The Jesus Itinerary

[DeistPaladin]

The whole itinerary seems to be based on the idea that all four gospels are trying to recount the same events in the life of Christ. What if the gospels are not meant convey the same set of stories, but to recount the events an author was privy to?

1. Sorry, I thought these were reliable eye-witness accounts.
2. The Gospels tell plenty of tales that the supposed authors weren't privy to. Jesus' ordeals in the trials were related in great detail despite the fact that Peter was elsewhere, with the servants, at that time.
3. The problem is not just that events are inconsistent but that the order of events is different for each account.

[Minimalist]

. Sorry, I thought these were reliable eye-witness accounts.

None of them even claim to be eye witness accounts.... let alone "reliable" eye-witness accounts.

[DeistPaladin]

None of them even claim to be eye witness accounts.... let alone "reliable" eye-witness accounts.

Right. Just a taunt to the Christians who flip flop between "perfect, reliable, best attested, greatest story ever told, and people would have cried 'false' if it wasn't true..." and "hey, c'mon, whaddaya want, nobody wrote anything down back then, and it's not like anyone outside Jesus' circle should have paid any attention to him, and so what if the stories are out of order, and you're all just pick-pick-pick on all the contradictions..."

[John V]

Seriously? Do I really need to show you why "It was some other person's house. What? That part of the story needs to be explained?" is bad story telling and bad apologetics? Or do you want to retract that response?

Yes, you really do need to show that. You first tried to support it by saying that all other minor details are given in the gospels. I've pointed out that that is ridiculous and can give examples if you like. So, you need another reason to support your position.

Oh, sorry, you missed the part in Matt 2:1 about "when Jesus was born"?

No, I haven't missed it in some versions. Others say "after" rather than when. There isn't a greek word there indicating it - either case is a matter of translator's interpretation. We don't know how long after, but we have some parameters. Jesus was less than 2 years old at this time, which we can infer from Herod's order to kill those less than two. Jesus would have been presented at the temple about 6 weeks after birth. According to Luke, they gave the poor person's offering of doves, so from this we can infer that the magi had not come with their gifts at that time.

Sorry, I guess I just assume that when a story book says "when X happened" that the drama is set when X happened.

Again, the text really doesn't say that, and after is as I've shown a better interpretation.

And even if you could support that it was long after the birth of Jesus, why were they still in Bethlehem? I thought Joseph was just reporting for the census and Mary's water broke at a bad time. What, were they hanging out and renting a house for no reason?

Who knows? As you disparage "ad hoc" explanations I haven't bothered giving any. Putting Matthew and Luke together, we have Jesus born in Bethlehem, the family staying there for six weeks, a return to Nazareth, and then a return to Bethlehem. We don't know what went on in the six weeks in Bethlehem. Maybe Joseph saw opportunity there, or met family there - there's lots of possibilities, but you don't want to hear them.

[DeistPaladin]

So, you need another reason to support your position.

Well, to repeat my list of reasons:

1. When Matt introduced the word "house", the simplest assumption is that Joseph and Mary lived there unless other details were provided, like who else owned the house?
2. Why would they need an inn if they owned a house or had relatives they could have stayed with?
3. Why give birth in a manger when they had access to a house?
4. Why did Joseph try to return to Bethlehem if it wasn't where his home was?

Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is its exactly what it looks like, two authors working independently produced a continuity gaffe.

To Matt, Bethlehem was the home town, necessary since Jesus would have to be born in/near Jersualem and later they had to relocate to Nazareth to explain why he was Jesus of "Nazareth". Luke had a different, more convoluted plot device: the unlikely census that dragged Joseph and his family to Bethlehem and Mary's water broke at an inopportune time.

This is why I disparage overuse of ad hoc hypotheses. If you keep saying "maybe... maybe... maybe..." enough, you can "harmonize" anything, from UFO abductions to Bigfoot to conspiracy theories to faeries to any crazy thing you want to believe.

For a demonstration on the fallacy of the ad hoc hypothesis, see this sketch:





Occam's Razor is a useful tool for slicing through the pile of ad hocs.

No, I haven't missed it in some versions. Others say "after" rather than when.

Which brings me back to what were they still doing in Bethlehem? Joseph had just been dragged there to the census. I don't think he was a rich man, certainly not before the Wise Men arrived, so renting a house for year and being removed from his livelihood during that time doesn't seem likely.

Who knows? As you disparage "ad hoc" explanations I haven't bothered giving any. Putting Matthew and Luke together, we have Jesus born in Bethlehem, the family staying there for six weeks, a return to Nazareth, and then a return to Bethlehem. We don't know what went on in the six weeks in Bethlehem. Maybe Joseph saw opportunity there, or met family there - there's lots of possibilities, but you don't want to hear them.

I no, I do want to hear them. I really do enjoy watching the mental gymnastics Christians employ. Don't forget to account for the flight to Egype and reconcile that with Luke's account of the immediate return to Nazareth. And explain why Joseph would have wanted to return to Bethlehem from Egypt at all, seeing that his home and livelihood was in Nazareth. And don't forget to explain why Quirinius had an earlier govenorship of Syria, concurrent with Herod the Great, and why a Roman census would have been performed in a client-kingdom and why there is no record of such a thing and why Jesus wouldn't have been too old to be "about 30" at his baptism by JtB if he was born before 4 BCE.

Go to it!

[John V]

Well, to repeat my list of reasons:

1. When Matt introduced the word "house", the simplest assumption is that Joseph and Mary lived there unless other details were provided, like who else owned the house?

And maybe they did live there. That's not problematic as you haven't shown that this was at the time of Jesus' birth. Or, they could have been visiting someone. We don't know.

2. Why would they need an inn if they owned a house or had relatives they could have stayed with?
3. Why give birth in a manger when they had access to a house?

Again, you have the time problem. You seem to have read one version that said "when" and based your argument on it, not realizing that the text doesn't really specify that.

4. Why did Joseph try to return to Bethlehem if it wasn't where his home was?

Maybe he liked it better than Nazareth and, as the family had already been moved and he now had money, he wanted to live there.

Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is its exactly what it looks like, two authors working independently produced a continuity gaffe.

The simplest explanation to me is that two authors each gave incomplete accounts.

To Matt, Bethlehem was the home town, necessary since Jesus would have to be born in/near Jersualem and later they had to relocate to Nazareth to explain why he was Jesus of "Nazareth". Luke had a different, more convoluted plot device: the unlikely census that dragged Joseph and his family to Bethlehem and Mary's water broke at an inopportune time.

Except you haven't shown that in Matt they lived there prior to Jesus' birth.

This is why I disparage overuse of ad hoc hypotheses. If you keep saying "maybe... maybe... maybe..." enough, you can "harmonize" anything, from UFO abductions to Bigfoot to conspiracy theories to faeries to any crazy thing you want to believe.

Neither claimed to be a complete account, so it's not surprising that there are gaps.

Occam's Razor is a useful tool for slicing through the pile of ad hocs.

You mean like inferring "their" house, instead of an unknown house?

Occam's Razor (Occam was a Christian BTW) is in my experience pretty useless, as it's usually impossible to objectively quantify what is simplest.

Which brings me back to what were they still doing in Bethlehem? Joseph had just been dragged there to the census. I don't think he was a rich man, certainly not before the Wise Men arrived, so renting a house for year and being removed from his livelihood during that time doesn't seem likely.

He came back for some reason - maybe he made connections while he was there for 6 weeks the first time.

[DeistPaladin]

He came back for some reason - maybe he made connections while he was there for 6 weeks the first time.

Sure. By all means, write your fan-fic that helps to square the circle. Star Wars fans, Star Trek fans and others engage in this kind of "explanation" when a continuity gaffe is discovered. With enough ad hocs, you can explain anything away.

Remember when Han Solo boasted that his ship could make the Kessel Run in so many parsecs (I forget how many)? Turns out "parsec" is a unit of measure of distance, not time. Did the scriptwriter make a mistake? Of course not. The fans wrote about the Kessel Run and how there was an option to short cut through an area close to a black hole but you'd have to be traveling at light speed to avoid getting pulled in past the point of no return. Problem solved.

Now me, when I read Matthew talk about the Wise Men coming to "The House", I do assume that this is Mary and Joseph's house because this is the natural conclusion barring any other information. You would as well were it a Star Wars or Star Trek novel or some other story were you weren't emotionally invested in a different conclusion. And since all the other reasons of chapter 2, contrasted with Luke, support the idea that Bethlehem was Joseph's home town, I'm satisfied with that conclusion.

But hey, you go write your fan fic about how Joseph, after the shepherds left the manger, landed a great job and found a nice home at a really bargain basement price that he could afford and decided to relocate to this new town. I'll stick with what's actually written in scripture.

Occam's Razor (Occam was a Christian BTW) is in my experience pretty useless, as it's usually impossible to objectively quantify what is simplest.

The least number of ad hocs is a start for an objective measure. How likely each ad hoc is remains a subjective matter but debates are frequently about who's subjective evaluation seems better supported.

In my case, I'm reading what's there without assuming there's a good explanation for the continuity problem aside from two different authors working independently writing two different stories. No ad hocs there.

In your case, you want to write an entire fan fic to explain the problem away.

[Minimalist]

He came back for some reason

Perhaps he forgot his car keys?

[DeistPaladin]

Perhaps he forgot his car keys?

Works just as well as "landed great job in Bethlehem, decided to move back." and there's just as much evidence to support it.

[Minimalist]

It's why I laugh when people like Ehrman decide they can comb through this pile of shit and find "the real" jesus....in Ehrman's case an apocalyptic preacher.

We have only one book which tells the story. mark. The rest of this shit is merely various embellishments on the theme. It is like reading Gone With the Wind and deciding that Scarlett O'Hara was really operating a stop on the Underground Railroad.