They will figure out some way to try to make sure that both these narratives can be fit together, but what IвЂ™m telling you is that no reputable historian will accept this because you just have to fudge the stuff too much you have to fudge the data. Does that mean that nobodyвЂ™s ever tried to do it? No, of course youвЂ™ve got all kinds of very, very smart fundamentalists who believe that the New Testament has to be accurate in every historical and scientific detail or they believe then it canвЂ™t be scripture.

Now thereвЂ™s no way you can basically get these two narratives to fit together in any respectable historical way. And itвЂ™s after that, so a month or so after his birth that they then move back home to Nazareth. They stay in that area for a month, we know that because it says that they first have Jesus circumcised on the eighth day from his birth, and then the time of purification takes place, according to Leviticus, which is about a month long, they take Jesus to the presentation of the temple in Jerusalem. ItвЂ™s in Luke that you get the whole story aboutвЂ“the Christmas story about the stable that Jesus is born in because thereвЂ™s no room in the inn. She even goes to Judea to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, who is the mother of John the Baptist according to the Gospel of Luke, and then she goes back to Nazareth, and then itвЂ™s according to this census, the world census that they go to Bethlehem, and itвЂ™s while theyвЂ™re in Bethlehem in the stable, because you donвЂ™t have a stable in Matthew, theyвЂ™re just maybe in a home or according to a lot of traditions Jesus wasвЂ“there was a cave somewhere that Jesus was born in. All the pregnancy of Mary takes place with Mary in Nazareth. TheyвЂ™re from Nazareth, thatвЂ™s sort of MaryвЂ™s hometown, Nazareth. Instead they move to Galilee to avoid HerodвЂ™s son, who is at the time, according to Matthew, ruling in Judea. He gets another dream years later, how many years, who knows, saying that Herod the Great is now dead, so they go backвЂ“they start to go back to Bethlehem because it says thatвЂ™s their home, right? They go back home, theyвЂ™re going to go to Bethlehem. And then the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says, HerodвЂ™s going to kill all the babies, so Joseph takes the family, they move to Egypt for a while. You just donвЂ™t have time in Matthew, theyвЂ™re just there. So according to Matthew, you donвЂ™t have any time actually in the narrative of Matthew for the whole moving from Nazareth to Bethlehem narrative that you get in the Gospel of Luke. They meet up with King Herod the Great, he gets his wise men to consult, they then find out theyвЂ™re supposed to go to Bethlehem, they journey to Bethlehem, and then they get there not long after Jesus is born. It doesnвЂ™t say theyвЂ™re from Galilee, it doesnвЂ™t say theyвЂ™re originally from Nazareth, theyвЂ™re just in Bethlehem, and theyвЂ™re in Bethlehem well before Jesus is born because the wise men in the East see the star and it takes them enough time to travel from Persia, weвЂ™re supposed to understand from the narrative because theyвЂ™re called Magi, and those are wise men from Persia, all the way to Jerusalem. For example, if you just take Matthew, as IвЂ™ve said before, JesusвЂ™ family seems to simply be in Bethlehem. Just to try to figure out how this would work, if you took the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke it would be very, very difficult to find out historically what happened.

I mentioned the differences between Matthew and Luke as far as the birth narratives. WeвЂ™ve also got a lot of other situations where this would be very difficult. And we saw that itвЂ™s very, very difficult to harmonize Galatians 1 and 2 with the account of Acts in PaulвЂ™s movements around Jerusalem. If you remember, early in the semester we talked about Galatians 1 and 2, and Acts, and we tried to compare exactly when did Paul go where with regard to Jerusalem, Damascus, Antioch. Professor Dale Martin: Okay, weвЂ™ve already talked about the problems of using these texts historically.

Contradictory Accounts in the New Testament Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature RLST 152 - Lecture 13 - The Historical JesusД¬hapter 1.

The testament of mary audiobook share