The Whole Christmas Package: Jesus’s Infancy Stories

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Among many much-beloved stories of Jesus, none enjoys more affection than the stories of Jesus’s birth. At Christmas, Christians throughout the world represent these stories with various images in their homes, churches, front yards, and sometimes in public parks. Although the wonder associated with the birth of Jesus evokes the miracle of the birth of any child, for Christians, Christmas is the celebration of God’s human incarnation—the Emmanuel, God with us (Isaiah 7:14). What is largely ignored is that when the stories in Matthew and Luke are read closely, they not only significantly differ, but also are mutually exclusive. […]

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Footnotes

1. Although a fulfillment citation is not explicit in Matthew 2:23, it may fulfill Judges 13:5, Judges 13:7; Isaiah 11:1; or Isaiah 60:21. For more, see Philip J. King, Biblical Views: “Jesus’ Birthplace and Jesus’ Home,” BAR, November/December 2014.

Endnotes

1. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’s mother is present at the wedding at Cana, in Capernaum (John 2:1-12), and at the foot of the cross (John 19:25-27), but John’s unique stories should not be harmonized with the synoptic tradition.

2.
Both here and in the Old Testament, angels are generally surrogate figures for God.

3.
This story also appears in the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas.

4. Western Churches establish a calendar that celebrates Christmas on December 25 with the Gospel of Luke 2:1-20 and Epiphany on January 6 (often transferred to the nearest Sunday) with the Gospel of Matthew 2:1-13, so that most Western Christians sense the visit of the magi to be the second or third chapter following the story from Luke.