A Historical Paradox About The Birth Of Jesus

The early life of Jesus Christ, where everything started. Jesus was given birth approximately in the 4 B.C., around the time when King Herod died (‘‘Jesus of Nazareth.’’ Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale). Matthew and Luke communicated that Jesus birth was in Bethlehem, a city close to Jerusalem, which was important in Jewish ancient times as the town of David (‘‘Jesus of Nazareth.’’

Jesus was born in 6 BC in Bethlehem and died in Jerusalem AD 30. Jesus was a religious leader whose teaching and life are recorded in the new testament of the bible. He is a central figure in Christianity and is emulated as the son of God.

In the Gospels according to Matthew and that according to Luke, Jesus’ birth and childhood is narrated. While both of these accounts mention Jesus as not only being the son of Joseph and his virgin wife Mary but also the Son of God, they also have numerous differences between the two. When compared and contrasted many scholars find historical inaccuracies between the two Gospels (especially when it comes to the birth and childhood of Jesus). That being said however, after a closer look at some of the historical problems one may be able to see that they are not nearly as important as the deeper motivation they bring out to the reader.

“When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Lastly, to complete the prophecy of Jesus’s birth, Matthew reaffirms that “. . . Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea . . .” (Matthew 2.1). Matthew inserts these assertions to emphasize the credulity of Jesus’ tie with traditional Judaism.

The film The Nativity Story shares many similarities with the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew was writing for the Jews, so his Gospel focuses primarily on Jesus being the messiah because he fulfills the prophecies. His Gospel also focuses on the paternal side of Jesus’s birth, since Joseph being from the line of David connects Jesus to the Old Testament Covenant with David. In the film, Joseph’s perception of the events at had is often portrayed. Showing the story through his eyes. We also get insight into is his thoughts on occasions, which furthers the films parallels to the Gospel of Matthew. Within Matthew’s Gospel, there are five key details used to connect the birth of Jesus to the Old Testament prophecies, all of which appear in the film.

Most of what is known about Jesus’s life comes from the Gospels. However, historians and religious scholars do not agree about how much of the Gospels is literally true. The Gospels were all written between 40 and 60 years after the death of Jesus. Although there is non-Biblical evidence to show that Jesus was a historical figure, there is limited evidence outside the Gospels documenting the events of his life.

Yancey provides many clear pieces of evidence supporting his idea that the Jesus he grew up with is different than the actual Jesus who lived over two-thousand years ago. He proves how different Jesus’ birth was than how people make it out to be in this day and age. Yancey points out how his birth was amid a time of great religious conflict and scandal, and would have been much different than Christmas cards and stories would have some believe. When Mary was given the news that she would be the mother of Jesus, Joseph did not accept it as truth. Joseph thought Mary had committed adultery, and Yancey even states, “Matthew tells of Joseph magnanimously agreeing to divorce Mary in private rather than press charges, until an angel shows up to correct his perception of betrayal.” (Yancey 31) Only when an angel came to Joseph, did he believe Mary would give birth to Jesus. This part of the birth of Jesus is not one that is told to anyone learning the Christmas story. It is one part of many that are overlooked because they do not fit with the calm, yet miraculous, birth told of in church. Yancey uses arguments such as the one above to convince his reader there is more to Jesus than what most Christians think. His arguments are backed up by facts from the Bible, and because of this, he successfully creates a strong basis for his

There are many aspects of Jesus’ birth and life that lay hidden within the folds of time, most of these tend to bring about theories that to some degree cannot be proven or disproven. This vagueness around the life of Jesus is offset by the works of the gospels in the

In the Gospel of Matthew, the focus on the Jewish genealogy of Jesus played a significant role in the birth story. To fully understand Jesus, it was imperative to first acknowledge who Jesus was within Jewish ancestry and his subsequent position as King of the Jews.

On the other hand, Jesus was the founder of Christianity. He was born in Bethlehem in the year 0 to a young woman named Mary. The Angel Gabriel appeared to her and said that she would have a son, who is the son of God. Not much is known about Jesus’ childhood other than his birth at Bethlehem. Jesus’ father was a carpenter named Joseph who taught Jesus throughout his childhood.

The Bible is full of narratives and accounts which point to our need for a savior and God meeting that need through Jesus Christ. The New Testament begins with four accounts of Christ's life; same person, same life, somewhat different stories. In general, it seems as though the church looks at all the gospels as a whole, treating each gospel as pieces of a puzzle that give us a full picture of Jesus’s time here on earth. However, if we look at it from the perspective of the people who would be reading these accounts or from the perspective of the authors our view might be a little different. Each account of Christ’s life has specific choices made by the author to guide our understanding and have an effect on how we read the text. One relatively

To start this off, I don’t know much about the New Testament but I can name a few specifics. For instance, the first four books of the New Testament are all the same story just different perspectives. I know that the book of Revelation is a story of the end of times, written by John. However, Jesus was speaking through John, as he wrote the book. I know that Jesus was born of a virgin, named Mary. Jesus, before his time, had performed his first miracle of turning water into wine. By the age of thirteen, John the Baptist had baptized him. From that moment on, Jesus was now the man he was called to be, our Savior. I know that Jesus traveled through the Middle East, to more place than we know, performing miracles, such as, healing a leper, making

The New Testament is a collection of books which contains the writings concerning the significant events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. These books appeared after the physical death of Jesus Christ. In this regard, Jesus had left no records concerning him, and all that is written about him depends wholly on what other people have written about him. The first four books of the New Testament are part of the several biographies of Jesus which were written by the end of the first century of the era of Christianity. Then before any of these biographies have been drafted, there were Christian communities which were being instructed through epistles on how to live like Jesus and how to solve their problem like Christians. A good number of these letters were written by a man called Paul. After Paul death, some other new leaders of the Christian movement continued to write letters to the churches to encourage and strengthen them. As Christians grew in number persecution arose, and some letters have been drafted to support them and also to counter the false doctrines. These letters are part of the New Testament. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament were selected from the list of writings in that period (Bruce, 1988)

Time and events as we know have been tracked by B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (in the year of our Lord). In the Old Testament, prophecies point to the coming of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, Jesus came to earth, died and rose again. There are many questions to be answered about Jesus. Who is He? What did he do while he was alive? What was Jesus called? The answers to these questions are very clear.

The way in which both Matthew and Luke treat Mary in their birth narratives affects our understanding of the historicity of these accounts. It could be argued that both of the birth narratives present the male ideology of that time. This is clear when in Luke, Mary is first introduced as “a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David” This description reveals the two most important features of a woman of her time: her virginity and, the man who she belonged to. This male ideology is also presented through Matthew’s writing as he also associates the female population with the aspect of birth and nurture. However, despite both of