Inconsistencies in the Story of Jesus

Composed by Cygnus on May 03, 1999

Of the many problems with the Christian myth, I feel that few have been successfully dealt with in this forum or in any other place. That is why I still refer to them as problems. I am not above admitting that there are some viable solutions for the contradictions on my site, but I will not concede that there ARE actual answers for them - only possible ones.

One such problem that is not on my site is the birth of Jesus. There are innumerous inconsistencies between Matt and Luke on the details that I feel should be addressed by Christians if they want to maintain the belief that this is not a made-up person that we are dealing with.

So with that in mind I will start a series of posts that show inconsistencies between Matt and Luke and hope that the Christians on this board (and elsewhere should the posts make it to other sites) will either reconcile them for us or see that such a thing is not possible.

Let's begin with when Jesus was born:

When was Jesus Born?

The Gospel of Matthew appears first in the Bible and is considered by most scholars to predate Luke (regardless of the Q factor) so we will start with it.

GMatthew tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of King Herod:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying,
Matthew 2:1 (RSV)

The author of Matthew who we will conveniently call Matthew is actually quite accurate in his history as he goes on to tell us that Herod's son Archelaus ruled after Herod. Matthew tells us that Joseph took Mary and Joseph to Egypt to escape Herod's slaughtering of the innocents and returned when he got the OK from an angel.

Now, turning to the Jewish historian Josephus we get a history of Judea at this time. Josephus tells us in his book, Antiquities (Ant, Book 17 Chapter 6:4), that Herod died shortly after an eclipse which is dated at 4 BCE. Therefore, we know that Jesus had to have been born earlier than or in the year 4 BCE.

Next we look at the Gospel of Luke. Luke does not date the birth of Jesus in the same period as Matthew - not even close. The way that we get our chronological information from Luke is from the following: We are told that Joseph and Mary are going to Bethlehem to be counted in a census decreed by Caesar Augustus. Luke tells us all of this was done while Cyrenius (Quirin'i-us) was governor of Syria (GLuke 2:1-5).

Again we look to Josephus to find our basis for a timeline. The same book of Antiquities tells us the necessary info.

First we see that Archelaus reigned for ten years after taking over from his father, Herod:

Antiquities 17:13:2 - But in the tenth year of Archelaus's government, both his brethren, and the principal men of Judaea and Samaria, not being able to bear his barbarous and tyrannical usage of them, accused him before Caesar...Whereupon Caesar, when he heard it, was very angry, and...both banished him, and appointed Vienna, a city of Gaul, to be the place of his habitation, and took his money away from him.

Next we see that one of the first things that Cyrenius was to do was to wrap up Archelaus' affairs:

Antiquities 17:13:5 - ...So Archelaus's country was laid to the province of Syria; and Cyrenius, one that had been consul, was sent by Caesar to take account of people's effects in Syria, and to sell the house of Archelaus.

Josephus goes on to tell us about the census:

Antiquities 18:1:1 - Now Cyrenius, a Roman senator...came at this time into Syria, with a few others, being sent by Caesar to...take an account of their substance...Cyrenius came himself into Judaea, which was now added to the province of Syria, to take an account of their substance, and to dispose of Archelaus's money; but the Jews, although at the beginning they took the report of a taxation heinously, yet did they leave off any further opposition to it...

Now we do a little bit of math:

Herod died in or before 4 BCE.
Add 10 years for the reign of Archelaus.
Here we find Jesus' birth: in or before 6 CE!

The typical apologetic answer to this problem is that Luke must have been referring to an earlier census and that Luke 2:2 should be translated to show that the census and taxation were done before Cyrenius became governor. The problem with this is that it would have been 10+ years before and Cyrenius would have been irrelevant to the story. Also, there is no justification for adding the word to this sentence. Another problem with this approach is that if we leave Luke as it is, the gospel lines up perfectly with Josephus. Finally, Matthew mentions no census or taxation, starting his gospel with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

One final bit of evidence to consider: The Roman historian Dio, writing in the year 200 CE placed the exile of Archelaus in 6 CE and also noted that it was then that the province of Syria came to be under Roman rule.

So, with the evidence neatly laid out, what is the truth? We know that the physical birth of Jesus only occurred once (if it happened at all) and that the story as told in Luke and the story as told in Matthew can not both be true.

Do we have a contradiction?

Cygnus