When you read about the birth of Christ in the Bible, one thing becomes immediately clear: The story isn’t the same from gospel to gospel. In fact, two of the four gospels (Mark and John) don’t even mention it. And the accounts in Matthew in Luke differ greatly. So what gives? Can either writer be trusted, or is the story of a Savior born of a virgin simply a myth?
The gospel of Matthew (written by a Jew to a Jewish audience) starts by listing the ancestry of Jesus from Abraham through David and to Joseph, the earthly (though not biological) father of Jesus. Luke, on the other hand, (writing to a Gentile audience) traces Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Adam but going to Mary, not Joseph. (Luke 3:23 says that Joseph was the son of Heli, but that was actually Mary’s father. Heli was Joseph’s father-in-law.) Matthew mentions an angel visiting Joseph, while Luke mentions the same angel visiting Mary. Luke also exclusively includes the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah (the parents of John the Baptist), Jesus being born in a manger in Bethlehem, the shepherds visiting the newborn, and Mary and Joseph dedicating Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. Matthew mentions none of those but instead includes the visit from the Magi, Mary and Joseph’s escape to Egypt, and their eventual return to Nazareth.
So what exactly are we to make of these discrepancies? Either they’re flat-out inaccurate and therefore can’t be trusted or they’re merely incomplete. And if they’re incomplete, the next question becomes why?
