Answering Skeptics: Where Was Jesus Born? (Part 1)
This is a continuation of an ongoing discussion—a follow-up to Who Arrested Jesus?—with an individual who responded to an ad I placed on Facebook. We’ll start with his question in bold, followed by my response.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke say Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. If Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, why is he called a Nazarene and a Galilean throughout the New Testament, and why is Bethlehem not mentioned as Jesus’ birthplace outside of the infancy narratives in the Gospels?
Archeology supports no birth in Bethlehem of Judea because there is a lack of Herodian artifacts found in the Bethlehem of Judea first century site. Bethlehem of Galilee has more archaeological evidence than Bethlehem of Judea. Such as a wall that Justinian boasted of building around the village to protect it and artifacts from the time of Herod and before. And it is near Nazareth. Mary the mother of Jesus was a Galilean woman from Nazareth. There was no Roman decree or requirement to go to your birth city to be counted and taxed during Herod’s time and at the time of Jesus birth. A census did take place in 6CE under Augustus, some nine years after Jesus’s birth. The Gospels say place of birth was Bethlehem of Judea. Archaeology says Bethlehem of Galilee. Logic says being called a Nazarene and his mother being from Nazareth says Nazareth. So was Bethlehem of Judea selected as a birthplace to provide Jesus with a connection to King David? The answer is we do not know and that is where faith comes in…
Is it possible that Jesus was called a Nazarene because he only spent a little over 41 days of his whole life in Bethlehem before His parents moved back to Nazareth? Following is a rough outline of Jesus’ early years:
Eight days after Jesus’ birth, He was named and circumcised (Luke 2:21).
Thirty-three days after that, Mary completed the days of her purification, and they offered a sacrifice of “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” (Leviticus 12:1-8; Luke 2:24).
Then, “when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth” (Luke 2:39).
Some time later, when Jesus was a toddler (Gk: paidon), the wise men showed up (Matthew 2:1).
After the magi left, Joseph took his family on a road trip to Egypt to escape Herod (Matthew 2:13).
After Herod died, the family moved back, apparently initially intent on settling in Judea, but they returned instead to Nazareth (Matthew 2:19-23), where Jesus presumably lived until the beginning of His ministry (Mark 1:9).
In our last question, you objected to my reliance upon all four witnesses to get the complete story because some authors said things that others did not. But in this case, both Matthew and Luke are in 100% agreement: Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea (Matthew 2:1,5,6,8,16; Luke 2:4,15). That’s a good thing, right?
Bethlehem of Galilee?
“Archaeologists almost never excavate more than 10 percent of an archaeological site. In other words, for any archaeologist to draw conclusions based upon a supposed absence of archaeological evidence is archaeological malpractice.”
Aviram Oshri raised quite a stink in the early 2000’s when he suggested that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Galilee (aka Bethlehem of Zebulun), but as far as I can tell, nothing—not a peep—has come of this since then. His peers as well as his employer, the Israel Antiquities Authority, dismissed Oshri’s proposal, calling it “worse than a joke.”
Proverbs 18:17 comes to mind here: “The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.” It’s always a good idea to see what experts say on both sides of an issue before latching onto the one that gives you the warm-and-fuzzies (trust me, I’ve had to learn this the hard way).
Jesus didn’t need to be born in Bethlehem to have a connection to King David—his human genealogy (through Mary) is given in Luke 3:23-31, and His royal lineage that establishes his right to sit on David’s throne is given (through Joseph) in Matthew 1:6-16. He had to be born in Bethlehem of Judah to fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5:2, which was written approximately 700 years before Christ was born.
I disagree with your assertion that “this is where faith comes in.” So far, we haven’t talked about anything requiring faith—all we’ve dealt with up to this point is basic processing of eyewitness testimony.
N.B.: I’m intentionally passing over your comment on the census. This reply is already long enough; we can address that later, if need be.