At this celebrated time of the year ,Christmas time; the Gospels of Luke and Matthew speak about Jesus Christs birth and are there simmilaries and disimilarities ? Yes. They differ on whether Joseph took his family to Jerusalem after Jesus was born. Gospel of Luke says they did. Joseph brought them to Jerusalem after Jesuss circumcision and the days of purification prescribed in Leviticus 12:2-8. And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. (Luke 2:22) Gospel of Matthew says they did not go. Joseph was afraid to go to Jerusalem because he feared Herods son Archelaus, who was then ruling in Jerusalem. But when he heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. (Matthew 2:22-23) In Matthew, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him that Marys child will save his people from their sins. In Luke, the angel tells Mary that her son will be great, he will be called the Son of the Most High and will rule on Davids throne forever. A short time later Mary tells Elizabeth that all generations will consider her (Mary) blessed because of the child that will be born to her. If this were true, Mary and Joseph should have had the highest regard for their son. Instead, we read in Mark 3:20-21 that Jesus family tried to take custody of him because they thought he had lost his mind. And later, in Mark 6:4-6 Jesus complained that he received no honor among his own relatives and his own household. According to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1). According to Luke, Jesus was born during the first census in Israel, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). This is impossible because Herod died in March of 4 BC and the census took place in 6 and 7 AD, about 10 years after Herods death. Some Christians try to manipulate the text to mean this was the first census while Quirinius was governor and that the first census of Israel recorded by historians took place later. However, the literal meaning is this was the first census taken, while Quirinius was governor ... In any event, Quirinius did not become governor of Syria until well after Herods death. Matthew has Mary, Joseph and Jesus fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod, and says that the return of Jesus from Egypt was in fulfillment of prophecy (Matthew 2:15). However, Matthew quotes only the second half of Hosea 11:1. The first half of the verse makes it very clear that the verse refers to God calling the Israelites out of Egypt in the exodus led by Moses, and has nothing to do with Jesus. As further proof that the slaughter of the innocents and the flight into Egypt never happened, one need only compare the Matthew and Luke accounts of what happened between the time of Jesus birth and the familys arrival in Nazareth. According to Luke, forty days (the purification period) after Jesus was born, his parents brought him to the temple, made the prescribed sacrifice, and returned to Nazareth. Into this same time period Matthew somehow manages to squeeze: the visit of the Magi to Herod, the slaughter of the innocents and the flight into Egypt, the sojourn in Egypt, and the return from Egypt. All of this action must occur in the forty day period because Matthew has the Magi visit Jesus in Bethlehem before the slaughter of the innocents. In summary, Gospel of Matthew relates the appearance of an angel, in a dream, to Joseph; the wise men from the east; the massacre of the innocents; and the flight to Egypt. The Gospel of Luke mentions none of these but describes the conception and birth of John the Baptist; the appearance of an angel to Mary; the worldwide census; the birth in a manger, and the choir of angels; none of these is mentioned in Matthew. The contradictions between the accounts, also explain the birth in Bethlehem in different ways (Luke says they lived in Nazareth and only moved to Bethlehem briefly for the census, Matthew implies that they lived in Bethlehem and only moved to Nazareth on their return from Egypt); gives two different genealogies of Jesus, and appear to use a contradictory time frame (Matthews account places the birth during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC, but Luke dates it to the census of Quirinius ten years after Herods death). As a result, some critical scholars see the nativity stories either as completely fictional accounts, or at least constructed from traditions which predate the Gospels. Brown, for instance, who observes that it is unlikely that either account is completely historical, suggests that the account in Matthew is based on an earlier narrative patterned on traditions about the birth of Moses
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:53:25 +0000
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