1A Jesus: his birth Flashcards
(37 cards)
What are the birth narratives?
The accounts, in Matthew and Luke’s gospels that give information on how Jesus came into the world
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding Angels?
- Matthew: Unnamed angel appears to Joseph and quotes Isiah 7:14
- Luke: Angel Gabriel appears to Mary and tells her of her pregnancy (the Annunciation)
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding Mary and Joseph’s marriage?
- Matthew: Joseph marries Mary
* Luke: Joseph is engaged to Mary
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding Elizabeth and Zechariah?
- Matthew: No mention
- Luke: Mary visits Liz, who expresses her joy in the song, Magnificat; Liz gives birth to John the Baptist and Zechariah makes a prophecy, Benedictus
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding the visitors?
- Matthew: Magi (Wise Men)
* Luke: Shepards
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding Herod?
- Matthew: Magi duped Herod, who reacted by killing all children in Bethlehem under 2 years old
- Luke: No mention
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding the Temple?
- Matthew: No mention
- Luke: 8 days after birth, Christ is presented in the Temple; mysteriously recognised by Simeon and Anna; Simeon speaks a hymn, Nunc Dimittis
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding the return journey?
- Matthew: Flight to Egypt; return to Nazareth from Egypt after Herod’s death
- Luke: Return to Nazareth from Jerusalem
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding the chronology?
- Matthew: Jesus was born “in the days of Herod the king”
* Luke: “It was when Quirinus was governor of Syria”
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding the census?
- Matthew: No mention
* Luke: Caesar Augustus calls a census; made it necessary for Joseph + Mary to travel to Bethlehem to be registered
What are the differences in the Gospels regarding where Jesus was born?
- Matthew: “in a house”
* Luke: “in a manger”
In Matthew’s Gospel, it is not mentioned that there were three Magi, nor that they were kings; where does the idea of three kings originate from?
- Three: Tradition of three gifts
* Kings: Tradition based on passages like Psalm 72:11, “May all kings fall down before him”
Outline the historicity of Matthew’s account.
- Little historical detail but does mention Herod’s massacre.
- Massacre = not reported by any other contemporary historian
- Some believe he made it up to draw a parallel between Jesus and Moses, who was similarly threatened by a pharoah
- However, does fit with Herod’s character as he murdered three of his own sons to protect his power
Outline the historicity of Luke’s account.
- Insists on the historical accuracy - “an orderly account”; “investigating everything clearly”
- Quirinus = governor from 6-12 CE, but it cannot be established that he was gov. “in the days of Herod”
- Unless he served a previous term or a scribe miscopied Quirinus for Saturnius (9BCE-6CE), his chronology must be erroneous
- Quirinus held a census in 6/7 CE, but no evi. of one several years earlier
What is the issue with the chronology of Herod?
He died in 4BCE; how could he have known about Jesus if he died 4 years prior?
What do some scholars argue about the three hymns in Luke’s Gospel?
- That Luke misleads his readers
* The three hymns were already in use by the early Christian community before Luke attributed them to the characters
What supernatural event do both Gospels claim is true?
Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin
What supernatural events are there in Matthew’s version?
- Angel appears to Joseph on three occasions
- Angel appears to Magi
- Star appears to Magi and miraculously guides them
What supernatural events are there in Luke’s version?
- Angel Gabriel appears to Mary
- Liz’s unborn baby leaps in her womb after recognising the unborn Jesus
- Jesus is mysteriously recognised as the Messiah in the Temple
What is the issue with the supernatural events in the narratives?
Casts doubts about their historicity
What are the obvious similarities between the two narratives?
- Born in Bethlehem
- Herod = king
- Mary = mother + betrothed to Joseph
- Jesus = conceived of HS
- Mary = virgin
- People travelled to visit
- Jesus = fulfilment of OT prophecy; came to save all humankind, not just Jews
How can we harmonise the accounts?
- Accounts do not blatantly contradict each other
- Matthew may have had access to info not available to luke (vice versa); many believe Luke received his story directly from Mary, which explains his accounts of the Annunciation, Liz, Temple
- Jesus may have been visited by Magi and shepherds; angel may have appeared to both Mary and Joseph; all may have fled to Egypt after being presented in the Temple
What is redaction criticism?
- A critical method for the study of biblical texts
- Assumes that original traditions about Jesus circulated as independent units within the early church
- Each gospel writer chose the material and arranged/edited it to suit their theological interests
Redaction: Who was Matthew’s Gospel aimed at, and why?
- Jewish readers
- At pains to prove that Jesus descended from King David through Joseph
- Tries to prove that Jesus = a fulfilment of OT revelation of God; his accounts contain quotes from OT prophets (Isiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Hosea) + 2 OT books (2 Samuel, possibly Judges)
- Convinced that Jesus came for all people, not just Jews; expresses conviction as his first visitors were foreigners, Magi “from the East”
