There are only two accounts of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in the New Testament. One is in Matthew and the other is in Luke. Many Christians conflate the two narratives. In the Christmas plays, Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem because of a census. Then you have the three wise men showing up, and there’s mention of the threat from Herod. But these are actually two different stories, and the details don’t really fit together so nicely.
In Matthew, it seems that Mary and Joseph didn’t travel to Bethlehem because that’s where they lived, and they fled to Egypt to protect their son from Herod. When they returned, they settled in Nazareth. The Magi and the star are from Matthew’s account. And Matthew tells us Joseph had a dream that convinced him Mary had not been unfaithful to him even though she was pregnant.
In Luke’s account, Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth. An angel informed Mary she was to give birth, and she and Joseph headed to Bethlehem for the census. There wasn’t a room at the inn, so the couple had to seek alternative shelter. When Mary gave birth, shepherds came to admire the baby. After a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem, the couple headed home to Nazareth with their newborn.
There’s no historical records that corroborate the accounts of Herod’s massacre or the Roman census. And what a strange census it would be that required people to return to the home of their ancestors. Joseph supposedly had to go to Bethlehem because he’s a descendant of David. David lived 1,000 years before. Imagine if the U.S. Census Bureau demanded that you return to the home of your ancestors from a 1,000 years ago. How many of us would even know where to go to fulfill such an obligation?
Maybe the authors of Matthew and Luke were not even trying to give us a strict historically accurate account of the birth of Jesus. Maybe they never imagined anyone would take them literally.
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