My Great Awakening

[John Fazio]

(01-03-2019 01:45 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I will politely disagree with you John, about Matthew and Luke.
Matthew was a Jew and wrote to a Jewish audience. Luke was a Gentile and wrote to a Gentile audience.
The both wanted to emphasize different, but not mutually exclusive points regarding the birth of Jesus,
that would be important to their readers who had different cultural backgrounds.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Lincoln and related subjects forum

Gene:

I quite understand the audiences to which the two evangelists wrote, and therefore their general orientation, but that does not alter the fact that the two birth accounts are radically different and therefore cannot both be historical. In Matthew,
the birth occurs in a house and wise men come from the east, with gifts, following Jesus's star, at Herod's behest. Joseph then takes Mary and Jesus into Egypt, being warned by an angel of danger if they remain in Bethlehem, during which period Herod massacres the innocents and after which Joseph returns to Israel, but not to Bethlehem, but to Nazareth. No taxation, no inn, no manger, no shepherds. In Luke, Joseph takes Mary to Bethlehem because he is to be taxed there, being of the House of David. While there, she gives birth to Jesus in a manger, because there is no room for them in the inn. Shepherds come to the manger, having been told of the birth by angels. No house, no Herod, no wise men, no journey to Egypt and then to Nazareth and no massacre of the innocents. The two accounts are, obviously, very different and therefore cannot both be believed. Belief is not a matter of volition; it is a matter of faith and conviction. Two and two cannot equal six just because one wants to believe it. We all need to learn how to reason better than we often do.

John