Both Luke and Matthew, the only evangelists who provide accounts of Jesus’ birth, locate Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem. More recently, however, scholars have argued that Jesus was born in Nazareth. At the heart of the issue is the fact that Matthew’s narrative suggests that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem and fled to Egypt when Herod was about to have Jesus killed; when they returned, Joseph was warned in a dream not to return home because Herod the Great’s nastiest surviving son – nasty Herod had already killed some, causing the Roman emperor Augustus to quip that he’d rather be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son – Archelaus, was now ruling Judea (where Bethlehem was) and it would not be safe for them to return to Bethlehem. So they went to Nazareth of Galilee, which was then ruled by one of Herod’s more appealing sons, and set up house. In Luke, Mary and Joseph apparently already lived in Nazareth and had only gone to Bethlehem for the famous census. It’s difficult to reconcile these two narratives, although, as has often been noted, as different as the details of the stories are, both nonetheless have Jesus born in Bethlehem. My History of Christmas students had to grapple with the controversy for their first paper. They read two article from the Biblical Archaeology Review’s website (you can find them at www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/nativity-01.asp
www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/nativity-02.asp
www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/nativity-03.asp), assessed the evidence, assessed the authors’ arguments, and came up with their own answers. The assignment was an exercise in critical reading, reasoning, and writing, but also an attempt to get the students to come up with their own approaches to how to read the biblical Nativity accounts. Now, onto pagan Christmas! Yes, there was such a thing. More on this in the next couple of weeks.