Jesus - miracles = 0

[DeistPaladin]

The story of the Navity kind of shows that at least they must have had someone historical to work with. Seeing as they had to shoehorn it in to explain how a man from Nazareth was actually born in Bethlehem, due a Roman Census which doesn't seem to have happened to fulfil OT prophecy. If he was entirely fictional they just would have had him in Bethlehem from the start, there would be no need to have him live anywhere else.

...or they might have misunderstood what the prophecy "He shall be called a Nazarene." (Matt 2:23) meant. A "nazarite" which is the term used in the OT to refer to Sampson, is one who is consecrated. It is possible that someone heard this prophecy of the messiah and assumed it must mean one who dwells in the city of Nazareth.

Also note that Luke and Matt don't have their story straight. Matt says that Nazareth was NOT Mary and Joseph's home town. When they returned from Egypt, they avoided their familiar neighborhood for fear of their lives and settled in Nazareth.

EDIT TO INSERT BIBLE QUOTE:

Matt 2:22-23 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

Luke, on the other hand, has them living in Nazareth and he invents the silly tax scheme requiring them to go to Bethlehem.

The fact that our only two sources, Matt and Luke, directly contradict each other, suggests to me that early theologians were struggling with the contradictory prophecy that the messiah will be born in the City of David and yet be a Nazarite from birth.