Are the Nativity Narratives really historical or allegorical

[polonius]

Since it is approaching Christmas, perhaps it would be a good time to review Matthew’s and Luke’s Nativity Narratives which comprise the first few chapters of their gospels.

We understand that the earliest stratas of Matthew, used by the very early Palestinian Ebionite Christians, who remained obedient to Mosaic Law, did not seem to include such a nativity narrative suggesting that it was added later (perhaps to both Matthew and Luke).

Each narrative describes the birth of Jesus but involves serious contradictions. Let’s begin with the date of Jesus’ birth as given by each.

[polonius]

Since Matthew and Luke wrote more than 80 years after the event, we can but wonder where they got their information ...

JW posted:

There are those that place Matthews gospels within 10 years of the events reported therein, and there are very few scholars that suggest the gospels were written in the 2nd century (ie 80 years after Jesus' death in 33 CE). It is generally accepted that John wrote the last gospel and since we have a fragment of a copy dated to the beginning of the 2nd century, the original must have been written towards the end of the first. If it was (as is generally accepted) the last of the gospels, that places all the others in the first century.

If Jesus, as reported, died a young man in the 30s then anyone in the mid-to late first century could have been eyewitnesses or as in the case of Luke, been in a position to interview eyewitnesses of the events in question.

Documenting Jesus' death is not a problem, but documenting any "Resurrection" or "Ascension" is. Although Paul (a non witness) claimed that 500 people saw the risen Jesus, none of them nor any of the thousands they would reasonably be expected to have told, ever produced any writing reporting any such thing.

JW says

In short the evidence indicates the gospels were all written within living memory of the events.

RESPONSE: Really? What "evidence" exactly are you referring to?

Excerpted from A Concise History of the Catholic Church
By Father Thomas Bokenkotter, SS

"The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus. They were written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah of God, risen and living now in his church and coming again to judge all men. Their authors did not deliberately invent or falsify facts about Jesus, but they were not primarily concerned with historical accuracy. They readily included material drawn from the Christian communities' experience of the risen Jesus. Words, for instance, were put in the mouth of Jesus and stories were told about him which, though not historical in the strict sense, nevertheless, in the minds of the evangelists, fittingly expressed the real meaning and intent of Jesus as faith had come to perceive him. For this reason, scholars have come to make a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith."


JW wrote

We don't know who Mary told about the nature of her pregnancy, she could well have told nobody and it was revealed by God by means of a divine revelation (a miracle), but there is no reason to believe she or one of her acquaintances (for example one of her other children) was not alive to confirm the details when at least some of the earlier gospels were written

RESPONSE: No. Not another "miracle," a term used when there is no reasonable evidence.

We know exactly who Mary told about the nature of her pregnancy. Read about her visit to Elizabeth her relative and what she said (eg the Magnificat) in Luke chapter 1. Also her husband would have known. According to the story, Joseph already knew having been told by an angel.

[JehovahsWitness]

RESPONSE: No. Not another "miracle," a term used when there is no reasonable evidence.

The evidence for miracles is in the fact that God is reported as performing them in the bible.

We know exactly who Mary told about the nature of her pregnancy. Read about her visit to Elizabeth her relative and what she said (eg the Magnificat) in Luke chapter 1. Also her husband would have known. According to the story, Joseph already knew having been told by an angel

Indeed Mary probably did tell Elizabeth, and we know she did indeed inform Joseph don't know if either of them told anyone else but there is no reason why they didn't tell others. There is a high likelihood Mary told Jesus himself about the circumstances of his own birth, and of course Jesus who was an acquaintance of Matthew and others, any one of whom that Luke could have interviewed.

...we can but wonder where they [Matthew and Luke] got their information....

So yes, any of the above or any acquaintances that the above shared the information with could have been a source for 'their [Matthew and Lukes] information" regarding the virgin birth. Or since the bible writers were inspired of God they got the information from divine revelation.

[oldbadger]

Since it is approaching Christmas, perhaps it would be a good time to review Matthew’s and Luke’s Nativity Narratives which comprise the first few chapters of their gospels.

We understand that the earliest stratas of Matthew, used by the very early Palestinian Ebionite Christians, who remained obedient to Mosaic Law, did not seem to include such a nativity narrative suggesting that it was added later (perhaps to both Matthew and Luke).

Each narrative describes the birth of Jesus but involves serious contradictions. Let’s begin with the date of Jesus’ birth as given by each.

I didn't know that the nativity narrative was probably added to G-Matthew and even possibly G-Luke.

But the stunning variations in birth dates ranging from pre-4BC to post 6AD, the amazing claim that the 6AD census included the whole Roman Empire, The strange suggestionn that a Galilean would be required to travel to another province to register, the tale that pregnant Mary went walkabout to visit relatives alone inter-province and the story that John the Baptist was related to Jesus through mothers that were cousins etc etc etc simply stretch so far into fiction that no objective research could possibly recognise this accumulation of stories as fact.

One constantly repeated apologetic debate is that nothing is impossible with God, and that the above together with the other score of associated tales is simply all miracle. In which case it might have been easier for God to miraculously will that his Son 'be', and as with G-mark Jesus appear befopre John at the jordan for baptism.

But the absolutely most amazing claim (for me) is that anybody would attempt to give an illegitimate son a lineage when Christians claim that he is a direct descendant-Son of God and no further lineage required, and agnostics seek to use the normal bloodline lineage for proof of descendancy thus causing a fail for these claims.

I am utterly mind-boggled at the idea that land-displaced peasants of the 2nd order and lower would have any lineage recorded whgatever, since oral-tradition was their only way of recording their past.

I honestly cannot see an objective debate audience in a public debate finding that any of the nativity stories are genuine, truthful, historical.

[polonius]

RESPONSE: No. Not another "miracle," a term used when there is no reasonable evidence.

The evidence for miracles is in the fact that God is reported as performing them in the bible.

We know exactly who Mary told about the nature of her pregnancy. Read about her visit to Elizabeth her relative and what she said (eg the Magnificat) in Luke chapter 1. Also her husband would have known. According to the story, Joseph already knew having been told by an angel

Indeed Mary probably did tell Elizabeth, and we know she did indeed inform Joseph don't know if either of them told anyone else but there is no reason why they didn't tell others. There is a high likelihood Mary told Jesus himself about the circumstances of his own birth, and of course Jesus who was an acquaintance of Matthew and others, any one of whom that Luke could have interviewed.

...we can but wonder where they [Matthew and Luke] got their information....

So yes, any of the above or any acquaintances that the above shared the information with could have been a source for 'their [Matthew and Lukes] information" regarding the virgin birth. Or since the bible writers were inspired of God they got the information from divine revelation.

RESPONSE:

JW posted

The evidence for miracles is in the fact that God is reported as performing them in the bible.

Most people know better. “If I say we know God exists because it says so in the bible,� would you take that as proof that God exists?

JW posted:

Indeed Mary probably did tell Elizabeth, and we know she did indeed inform Joseph don't know if either of them told anyone else but there is no reason why they didn't tell others. There is a high likelihood Mary told Jesus himself about the circumstances of his own birth, and of course Jesus who was an acquaintance of Matthew and others, any one of whom that Luke could have interviewed.

RESPONSE: Actually, it was angel who told Joseph, not Mary.

Matt 1:20� Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord* appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.�

Haven't you read the Bible at some point? Don't you know these things?

It says that right in the Bible so it must be so, right?
Hint: The writer of the gospel called Matthew (written anonymously) but named by Papias in 135 evidently made up the “virgin birth� narrative which was also copied into Luke. It evidently wasn't in the earliest strata of Matthew’s gospel so it was added at some point.

See Ebionites (first Christians) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05242c.htm “The doctrines of this sect are said by Irenaeus to be like those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They denied the Divinity and the virginal birth of Christ; they clung to the observance of the Jewish Law; they regarded St. Paul as an apostate, and used only aGospel according to St. Matthew (Adv. Haer., I, xxvi, 2; III, xxi, 2; IV, xxxiii, 4; V, i, 3). Their doctrines are similarly described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, xxii, X, xviii) and Tertullian (De carne Chr., xiv, 18),

JW concludes

Or since the bible writers were inspired of God they got the information from divine revelation. [/quotes]

Did they get their errors and contradictions there too?

[polonius]

JW posted:

Since the account is in the bible canon, we are to accept Luke's account as being authoritive over and above any other source. That said, there is no valid reason therefore to doubt the accuracy of Luke's placing of events; in short, if we have one historian (Luke) placing the events as he did, then that is enough for it to be taken as true.

Luke's placing the event in a clear historical context* indicates it was not being presented as allegory.

RESPONSE: Are you seriously claiming that everything cited in Luke’s account is to be taken to be historically accurate? Following the circumcision, Matthew has Jesus being brought to Egypt. Luke has Jesus and his family returning to Nazareth.

Both can’t be correct. Both are "in the canon" but only one account can be accurate.

Because something “is in the canon� does not mean that it actually occurred.

Only that the story is in the canon, that is, it has been written in an "official" document, not that it is historical.

[polonius]

RESPONSE If something miraculous regarding Jesus had really happened, would't they have reported it?

Very few of the miracles are reported by all four gospels; there are a number that are reported by only one, two or three. Clearly then the writers wrote independently and chose to focus on different aspects of Jesus' life.

If they didn't report it, what is the most obvious reason?

That they didn't want to report it because the wanted to focus on other things.

JOHN 21:25
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. ESV

RESPONSE:


If they didn't report it, what is the most obvious reason?

That should be obvious. It didn't happen. This was somebody's else's story