Chili

The Nativity of Luke was first and has to be first to see the innermost details of how this infancy in Matthew goes wrong.

The nativity of Matthew is a guaranteed 'first class one way ticket to hell' simply because there was no manger there to receive the child, and no swaddling cloth to restrain the faculty of reason to interfere after the birth of this 'inner child' that was emergent from 'a simple dream' in Matthew instead of the 'religious determination' of Judaism by way of tradition . . . even against the faculty of reason as is shown by the persistent prayer of Zechariah with the 'Incense hour' faithfully taking place in assembly that here now was in 'full assembly' to bring the 'immaculate conception' about.

In effect what happened is that Matthew's Joseph was a dreamer who 'wanted to be king hereafter' and so was 'born again' as stranger lost in Egypt and factually was not from Nazareth by way of tradition. Accordingly the child was not the 'Lamb of God' from religion and so his 'son of God' inner child was from his other's womb untimely ripped and thus the manger was missing as the womb to nurture the child in its very infancy. Herod was the faculty of reason that had no choice but 'do his thing' in returning to reason and so it was that back to Egypt he went and left 'Mary and her child' behind like a bad dream as in Egypt it was that reason prevailed.

Of course Luke is entirely different that so is a one way ticket 'royalty class' to heaven with the 'lineage by revelation' as the first promise of heaven on earth (= equivalent of the Cana event in John = royal banquet = hypostatic union in evidence).

It is all simple English, dear reader, and since that time we now have replaced the 'incense hour' with money, and we will pay the piper to be our leader in absense of tradition as 'self proclaimed white-washed pharisees' who are blinded by our own 'ideal-worship' that there is a better place for us after we die, and will join forces to make that same dream come true for all, and would even bomb opposing viewpoints to get closer to this ideal, that really is a fantasy and never be anything more that just a fantasy that we share.

The Herodian massacre is a powerful voice in the mind of believers to gain unity among dessenters that was recently used in the famous 'incubator lie' told by Graham and Bush Sr. to get the war going against Kuwait. I still remember seeing them coming out of a chapel where they had prayed for God's guidance and declared war 5 minutes later:

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."
...

http://911review.com/precedent/decade/incubators.html

Most interesting here is that Graham [as Billy] was the greatest 'Herodian Massacre' agent that the world has ever known with his evangelistic rallies worldwide wherein his primary aim was to set free the 'inner child' in the crowds that gathered 'as' they 'came forth as sinners' themselves . . . to stand convicted there, publicly, so that they might also receive.

And no, this is not about war, but about us 'pounding on the table' here over something we know nothing about and should not even be reading lest we kill the Christ-child all over again and again, which then is why I maintain that America is the most Godless nation of all (ie. Gal.4:5 gone rampant and wild among men of good will, who will call you a 'traitor' if you do not agree).

Duvduv

Well, then we see that whoever added the nativity stories in Luke and Matthew had different sources or "traditions" that are only vaguely similar. This link gives the succinct differences: http://errancy.org/nativity.html
Matthew:
An angel appears to Joseph to reassure him, and so he marries Mary.
Jesus is born in Bethlehem.
Perhaps two years later (or perhaps not), wise men see his star. They come and inform Herod.
The wise men - bringing gifts - find Jesus in Bethlehem.
Warned in a dream, Joseph and family flee from Bethlehem to Egypt.
Herod commences the massacre of the infants.
Herod dies. Informed in a dream of Herod's death, Joseph takes the family back.
But he is afraid to go to Judea, and so makes his home in Nazareth, Galilee.

And Luke:
A census requires Joseph and Mary to go from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem.
Jesus is born in Bethlehem.
There is "no room in the inn"; Mary places Jesus in a manger.
Nearby shepherds are told of these events by angels.
The shepherds visit the family.
After about a month or so, Jesus is taken to temple in Jerusalem.
There, Simeon and Anna praise Jesus.
Soon after, Joseph and Mary return to their home in Nazareth

Chili

Nono, not based on tradition at all. "An angel' was "the angel of the Lord" and is called Lucifer where he only appears in dreams as opposed to 'his star at its rising' [each time] so the Magi could follow it to Jerusalem and then they got lost because Lucifer was the unknown deceiver to them, while yet a star in a dream that got this idea going in the mind of Joseph that Herod wanted to know about as Supreme ruler who was only concerned about the destiny of Joseph lest they would crucify him later and make a religious radical out of him too.

Note that the 'rising of the star' makes reference to the origination of the twelve insigths that created his shepherds (who were his ousia's) and here now to be rewarded with par-ousia for Joseph as the final event. The fact that they arrived in Jerusalem shows good intention on their part but got lost because Lucifer had deceived Joseph in a dream and that is why they were lost when they arrived in Jerusalem . . . which of course they came to 'renew' in the mind of Joseph with all good intentions on their part. The census was the account of Joseph (not money but religious taxing by Joseph) who so was 'beyond theology' and so beyond surrender wherefore Mary rode the donkey to get Joseph there and hence there was no room at the Inn. The manger is evidence of religious determination based on the tithing of Zechariah as a persitent desire of the soul where no dreams are to be found, ever, since that is where the Magi are from. Notice here that Gabriel as first cause angel was the messenger originative from God as first Cause and is beyond or beneath religion itself that only needs to provide the manger therefore.

Not just nearby shepherds but Josephs very own shepherds in disarray taking turns herding sheep in the middle of the night, which at least to me points at the height of absurdity as rational thinker.

Praise would follow and back to Nazareth he goes.

sotto voce

Do they find him there?

Chili

Yes, when they 'entered' they found Mary and her child but Joseph was not home to receive wisdom from them.

Opposite this the shepherds 'looked in' and understood = wisdom received.

Toto

Check out Mark Goodacre, Q skepticism, and "editorial fatigue."

The Case Against Q

Doug Shaver

My condescension was uncalled-for. I apologize.

My flirtation with the Farrer hypothesis was short-lived, for the reason I've already given. However, I continue to believe that the Q hypothesis is not as well established as the majority opinion apparently would have it. I do think that something like Q existed, and was known to and used by the authors of Matthew and Luke. By "something like Q," I mean some writings, not necessarily in a single document, in which various teachings were attributed to somebody who at some point in the writings' evolution came to be called Jesus. But I suspect that the confidence with which some scholars think they can reconstruct that document, even if there was only one, is misplaced.

I also agree with the majority that it is unlikely Luke simply rewrote Matthew. Whether he was even aware of Matthew is, I suspect, just unknowable.

Gundulf

Ah, interesting. Had never heard of the Farrer one, that is new to me (must not be significantly popular - Q is all over the place).

Not sure what you mean re nativity problem, Matthew records the early childhood narrative, but I assume that if Luke was using Matthew as a source, he may simply have decided that this was unnecessary for his purpose, but decided that the incidents around Jesus birth were signfiicant to his purpose. (Makes lots of sense to me, with Luke's emphasis on the poor. Rich wise guys giving gold to Jesus doesn't quite fit with his purpose, but Jesus' mother being homeless and him living in a food trough fits.)

Can you expound on the additional problems you mention? After reading the wiki article I find myself actually much more convinced.

Gundulf

Wonder if I could make an observation - numerous posts on this topic have mentioned the radically different nativity narratives. Am I just being silly to point out that, technically speaking, Matthew has NO nativity narrative? Matthew describes 1) an event that happened (presumably) early in Mary's pregnancy (Joseph & his dream).

2) The very passing mention that Jesus was born, saying only "[Joseph] had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus." That is it.

Then 3) The narrative about the Wise men, etc., happened presumably a year or more later, judging by the point that Herod's proclamation to kill the infants was calculated according to the time the Wise men had seen the star appear.

So, I'm not following the difficulty that some folks seem to see between these two narratives - they describe events that are probably a year if not more apart, no? It strikes me as being as significant as pointing out that Luke's account of Jesus in the temple when he was 12 years old "conflicts" with Matthew's account of Jesus' early life with the wise men...? Or what am I missing?

Diogenes the Cynic

No, Luke tells a completely contradictory story in virtually every way. They have different genealogies, Luke's nativity is set ten years after Matthew's, Matthew has Mary and Joseph living in a house in Bethlehem, then going to Egypt to avoid Herod's (completely fictional) slaughter of the innocents, then deciding to move to Galilee only after coming back from Egypt and discovering that Herod's son, Archalaus, had become Tetrarch in Judea. Luke sets his nativity ten years after Herod's death, has Mary and Joseph already living in Nazareth, then has them go to Bethlehem for the census (more fiction, since there was no such requirement, and since Quirinius' census did not apply to anyone in Galilee anyway), then has the Holy Family returning to Nazareth almost immediately after the birth (with a quick stop at the Temple along the way).
Well, the appearance narratives also diverge wildly where they lose Mark as a guide, Luke and Matthew use the Q material in a different order, Matthew shows embellishment of the material and rearrangement where Luke does not.