Where was Jesus born? In Bethlehem, of course, in a manger, because there was no room for Joseph and Mary at the local inn. That’s what all the Christmas carols say. And that’s what the Gospels say, too.

Or is it?

Once we begin to examine the gospel stories carefully, we find that the answer to this simple question is not so, well, simple. Passages in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that describe Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem have been seamlessly woven together in modern-day Christmas pageants, but the Gospels of Mark and John leave the reader with the distinct impression that Jesus was born not in Bethlehem after all, but in Nazareth.

For the historian, these inconsistencies pose a challenge.¹

The historian is a time detective, whose task is to raise a specific question about the past, to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support a probable solution, and finally, to demonstrate how such a solution explains the evidence. Whichever hypothesis most adequately explains the variety of independent evidence becomes a “historical fact”—at least until a better hypothesis comes along.

Applying historical analysis to the earliest Christian writings, most of which are in the New Testament, is not a casual exercise. These are not only the most familiar documents from Western antiquity; they are also revered as scripture by millions of Christians around the globe. Interpreters tend either to overlook ordinary historical questions when reading them or, in some cases, to overcompensate by an unusually aggressive dismissal of their claims. Nevertheless, if the “history” of Christian origins is to mean anything, we should not simply abandon ourselves to inherited traditions; we should not switch off our normal thought processes when we contemplate Christian beginnings. Instead, we must strive to analyze these texts with the same discipline we use in reconstructing the past behind the narratives of ancient historians such as Livy, Josephus and Tacitus. I realize that some readers consider it inappropriate to apply common historical principles to these texts, and I respect that position. Obviously, I take a different view, which is why I would like to address the question of Jesus’ birthplace.²

To try to establish where Jesus was born, the historian must examine all the relevant evidence—whether material artifacts, such as coins, pottery and stone inscriptions, or ancient literature, such as the Gospels, the letters of Paul and the Roman histories and other extrabiblical texts.

In our study of Jesus’ birthplace, we can review the archaeological evidence quickly, because there is none: We have no material remains bearing on Jesus’ birthplace. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, for example, was not built because of any local memory of Jesus’ birth there; it is a much later memorial, constructed on the site of a fourth-century church erected by the emperor Constantine when Christianity received state recognition. Constantine probably selected the spot based on the then-famous stories recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

That leaves us with the texts.

Not one of the first- and early-second-century A.D. non-Christian authors who mention Christians in passing—the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the Romans Tacitus and Pliny—provides us with any helpful information about Jesus’ birthplace. We have only the earliest Christian texts, written by the first three generations of Jesus’ followers, from the time of Jesus’ death in about 30 A.D. to roughly 150 A.D. These writings—and only these writings—are the sources we must examine.

The only texts that are dated with some confidence to the first Christian generation (about 30 to 65 A.D.) are the New Testament letters genuinely attributed to Paul. From the second generation, we have the four canonical Gospels. The Gospels are generally dated to between 65 and 100 A.D., with Mark being the earliest and Matthew and Luke dating to the end of that period. John may fall almost anywhere within this range.³

But what did these writers really know about Jesus’ birthplace? And what motivated them to speak of Jesus’ birth at all?

Let’s begin with our earliest source, Paul.

In all of the letters that we have, Paul never mentions any geographical location in connection with Jesus.

This absence can be explained in several ways: Such references may have been irrelevant to his purposes; or he may have assumed that his (converted) readers already knew of these traditions and therefore that he didn’t need to mention them; or he may not have known much about the geography of Jesus’ life. Admittedly, much can be attributed to the first category (irrelevance), since Paul was primarily concerned with Jesus’ status between his crucifixion and his return from heaven, and not so much with the mundane details of Jesus’ life. When he referred to Jesus’ betrayal and described the Last Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23), for example, he almost certainly knew that these events took place near Jerusalem, but he had no reason to bring it up.

Did Paul know any tradition about the place of Jesus’ birth? Since he does not mention one, we cannot be certain. But there is another way to approach this question, which is to ask whether it would have helped Paul’s arguments—or those of his correspondents—to mention Jesus’ birthplace if he did know about it.

Paul wrote letters, not essays, and he was in frequent debate with other Christians whose views differed from his own. His letters preserve not only his own perspectives, therefore, but also traces of his correspondents’. For example, many of Paul’s gentile converts were attracted by Judaism; some of the males were even willing to undergo circumcision (Galatians 4:21, 5:2–12). So Paul discussed circumcision at several points, even though he probably would not have raised the subject if he were simply presenting his own views. So, we can ask not only whether Jesus’ birthplace was an issue for Paul, but whether his letters indicate that it was an issue for any first-generation Christians.

Paul mentions Jesus’ ancestry only twice, and then incidentally. The first time, he is writing to some gentile converts in Galatia, trying to discourage them from their zeal to adopt Judaism. Just as Jesus, though he had been born “under the law” and “of a woman,” achieved spiritual sonship and freedom from the law (Galatians 4:4), so also the Galatians, who have achieved spiritual sonship, must not regress by enslaving themselves to a physical regimen (as Paul characterizes the Jewish calendar and circumcision).

The second time Paul mentions Jesus’ birth, he is addressing converts in Rome. In this context, he concedes to his readers Jesus’ physical ancestry from David, but he highlights Jesus’ designation as “Son of God” for all humanity (Romans 1:4).

Scholars differ significantly in their understanding of Paul’s motives,^a but I would argue that even if he had known of the Bethlehem tradition, it would not have served his interests to mention it. Among his gentile converts, attraction to Judaism was an ongoing phenomenon. Paul’s consistent line was to draw them back to the “new creation” that he believed had supplanted Judaism (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). A birth in Bethlehem, King David’s home, would naturally cement Jesus’ Jewish-messianic affiliation,⁴ which Paul was trying to move beyond. Thus it is not surprising that Paul might not have mentioned Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem even if he knew about it, for mentioning Bethlehem would only have given fuel to his Jewish Christian opponents. First, in Romans 1:3, Paul does concede Jesus’ Davidic descent: Although he was son of David “according to the flesh” (a negative category for Paul), he became son of God (much grander, no?) by his resurrection from the dead—from the physical to the spiritual. Second, although someone else might argue that Davidic ancestry would increase Jesus’ appeal for Paul and his readers, I cannot see that. Paul is in a dire struggle with the Jewish Christians precisely because he has been preaching to gentiles a dying and rising savior—Jesus denuded of Jewish connections. It would only help his opponents to emphasize Jesus’ Davidic ancestry. For Paul, that is more or less irrelevant: Jesus is the son of God, for all nations alike, without any special Jewish connection. Judaism has, for Paul, ended.

More telling, perhaps, is that Paul’s correspondents did not seize upon Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, if they had known about it, as evidence of the Jewish nature of Jesus. From Paul’s letters, we know that his correspondents quoted copiously from Jewish scripture (including the terms of the covenant with Abraham and Moses) and that they appealed to the examples of Jesus’ own brothers and students, who no doubt spoke of Jesus’ Jewish practices (2 Corinthians 11:5–29; Galatians 1:6–11, 2:11–21, 3:6–21). They marshaled arguments for Jesus’ Jewish context, and Paul was forced to reply to them in some detail. But as far as we can tell, the circumstances of Jesus’ birth never came up. If Jesus was known to have had a miraculous birth in the auspicious village of Bethlehem, wouldn’t someone in this first generation have made some sort of appeal to it? Yet, in the end, we are left with complete silence about Jesus’ birthplace from the time of Jesus’ death to about 65 A.D.

The Gospels are at least a generation removed from Jesus’ birth. It is extremely unlikely that any of these authors was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life. They all relied on oral and written sources. Indeed, the author of Luke freely admits at the outset that the events he describes “were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:2). The Fourth Gospel concludes with a similar disclosure (John 21:24).⁵ Further, all four Gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later, and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.

Although we cannot identify the authors or the precise dates of the Gospels, we can say something about the literary relationship of the first three Gospels (the Synoptic Gospels).^b The dominant hypothesis today is that Mark served as a source for both Matthew and Luke and that the extensive material common to Matthew and Luke but not paralleled in Mark comes from another shared source (called Q for convenience), which is now lost.^c I make no use of Q here, though I do assume for argument’s sake that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source.⁶

Did the author of Mark, the earliest of the four Gospels, know anything about the place of Jesus’ birth?

Unlike Luke and Matthew, which include the familiar birth stories, Mark opens with Jesus as an adult, who simply emerges from Nazareth: “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan” (Mark 1:9). When Jesus moves to Capernaum, everyone continues to address him as a Nazarene. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” ask the locals in the Capernaum synagogue (Mark 1:24; see also 10:47, 14:67, 16:6). When Jesus returns to his “hometown” (Greek patris, “ancestral home”), he goes to Nazareth (Mark 6:1). When he teaches in the Nazareth synagogue, the locals are offended at his pretensions because they have long known him, his mother, his brothers and his sisters (Mark 6:1–3). Although the author does not say “since birth,” that seems to be assumed. Jesus responds famously: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, among their own kin, and in their own home” (Mark 6:4).

The author of Mark is not simply silent about Bethlehem; he appears to assume that Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth. Anyone who read Mark alone, without benefit of Matthew or Luke (which Mark’s first readers would not have known), would receive that impression. Mark makes no effort to explain any other origin.

But does this mean that Mark knows nothing of a Bethlehem birth? Or might Mark, like Paul, have had strong motives to deny any connection between Jesus and that town?

Mark’s story is very much in the tradition of Paul’s: The Gospel portrays Jesus as the dying and rising savior, who will return shortly to save his followers, represented by all nations. In Mark, Jesus is fundamentally, indeed fatally, alienated from Judaism. “What is this? A new teaching!” his Jewish listeners gasp (Mark 1:27). Jesus’ Jewish family, students and hometown folk are major disappointments to him because they do not understand him. Later in Mark, it is the Pharisees (members of a Jewish sect) who will conspire with Herod to murder Jesus (Mark 3:6). Even if the author of Mark had known about a Bethlehem birth, he, like Paul, may have had reason to suppress that information in order to disassociate Jesus from Jewish categories.

In keeping with this dislocation from Judaism, Mark’s Jesus directly challenges the notion that the Messiah should be a descendant of David: “While Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he said, ‘How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?…David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his [David’s] son?’” (Mark 12:35–37). If Davidic descent itself is unimportant in Mark, birth in David’s hometown is irrelevant.

On the other hand, at least one passage in Mark indicates that the author, rather than trying to hide the traditions surrounding Jesus’ birth, truly did not know about them: Once, when Jesus returns home and a crowd gathers around him, his family and friends go out to seize him, thinking that he is “out of his mind” because of his behavior (Mark 3:21). If the author of Mark (or his Christian readers) had known about the heavenly revelations to Mary and Joseph, about the shepherds and the Magi, and about the great celebration at the time of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, would he not have mentioned this?

Although both Matthew and Luke appear to have drawn on Mark, these later Gospels often disagree significantly with their source. The authors of Matthew and Luke were especially concerned with re-establishing Jesus within Judaism to some degree. And the story that they had heard about Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem helped them do so.

Matthew’s intentions are clear from his opening lines, which firmly establish Jesus’ Jewish roots: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew goes on to list the generations from Abraham to Jesus—including 14 from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Exile and a final 14 from the Exile to Jesus. Only then does Matthew describe the birth: “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. 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). An angel encourages Joseph not to abandon Mary:

Only then are we given the time and location of the birth: “In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’”

Frightened, Herod calls together his chief priests and scribes and asks them where the Messiah was to be born. Quoting the prophet Micah (see the first sidebar to this article), they reply: “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the 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’” (Matthew 2:5–6).

In Matthew’s account, Jesus’ parents initially live in Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem (Matthew 2:1, 11). It is only when a paranoid King Herod massacres the newborns in that region (Matthew 2:16) that the family flees to Egypt. Although the new parents wish to return home to Bethlehem in Judea after Herod’s death, they receive divine instruction to settle in “a town called Nazareth” (Matthew 2:23), which is introduced at the end of Matthew’s birth narrative. Each of the family’s movements, the author repeatedly points out, “fulfills what was spoken through the prophet” (Matthew 1:22, 2:5, 15, 17, 23), quoting Isaiah, Micah and perhaps other prophets. Clearly, Matthew wants to show that Jesus stood in continuity with his Jewish past.

Matthew’s allusions to Micah and other prophets raise a crucial question: Is it more likely that the author included a Bethlehem birth for Jesus because he knew that this had in fact happened or because he knew of the passages in scripture and thought it important to describe Jesus’ career in the language of the prophets? This may seem cynical, but it is an unavoidable issue for the historian. Later in Matthew, we find the author clearly adjusting the story of Jesus’ life to match the Old Testament record. For example, in Mark, when Jesus enters Jerusalem, he rides on a donkey colt (Mark 11:2). The author of Matthew parallels Mark’s story almost verbatim, except that he has Jesus riding on both a donkey and its colt (Matthew 21:2, 7). The author explains that this action fulfills Zechariah 9:9, according to which the king of Israel should come riding on a donkey and a colt (Matthew 21:4–5).^e

Has the author of Matthew similarly manipulated the birth account?

Matthew’s infancy narrative can be suspiciously formulaic, beginning with the neat division of Jesus’ genealogy into three sets of 14 generations, which do not accord with the Old Testament parallels or even with the text of Matthew itself.⁷ Such patterns suggest that the author is not simply reporting on events.⁸

Further, despite Matthew’s efforts to construct neat literary patterns, the Bethlehem story is not well incorporated into the rest of the text. Immediately following the birth narrative, Matthew appears to revert to Mark’s version of events. In chapters 3 to 28 of Matthew, which paraphrase Mark extensively, Jesus speaks of Nazareth as his ancestral home or birthplace (Matthew 13:57) and Jesus is said to be “from Nazareth” (Matthew 21:11, 26:71). Joseph, a central figure in the birth narrative, disappears entirely (in keeping with Mark, which never mentions Joseph), and the birth story is nowhere recalled in later chapters of Matthew. Curiously, Matthew even preserves Jesus’ challenge to the Messiah’s descent from David (Matthew 22:41–45).

Finally, there are obvious historical difficulties with Matthew’s birth narrative, including the mysterious star that somehow identified a particular house in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:9–11) and Herod’s slaughter of children—an event that is not recorded in any other first-century A.D. source. Matthew’s contemporary Josephus wrote several volumes excoriating Herod for his violations of Jewish custom.⁹ It seems highly unlikely that if a slaughter of babies had taken place near Jerusalem, Josephus would not have heard about it and used it as an example of Herod’s heinous crimes.

The most serious doubts about the historicity of Matthew’s Bethlehem story, however, come to light as we compare his text with Luke’s.

Luke’s Bethlehem story is not complementary to Matthew’s, filling in the gaps, as is often assumed. Rather, it is an irreconcilably different account from beginning to end: in story line, supporting characters, geographical and historical detail, and style. Both accounts explain that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, but that is all they share.

The Gospel of Luke opens with two birth narratives—John the Baptist’s and Jesus’—claiming that the two men were relatives (Luke 1:5–2:21, esp. 1:36–45). We first read of how John’s elderly parents, late in life, will give birth to a son; then we read of the annunciation to Mary. Next we’re told the circumstances of the birth and infancy of John and then of Jesus.

Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth opens with Mary and Joseph living in Nazareth (not Bethlehem, as Matthew has it). Near the end of Mary’s pregnancy, during the rule of the emperor Augustus and the Syrian governor Quirinius, the couple must travel to Bethlehem for a worldwide census (never mentioned in Matthew), which requires people to return to their ancestral homes (Luke 2:1–5). Joseph goes to Bethlehem because he belongs to the “house and ancestry” (oikos kai patria) of King David, who lived a millennium earlier. Jesus is born just after his parents arrive in Bethlehem. There is no room for them at the inn, so he is born in the local manger (Luke 2:7), where he is adored by the local shepherds. Once Mary’s 33 days of purification are over (Luke 2:22; cf. Leviticus 12:4), she presents Jesus in the Temple with an appropriate sacrifice; then she and Joseph return home to Nazareth (Luke 2:39; in Matthew, they only settle in Nazareth after traveling to Egypt).

The author of Luke, like the author of Matthew, wishes to establish Jesus within Judaism.¹⁰ Does he mention Bethlehem simply to strengthen his argument?¹¹

Just as Matthew’s account presents historical problems, so does Luke’s. The census, mentioned only by Luke, provides the historical context for Luke’s birth narrative. We do have outside corroboration of a census of the Jews under the Syrian governor Quirinius, when Judea was directly annexed to Rome as a province: This census plays a significant role in the histories of Josephus because it reportedly sparked a popular revolt.¹²

Luke’s effort to link Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem with the census is, however, plagued by historical inconsistencies and improbabilities.¹³ The census described by Josephus occurred in 6 A.D., several years after Jesus’ birth (see the second sidebar to this article). It was not a worldwide census, although it apparently included Syria along with Judea. And requiring people to travel far away from where they were living would defeat the purpose of a Roman census, which was to assess current property for taxation. Moreover, only the household head would need to report to a local administrative center. Finally, it would be absurd to require all the thousands of descendants of David, who had lived a thousand years earlier, to return to his birthplace. David himself moved to Jerusalem after conquering the city, and so a descendant of David would also be a descendant of many others—from Jerusalem.

These are not the only problems with Luke’s narrative: Following the initial account of Jesus’ birth in Luke, the remarkable Bethlehem story plays no further role (just as in Matthew). Significantly, the author describes Nazareth as “the place where Jesus was raised” (Luke 4:16) rather than as Jesus’ native town (cf. Mark 6:1), but Jesus continues to be identified as “Jesus of Nazareth” or “the Nazarene” (Luke 4:34, 18:37, 24:19; Acts 2:22, 3:6, 4:10, 6:14 et al.). Further, when Jesus comes to trial, Luke—alone—insists that because he was a Galilean by origin, Jesus had to be tried by Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee who was visiting Jerusalem for Passover (Luke 23:6–7). There is no remembrance of Bethlehem as Jesus’ ancestral home.¹⁴

The Gospel of John offers no account of Jesus’ birth, but the text nevertheless reveals many early Christian assumptions regarding Jesus’ birthplace.

Most tellingly, in John 7:40–44 a crowd is debating whether Jesus is a prophet or the Messiah; some of the people object, saying: “The Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Didn’t the scripture say that the Messiah comes from the seed of David, from Bethlehem—the village where David was from?” No one says, “Wait a minute. Jesus was indeed born in Bethlehem!” The author of John does not seem to know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Similarly, when the disciple Nathanael is told that Jesus is the one described in the Law and Prophets and comes “from Nazareth,” Nathanael retorts, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:45–46).

The contrast between what Jesus appears to be (human) and what he really is (divine) is a theme found throughout the Gospel: Similarly, Jesus appears to die miserably, as any man would, when hoisted on the cross, whereas in reality the cross marks his exaltation and the completion of his mission (John 12:32, 19:30). It fits with John’s entire approach, therefore, to use Jesus’ humble birth in Nazareth as a counterpoint to his heavenly origin.

Let us return to our “simple” question: Where was Jesus born? Does any hypothesis concerning Jesus’ birthplace explain the evidence?

If Jesus was born in Bethlehem and this was widely known among his followers, then Jesus’ distinguished place of birth must have been regarded as irrelevant to any early Christian discussion that has left traces in Paul’s letters. This would be surprising, though not entirely improbable.

Similarly, the author of Mark might have suppressed this information, while at the same time implying that Jesus was from Nazareth, out of a desire to separate Jesus from Jewish traditions.

The author of John, too, may have concealed the Bethlehem tradition; this, however, is more difficult to explain, because if it was widely known that Jesus was from Bethlehem, that knowledge would have undercut the author’s use of irony based on Jesus’ ignominious origins as a Galilean and, more specifically, a Nazarene.

Even harder to explain are the extensive disagreements and numerous historical improbabilities in the only two texts that posit a Bethlehem birth: Matthew and Luke. Neither narrative indicates that its author knew the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.

Finally, if Jesus’ birth in Davidic Bethlehem was widely known among early Christians, why didn’t this knowledge have a greater effect on the thinking of the first four generations of Christians, who were most exercised to prove Jesus’ messiahship to doubting Jews?

If the Bethlehem hypothesis does not explain the evidence very well, would another site, such as Nazareth, work better? Perhaps, but our survey of the evidence suggests that early Christians simply did not know much about Jesus’ birth. This is only to be expected, since Jesus’ main significance for many of his earliest followers had to do with his teaching, death, resurrection and expected return. When Jesus began his ministry as an adult, he was known to his followers as “Jesus of Nazareth”—a title that persists in all the second-generation texts. Christians throughout the first generation reasonably assumed, as did the later authors of Mark and John, that Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth. It was fairly late when some Christians first became more interested in the question, and this accords with a demonstrable tendency in later Christian history to cultivate information about Jesus’ birth and early years. Even by the time of Matthew and Luke, reliable information about Jesus’ birth was no longer available. These authors took the basic proposition (probably from an earlier, now-lost source) that Jesus, the son of David, had been born in Bethlehem before Joseph and Mary had become intimate. This proposition could easily have originated in reflection upon Micah 5:2 and developed from there. That would explain why their stories fit their respective literary proclivities so well. It was only in the mid-second century, after their accounts were in wide circulation, that Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, the city of David, would capture the Christian imagination. Only then did the Bethlehem birth become a significant argument for Jesus’ messiahship and the evolving doctrine of the incarnation—of God becoming man.

Where was Jesus born? Was it Bethlehem or Nazareth or even Sepphoris, Tiberias or Jerusalem? We cannot know for sure because the early Christians themselves apparently did not know.

DOB JC

Thomas Sharkey — Germany (8/2/2011 9:23:44 AM)

So, the place where JC was born could be Naz or Beth, but if he was born at the time of a cunsus - these were carried out on the first month of the year, which means - if my calculations are correct - then JC was born in March. At that time Joseph lived in Nazareth and travelled to Bethlehem in compliance with the requirements of a Roman census. Subsequently, Jesus was born there. As for the stable story, that was invented by Francis of Assisi for some reason. So, Joseph may have returned to Naz

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Where was Jesus Born?

Orestes Pilarinos — USA (5/11/2011 2:03:58 AM)

There was not Nazareth at the time of jesus . Yeshua is his name and not jesus. Historically ''jesus'' never existed .Keep sleeping people.

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Bethlehem

Alice C. Linsley — USA (4/25/2011 10:09:53 PM)

Was Bethlehem the "unknown town of Judah" mentioned in Luke 23:51? This is where Joseph of Harimathea came from? "He was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews."

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More about the guiding star?

Alfredo — El Salvador (3/19/2011 3:48:51 PM)

Thanks to. Dr. Rolland Hower. Would you please give us more information about that Cuneiform tablet that you mention? Does anyone else have more information about it? Would you please give us a url linking to it? If that information is true, It would hold that 1. The Messiah was born in Bethlehem and 2. The wise men found a 2 year old toodler Messiah living in Nazareth. Just as the accounts by Matthew and Luke clearly state!

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Where was Jesus born

Marny — USA (2/19/2011 4:16:17 PM)

PUHHHHHleeze People in this country can't figure out where President Obama was born ... and you folks are so sure about where Jesus was born?! Many people don't know that Honolulu when President Obama was born was part of the USA, as a state of the union/republic.

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The guiding Star

Dr, Rolland Hower — U.S.A. (1/26/2011 11:58:36 AM)

There is an ancient Cuneiform tablet that describes the alignment of planets relative to the sun and the earth that was followed by Astronomers from the Fertile Crescent westward to find a new-born King. This path would have directed them to Nasereth.

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The Truth about Jesus' Birth, Part 4

Debbie — USA (9/29/2010 12:58:57 PM)

. . . when you consider all the Scriptures that say God came in the flesh and dwelled "amongst" us, it makes sense that He would have entered the earth in the form of man during the Feast of Tabernacles because He was now dwelling among men. Also, the feast days are God's appointed times. Anyway, that's my theory -- there's much more to it, but those are the basics. It's nice that scholars have come up with their own theories. The important thing is to keep studying the Scriptures! Be blessed!

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The Truth about Jesus' Birth, Part 3

Debbie — USA (9/29/2010 12:52:09 PM)

. . . considering that everyone at that time was "looking up," what would they see? The "star" that is reported in Scripture. One of Christ's names is the "Light" of the world and the "Word" or "Torah." If you break down that word into its root form ("orah"), it means light. The "star" was a supernatural way of saying that God's "Light" had entered the earth. And why Sukkot? The feast celebrates when God tabernacled (dwelled) with man in the wilderness . . .

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The Truth about Jesus' Birth, Part 2

Debbie — USA (9/29/2010 12:45:57 PM)

. . . the part about no room at the "inn" I have learned can refer to the actual home of Joseph's family or to the caravansary that existed between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Either way, I believe that Christ was born in a sukkah (temp. booth) constructed for the feast day. Another important fact is that Jews are instructed to live/sleep in their sukkahs. It is a common practice to look up thru the roofs and view the heavens and contemplate the infinity of God and His goodness during Sukkot . . .

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The Truth about Jesus' Birth

Debbie — USA (9/29/2010 12:37:32 PM)

I have a theory that is based on Scripture and religious practices: Christ was born in Bethlehem during the Feast of Tabernacles. From what I have learned about Jewish feast days in Jerusalem, most likely Joseph was taking Mary into the Holy city to observe Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles. Considering that most all Jews would travel to Jerusalem for this particular Holy day, the census would have made sense because most of the citizens would be within a one day journey of the city . . .

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Where was Jesus born?

Alistair McFarlane — Ireland (9/22/2010 2:49:58 PM)

Mary and Joseph would have been familiar with the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Believing that their child was to be the Messiah, they would naturally go there, so that he would be born there and be accepted as the Messiah. They would have gone there census or no census, so that the prophesy would be fulfilled.

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O Little Town of Bethlehem

Marny Fischer — USA (7/20/2010 3:33:30 PM)

The man who wrote that Christmas carol was just writing a song -- and needed the right words to fit. He also wrote it in the 1800s ...

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Where was Jesus born

Marny Fischer — USA (7/20/2010 3:31:39 PM)

It was also believed the earth was flat. There also was NO church or Christians until decades AFTER Jesus and his fellow Jews were murdered. Having FAITH means I don't have to believe every story written by people who were not eye witnesses.

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Jesus of Bethlehem

Alice C. Linsley — USA (5/30/2010 5:04:23 PM)

David was the son of Jesse of Bethlehem, a Horite settlement. Jesse was likely a priest and shepherd and he probably had two wives. David's mother was in Bethlehem and the other wife was probably in Hebron. This would explain why David was anointed first in Bethlehem and later anointed as king of Judah in Hebron (II Sam. 2:1-4). Jesus is traced through Zerubabbel to David. Rahab married Salmon the Horite, who is called the "father of Bethlehem." Mary was a descendent of these priestly lines.

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Still Bethlehem

ABC — USA (5/4/2010 11:32:35 PM)

Steve Mason states that Paul was trying to move beyond Jesus' Jewish-messianic affiliation. See Eph. 2:20 ".. built upon the foundation of the Apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.." Paul even states his own Jewish affiliation. Phil. 3:5 "Circumsised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel,of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee.." At issue here is change, not denial. Paul did not try to hide Jesus' Jewishness.

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Where was Jesus Born

John Majka — USA (4/3/2010 2:35:20 PM)

As usual, people are not seeing the forest because of the trees. They concentrate on inconsequential details while missing the whole point. Sometimes it seems to be as if EVERYONE, including the "Christian" religions are intentionally avoiding the whole purpose of his life and death. "They have ears and do not hear. They have eyes and do not see." How true, how true.

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Jesus Place of birth

Ken Monroe — America (4/1/2010 1:46:52 PM)

Where was Jesus born Except for a census what difference does it really make where he was born. I'm sure there has been many mistakes when translation is involved. A current day example is my birth certificate, it shows a large town 20 miles from my birth place when there was a small town only 1.5 miles away.I am still the same person and Jesus is still my Lord no matter where his born.

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Where was Yeshua (Jesus) born & ehen ?

mel — Canada (1/31/2010 1:01:11 AM)

Our Lord Yeshua or Jesus(a greek version of His name) was born in Bethlehem on the 1st day of the Feast of Trumpets , in the year 3 BC Sept. 12 th . There are many references to that day both in OT & NT, as is in other prophetic books that are the basis of mystical Hebrew & Christian teachings . Additionally , studies done by scholars on the Bible Code , yet again proved to support that .

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Jesus born where?

Georgia Kotidis — usa (1/19/2010 5:51:18 PM)

It doesnt really matter where Jesus was born. it doesnt change the core message of the Bible. Its Gods word written down by scribes. so its not going to be 100% accurate. what we need to understand is if the whole message of the Bible is affected by any of this. And its not.

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Jesus born in Jerusalem/City of David

wardell lindsay — (12/30/2009 2:17:17 AM)

Jesus was born in Jerusalem in 100 BCE, possibly in the section of Jerusalem called the City of David. "Jesus the Nazarene" was the title used by the Pharisees, the foes of Jesus, meaning "Jesus the sectarian". Nazarene comes from the term "notzri" for sect. The term Nazarene has nothing to do with a place but belonging to a sect, e.g Jesus the Quaker. "Pauline Christians" misunderstood the term Nazarene as a place. While he lived Jesus was called by his followers, the Teacher of Righteousness

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Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the Feast of Sukko

Deborah — USA (10/28/2009 1:13:44 PM)

Jesus was born during the Feast of Sukkot, when Jews are commanded to live in temp. dwellings. Part of the exper. is being able to see the stars thru the roof of the sukkahs. There was a celestial event connected to Jesus that signified the "orah" coming to earth-seen when everyone was looking up. Also, Bethlehem is where the priestly flocks were kept. At Passover, the yearlings would be driven into Jerusalem for sacrifice. Jesus-the Lamb of God-was born in Bethlehem & fulfilled prophecy.

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o

jo — not yourz (10/19/2009 11:20:11 PM)

hey, the thing about any bible hats not hebrew is that its been changed (like the forbidden fruit being a pomegrante, now its accepted as an apple) king james version and all the others are all different depending on the time, so its not literally gods word, its more like an interpretation of it

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where Jesus was born ?

Stever — USA (10/14/2009 8:12:23 PM)

The date and the place are not as important as is His message!Although the OT mentions Bethlehem,as does the NT; scripture can be inaccurate at times. The essence of what the Bible teaches is more signifigant than any detail that may not be correct.It wouldn't change my beliefs,my foundation is secure.Peace to all in Christ,sincerely, Stever

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Jesus born in BETHLEHEM

Micah — US (9/24/2009 2:54:13 AM)

I can see how some biblical scholars are doubting christmas carols, but I CAN NOT SEE HOW THEY CAN DOUBT GOD's WORD! If you think about it, you'll notice that saying that God's word is not true would be saying that God, in his word, is lying. Come on people! Think!

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Jesus born in BETHLEHEM #5

Micah — US (9/24/2009 2:50:37 AM)

...But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."

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Jesus Born in BETHLEHEM #4a

Micah — US (9/24/2009 2:49:20 AM)

The reason why Jesus was a Nazarene (but not born there)… Matthew 2:19-23~ “After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead. So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

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Jesus born in BETHLEHEM #3

Micah — US (9/24/2009 2:47:19 AM)

The skeptical question answered, by the prophecy… John 7:32~ “Still others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family[a] and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?”

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Jesus born in BETHLEHEM #2

Micah — US (9/24/2009 2:46:17 AM)

The fact of Bible-times people knowing the prophecy… Matthew 2:5-6~ “In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

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Jesus born in BETHLEHEM #1

Micah — US (9/24/2009 2:42:36 AM)

The prophecy… Micah 5:2~ “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” The fact of the Magi… Matthew 2:1~ “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.”

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Oh Little town of ___________ ?

Devin Green — USA (6/2/2009 1:44:20 AM)

watch the documentary "the star of bethlaham" and this will make up your mind. taking the star charts back 2000 years matches up perfectly with bible prophacy..... archaeology isnt the only evidence for biblical acuracy.... look to the stars

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Bethlehem

James Hardy — UK (3/25/2009 6:20:48 PM)

Sooo, the eye witnesses of Jesus day got it wrong but our superiour knowledge an intellect some 2000 years later know better. Mmmm, that makes sense! I'll stick with the Bible record, my evidence based faith tells me that every time someone comes up with a theory like this they end up proved wrong and the Bible right.

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Oh little town of Bethlehem

doug — USA (1/10/2009 10:53:41 AM)

per the abstract ref'd by christmas Doug, the bethlehem of judah referenced in Ruth and Judges must be another bethlehem than that which did not exist in the time of herod. is this debate founded on another case of not having found it proves that it does not exist?

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Oh Little Town of Anywhere

Brad — USA and Europe (1/4/2009 12:56:37 AM)

Traditions are cool, and they differ for each of us. I love the traditions I grew up with and will continue to sing about Bethlehem and to enjoy the traditional gospel stories at Christmas time. Scholarship and debate are neat because we humans just love to argue and to convince ourselves that we are right and the other guy is wrong. So - nobody is ever going to know, for sure, exactly where Jesus was born, or exactly when, or even IF he was born (with incontrovertible proof, that is). What is important, if you BELIEVE that he was born, is to figure out for yourself WHY. The writers enshrined in the accepted New Testament canon (way to go, Irinaeus), and the many more who did not make the cut, all worked this out with God's help. They invite us to do so as well, and God is still there to assist. Bravo BAR for getting so many folks to think about this issue and, maybe, about the much more important issues behind it. Happy New Year!

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Where was Jesus born: A journal citation

Doug — (12/25/2008 8:14:01 PM)

http://www.archaeology.org/0511/abstracts/jesus.html Worth having your local librarian pull the full article for you. Bethlehem didn't exist in the reign of Herod. Journal volume/page citation is at this link.

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Little Town of Bethlehem

Gerry L. Osburn — USA (11/9/2008 12:27:13 PM)

Is it true that there are two Bethlehems, one in Judah and the other within 10 miles from Nazereth in the north?

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Jesus' birth place

RAY OLIVER — USA (10/19/2008 7:20:14 PM)

Well, Bethlehem or Nazareth is more problematic than it appears to be. We know from the recorded customs and norms at the time of Jesus' birth, that a person was addressed by their 1st name and place of birth. Thus, "Jesus of Nazareth" is supported by the recorded practice at the time. However, the Synoptic gospels are the only reliable and credible accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. These Gospels are the closest 1st hand historical account available. Based on the Gospels of Mark, Mathew, Luke & John we are told that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Perhaps Jesus' escape from the sword of Herod might have necessitated a document change to Jesus' adopted place of birth. At the moment, the preponderance of the credible evidence supports the finding that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. R.Oliver.

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Jesus' birthplace

Chris Albert Wells — france (10/8/2008 8:50:02 AM)

Jesus was born in the mind of his beholder: Mark the evangelist. The case for a historical Jesus is chattered by the Dead Sea Scroll Messiahs. They personify two clans within the divided community. The 'Apocalyptic fragment' gives us, as would any local or national assembly, a pie-chart of the forces present. A winning Priestly Messiah clan and a lesser Davidic clan retaining only a few residual benches. The Gospels were written according to the same structure: a winning Jesus Messiah clan opposed to a losing John the Baptist Messiah clan. Don't forget that if on one side of the coin John the Baptist has 'something to do with Qumran', on the other side he is an allegory of an ascetic prophet dressed in camel skins identifying Elijah and implicitly giving John a messianic coverage. To the Gospel writer, John the Baptist is obviously not the one they are waiting for and is dismissed from the scene as soon as the curtain goes up. The evolution of the community, changing from Essene to Christian can be followed by the relationship between the two emblematic Messias, such as rejection and quarrels in Mark followed ten years later by Mathew accepting that the new movement was issued from the Essene antecedents. Jesus represents a 'political etiquette'. The party he represents was not 'born' in Bethlehem the Davidic town nor in Nazareth that never existed as a town in those days.

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birth place of Jesus

francesco — Italy (9/24/2008 3:44:15 PM)

The real birth place of Jesus seems to be Gamla,also written Gamala, in the Golan Heights. Indeed, Gamla is only town, during Jesus time, that coincides with the description given in the Gospel of Luke.Is also seems that the Nazareth of the time of Jesus is to be found nowhere.I have been to visit the ruins of Gamla : impressive

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birthplace of Jesus

Bones Rhodes — USofA (9/7/2008 12:10:46 AM)

I am amazed that this discussion is being held on BAR's site: on a fundamentalist Christian website, maybe, but (unless I 'member incorrectly) such items as "did the village of Nazareth even exist at the time of Jesus' birth ?" and " was 'Jesus of Nazareth' mistranslated from 'Jesus the Nazorean'?" have graced the pages of BAR on many occassions. The poster who pointed out that there is NO independent verification of Jesus having even lived is correct: basically, it is all based on the information given in one source - the Bible. Unfortunately for the 'believer', you can't prove something written in one book ONLY by that same book. In many a discussion with believers over the veracity of the Bible, I would pull a copy of 'The Lord Of The Rings' on them; we were then each armed with the same proofs - his that Jesus, Cephas, and Mary had existed and mine that Smeagol, Pippin, and Orcs had since we each had an uncorroborated book stating such. One of the most basic starting points in a debate is : If your view must be held based simply on "belief" , then you have no grounds for debate.

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let faith take over

francesca — (7/22/2008 9:00:59 AM)

In my heart and mind - Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Whether Bethlehem in those days covered a different area or meant somewhere else - it is not of great importance. The knowledge of the true and exact location of Jesus' birth shouldn't be that important. It does not and will not change his teachings and shouldn't shake our faiths. For those who do not believe, but still choose to post comments here - peace be with you.

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Birthplace of Jesus

Roderick St.George — Australia (7/15/2008 11:57:55 AM)

Dick Carey, what a refreshingly honest thing to say. Faith is indeed paramount. We do tend to get "blind-itis" from traditions and it's sometimes hard to shake it. As a prof of mine used to say when we students wanted to put a popular slant on a given scripture; "Let the text speak for itself".

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Birth place of Jesus

Dick Carey — United States (7/9/2008 11:51:01 PM)

I think we, as Christians have somewhat of a hangup equating tradition with fact. There are a lot of things that are correctible in the Bible. Faith is paramount...it is the basis, not where the dirt or rocks are piled.

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Bethlehem

Thomas Allsteadt — USA (1/22/2008 11:53:23 AM)

Dr Jerome Murphy O'Connor has the most convincing argument, especially when taken in light of Frederick A. Larson's scholarship of the Bethlehem Star and the title of Pater Patriae bestowed on Augustus in February, 2 BC mandating the loyalty oath mentioned by Josephus.

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Bethlehem - silly

Bar Is Quix — Canada (1/20/2008 12:25:22 PM)

Mason's article is part of a growing trend to publish sensational contrarian theories ala Simcha Jacobovici - lets face it - tabloid jouranlism sells more magazines, books,videos etc. BTW, Mason's stomping grounds at York University is well known for being somewhat of a second tier remedial school, hardly the home of world class thought leadership.

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o little town of Nazareth

Doug — usa (1/19/2008 10:01:51 PM)

The idea of "Jesus" is a good one; it's just that he was not real in a historical sense. He is an "idea" for us to contemplate. Please read "The Laughing Jesus" by Freke and Gandy. A real eye-opener.....no, make that brain-opener.

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for the talk back on where jesus was born

kari campbell — idaho (1/16/2008 10:55:33 PM)

it is on the "o little town of Nazareth" that is the answer to your question.

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birthplace of jesus

werner reis — (1/7/2008 5:12:05 PM)

two excellent well written accounts were presented. i cannot decide with certainty. however, since bethelem is specifically mentioned in the gosples, and nazareth only inferentially, i will stick with tradition and vote for bethlehem. this is an expedient choice only and has no theological significance for me. jesus could not be from the house of david as presented, anyway, because josef is not his father, and the suggested genealogical connection to david requires the bloodline of josef. in other words, being born in bethlehem is fortuitous only. it could have been any town, although "o little town of schechem" would make an awful christmas carol!

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WHERE WAS JESUS BORN?

Dennis Smith — United States (1/6/2008 10:16:49 AM)

I know there has been some debete about where and when Jesus was born; the simple fact is unless someone finds a stone that Joseph or Mary craved that says "My Son Jesus was Born Here" no one prove 100% where and where it happened. Somethings will always be more of a matter of faith than hard fact.

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Not Bethlehem

Peggy — USA (1/2/2008 5:24:25 PM)

I think the prophecy in Micah often used to justify the Bethlehem site is a metaphor. The constant theme which runs through the OT is the elder son serving the younger. David was the youngest and least of his brethern. Jesse the patriarch is referred to as the Bethlemite. And any of David and his brothers could also be referred to in a similar manner. So the one who was to be born to rule was the offshoot of a minor branch of the Davidic line (least among the princes of Judah). Therefore,the prophecy would be better understood to refer to the rulership passing not to the chief descendants of David from the preserved geneologies, but to a minor obscure side branch. I think when Herod inquired of the birthplace of the King of the Jews that he was deflected to look away from Jerusalem where most likely the chief descendants (and minor families)had family connections. Jesus had a strong connection with Jerusalem and it may be because he lived there for sometime, perhaps in the lost years. His father was a carpenter (actually he was a construction worker-tekton) who most likely worked on the largest construction site around (the Temple). No where is Bethlehem mentioned as a site of interest past the nativity stories. I think it's more interesting that Jesus is descended from Zerubbabel in both the genealogies in Matthew and Luke.

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Jesus' Birthplace

Betty E Guzowski — USA (1/2/2008 5:19:24 PM)

I believe that Jesus was far more likely to have been in Nazareth, and the place changed in legend to fit in with alleged prophesies.There is no logic in Joseph going to Bethlehem to be counted in a census rather than be counted where he is actually living. Accounts of his birth in the New Testament and in other early Christian writings are scarcely eyewitness, and vary.

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re: jesus birth

doug — usa (1/1/2008 11:21:22 AM)

So politically naive! The church's leaders through the centuries haven't been interested in corporate power and suppression? PLEASE read "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman. Use your cerebral cortex (provided to you as a courtesy by your god, by the way).

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jesus birth

vernon chism — (12/31/2007 3:37:04 PM)

bethlehem of course like bible tells us that is the end of that

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oh little town of ___________

doug — (12/29/2007 4:09:46 PM)

If Bethlehem was not even founded until many decades after the supposed date of birth, then how could Bethlehem by Jesus' hometown? Now, the WAS a Bethlehem in the time of Herod in the North of the country....but being born in North Bethlehem wouldn't have a messiah coming out of the House of David so the authors just lied....uh, made it up. What was that 9th Commandment again? Was it only lying about your neighbor...is lying in general OK though if you are an early church official?

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Where Jesus was born

Jimmy Bickell — USA (12/27/2007 11:50:06 PM)

The Bible is the inspired word of God . We can believe what the NT birth narratives tells us. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Why mess withn veiws that contradict the Bible.

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Jesus was born in Bethlehem

Grace Hajdu — USA (12/27/2007 9:00:29 PM)

I believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill the prophecies. It is hard to believe that Mary, mother of the infant church, would not have told the apostles or anyone who would listen the story of the miracles that took place there. All mothers I know love to relate where they gave birth to their children. It seems natural to me that the women of that time would have wanted to know where Jesus was born. Don't we do as much with our presidents and other leaders? We turn their birthplaces into shrines, museums, etc. We make road signs, and put info. in magazines and public places of interest. The star was miraculous. How many babies have magi, or important people travel so far to visit them and bring them the three gifts? Also, how many children have to die because the present ruler is fearful of a baby taking his throne? These events in a world without TV seem far beyond the ordinary and would have been told and remembered for generations! Thus as Micah says,"But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah...from you shall come forth for me one who is to be the ruler in Israel..."

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Walker

Reuben — USA (12/27/2007 10:49:28 AM)

In regards to your query concerning the when and where of Jesus' birth, I have postulated my own beliefs. I agree with Bethlehem because of the census to be taken.

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birth place of Jesus

henry- — usa (12/26/2007 9:36:46 PM)

If the jesus spoken of by the Professor in toronto was born in Nazareth, the He couldn't be the Messiah, Prince of Peace, or Saviour. The bible prophecy indicates that the Saviour, Messiah, etc. will be born in Bethlehem. How does BAS have so much success finding people like Prof. Mason?

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Where was Jesus born

Deedra Rowe — usa (12/26/2007 5:04:49 PM)

O little town in Israel.......

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Birth of Jesus - location

Brian Baker — USA (12/26/2007 4:37:02 PM)

All ancient documentation of credible sources either concur with or fail to dispute that Jesus / Yeshua was born in that same Bethlehem of Ephratah in Judea listed in the prophecy of Micah, and the eyewitness and documented testimonials found in the 50 A.D. Gospel of Luke, and the 55 A.D. gospel of Matthew. Matthew especially, written and published amongst living hostile witnesses at Jerusalem and present scrolls and availability to check against his claims that Jesus was Messhiach. The Gospels, written and testified to by the total silence of any refutation as to their credibility or writing after the fact, as did Josephus complain that the witnesses died off and records became unavailable...there is not ONE like complaint against the NT until some atheistic quacks took over higher criticism in Germany in the 1800s. Mark, whose Gospel was written post geneaology, found as to be this testimony through Mark in Alexandria passing the history down to Clement of Alexandria 130 years later, demonstrates through manuscript fragments extant, that Quelle or "Q" is a horrible hoax on a society looking for any excuse it can, to not believe into Jesus. I challenge BAR / BAS to examine a paper I have written, which shows that the majority of the NT was written in 47 -57/58 A.D., and that Paul and Peter could not have been executed any later than June 29 of 58 A.D., and most likely in June 29 of 57 A.D. The most credible of ancient sources, when examined along the lines of being a legal prospectus of sound historical tradition passed down, in place of myth making, will thoroughly discredit the pseudo-Scholars of today who scoff at the past, in order that they may exercise an Orwellian rewrite of actual history into their own myths, to make their name great in the Earth and the new P.T. Barnums of the academic world.

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where was Jesus born?

R. Lynn Long — usa (12/26/2007 2:51:46 AM)

Where my butt! How about just getting down to the when? 4, 5, or 6 BCE? How about if Jesus was closer to fifty- as one Gospel recounts?

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Jesus Birthplace

Peggy — OR (12/22/2007 1:58:36 PM)

I think Jesus was born in Jerusalem. The shepherds were directed to The City of David and that isn't Bethlehem because it never a city and David never spent any time there after his youth. The City of David is the old part of Jerusalem. And I think there is a lot of confusion about Jesus alleged connections with the village of Nazareth. I think all that is a concocted story to explain a misunderstanding of the Hebrew/Aramaic words. I think Jesus' title was in the Aramaic, Jesus the Prophet, not Jesus the Nazarean. I'm not a scholar so shoot me down.

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Where was Jesus born

Dennis Gerber — USA (12/21/2007 1:12:51 PM)

While getting biblical scholars to agree is probably as difficult as getting economists to reach a conclusion, it should not be that difficult to define the rules of a debate/disagreement. In the hard sciences, a postulate is accepted until either of two things occur. 1) it is proven wrong, or 2) a better postulate comes along. This should be acceptable to any scholar endowed with a reasonable amount of ethical integrity. My assesment is that Mr Mason adheres to this construction of a postulate, while Mr Murphy-O’Connor seems to argue that if others believe the traditional myth, and it cannot be disproved, then it must be true. I prefer a bit more logic support postulates that I accept.

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The First Born of the Kindom of God through a Resurrection to life.

Michael — USA (12/20/2007 11:59:08 PM)

Luke had a perfect understanding of all things (1:3) Luke (2:11,14,15 say in the city of David, Bethlehem) His eye witness source? Mary Luke 2:19,51 (she kept these things in her heart)

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Birth place of Jesus

Al Cav — (12/20/2007 3:40:23 PM)

It can only be Bethlehem. If that is what the Bible says, then that is the truth. Case closed!

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O Little Town of Bethlehem

Ted Profitt — USA (12/19/2007 9:56:47 PM)

Both were intersting articles. First of all, not all agree with the writers that Mark was first. Eusebius notes that Matthew's gospel was first and written originally in Hebrew/Aramaic and later reworked into its present Greek form. Second, given the virginity and pregnancy of Mary, it's not surprising that little is made of Bethlehem by the earliest Christians. However, if Luke did do oral history interviews as he claims to have done, then Mary herself may have been the sources of his information. If O'Connor is correct that the proto-gospel he mentions comes from Egypt, might some Egyptians have heard of a Bethlemite fleeing Herod? One account has Jesus in a manger at birth, the other in a house TWO YEARS later. It is we who put the two accounts together under the Christmas tree or in the movie, "The Nativity Story," or Mason's article. Mark's gospel dealing with Jesus as power against the demonic does well to go without a powerless baby.Mangers have no place in such a narrative. I was born in a hospital in Missouri, but have lived most of my life in California. A friend once remarked that he and I were native Californians. I consider the town I lived in from tenth grade on to be my home town. Even had we remained in Missouri, I would not consider myself from Richmond Heights, because we didn't live there, but in a nearby St. Louis suburb. So, too, was Jesus, from Bethlehem, a Nazarene. Yours, Ted Proffitt.Ph.D.

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Birth of Jesus

Jerry Nyberg — United States (12/19/2007 4:55:07 PM)

So does that make Matthew and Luke and the New Testament wrong? It does state that He was born in Bethlehem.

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Place of Jesus' Birth

Terry Parkman — USA (12/19/2007 3:42:54 PM)

It seems as though Steve Mason enjoys arguing from silence and making assumptions upon the text based upon what is not there in the writings of Paul, Mark, and John. When he begins to discuss what is written about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, he again makes assumptions that Jesus' birth account in Bethlehem was manipulated by the original authors to fit prophecy. For the biblically and critically uneducated reader, this argument would seem believable. However, since he is so keen on searching out the evidence available, one would think that the writings about the birthplace of Jesus would be sufficent evidence for him in light of the lack of other evidence. But, since his soapbox demands an argument, it seems more fitting for Mr. Mason to draw assumptions from silence rather than delving into evidence he's been given. Finding out the truth is one thing, beginning with a bias toward accomplishing a personal agenda is another.

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Jesus' birthplace

Don — U.S. (12/19/2007 10:12:59 AM)

Come on people, don't you recognize intellectual gibberish when you read it? If Jesus was born in some place other than where the scriptures state, then the scriptures are in error, the whole Bible is in error and, therefore is not to be trusted. Make a choice! Some of you have made the wrong choice--one more piece of evidence as to the deceptions of the last days.

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Nazareth seems the most likely candidate

Deane Stuart — (12/14/2007 8:48:48 AM)

In "Bethlehem... Of Course" by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, the centre point of Prof Murphy-O’Connor's argument is a statement by Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 78.6.; c160?): "he moved into a certain cave near the village, and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed him in a manger�. Prof Murphy-O’Connor argues that "Justin’s information must derive from a specific Bethlehem tradition, which as a native of Palestine (he was born about 40 miles to the north, in Flavia Neapolis, modern Nablus), Justin was in a position to hear". He thus creates the impression that Justine Martyr was in Palestine when he received the tradition and that he received it from Palestinian Christians who were sufficiently rooted in the area to have maintained it in unbroken succession for the days of James the Just (the brother of Jesus). This is not so: · Justine was a pagan from Flavia Neapolis, a pagan settlement founded by Vespasian in 72 and we have no reason to think that he ever had direct contact with Christians while living in Palestine (or Syria for that matter) in his youth. He traveled abroad to receive his education in philosophy and converted to Christianity in about 130 at Ephesus at about the age of 30 years. We have no reason to think that he ever returned to Palestine again before his martyrdom in 165. · The (Jewish) Christians of Judea fled the territory to Damascus before the siege of Jerusalem and never returned after the destruction of Jerusalem. We have no historical evidence of what traditions about the birth of Jesus they may have possessed. Whatever traditions of theirs Justine would receive would have to have been from a stay in Damascus, but there is no evidence that he did in fact ever stay in (or even pass through) Damascus. · Whatever traditions may have developed in Bethlehem concerning the place of Jesus' birth were not derived from an unbroken chain of tradition stretching back to the time of James the Just, for the origin of the Christians of Bethlehem derived from the conversions after 70 from people who had no previous knowledge of (much less historic traditions about) Jesus. Where did Justine receive the information about "a certain cave"? We do not know. The tradition is certainly secondary embellishments of the narratives of Luke and Matthew and of the same Mithraic character as the shepherds of Luke and the much later dating of the birth event to the 25 December. Justine was indeed concerned about syncretism between Christianity and Mithraism, but that would not have prevented him from accepting traditions that he believed were historical, even if they had a Mithraic character. The Protoevangelium of James (140-170) merely confirms that such secondary accretions to the basic infancy narratives were already in wide circulation amongst gentile Christians at the time of Justine's Dialogue with Trypho (as well as a tendency to harmonize conflicting Gospel traditions). If the cave tradition is accepted as having a historical base then it is the only element of the material in this work that is not derived from the Old Testament or the canonical Gospels that is historical, for the rest of the material is clearly non-historical embellishment. He writes "This example of Matthew’s literary technique establishes the way each of the “fulfillment� prophecies in the first two chapters in his gospel must be approached. Matthew’s source(s) triggered recollections of Old Testament prophecies, which Matthew then incorporated when he rewrote the story. One cannot seriously imagine an evangelist thumbing his way through his sacred scriptures in search of quotations on which to embroider a story. Simple common sense tells us it was much more a question of “Hey! That reminds me of something in Isaiah!�. However, Matthew (and Luke as well, for that matter) clearly accepts non-historical, mythical material, that is in fact derived form "searching the scriptures" to find out more about Jesus; the tradition of Mary's virginity being the classic example of this. Luke and Matthew are indeed independent witness to early Christian infancy traditions of the Bethlehem and the virgin birth, however, we have no reason to suppose that either of these elements are historic. Once in circulation and accepted these traditions about "a certain cave" become geographically rooted by the Christians of Bethlehem by attaching them to the best available candidate in Bethlehem "this particular cave". Sadly, the centre of Prof Murphy-O’Connor's argument does not hold. We do not know where Jesus was born, but, if we must hazard a guess, Nazareth seems by far the most likely candidate.

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Birth of Jesus

Troy — (12/13/2007 5:55:23 PM)

To Paulette and others about the census--did you read both articles-both pro and con said the census did not happen at this time .

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Where Was Jesus Born (and When)

Philip Jones — USA (12/13/2007 1:24:52 PM)

Steve Mason and Jerome Murphy-O'Connor present arguments pro and con Bethlehem as Jesus' birthplace with great expertise. For this they should be thanked. I would like to make a brief comment on Matthew's use of prophecy. Though Matthew does have Jesus riding into Jerusalem on two beasts to fulfill a misunderstood prophetic parallelism, his usual procedure is to explain the event with the prophecy. If he can't find a prophecy to explain the event, he makes one up (Matt 2:23). Note Matthew's used of Isaiah ch 7. By no stretch of the imagination is Isaiah 7 a Messianic prophecy. If the predicted Emmanuel was to be the Messiah, Ahaz would have been even more panicked, not comforted. I think Matthew had a virgin birth he needed to explain with prophecy. He may have searched the proto-Masoretic text, but Isaiah 7:14 in MT talks about a girl already pregnant. So he searches the Septuagint and, voila, Isaiah 7:14 (LXX) refers to a parthenos (virgin) who shall conceive etc. Matthew finds his prophecy where he can and lifts is (almost) verbatim from LXX. Luke, of course, cares not for prophecy, only that the principals are filled with the Holy Spirit. God bless Steve and Jerome, BAR and all of us.

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Birthplace of Jesus

Lee — (12/13/2007 11:51:31 AM)

I believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem because the Bible tells me so.

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Where was Jesus Born

T. Moran — (12/13/2007 9:17:51 AM)

Murphy-O'Connor is clearly very intelligent, for he agrees with me completely! Further, while Jesus lived in Nazareth he would have been known as "the builder" or "the carpenter". In Capernaum he was known to be from Nazareth, whence he came to Capernaum. The Roman and Jewish authorities would have picked up this title: the Romans because that is how this trouble-maker (as they clearly saw him) was known; and the temple authorities because they wouldn't want to identify or pulicize any possible connection to the awaited Messiah. Bethlehem is the better candidate, but the debate will go on. TM

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O Little Town Of

Dr David McClary — USA (12/13/2007 3:18:58 AM)

How about a place in Egypt where Christ started his life? Such a waste of children in Bethleham to exterminate a King who left for Egypt days before they were killed.

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Where was JESUS born?

Joan Hubert — USA (12/13/2007 12:20:09 AM)

Doesn't the Bible say "Bethlehem of Judea?" I am just glad that HE was born. Thank GOD.

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Where was Jesus born?

Joseph Cairns Jr — The United States of America (12/13/2007 12:06:15 AM)

If both Bible scholars and laity alike believe in Inspiration of the Almighty God's Spirit upon the Scriptures, then Micah 5:2 prophesies that it would be Beth-le-hem Eph-ra-tah in which Matthew 2:5-6 confirms with and in its fulfillment of. Unless we care to add and take away from the scripture; and therefore care not to believe that some scriptures are no longer Canonical and Inspired from God; I think I'll stay with G-d's totally inspired word from Genesis through Revelation; and I pray you and your readers do as well.

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Where was Jesus born?

Ed Wedin — USA (12/12/2007 10:46:53 PM)

My younger son was born in Venezuela. Lived there a year, then we returned to Houston, where he was reared. So he is from Houston, but born in Maracaibo, just as Jesus was born in Bethlehem, because Joseph had to return to his city, but Jesus was reared (not raised) in Nazareth. Poor scholarship.

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O Little Town Of Nazareth

James McGrath — USA (12/12/2007 10:21:05 PM)

I'd have to go with Nazareth, since being called 'Jesus of Nazareth' points very strongly in that direction, and there is no way to fit together the details from the two stories in the New Testament that locate Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com

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Where Christ was born

Helena Lehman — USA (12/12/2007 9:15:58 PM)

The Gospel of Luke is part of the Word of God, and it clearly says that, though Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, Christ was born in Bethlehem - also giving a plausible reason for it - a Census that can be proven to have taken place. Meanwhile, Matthew's Gospel makes it clear that the Wise Men worshipped Christ as a toddler, not a newborn, and that Mary was living in a house in Bethlehem when the Wise Men showed up. The traditional Nativity story ties these two disparate events together, and this has proven to be very misleading. Using the Sacred Astronomy known to the Wise Men, I've written a free 24-page report available in the Free Articles section at www.pillar-of-enoch.com, which postulates that Christ's Birthday may have been in September around the time of Sukkot, and not in December at all. However, if Christ were born in September, He would have been conceived in the December prior, possibly during Chanukah. I also discuss the significance of the Star of Bethlehem, and the other heavenly signs that may have been visible at Christ's birth, which I strongly believe was around 3 BC. Numerous reasons for assuming this year are given in my thought-provoking essay. Happy Holidays!

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Where was Jesus Born

Kristina — USA (12/12/2007 7:26:50 PM)

While reseaching one day, I found a Bethlehem just outside of Nazareth... so, perhaps both are correct.

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response to Where was Jesus Born?

Jim Demello — China (12/12/2007 7:04:41 PM)

Historians must have thick skin, especially when they want to revision bible history. This sounds like an article written by one of the Jesus Seminar fellows; those guys looking for some domino effect to topple the belief in the special nature of the bible. It isn't just a history book. Jesus was born in Bethleham. Well talk it over at the Paradise Cafe.

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birth of Jeusus

Paulette — US (12/12/2007 5:22:07 PM)

what about the census where Joseph & Mary were expected to travel to Bethlehem?

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