Which is precisely what the clergy don’t want you to do
It is especially important to study the origins of the Christian faith, and—above all—the origins of Jesus. It doesn’t take all that much effort to discover that the four gospel authors didn’t agree about where Jesus came from. At the opening of the first gospel to be written, Mark, Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee shows up to be baptized by John the Baptist, a ritual that John has announced is for “the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus is soon identified—by a voice booming from the sky—as god’s beloved son, with whom he is well pleased. The author of John, the final gospel, who specialized in theology inflation, tells his readers right up front, that Jesus was present at creation:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
That’s quite a leap! From a Galilean peasant preacher to co-creator of the cosmos and everything in it. The authors of Matthew and Luke contributed to this theological inflation in their own ways. Matthew was impressed with the idea of a virgin-born holy hero—a common enough belief in other religions—hence he graphed this story onto his Jesus account. This fueled the imagination of the author of Luke’s gospel, who constructed an elaborate tale (Luke 1-3) of the angels playing key roles in predicting the birth of both John the Baptist and Jesus. Here too Mary’s virginity is stressed.
But this pagan belief in a virgin-born holy hero soon collides with the cherished notion that the promised messiah would be a descendant of King David, and would be born in Bethlehem. In Matthew 2:6 we read this excerpt from an ancient prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Both Matthew and Luke include genealogies of Jesus—which, remarkably, aren’t the same!—to demonstrate that he was a descendant to David. These gospel authors include so much miracle/magic folklore in their stories—plus the superstition that a human sacrifice can divert the anger of their deity—so they appear to have been seriously deficient in critical thinking skills. Thus it is astounding they can claim that their holy hero was born of a virgin, impregnated by a holy spirit—that is, no human father—but also try to prove his status as messiah because king David was his ancestor. This makes no sense whatever.
Moreover, there’s a major contradiction between the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. In Matthew, Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem: that was their home. Matthew was also fond of the idea that god/angels spoke to people in dreams, hence he tells his readers that Joseph learned in a dream that Jesus had been conceived by a holy spirit:
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.” (Matthew 1:24-25) This is the end of Matthew chapter 1.
Nothing more whatever is said about the day or night when Jesus was born.
It is very important for the devout to avoid thinking about the Luke birth story when they read the rest of Matthew’s account.
In his chapter 2, Matthew moves into full-throttle cult-promotion mode. Who would have thought: there was a new Jesus star in the sky, and “wise men” from the east had noticed it. Matthew was an advocate for the new Jewish sect devoted to Jesus, and he thought it was so cool that priest-astrologers from far away—after seeing the new star—would travel all the way to Jerusalem to find the new holy child and offer him gifts. This is why I urge devout Christians to think about, ponder, what they’re reading here. The Jesus story in the gospels is diminished by the layers of magic/miracle folklore and superstition we find in them. It’s not a good idea at all to add astrology to this mix.
The priests-astrologers manage to get an audience with King Herod, who is panicked by their news that a new king had been born in the vicinity. The religious authorities explain to Herod that Bethlehem was the place to go, and the priest-astrologers resumed their journey—and Herod made them promise to let him know where they’d found the child.
This is not to be believed. Herod would have sent his own warriors and spies to follow them.
In Matthew’s naïve telling of the story, the star actually stopped over the house where the child was. The priest-astrologers found the child, offered him their gifts, then got on their way, avoiding Jerusalem on their way home, because they’d been warned in a dream to avoid Herod.
When king Herod found out about their treachery, he ordered a massacre of boys under two years of age in the Bethlehem—based on what the priest-astrologers had told him about the age of the new king. So these “wise men” had found a toddler in the house where Mary and Joseph lived. There is no mention of a stable, with adoring shepherds worshipping a baby in a manger.
Joseph too had received a warning in a dream to get out of town, to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus to keep them safe. This flight to Egypt is not mentioned in any other gospel, and later Joseph had another dream in which he was commanded to return home. This was Matthew’s invention, to be able to use a line from Hosea 11:1, “…out of Egypt I called my son.” Although the first part of the verse says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him…” Hosea was referring to the escape of the Israelites from Egypt many centuries earlier. But the New Testament authors were fond of searching the ancient documents for verses they could apply to Jesus.
Eventually Joseph had another dream in which “the Lord appeared to him,” urging him to return home. When they got close to home, Joseph learned that Herod’s son Archelaus had taken over,
“…he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazarene.’” (Matthew 2:22-23)
He made his home in a town called Nazareth. Now, switch back to the birth narrative in Luke, according to which Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth all along. How to get them to Bethlehem? Luke says that there was a census that required people to return to their ancestral towns to be registered. But there’s no record of any such census. But even more puzzling is the idea that a man would take his pregnant wife on the 90-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Great men were often credited with humble beginnings, so it’s no surprise that Mary and Joseph ended up in a stable. Luke adds fabulous touches: angels visit nearby shepherds and announce the birth of Jesus nearby. So they head to the stable to adore the new child.
There is no mention at all of priest-astrologers arriving to pay their respects.
Luke goes on to report that Joseph and Mary took baby Jesus to the Jerusalem Temple to be circumcised, and he is heaped with praise by holy people there. Then they headed home:
“When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.” (Luke 2:39-40)
If devout Christians bothered to read the gospels carefully, then think and ponder about what they discover there, they would be much less inclined to accept the assurances of their clergy that these texts were divinely inspired. Every December when I see the priest-astrologers in the stable presenting their gifts to the baby Jesus, my impulse is to say, “Get them out of there—that’s not what’s reported in the gospels.”
The gospels aren’t to be trusted, by the way, on much else.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023),
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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