The life of Jesus
The virgin birth
This is a major thorn in the side for Christians. Most just choose to ignore it and others, do not even know about it. So let me spell it out for you.
The account of the virgin birth that appears in Matthew 1:22-23. Matthew was written between 80 and 95 CE. Up until that point, no other text mentions Jesus' virgin birth. In addition, the Christian movement did not believe or know about it. He quotes Isaiah 7:14, which was written 700 years before Jesus was born - thus claiming it was a sign, a prediction of the Messiah's virgin birth.
However, there is a serious problem. The King James Version mistranslates the Hebrew word "almah", which means "young woman" as "virgin". (The Hebrew word, "bethulah", means "virgin".) In addition, the young woman referred to in this verse was living at the time of the prophecy. Moreover, Jesus, of course, was called Jesus, and is not called Emmanuel in any verse in the New Testament.
Matthew states that, due to prophecy, it is true that Jesus was a male line descendant of King David, and presents a genealogy at the beginning of his gospel tracing Jesus' lineage through Joseph. By doing so the author of Matthew shows that, like Luke and Paul and the rest of the early Christians, they did not believe in a virgin birth.
It is still all argumentative, so let us have a look at the facts if we analyse it more closely - from the start.
Genesis 3 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
The fundamentalists believe that this is the very first prophesy of Jesus, his death, victory over sin and resurrection. They believe that Jesus is the descendant of the following bloodline: Adam… Noah… Abraham, Isaac, Jacob… David, Solomon… Joseph, Jesus. [According to Mathew 1: 1-17 & Luke 3: 23-38]
However, there is a catch-22 situation here. If Jesus is the blood descendant of the above-mentioned line, then his conception was not divine (not done through the Holy Spirit), but normal (through Joseph). Meaning that he was no more divine than Mohamed, the Dali Lama, you or me. If you insist that he is divine and the son of God then the bible is lying about the bloodline that he is suppose to be part off. Remember that Jesus is supposed to be part of the bloodline through Joseph and not Mary.
More clear that this it does not get.
The birth in history
Within the nativity story in Luke it also tells us that Caesar Augustus called for a census and Joseph and Mary had to return to their town of origin, Bethlehem, until the census was complete. The Roman Empire is well documented, including documentation of the Romans taxation laws and system, which was based on property and wealth. At no point did the Romans require people to return to their place of birth for a census. Not even for tax purposes did you have to return to your birth town. Luke was clearly wrong about the census, the reasons for Joseph and Mary being in Bethlehem, and wrong on his opinion that Jesus' birth was of a virgin.
Matthew, the only other gospel to include information on this, does not include any of these aspects of Jesus' birth, and merely states that he was born in Bethlehem, whilst Herod was king. None of Luke’s insertions about singing angels, barns, mangers and virgin birth is mentioned in Matthew's version.
"The early Christians believed that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. This belief is based on a misunderstanding of Micah 5:2 "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." But this is unlikely for two reasons:
» "Bethlehem Ephratah" in Micah 5:2 refers not to a town, but to a clan: the clan of Bethlehem, who was the son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah (1 Chr.2:18, 2:50-52, 4:4).
» The prophecy (if that is what it is) does not refer to the Messiah, but rather to a military leader, as can be seen from verse 5:6. This leader is supposed to defeat the Assyrians, which, of course, Jesus never did.
» The verse also clearly states that “he” will be ruling Israel. Jesus did not do this. And also never will, because according to the Christian dogma He will rule the whole earth with His second coming.
The author of Matthew altered the text of Micah 5:2 by saying: "And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda" rather than "Bethlehem Ephratah" as is said in Micah 5:2. He did this, intentionally no doubt, to make the verse appear to refer to the town of Bethlehem rather than the family clan.
Living in Nazareth
However, why did the Christians believe that he lived in Nazareth? The answer is quite simple. The early Greek speaking Christians did not know what the word "Nazarene" meant. The earliest Greek form of this word is "Nazoraios," which is derived from "Natzoriya," the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "Notzri." (Recall that "Yeishu ha-Notzri" is the original Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene.") The early Christians conjectured that "Nazarene" meant a person from Nazareth and so it was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. Even today, Christians blithely confuse the Hebrew words "Notzri" (_Nazarene_, _Christian_), "Natzrati" _Nazarethite_) and "nazir" (_nazarite_), all of which have completely different meanings."
When was Jesus born?
Further problems exist in the contrasting Luke/Matthew accounts of Jesus' birth. Luke claims that Jesus was born when Quirinius, a roman official, was the governor of Syria. This happened during or shortly after 6 CE. Matthew however, claims that Jesus was born whilst Herod the Great reigned over Judea, and Herod died in 5 or 4 BCE. There is a huge 10/11 year gap between these two dates, and either Luke or Matthew was wrong. Given Luke's record of accomplishment, and that fact that historians accept the date of 4 CE for Jesus' birth, it is likely that Luke was (once again) wrong.
The Guiding star
One of Matthew's plotlines is the three visitors from the East who visit the newborn Jesus. They say that a star came up in the East, however no other people in the story appear to notice this. It must have been a relatively unnoticeable event, a faint star, only noticed by people who study the stars. The three visitors are called 'Star Readers' in Matthew 2:1. However, no other astrologers across the world at that time document this phenomenon. The language used in the Bible indicates that this element of the story was taken from Zoroastrianism, as the magi are given Zoroastrian titles and bear the same gifts as stated in Zoroastrian myth.
King Herod: The killing of every male baby
The next part of Matthew, two, tells us of King Herod's anger at the three wise men and then of the killing of every child. Surely, the slaughter of every male child (Matthew 2:16-17 in Bethlehem, Ramah, and the surrounding area would have got mentioned in many places, such as Josephus' detailed accounts of the times, in fact it would likely cause the downfall of such an immoral, monstrous leader who issued such orders! Incidentally, the other 'great' leader in the Bible to issue such orders was Moses, Numbers 31:17-18, Joshua 6:21-24, in both cases killing all the women/young/old in a city in two separate occasions. Many other myths, including more ancient Roman ones, had an event where all the male children were killed, and the famous Romulus and Remus story is a good, famous example. It is likely that Herod's orders to kill all those children, and the star that went noticed by all except three astrologers from "the East", did not actually happen. Both Luke and Matthew appear to, well, make things up, and none of these things are mentioned in the other two gospels, nor in the recovered Gospel of Thomas.
There are no birth records for Jesus, nor any first hand accounts of his life, so that these two contradictory and inaccurate accounts are the only snippets of information that we have. It is possible that Matthew/Luke were referring to a myth when they talked of Jesus and his early life. It seems highly likely that Luke, when writing of the events that surrounded Jesus' birth, was thinking of the famous Roman myth (that was around well before the Jesus' myth) of Romulus and Remus - who also were born by a virgin, and also had a king ordering the slaughter of all the other children in the same area.
Conclusions
Mostly derived from pagan myths*, Jesus' birth stories are very dubious, and it very likely is that all such beliefs were written retrospectively by the Roman gospel writers, or were assumed from the outset. There is no evidence or reason to believe that they actually occurred. Events such as King Herod's killing of every male child simply could not have gone unnoticed, these pagan myths were however assumed of all god-man saviours. Jesus' existence remains a mystery; we cannot validate even the simplest facts about his birth.
*We will look at this in more detail later on in the book.
