have read the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. But that was the Christian claim. Not that Jesus was like God changed his mind and realized, well, this one ain't working, and comes up with a new solution. If that were the case, then yes, you could say that when the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven in the book of Revelation and people are there with the gates of pearl and the streets of gold, and then they get tired of that and they start sinning again, God's got to do it all over again. And so you could argue that, but I don't think that's how the authors see it. They see this as being the termination that God had originally planned.

[B]

Thank you. Final question for the day. Was there precedent for the proto orthodox view of the Trinity? So was there ever a God in the Roman world that was thought of as being made up of multiple beings while still being considered one God? Or would the pagan audience have found this concept weird?

[A]

Yeah, that's a good question, and it's a difficult question. I think most pagan audiences did find it weird and most would say, look, you've got three gods. No, we've only got one God. Well, who are these other two then? So I Think they did think that particular construction was weird. But there are some kinds of precedent for it. There is a movement within paganism that's toward the worship of only one God. And there were pagans who did worship just one God. And sometimes he was simply called the highest God. The highest God. And the idea was that you still have these other gods. You know, you've got Zeus and you got Athena and you got Apollo and you got Aries. You have all these other gods, but there's a highest God. And sometimes. Sometimes the idea was that one God is greater than all the others. You know, like Zeus, he's the greater. Greater than all the others. But sometimes you could imagine it as these other gods are actually different kinds of embodiment of the one God. So you get these different gods have different functions, right? Aries is the God of war. Aphrodite is the goddess of love. You could have, like, one being that has both these aspects where he controls both war and love. But it's one being, but the way you imagine it is different parts of his personality are these different divine beings. And so you could have something that you did sometimes have, something comparable, but not with the kind of theological sophistication you get with the doctrine of the Trinity. These people who are developing the doctrine of the Trinity, especially in the 4th and into the 5th centuries, they are philosophically trained, and they don't think they're just telling myths. They are actually working out logically. It's not the kind of Aristotelian logic that we're used to because, you know, three is one, one is three, whatever, doesn't work. But they are applying philosophical categories to understand how you could have three persons but one essence. That's all God. One Godhead manifests three persons. Something comparable to that may have eased the way for some pagans to accept it. But in the early centuries, of course, they just thought, man, this is weird.

[B]

Thank you very much, Bart. Before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about today?

[A]

Well, we're talking about some specific contradictions in the stories of Matthew and Luke in terms of the birth narrative and whether these contradict what these contradictions do for us. And one thing they do for us is they make us question historicity of these events, which we can question on other grounds. We also showed other reasons for thinking that these accounts are highly implausible, but they also alert us to the fact that what everything of them is history. They're stories. And if you want to understand a story you've got to interpret it, and you've got to understand what the author is trying to accomplish in this story. And to do that, you don't pretend that he's trying to accomplish the same thing some other author is trying to do. And so these discrepancies help us understand these stories better.

[B]

Thank you so much, Bart. Audience, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Episodes Remember that you can use the code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week. Bart, I'm afraid, will not. I will be interviewing the wonderful Dr. A.J. levine about her new book, Jesus for Everyone, Not Just for Christians. So please join me then. Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Barterman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Barterman and myself, Megan Lewis. Thank you for joining us.