Christmas History

Are the accounts of Matthew and Luke historically reliable?

They are eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus.

Obviously they didn’t witness Jesus’ birth.

However, they personally knew Jesus. They recieved first hand accounts of His birth.

These accounts are not second or even third hand.

Did Matthew and Luke really write the Gospels with their names attached to them?

The early church had uniform agreement that they did.

If someone where to lie about the authorship of the Gospels they it is unlikely that they would have chosen Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Mark and Luke were not among the 12 disciples

Of the twelve disciples Matthew was not one of the more prominent disciples. If you were going to make this up then you would have chosen Peter or James who were the more prominent leaders of the early church.

Also, Matthew was a tax collector which did nothing to endear him to his early Jewish readers.

John is the one exception. He was certainly one of the more prominent disciples.

Specific Evidence

Papias - wrote in AD125 that Mark had carefully and accurately recorded Peter’s eyewitness observations.

Irenaeus - wrote in AD180 and confirmed traditional authorship

Luke 1:1–4 “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”

Preservation

“The standard scholarly dating, even in very liberal circles, is Mark in the 70s, Matthew and Luke in the 80s, John in the 90s. But listen: that’s still within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, including hostile eyewitnesses who would have served as a corrective if false teachings about Jesus were going around. Consequently, these late dates for the gospels really aren’t all that late. In fact, we can make a comparison that’s very instructive. “The two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four hundred years after Alexander’s death in 323 BC, yet historians consider them to be generally trustworthy. Yes, legendary material about Alexander did develop over time, but it was only in the centuries after these two writers.

“In other words, the first five hundred years kept Alexander’s story pretty much intact; legendary material began to emerge over the next five hundred years. So whether the gospels were written sixty years or thirty years after the life of Jesus, the amount of time is negligible by comparison. It’s almost a nonissue.” Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christmas (p. 31). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Is there archaeological evidence for the Christmas story?

There was no Nazareth in the first century!

Through the years many skeptics have claimed that there was no city named Nazareth during the period of Christ’s birth and that it wasn’t until later that it was established as a city.

Atheist Frank Zindler has noted that Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, by the apostle Paul, by the Talmud, or by the first-century historian Josephus. In fact, no ancient historians or geographers mention Nazareth before the beginning of the fourth century.

A few years ago a new book made waves primarily on the internet called “The Myth of Nazareth, The Invented Town of Jesus.” This was far from a scholarly work, but some found it convincing when they read it in a vacuum so to speak. The entire book was essentially a logical fallacy to begin with. Even if Nazareth didn’t exist that doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t exist. He was simply born somewhere else. Even Bart Ehrman who is himself a popular athiest criticizes the book on this point.

The truth is that there have been numerous discoveries that establish that Nazareth was an inhabited town during the first century.

Tombs with fragments of ossuaries have been found in the area of Nazareth which indicates a Jewish presence there during the first century.

Hellenistic and early Roman artifacts, including pottery shards, a cooking jar, and lamps discovered in the 1969 Nazareth excavations led by Bellarmino Bagetti, come from a first-century context.

In 1997 and 1998, excavations at Mary’s Well, an ancient spring in Nazareth, led by archaeologist Yardenna Alexandra revealed coins from the Hellenistic and early Roman periods – coins that would have been used in the time of Jesus.

In 2009, a first-century dwelling was discovered in which were found pottery and chalk stone vessel shards which date from the late Hellenic through Early Roman periods (100 BC to 100 AD)

Another first-century courtyard house was excavated in Nazareth, which still had windows and doors intact. In 2015 Dr. Ken Dark, the lead archaeologist, noted evidence of early Christian veneration at the site, suggesting that it may have been the childhood home of Jesus.

Perhaps the reason that Nazareth was rarely mentioned in historical works is that it was so small and not well thought of. Even the usually skeptical Ian Wilson, citing pre-Christian remains found in 1955 under the Church of the Annunciation in present-day Nazareth, has managed to concede, “Such findings suggest that Nazareth may have existed in Jesus’ time, but there is no doubt that it must have been a very small and insignificant place.”

How could the government force all its citizens to return to their birthplace for a census?

While this seems like a crazy idea to us we should remember that it was relatively rare for people to move from the place of their birth at all.

When they did it was certainly not like moving from Pennsylvania to California.

Secondly, there is historical evidence of a census taken in Egypt around AD 104 that required everyone to return to the place of their birth.

Quirinius wasn’t the governor of Syria during Christ’s birth!

There has been some rather convincing evidence that Quirinius didn’t begin his governorship until around AD 6 and the census could only take place after that.

There are however two reasonable explanations of this:

There were two different people with the name Quirinius.

Or the same Quirinius occupied that position two different times.

“An eminent archaeologist named Jerry Vardaman has done a great deal of work in this regard. He has found a coin with the name of Quirinius on it in very small writing, or what we call ‘micrographic’ letters. This places him as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 BC until after the death of Herod.”

Luke

Luke 3:1 “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,”

For years scholars pointed to this as evidence that Luke didn’t know what he was talking about, since everybody knew that Lysanias was not a tetrarch but rather the ruler of Chalcis half a century earlier. If Luke can’t get that basic fact right, they suggested, then nothing he has written can be trusted. That’s when archaeology stepped in. “An inscription was later found from the time of Tiberius, from AD 14 to 37, which names Lysanias as tetrarch in Abila near Damascus—just as Luke had written,” McRay explained. “It turned out there had been two government officials named Lysanias! Once more Luke was shown to be exactly right.”Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christmas (p. 44). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Acts 17:6 “And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,”

“For a long time people thought Luke was mistaken, because no evidence of the term politarchs had been found in any ancient Roman documents,” McRay said. “However, an inscription on a first-century arch was later found that begins, ‘In the time of the politarchs…’ You can go to the British Museum and see it for yourself. And then, lo and behold, archaeologists have found more than thirty-five inscriptions that mention politarchs, several of these in Thessalonica from the same period Luke was referring to. Once again the critics were wrong and Luke was shown to be right.” Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christmas (pp. 44-45). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Maybe the point here is that you shouldn’t try to disprove the Bible with archaeology. It doesn’t go well.

Do Matthew and Luke Contradict One Another?

Luke does not include the flight to Egypt.

Does Luke’s narrative allow enough time for a trip to Egypt?

1) After visiting the temple, Joseph and Mary return to Bethlehem. (In the month since Jesus’ birth, Joseph had probably sought temporary work there, and that work had become more permanent, perhaps. It’s also quite possible that Joseph was planning to resettle his new family in Bethlehem, thinking it would be good for the Son of David to be reared in the City of David). 2) Simeon and Anna begin spreading the news that they have seen the Messiah in Jerusalem (Luke 2:25–38). 3) Sometime later, the magi arrive at Jerusalem and confirm the news on the street that the Messiah has been born (Matthew 2:1–2). Herod sends the magi on to Bethlehem, where they find young Jesus (Matthew 2:3–11). 4) The magi return home a different way, and Joseph is warned in a dream to flee to Egypt (Matthew 2:12–13). 5) After a while, Herod figures out that the magi have disregarded his wishes, and he orders the slaughter of all males two years old and younger near Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16). The “two-year” computation indicates that Jesus could have already been that old. 6) Herod dies in 4 BC. 7) Joseph brings his family back from Egypt (Matthew 2:19–21). Out of fear of Herod’s son, Joseph changes his plan to settle in Bethlehem and instead moves back to Galilee (Matthew 2:22–23).

Saying that Matthew and Luke contradict on this point is basing an entire argument on silence which is weak at best. Most of the time this argument is made from a preconceived bias against Scripture.

Matthew does not include the shepherds story and Luke doesn’t include the magi.

Again neither denies the other in this regard.

Matthew and Luke each had their reasons for writing the way they did.

There is an apparent discrepancy on the identity of Joseph’s father.

Some critics find another supposed contradiction in the genealogies associated with the narratives of Jesus’ birth. Matthew 1:16 says that Joseph’s father was Jacob; Luke 3:23 says that Joseph’s father was Heli.

There are several theories, but the best answer to this seeming discrepancy is that Luke is recording Mary’s genealogy and Matthew is recording Joseph’s. There was no Koine Greek word with the exclusive meaning of “son-in-law,” and so Joseph is called the “son of Heli” due to his marriage to Heli’s daughter, Mary. Joseph was a “son” by marriage.