Mad_Jack_Mcmad wrote:First of all I offer apologies. I may well have misread or inserted a false memory on the Judeah/Bethlehem thing. You are right it doesn't mention it in our Art Bible and I can't find the other two Bibles we have so, as I can't be bothered trawling through all the others, I defer to your knowledge on that point.
Appreciated, thank you.
Quote:But, and here's the kicker, it doesn't matter. Irrelevant of anything else they were returning to Judeah not Nazareth they traveled to Nazareth in Matthew as an after thought. Luke doesn't even have them fleeing to Egypt (note some Bibles state they fled to Isreal others name the area of Judea as Isreal) he has them return to Nazareth after Jesus' birth. He doesn't even mention the massacre of the innocents. that's one big discrepancy there.
I accept it's an ommission, but by no means a fatal one. Particularly if Matthew's Gospel was already in circulation.
Quote:As is the location of Jesus' birth Matthew a house, Luke a manger.
I am not concerned by this as Luke says Jesus was placed in a manger
after his birth. Matthew says that the Magi came to visit the Messiah at a house. There is no inconsistency here.
Quote:On the Where did Joseph and Mary live? Again whether they lived in Bethlehem or not doesn't matter. You are right in Matthew it doesn't explicitly say where they lived, but there are many towns and cities they could've lived in; the odds are far more on the side of them not living in Nazareth as against. You have one town on your side, I have 100's. Law of chance say they didn't live in Nazareth.
So your argument has now been reduced to "erm, the odds are the Bible is wrong"?
Quote:PS Matthew states they travelled to Nazareth to fulfill the prophecy. Odd wording if they had lived there before. Something you seem to completely ignore.
Jesus had never been there though. The prophecy applies to him, not Mary and Joseph.
Quote:Nice story about your cousin, real cute. Kinda like that Jehovas Witness who knocked on my door and said "If humans are descended from Apes why is my wife not covered with fur?". However like that it's not relevant. Last time I looked Cornwall, London and the South of England weren't an occupied warzone under military rule. Palestine at that time was. People didn't go on holiday, you couldn't even travel without the Romans permission. I'm fairly sure "We have to nip to Bethlehem in order for my wife, who is still a virgin, to give birth to the person who will overthrow you." wouldn't wash as a reason. Of course Luke got round this by inventing a "tax census" which required you to return to the town of your father's. Perhaps Matthew lackes his imagination. It isn't a Hollywood epic, the Jews were a troublesome lot for the Romans, they refused to accept their society and the idea of the Jewish god and the whole lack of statues and Tetragrammaton thing was a complete anathema to a people who had a far more personal relationship to their gods.
Actually the synoptic Gospels tell a very different story. You only have to look at Jesus' wandering ministry to see that freedom of movement was permitted within Galilee, Judea, Samaria etc. It was only Jesus' miracles and wisdom which caused him grief at the hands of the religious Jews.
Quote:The Gospels are not contempary historical accounts and therefore there are holes in them.
No, the only holes you have picked are founded on a hazy memory of the scriptures and a bizarre assessment of probability.
Quote:It wouldn't help that Yeshua was a fairly common name in Isreal/Palestine, maybe they were talking about different people.
Emmanuel, Christ, the Word, the Son of Man, the Light of the World......there are many more names for the Jewish Messiah than Yeshua.
Quote:It must have been difficult finding one person to pin the whole "Son of God" Romanic idea on. After all being a Jew Jesus/Yeshua wouldn't have claimed that himself during his lifetime.
John 10:30
John 8:38
