David B

I'm blown away by how some people here are so very well informed about the bible, and how to interpret it.

Frankly, I feel outclassed.

But I think I read somewhere of an idea that firstly the whole Bethlehem trip never happened - there's quite a lot about that in recent threads here - and secondly that it was an invention to make it look as if Jesus fitted some OT prophesy or other.

Further, that other unlikely events in the gospel stories have been constructed to make it look as if Jesus fulfilled certain prophesies - like the whole genealogy of Joseph. After all, why write it down if he's not really the father?

Are there things, in particular about the nativity stories, which seem to both historically wrong and designed to appear to fulfil prophesies?

David B

Diogenes the Cynic

The nativities are late additions to Christian literature. Only two of the Gospels have them (Matthew and Luke) and those two stories contain innumerable contradictions with each other. Matthew. in particular, was trying to fabricate a narrative from the OT. He took a lot of passages out of context and recast them as Messianic prophecies. One passage that may or may not be Messianic is Micah 5:2:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, [though] thou be little among the thousands of Judah, [yet] out of thee shall he come forth unto me [that is] to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth [have been] from of old, from everlasting.

Since David was born in Bethlehem, there was an expectation that the Messiah would be born there too, but the meaning of this particular passage is disputed. I actually don't have a problem accepting that (whatever Micah's original intent) 1st century Jews took it as a prediction that David's heir would be born in Bethlehem, and that expectation would account for why Matthew and Luke felt the need to get Jesus to Bethlehem. John 7:41-42 actually indicates that author believed that Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem and that his Galilean origin is a probem.

Matthew and Luke's nativities are not only hopelessly contradictory but both are also so riddled with historical inaccuracies and obviously fabulous details that few scholars ascribe any historcal merit to them any more.