XCVI.

"What do we believe about the birth of Jesus? Most of us think we don't know anything about the birth of Jesus. All the Christmas stories are later tradition, probably the one thing most of us would say is that Jesus probably was from Nazareth, his family was simply from Nazareth because he's called Jesus of Nazareth. And the traditions that got him to Bethlehem for his birth are probably later pietistic traditions that Matthew and Luke later developed for different reasons, but to get Jesus born in Bethlehem for fulfillment of prophecy reasons. If you take the birth of Jesus in Luke and Matthew, it's — from a historical point of view it's impossible really to harmonize them without coming up with fantastic unbelievable conjugations of Jesus moving back and forth to Egypt and the holy family and all this sort of thing."

© Dale B. Martin
Yale Lectures on Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature
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