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Such irresolution irks other Christians, who see Luke's line that "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart," as a sign that she simply delayed telling people, and who must fight claims, some 2,000 years old, that the Nativities got the virginal conception wrong. Fellow Jews early on challenged Matthew's Gospel assertion that it fulfilled a prophecy in the Book of Isaiah that the Messiah would be born to a "virgin." (Isaiah's Hebrew actually talks of a "young girl"; Matthew was probably working from a Greek mistranslation.) Critics may also have alleged that Jesus...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

...merit in it. "Every line of Matthew's infancy narrative echoes Old Testament themes," he argued. "Are we to think that he accepted all that background but then violated horrendously the stern Old Testament [rule] that God was not a male who mated with women?" Other scholars claim that Luke especially might have been familiar with pagan models closer to the spiritual interaction that today's Christianity believes marked Jesus' conception...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

Or would "O little town of Nazareth" be more accurate? Strange as it may seem, a majority of scholars now lean in the latter direction. Those sticking with Bethlehem point out, not unreasonably, that both Matthew and Luke place Jesus' birth there. The skeptics note that they reach the town by such extravagantly different means that one has to wonder whether they weren't trying too hard to get there...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

...born at home. But his very birth necessitates their flight to Egypt (and eventually Nazareth) because Jerusalem's vicious regent, Herod, is determined to murder the Bethlehem child he has learned will one day be King of the Jews. None of that gripping story, however, can be found in Luke. According to Luke, Joseph and Mary, Nazarenes, are on a brief if inconvenient visit to Joseph's ancestral home of Bethlehem, complying with a vast census ("All the world should be enrolled") ordered by the Roman Emperor Augustus. Meanwhile, Mark, written closer to Jesus' actual lifetime, omits Bethlehem and refers...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

That variation has produced three responses among scholars. Traditionalists promote theories meshing Matthew's and Luke's versions. Says Paul L. Maier, a professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University: "Radical New Testament critics say it's a hopeless jumble. I myself do not think it's impossible to harmonize them." Others champion one Gospel writer while discounting the other. A growing majority, however, conclude that there is simply not enough textual agreement to declare Bethlehem a historical given...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Religion: Behind The First Noel | 12/17/2004 | See Source »

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