Talk:Nativity of Jesus/Archive 6

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Edit war

The edits of User:GBRV go very much against WP:RS/AC. The fact that a scholar is Catholic does not mean that he/she is a true believer in Biblical inerrancy. Read some Oxford University Press books on Bible scholarship in order to comprehend the very idea of Bible scholarship, and then come back edit this article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:08, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia loves WP:RS/AC statements from scholars with a solid academic reputation, and we would certainly not allow such statements from academic wannabes who try to game the system. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

“I’ve had emails saying that I’m from Satan, and that I’m doomed to hell, but that goes with the territory.” Catholic Bible scholar Michael Coogan at [1]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:20, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

That's the knee-jerk reaction when ordinary churchgoers read mainstream Bible scholarship. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:26, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I mean: in general churchgoers have no idea what is taught as Bible scholarship in major universities and they would be appalled by actually learning it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

You didn't address the main point. Both I and StAnselm have been reverting statements which present one position as a Wikipedia fact, since the rules forbid that. We've both put in a version which states the same thing but in a neutral tone that presents each position as one group's viewpoint. That's what we're supposed to do.

Your patronizing attempt to teach me about Biblical Scholarship was way out of line. I know what Biblical scholarship is, and I also know that : 1) there are reasonable differences of opinion among Biblical scholars and secular historians themselves, not just between the unwashed average churchgoers and the Enlightened Scholars; 2) If the latter really want to interpret the Bible the same way that secular historical sources are analyzed, then they need to use the actual methodology utilized for those sources rather than claiming that any differences between Biblical accounts are fatal contradictions which prove the entire thing is nonsense. Secular historians consider differences between eyewitness accounts to be the expected norm, because any given set of accounts of any subject will always contain differences, contradictions or apparent contradictions. Look at combat recollections from soldiers if you really want to see some spectacular contradictions. Does that mean that these accounts are all nonsense and that the battles never took place? No, it means that eyewitnesses always describe different aspects of an event and may therefore seem at first to be contradictory, like the classic "five blind men and the elephant" analogy. The normal procedure in the history field is to try to find a way to reconcile as many of the accounts as possible rather than assuming that any differences would prove them wrong. Usually, there is a way to dovetail seemingly contradictory accounts into a coherent single narrative, unless you simply don't make any attempt to do so. So when I see the claim that "contradictions" would mean the whole thing is unhistorical, and this is stated either in Wikipedia's voice or as the enlightened opinion of several allegedly distinguished and irrefutable experts, that's a warning flag that something deeply fishy is going on. 3) Even aside from point #2, the people cited as the foremost experts on the subject are being cited without any external source to justify them being used as such. It doesn't come down to who is considered an expert by a handful of editors here, because Wikipedia requires an external source for that. GBRV (talk) 23:51, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I've waited nearly a week with no response; so I'm going to restore the version which abides by the normal Wikipedia rules which require that: 1) articles need to state a position as one side's viewpoint rather than a Wikipedia fact, and 2) articles should use more restrained and neutral language (in this case, "many scholars") rather than claiming that everyone agrees with one side. I already presented the reasons above, and no one presented a rebuttal in six days. GBRV (talk) 23:37, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia describes as fact what is taught as fact in most major universities. The policy which you have violated is WP:RS/AC, based upon your original research claim that Catholic scholars cannot see that there are errors in the Bible. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

If I may be so bold, the reason you don’t see many credible scholars advocating for the “inerrancy” of the Bible is because, with all due respect, it is not a tenable claim. The Bible is full of contradictions and, yes, errors.

— Robin Ngo, Bible Secrets Revealed. Robert Cargill responds to viewers’ questions on the History Channel series

Perhaps History Channel is not the most academic source for this claim, nevertheless this is the overwhelming consensus among Bible scholars. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:19, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Besides, you task as an editor is not making pontifications about what Bible scholars should do for a living. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I've seen plenty of Ancient History textbooks used in the universities, and they don't say what you claim. A single quote from a "History Channel" show - a pop tv channel which is routinely laughed at by historians - is not a sufficient source, nor are the in-article citations from a handful of people who claim everyone agrees with their own opinion. That's not a neutral third party view, it's a partisan view that's being presented as indisputable fact. I would add that the people who make these claims are a throwback to the 19th century atheist authors who claimed that the civilizations mentioned in the Bible - Babylonians, Assyrians, etc - allegedly never existed because these authors claimed the entire Bible is fictional. Today, no one takes that claim seriously, because there is overwhelming evidence for the existence of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and other civilizations mentioned in the Bible. But I'm sure you can find plenty of crackpot books which still make the claim, and can present these as the "overwhelming consensus" because their authors say so. Bottom line: if you want to claim an overwhelming consensus, you need to find a third-party source to back that up. And even then, it's standard practice to state each side's position as their opinion rather than a Wikipedia fact.

The only reason I made a point about the standard methods used by historians, was because your favorite authors would seem to be using nonstandard methods (to say the least), and yet you keep claiming they are the foremost experts on the subject. You can't just state that as a fact without something to justify it. GBRV (talk) 23:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

If they were crackpots, they would not be teaching at major universities (as most people interviewed in those particular History Channel series do), nor would we cite them as reliable sources. Do mind that the claim of consensus among modern scholars is correct, if we contrast modern with fundamentalist and/or traditional. Your claim that the foremost experts in the field don't actually know what they talk about and would apparently need your methodological help to sort that out is a bizarre, contrived original research claim. See WP:CB. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:54, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

They publish books at prestigious academic and theological publishers (like Oxford University Press or Fortress Press). So, on that ground, they don't count as crackpots. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

And no, most of the Bible scholars aren't atheists, they are mostly Christian. And among them are many Jews, since it concerns the history of their own people. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

A shorthand introduction into how the field of Bible scholarship emerged is at Documentary hypothesis#Before Wellhausen. Its history has decided its methods, the manner of asking questions and so on. E.g. there is a broad agreement among Bible scholars (except conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists) that the NT gospels are not based upon eyewitness testimony. Also it is broadly considered that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source, but have given his stories a different theological twist. I.e. they had the stories of the Gospel of Mark before their eyes and chose to change them to suit their own theological viewpoints. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

You haven't presented anything to justify your claim that these guys are the foremost experts. You just keep repeating that claim and then declare that they must be using the correct methodology because they're the foremost experts. If historians used the same methodology, they would have to rewrite 90% of what we know about history (e.g. most combat accounts seem to contradict each other, therefore all battles are "fictional"? Many war memoirs and chronicles were written decades after the fact, therefore all of these are "unreliable"? Most eyewitness accounts are not backed up by archaeological evidence because the latter is usually too scanty to tell us much, therefore most eyewitness accounts are "wrong"?) The resulting version of history would be very strange indeed.

And in the 19th century, these same types of "critical Bible scholars" claimed that even the great civilizations in the Bible never existed, because they were convinced that the Bible must be fictional and therefore everything in it was fictional. Do you - or the authors you keep citing - still believe that the Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, etc never existed? If not, then you've rejected what a previous generation of "critical Bible scholars" used to insist upon.

You claimed that most of these Biblical scholars are Christians or Jews, which is misleading because they tend to be dissidents who have an axe to grind and every reason to discount a Bible which they don't want to obey. In fact one of the stock arguments use by dissident Christians and Jews is that they don't need to obey the moral code in the Bible because they claim the Bible is fictional. That gives them just as much of an ideological motive as any atheist.

As for your claim that there are no crackpots in academia: Harvard University taught a class about the singer Madonna's relationship with her own belly button. Professor Priya Venkatesan Hays of Northwestern University wrote a book claiming that DNA should be analyzed using literary criticism. There have been a whole slew of deliberate nonsense papers which have been accepted and published by academic editors, the most famous one being Alan Sokal's paper "Transgressing the Boundaries" published in "Social Text". These parodies have been published because academic editors can't tell the difference between the parodies and the actual nonsense which dominates academic publications. I think these definitely qualify as crackpot ideas, and there are countless more in the hallowed ivy-covered halls of academe.

Bottom line: Wikipedia requires that claims of "expert consensus" need to be backed up by an external source, not just your personal assertion that these guys are the foremost experts, and not just their own claims that everyone agrees with them. You would need a neutral third-party source, not one of the theorists themselves assuring us that his view is regarded as indisputable fact, because even the worst fringe authors also claim that about their own theories. I've asked you repeatedly to provide a neutral third-party source, and you haven't done that. GBRV (talk) 00:14, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

No, you are wrong, nowhere WP:RS/AC claims that there should be an external source, any up-to-date source by a reputable scholar would do. It is an original research claim that they would be dissenters who do not like Christian values and morality. See e.g.:

Ehrman, Bart (2010). "A Historical Assault on Faith". Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). HarperCollins e-books. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9780061173943. My hunch is that the majority of students coming into their first year of seminary training do not know what to expect from courses on the Bible. ... Most students expect these courses to be taught from a more or less pious perspective, showing them how, as future pastors, to take the Bible and make it applicable to people's lives in their weekly sermons.
Such students are in for a rude awakening. Mainline Protestant seminaries in this country are notorious for challenging students' cherished beliefs about the Bible—even if these cherished beliefs are simply a warm and fuzzy sense that the Bible is a wonderful guide to faith and practice, to be treated with reverence and piety. These seminaries teach serious, hard-core Bible scholarship. They don't pander to piety. They are taught by scholars who are familiar with what German- and English-speaking scholarship has been saying about the Bible over the past three hundred years. ...
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the "historical-critical" method. It is completely different from the "devotional" approach to the Bible one learns in church. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

So unless you are prepared to call mainline divinity schools as dissenters from Christian values and morality, there is no way to accept your rant. I see therein fundie venom, no more, no less. And lots of original pontifications about what Bible scholars should do for a living. You have presented no evidence that these particular scholars would be crackpots or disreputable, it is just character assassination. E.g. the article upon Maurice Casey gives no inkling of academic fraud of crankiness.

"True, many universities also engage in postmodern approaches that are critical of historical criticism (e.g., Feminist studies), but you’d still be hard pressed to find academic programs in Bible that don’t take as their axiomatic starting point a historical critical approach to the Bible. Look at course descriptions on the internet of departments of Religion, Judaism, Near Eastern Studies, Christian Origins, Hebrew Bible, etc. “The Historical-Critical Method” is what defines these programs." Peter Enns, [2]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:34, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Besides, the "moral code in the Bible" means different things to different people. E.g. there is Liberal Christianity. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:53, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

If the research field would be physics, who would count as external source rendering the consensus in physics: chemists, biologists, philosophers, linguists? Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:08, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Over the past few years, I have spent quite a few hours looking over books at the major LCMS seminary library in town and the religion section of a major Jesuit university. The former is a rather smaller library, and I've overheard a great deal from the students at that comparatively fundamentalist school while looking over reference works there. If you think that those students in general are being taught anything remotely resembling fundamentalist scholarship, believe me, you're wrong. Little if anything I have overheard over the years would support such a contention. John Carter (talk) 19:19, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

About the DNA point made above: cladistics was originally developed for textual criticism, biologists simply borrowed the method from the humanities. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu: You can't use quotes from an author claiming that his own view is the consensus, since he's not a neutral source about his own viewpoints. This is basic stuff, but you keep sidestepping it by claiming that any "reliable source" will do.

As for your claims about the "historical-critical" method: I already explained why these specific authors aren't using the normal methods used by historians, which you have not responded to. Calling me a "fundie" is just name-calling and dodges the secular historical arguments I've been making, and so is characterizing my post as a "rant" when in fact it was a polite discussion of the methods used by historians. Go back and read what I actually wrote about the methods used by historians and the reasons why these specific authors are employing fallacious reasoning, then respond to that. Also respond to my points about the failures of previous, similar authors such as the 19th century claim that the Babylonians and Assyrians never existed. Since that view was predicated on the same methods that these specific authors are using, you would need to justify that view in order to justify the methods that these authors are using.

As for divinity schools: there are numerous divinity schools which are dominated by dissident professors who would certainly have a motive to claim the Bible is fiction. But no matter what their motives may be, the fact remains that some of them are using arguments which secular historians would never accept for any other subject of history.

You label my arguments "OR", and yet I'm just responding to your OR claim that these specific authors are the foremost experts who represent the consensus view, as well as your claims about the other subjects I've been responding to. So I'm not the only one who's guilty of OR.

If you want to move this away from an OR personal discussion, then provide a proper source for your claim that these authors represent the dominant consensus. One author claiming this about his own viewpoint is not a neutral source. GBRV (talk) 00:00, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

@ GBRV says: "Wikipedia requires that claims of "expert consensus" need to be backed up by an external source." This is the first I've heard of this. Can he give us the policy?PiCo (talk) 20:56, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Do you really need to ask something like that? Everything in a Wikipedia article needs to be backed up with an external source rather than just one Wikipedia editor's personal claim. GBRV (talk) 00:00, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Bru-ha-ha! You obviously have no clue about WP:RS/AC: there is no need of a source external to the reliable source being quoted. Stop making policies up. Of course we don't rely upon consensus claims made by editors, we rely instead upon consensus claims made by reliable sources. PiCo's point was not about accepting WP:OR claims made by editors, it was about Casey needing a source external to Casey and Harris needing an source external to Harris, requirement which is nowhere mentioned at WP:RS/AC. We edit Wikipedia for a long time and we never met any other editor claiming that WP:RS/AC needs a source external to the reliable source being quoted. You're moving the goalposts. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:49, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

And frankly, the nativity stories having no historicity is not the same as the whole Bible being fiction. You should look up the criteria developed for sorting that out. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:56, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Referring to Babylonians and Assyrians, see [3]: scholarship relies upon evidence, and at that time I presume that it wasn't wrong to say there was no corroboration for the existence of Babylonians and Assyrians. Speaking of "numerous divinity schools which are dominated by dissident professors" you should take care that if they are too numerous, they represent the majority view. About WP:OR claims, I meant claims like Harris and Casey being biased hacks. They cannot be biased hacks and write reliable sources at the same time. You have to choose only one option. Both scholars have Wikipedia articles. About Harris it is mentioned his association with the controversial Jesus Seminar, but not all of its associates can be reduced to a common denominator. What you call "dissent" would be normally called "heresy". For a long time heresy is no longer punished and scholars don't get ostracized for advocating heretic views. In fact, speaking of dissent from the Bible only makes sense if you advocate some sort of theological orthodoxy. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Do mind that the above is not an "all or nothing" choice. So, seeing some parts as unhistorical does not mean that the whole Bible would be fiction, and seeing the Bible as fallible does not prevent Christians from thinking that it is inspired. Christians who reject Biblical inerrancy do not generally advocate that the Bible is a totally worthless book, they still see in it the basics of their faith, although they recognize that the Bible is a book having all telltale marks of human fallibility. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:00, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

According to the dispute resolution page, "The dispute revolves around the replacement of "consider both narratives non-historical, arguing that there are contradictions between them" with "consider both narratives non-historical, because of their strongly theological content and the evident contradictions between them". May God forgive me but the difference seems to e infinitessimal - the usual storm in a Wiki-teacup. Three sources are given for this sentence in the lead, Vermes, Sanders and Borg, all are reliable sources. Vermes notes a few contradictions but doesn't about it - he simply takes them for granted. For Sanders, the online version I've got doesn't have page numbers so I can't check. Borg says that "most mainline scholars don't see the [birth] stories as historically factual", so you could use that and drop the other two. (Or keep Vermes for his identification of the contradictions if Borg doesn't do that). The sentence would then read: "Most mainline scholars doubt the historicity of the birth stories" (or similar). Then a sentence for the minority viewpoint, that all can be harmonised - though Gleason Archer might be a better source for that (900 pages of mind-numbing argument). And a table in the body of the article.PiCo (talk) 10:25, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

As I have stated at DRN, I don't have big objections to the text, but to the removal of two references, which verified the consensus claim. Also, there have been kept some sources which do not satisfy WP:RS/AC requirements and one might wonder that the next step is the complete removal of the consensus claim, since it is no longer properly verified. I do not advocate removing the other references, but cite them for the claim that the reason for the previous claim are the contradictions. So, there are two different claims, which are verified by different sources. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:55, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd be willing to restore the two citations that you want restored if you're willing to accept the current version of that paragraph, so long as the remaining handful of similar NPOV problems are brought into line with the current version of that paragraph (which would need to be done for consistency anyway). There are only two or three other cases in which Wikipedia's own voice is used to claim that one side's viewpoint is irrefutable fact, and these few cases could quickly be modified with only minor changes to the text.

But I cannot believe you're still claiming that an "academic consensus" can be established by quoting ONE author who claims that everyone else agrees with him - as many authors do. It's only one author, and it's an author hyping his own ideas. If I found one author who agreed with my view and who claimed that everyone else agreed with him, would that mean there is a consensus in favor of my viewpoint instead? Likewise for citing a handful of authors (whether three or a bit more). That's not enough to establish a "consensus" because it's always possible to find at least three authors who support almost any idea. You'd need to find a neutral non-involved source which says what the consensus is. This is basic stuff.

But since you're willing to accept the current version if the two other citations are restored, then we can just drop this part of the argument by accepting a compromise solution.

On the issue of historicity: my point about the nativity was that claiming it's fiction because of differences between the accounts is not a valid argument, since all historical accounts of any event always differ from each other. If your argument is valid, then virtually all of history would be fiction. Likewise on the issue re: the Babylonians and Assyrians. The point was: since most things in history don't have archaeological evidence to back them up, there was never any justification for anyone to claim that the written sources are wrong about the existence of these civilizations (which, BTW, are mentioned in other written sources outside the Bible). To be consistent, you'd need to reject most of history.

And my point about these authors you're citing is simply that the arguments they use would never be accepted if they were applied to any other subject in history. I only mentioned the issue of "dissent" to counter your claim that these guys are objective fellows with no possible axe to grind, when in fact that's very doubtful. But as usual, you tried to twist that into an issue about "heresy", which I never mentioned. Throughout this discussion, I have remained focused on the issue of secular historical analysis, while you routinely slide the discussion into theology.

As for the number of slaves: you didn't address any of my comments on that issue (e.g. the possibility that the number in the Bible represents a phrase rather than a number; the fact that massive death tolls during the Antonine plague and other large scale population shifts are not attested in the archaeological record either, etc).

As for the claim that Bethlehem was uninhabited and the census of Quirinius never took place: there is no justification for either claim. Only a tiny portion of Bethlehem's site has been excavated because there's a modern town on that site which can't be dug up without tearing down the current population's houses. A few small dig sites will not determine whether it was inhabited in the 1st century. The idea that the census of Quirinius never happened is also baseless. One census during his governorship is mentioned by Flavius Josephus, and there may have been another one (the Bible refers to the "FIRST census while Quirinius was governor of Syria", which indicates at least two even if Josephus doesn't mention both. He also leaves out a lot of other events in Roman history, but that doesn't mean that most of Roman history never happened).

And harmonizing the accounts doesn't mean coming up with a "new" account (as Bart Ehrman claims), no more than harmonizing any other set of accounts. Have you ever seen battle accounts from soldiers? Each soldier typically just describes one tiny piece of the battle, often mentioning details that no other soldiers mention, but that doesn't mean that these accounts contradict each other. Rather, they are complimentary because each one provides one small piece of a jigsaw puzzle which you have to put together by harmonizing the accounts. The end result is not a "new account" but simply the completed picture after all the pieces have been fitted together. This is the most basic of historical procedures, in fact it's the main thing that historians do.

But since we're willing to agree on a compromise solution, or at least we're close to agreement, let's focus on moving forward with that. GBRV (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Some points for the article

Might be useful to make sure the following are included:

• Nativity narratives appear only in Matthew and Luke, which are dated, by the scholarly consensus, c.75-80 CE (cf. Christ's death around 30-33 CE) - therefore of somewhat doubtful usefulness as history (too late).
• There are conflicts between the two stories - conservative scholars harmonise these, on theological, not historical, grounds (see the recent Kostenburger/Stewart book, for example).
• Therefore, might be a good idea to set the conflicts out in a table, with various harmonisations.

Just for consideration as a potential way through the dispute in the preceding thread. PiCo (talk) 23:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Since many war memoirs were written decades after the fact, are these also suspect? And since many postwar / post-regime trials were conducted decades after the fact (e.g. some of the trials of Nazi leaders) are these also suspect? Again, you need to use a standard methodology which is consistent with the methods historians normally use. GBRV (talk) 23:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

That's not my view, it's the view of biblical scholars (some - others have your view). Stick to sources, don't bring in personal arguments. And my main point was about the suggested table. PiCo (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Regardless of who is promoting these methods, they are entirely contrary to the normal methods used by historians. GBRV (talk) 00:12, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The normal methods used by historians probably at best dubiously qualify for use in a case where the sources are clearly contradictory and where they make extraordinary statements, such as the issues regarding the Star of Bethlehem. Also, as numerous sources have stated, these gospels were not primarily intended as historical documents, but rather as evangelical tracts, and, on that basis, it would be a mistake to give to them credibility as historical sources when that was, in fact, never what they were intended to be. John Carter (talk) 00:55, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

A couple of us have already explained why these accounts aren't contradictory, but many accounts of other historical events (including the ones you accept) certainly are contradictory - look at eyewitness accounts of battles and try to reconcile them if you want to experience some serious cognitive dissonance. And yet nobody dismisses these battles as fictional, because it's normal to have differences between eyewitness accounts (or any other written sources). As for "extraordinary statements" : do you realize that numerous accounts of battles also describe supernatural events, such as Herodotus' description of a "phantom" woman appearing to the Greek fleet at Salamis, or the accounts of members of the 20th Maine regiment who said they saw a supernatural figure which aided them in their famous defense of Little Round Top hill during the battle of Gettysburg? Are those battles fictional too? There needs to be some degree of consistency. GBRV (talk) 00:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Here's how the table might work (information taken from Borg, and more can be found in Vermes and elsewhere: PiCo (talk) 11:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Difference	Gospel accounts
Genealogy of Jesus	Matthew traces Jesus' ancestry to David through King Solomon; Luke traces a different lineage through Nathan.
Home of Mary and Joseph	In Luke, Jesus' parents live in Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem for a census, where Jesus is born, before returning to Nazareth; in Matthew, they live in Bethlehem, and they move to Nazareth after a lengthy sojourn in Egypt.
Birth visitors	Matthew has wise men from the East following a star and meeting with King Herod; these are absent from Luke, who doesn't mention Herod, and who instead mentions shepherds and angels singing in the night sky, which are all absent from Matthew.
Herod's plot	Matthew tells of Herod's plot to kill all the male children in Bethlehem under one year old, causing the Holy Family to flee to Egypt; all this is absent from Luke, who notes instead that the family travelled straight to Jerusalem to present Jesus in the Temple, and then returned to Nazareth.
Scriptural prophecy	Matthew quotes scripture as the fulfillment of prophecy ("This took place to fulfill that which was spoken by the prophet"); Luke uses scripture to create his own poems, notably the hymns he ascribes to Mary and Zachariah.

If I may interject, since I was notified on the other article talk page, it seems that the old problem is confusing elaboration with out-right "contradiction". But careful and honest analysis (and has been admitted) shows that the variations in details in Gospel accounts don't technically violate the rules of non contradiction. Another example is how many times did the "cock crow"? Mark says "before the cock crows TWICE". Is that in contradiction to the other Gospel writers? Who said "before the cock crows"? The problem with Atheists and "Higher Critics" is that they see supposed "contradiction" and "discrepancy" in the Biblical Document...when it's not technically actually there. But making reckless hasty analyses and assumptions. Matthew, Luke, and John DID NOT say "crows once". They just said "crows". Mark simply elaborated that, by saying "crows twice". Meaning that it was the SECOND CROWING of the rooster, which occurred around 3am, late night, that was the MAIN CROWING...and that the other gospel writers were referring to. Nowhere do you see the other gospel accounts saying "when the cock crows only once". That's not written anywhere like that. So the writers of the show "House M.D." made the same clumsy mistake, in bringing that up in one of their episodes, as a supposed "error" or "contradiction". It simply isn't. (And though YouTube is not generally a "RS", there are some interesting vids on that matter, that make the point very clear.) Mark was simply more specific. Not "contradictory" to the other Gospel writers. And that's just one of many examples of wrong assertions of "contradiction" or "discrepancy". Also, the listing above obviously can't be considered even close to a "contradiction" if something is simply "absent in Luke". Elaborated or mentioned by other Gospel historians or biographers.

As far as the "born in a stable" (Luke) versus "born in a house" (Matthew), that's totally incorrect, as the point is that Jesus was NOT a new-born infant anymore, but a toddler years later, when those "astrologers" came and visited him. Nowhere does it say in Matthew that Jesus was "born in a house". Fail. It's a mis-notion (this is old news by the way, that can easily be looked up) that those "three wise men" (they weren't necessarily "three" in number, by the way, but only may have been) came to a newborn Jesus. They didn't. He was not an infant or a newborn. This occurred years later, not on his very first birth day. Nowhere in the Matthew passage do you read "those astrologers came right after Jesus was born". There's no clear solid explicit indication in Matthew that Jesus was a new-born at all anymore. He wasn't. But a "young child" or toddler, and therefore was not in a "stable" anymore obviously. If years later. (I know that that flies in the face of the traditional Roman Catholic view of "the three wise men" visiting a newborn Jesus, in a stable, or whatever, but tradition tends to make the Bible "void" as Christ himself said, and has little to nothing to do with actual textual or explicit or careful or historical facts.) The problem is that assertions of "contradiction" are always based on sloppy reading, hasty analysis, misunderstanding, assumptions, bias, and even dishonesty. And ignoring or not appreciating context or what's actually explicitly said or not said. And also again, confusing elaboration with "contradiction". An old habit. A number of scholars (not just "fundamentalists" either) have gone into a whole thing on this, and have definitively put the old assertions away, with careful and pointed refutations. The chart above, frankly speaking, is laughable nonsense. It doesn't even get anywhere near proving "contradiction", as "absent from Luke" definitely does not mean that, and (again) the "born in stable" or "house" is not there at all in any Bible version anywhere, in any Greek manuscript anywhere, not what Matthew says at all anywhere. It's just wrongly assumed that Matthew indicates "born in a house" by a careless reading of the text. Jesus was not a newborn when those magi visited and homaged him. But a toddler years later. And that's old news. Regards. Gabby Merger (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, to be sure - the table says "differences", rather than "contradictions", but there is still a few things there that would be disputed, like using Nathan (prophet) rather than Nathan (son of David). StAnselm (talk) 19:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

"Differences" with the argument and point being that they are probable if not definite "contradictions"...otherwise what's the point of the "table" in the first place? They're put forth as problematic differences, and therefore discrepancies. Even though they actually and technically are not. But that's the assertion. Especially the example of "born in a stable" (Luke) versus "born in a house" (Matthew), even though Matthew never says that Jesus born in a "house" anywhere, or that he was necessarily a newborn infant when those magi visited him in Bethlehem. It's been wrongly assumed that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus went back to Nazareth soon after the birth in Bethlehem. But it's just that: a wrong assumption. The real matter (from scholars and careful analysis) is that Joseph and Mary were originally from the poor town of Nazareth (of course), then went to Bethlehem where Jesus was actually born, and that they stayed there a while, like months or maybe even a year or two, and the magi were directed by some star to the house...and then later on they fled to Egypt, and then some time later went back to Nazareth of Galilee. Not immediately after and not necessarily just days or weeks after the birth at Bethlehem. They only moved back to Nazareth later on. But again, that chart above is put forward as a postulation and supposed proof of problematic differences, and therefore "contradictions". But they simply aren't, as my comment above shows. Gabby Merger (talk) 19:32, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

To do a little WP:OR ourselves: these are nativity stories, have thus birth in common, they have in common Joseph, Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem. But they are not in Bethlehem for the same reason, they are not at the same location (address), they are surrounded by different characters and they leave together for different destinations. About historicity, Bethlehem was uninhabited at the time Jesus got born, so a child conceived by the Ghost, was born in a ghost town, presumably due to a ghost census in order to claim the fulfillment of a messianic prophecy. As Bart Ehrman stated, if your purpose is to harmonize the gospels, then you could conflate the stories into your own gospel, which is neither Matthew's nor Luke's. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:45, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the "born in a house" bit would have to go, too. StAnselm (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Gabby, we're here to tell readers the views of the scholarly community ("reliable sources") on this question (the question of the historical reliability of the nativity narratives). It seems that the majority of mainstream scholars don't regard them as reliable - we have a reliable source. All the rest of detail.

If we want to go into that detail, and I suppose we must, then we need to go a little more into the reasons why scholars hold that view. It's not just the inconsistencies between the two accounts, there's more to it, as Borg says. I think the table, if there's to be one, needs to explain the other factors as well. PiCo (talk) 23:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

But a handful of sources do not establish an overwhelming consensus, nor does Borg's statement that most people agree with his position. Again, that's one partisan author claiming that his OWN view is allegedly accepted. I could probably find at least one author who says the reverse. One author doesn't prove anything, and neither do a handful of authors.

Re: your table of "contradictions": I think Gabby Merger has already covered this pretty well, so I'll just point out that any differences are trivial to the differences between the accounts of any battle in history, in which soldiers routinely seem to "contradict" each other because each one describes only one small part of the battle that he personally saw. So I guess all the battles in history are fictional? Historians always look for ways to reconcile differing accounts, and that can be easily done for the nativity accounts as well. GBRV (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Nobody is talking overwhelming consensus, in fact the word consensus isn't being used. Borg simply says "the majority of mainstream scholars" (from memory). As he's a RS we can use him to support that phrase. If you can find another source that says there's no such majority, please do, and we'll have to deal with it, but at the moment that's the information we have.PiCo (talk) 00:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

To use the battle example, the differences are like claiming that the Battle of Stalingrad was a naval battle. No way can a testimony of a naval battle be harmonized as part of the Battle of Stalingrad. It is not a contradiction between an account of a naval battle and the Battle of Stalingrad, they just concern different events. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:57, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Sources claiming that Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem:

• John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Doubleday, 1991-, vol. 1:407. "Jesus of Nazareth was born-most likely in Nazareth, not Bethlehem-ca. 7 or 6 B.C., a few years before the death of King Herod the Great (4 B.C.) ... He was dead by the evening of Friday, April 7, 30. He was about thirty-six years old."
• Catherine M. Murphy, PhD Jesus's Birthplace and Hometown rendered from The Historical Jesus For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-16785-4
• JESUS’ NATIVITY—Where Was Jesus Born? (And When?) Biblical Archaeology Review (WP:RS/AC statement)
• Savage, M.J.; Toy, Crawford H. (2003) [1893]. "The Man of Nazareth". Jesus and Modern Life. Kessinger Publishing. p. 26. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Strauss, David Friedrich (2009) [1836]. "Birth and Earliest Events of the Life of Jesus". The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. New York: Cosimo, Inc. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-61640-317-1. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Isbouts, Jean-Pierre (2008). "Two. Herod and the Birth of Jesus". Young Jesus: Restoring the "Lost Years" of a Social Activist and Religious Dissident. New York: Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-4027-5713-6. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

List by Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:09, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

If you're claiming that the differences in the nativity accounts are like the difference between the siege of Stalingrad versus a naval battle, that simply is not true. Most of the alleged "contradictions" in the nativity accounts are just a matter of different parts of the same sequence being mentioned in one or the other - e.g. one account mentions the shepherds visiting while another mentions the later visit of the Magi, which are not contradictory if both groups visited at different times, just as countless battle accounts mention different phases of the battle without contradicting each other.

You mentioned six authors who claim Jesus was born somewhere else aside from Bethlehem, presumably including the claim that Chorazin was the location? There isn't a single historical account to justify Chorazin, nor any evidence to back up the other speculative hypotheses (whether Nazareth or any of the others). So you're cherry-picking several authors who are engaging in pure speculation and using it to contradict the only written accounts we have, which is never a valid procedure. These are the worst authors you could pick, and the fact that six of them reject Bethlehem - out of the many thousands of people who have written about the subject - does not establish a consensus. Much the same can be said about most of the other issues we've been discussing. GBRV (talk) 00:01, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I was most interested in the BAR article, with its supposed "WP:RS/AC statement". But the link doesn't work. StAnselm (talk) 02:24, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

I changed the link to the archived website. It does not exactly say "consensus", it says "more widely accepted", hinting that this is the majority view. In the end the article explaining the majority view concludes that we will never know for sure, but previously argued that Nazareth is more probable as Jesus's birthplace. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:51, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, the magazine itself has published two articles side by side, one for the Bethlehem location and one against - that hardly points to any sort of consensus. And the "against" is actually an agnostic position. StAnselm (talk) 03:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Not exactly, the "against" view makes a judgment that Nazareth was the probable (but not the sure) birthplace of Jesus. And the intro makes clear that the popular view is less widely accepted among scholars, which favor a view which is not popular (see the oxymoron statement). Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:20, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

The word "agnostic" comes from the companion article, of course. StAnselm (talk) 03:39, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

The arguments are not of importance to us (of interest, but not of importance); what counts is the statement in the lead to the BAR article that a birth in Nazareth is "more widely accepted". Unfortunately I don't think I'd accept that as a RS, but if it's true then I'd expect it to be found in an RS. (By "if it's true" I mean, if it's true that this is the more widely accepted view).PiCo (talk) 05:04, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Since, as Gabby Merger already explained, there are ample problems with Borg's table, and since we're already in the middle of a different set of disputes for this article, let's solve the current disputes first before you add more stuff. GBRV (talk) 00:02, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Gabby hasn't explained anything, she's simply made a statement of her own beliefs. Her beliefs, and mine, and yours, don't matter; what matters is statements by reliable sources, and we have Borg listing these things as discrepancies which have led the majority of mainline scholars to believe that the nativity stories are not historical. Personally I think it will be enough just to have a sentence saying "the majority of mainstream scholars do not believe that the nativity stories are historical", but if we want to explain why, then we need to go into details to some extent.PiCo (talk) 00:22, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure "mainline" and "mainstream" are the same. Borg may well be referring to Mainline Protestant scholars. In any case, the fact that he's appealing to a majority to back up his own view (""I (and most mainline scholars) do not see these stories as historically factual") makes me reluctant to put it in WP voice. StAnselm (talk) 01:33, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

So you dispute that Borg is a reliable source? Why?PiCo (talk) 01:53, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Because it's a popular debate book. I would be OK with a sentence that said "According to Marcus Borg, the majority of mainline scholars do not see these stories as historically factual." StAnselm (talk) 02:40, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

That would be implying doubt in Marcus Borg's status as a reliable source, which we can't do (If you think he's not a reliable source, don't use him at all). But I gather your doubt relates to the book rather than to Borg himself. Is that right?PiCo (talk) 02:55, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes that's right. His statement seems to be a notable opinion, but with this particular claim his biases and lack of referencing mean that it shouldn't be considered as an RS. (I guess with claims about consensus, concessive statements are often the best; if we could find an evangelical scholar admitting that most scholars reject the historicity, that would be a slam dunk.) StAnselm (talk) 03:36, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

And if a position is genuinely the majority one there'll be other sources for it. But I wouldn't divide scholars by "liberal","evangelical" or whatever - in my experience they're all pretty careful not to say anything that's outright incorrect. (The exception is Kenneth Kitchen, for whom I have no respect - but he's old and can be forgiven).PiCo (talk) 05:04, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you all mean by "toddler", but it would seem that Jesus may have been as old as two years at the time of the magi visit, hence Herod (allegedly) tried to kill all boys up to that age. Maybe? However Matthew seemingly believes that the family stayed in their home in Bethlehem for about 2 years after the birth, and then fled to Egypt to escape the plot of Herod, whereas Luke says that they went to Jerusalem for the purification rituals and then went straight home to Nazareth. I think we should also mention the dating - the King Herod of Matthew was long dead before the Quirinius of Luke took office. Also, there is seemingly zero Roman record of such a census to begin with. And of course the fact that half the gospels don't think that a miraculous virgin birth with stars and angels and murdering kings is worth mentioning at all to begin with? Wdford (talk) 11:17, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

On the issue of alleged contradictions between Luke and Matthew: the differences only become contradictions if you assume: 1) any mention of different events means they are describing the same events differently, when in fact they are describing different events entirely - different points along the same sequence - as is commonly the case in any set of accounts of any sequence of events in history; 2) you would also have to assume that the events in both accounts must have "immediately" followed one after the other, although the text doesn't actually say that. E.g., when Luke says the family returned to Nazareth "after" visiting Jerusalem, he doesn't say how long afterwards it was, and you can't assume it would have to be immediately because the common practice in many ancient texts was to deliberately compress events that were actually spread out in time. The ancient Roman author Lucian recommended this type of abbreviation when writing a history.

You made the argument that Herod was dead before Quirinius took office and that there aren't any Roman records of a census; but there is good evidence from an inscription now in the Lateran Museum that Quirinius held the governorship of Syria during two terms separated by a hiatus of some years, the first term being a good deal earlier than the one that you're referring to. Additionally, the original language in Luke can also mean "BEFORE Quirinius was governor..." in which case it wouldn't be referring to something that took place during either of Quirinius' terms. Flavius Josephus mentions one census during one of Quirinius' terms, and other sources list regular censuses that occurred every fourteen years, one of which would coincide roughly with the estimated era of Jesus' birth.

You also made an issue out of the fact that the other two Gospels never mention the nativity, but that's no different than the situation in countless other sets of historical accounts in which some eyewitnesses mention one event while others leave it out. That's the norm, and doesn't mean the whole thing is fictional unless you're going to make the same claim about most other events in history.

Regarding the genealogy issue: you interpret them as contradictory because you're not taking into account the several different manners in which ancient Jewish genealogies could be traced, and the language used in the original. There are several issues: for one thing, Jewish law regarded a "father-son" relationship as either the normal biological relation or the "levirate marriage" relation in which someone could be considered the "legal son" of the original husband of their mother if the mother had remarried after her first husband's death, in accordance with the Old Testament rule which says that if a man dies childless then his widow should marry his brother to "raise up sons for him" - i.e. any sons produced would be considered the "son" of the dead husband, not of the biological father. The ancient writer Eusebius believed that Luke was tracing the lineage using one definition of "son" while Matthew was tracing it through the other definition. Under Jewish law, both would be accurate even though they produce different genealogy. You also have to keep in mind that the original language doesn't translate well, since the words for different family relations were quite a bit different in Aramaic (which was then converted to Greek) than in English - e.g., the word for "son" also meant "son-in-law" as well as "any descendant" (which is why Jesus is described as the "Son of David", meaning in this case "distant descendant" rather than a direct son). So if one person's entry in a genealogy describes him as the "son" of a certain person, that doesn't necessarily mean a father-son relation since there could be several generations in between. Some people have also suggested that one account may be tracing Jesus' lineage through Joseph's line and the other through Mary's line because in this case the Bible says there was no actual father, only a mother; hence the normal Jewish practice of tracing lineage through the paternal line might be replaced with the maternal line instead. For all of these reasons, there are historically plausible ways of reconciling the two accounts, whereas the "contradiction" theory is just based on a cursory reading of the English translation without trying to analyze the matter based on the historical, legal and linguistic context of the original. Like many subjects in history, the correct interpretation isn't clear in this case because we only have two surviving accounts and nothing to explain what procedures were being used in each of them, but that's not unusual. Historians still debate many issues in history which aren't clear, but that doesn't mean the disputed accounts are fictional. GBRV (talk) 00:46, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

A few months or a year and a half or maybe even up to two years old, was Jesus, when those magi visited him. That's why in Matthew you read the word "house". But you'll notice that nowhere in that Matthew passage do you see "born" in a house. (And I already know about the contention that there was "no census taken" and that argument has been handled and debunked years ago. Luke says it was the "FIRST" census, implying there was a later census, which would have occurred in 6 A.D. Plus, Quirinius had different administrations. I won't go deep into that here now though.) But, again, Matthew never says "born in a house". Or that the magi visited him right after his birth. That's just been the sloppy assumption (for centuries, put forth wrongly by the Roman Catholic Church of course). So there's no technical discrepancy of Luke's saying a "stable" and Matthew's saying a "house", because the Matthew passage was not dealing anymore with Jesus' actual "birth". And also an important fact that proves the point is that the two Greek words (in Luke and Matthew respectively) are different. For "infant" and "young child". "Brephos" for infant or baby, and "paidion" for "young child". Paidion is a broader word that can refer to an infant too, but which also would be the Greek word used for something like "toddler". That's no longer an infant or newborn. But the Greek word "brephos" NEVER refers to a toddler in the Bible, but always solely to an infant. And in Luke you see "brephos" (as well as "paidion") for the newborn Jesus. But in Matthew it's only the Greek word "paidion" (the broad term) for Jesus in that context. And not "brephos" (the strict term) at all in Matthew. So Matthew does not clearly call Jesus an infant, in other words. Matthew only calls him a "paidion" or "young child"...which can refer to either an infant or toddler. Brephos ONLY refers to an infant or newborn. Never a toddler. And Luke is careful to use that word too, in his account. To make it clear that it's not just a young child per se, but also a newborn infant (when the shepherds were there). Matthew only refers to him as "young child" which can be a toddler too. And that's when the magi visited him. He's never referred to as an infant (brephos) in that context in Matthew. A decent book that goes into this is "Shocked by the Bible - The Most Astonishing Facts You've Never Been Told", by Bible scholar Joe Kovacs. Check this out below. Kovacs noted in his explanation:

"Now in the Gospel of Matthew, different from the Gospel of Luke, it talks about a different time frame of events and it mentions that there were wise men from the East and they were asking King Herod who was in charge at that time about “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2) He was already born by the time that they were arriving, and King Herod didn’t even know about this. This is how private of an event it was. And it doesn’t say three wise men in your Bibles, folks. It just says wise men. So it could have been two, three, five, 20 or 170. We don’t know for sure because the Bible doesn’t tell us."

Kovacs continues:

"But this unspecified number of wise men first encountered Jesus not as a babe in a manger, according to your own Bible. They saw Jesus as a young child in a house. Those are the words on the page. When you actually crack open your own Bible [to Matthew 2:11], and I encourage you to do this …"

And again:

"It says “And when they were come into the house” – not a barn, not a stable, not a manger – “they saw the young child” – not a babe, not a baby, not an infant, not a newborn – they saw a young child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him. So those are the words on the page. You have an unspecified number of wise men coming to see a young child in a house, not a babe in a manger."

Important linguistic facts noted here:

"Not only are the words different in English, they’re different in the original Greek texts, because in Luke, the gospel where Jesus was born, where the shepherds saw Him, they were seeing a “brephos,” which means newborn baby, or baby or infant. But in Matthew, it’s a different Greek word. It’s “paidion,” and it means young child, and is never translated in your Bible as babe or baby or infant or newborn.

He goes on:

"So people really need to separate the gospels of Matthew and Luke. They are different time frames. Luke is the night He was born. Shepherds were there in Bethlehem, going there on instructions from the angel. Matthew is some time later. We don’t know how much later, but it could have been up to maybe a year and a half, two years afterward when Jesus is a young a child. Jesus may even have been speaking a few words and thanking them for the gifts that He received from these wise men. And that’s the biblical truth of the matter." Gabby Merger (talk) 13:55, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Some good points Gabby. However I don’t think the debate of stable vs house is the main issue. Jesus might very possibly have been 2 years old when the star lead the magi to Bethlehem. However per Luke, the family had long since left Bethlehem to go home to Nazareth – big contradiction. Nowhere does Luke mention Herod’s plot or the flight to Egypt – they went to Jerusalem after the birth and then home to Nazareth directly, whereas Matthew claims they stayed in Bethlehem for two years, fled to Egypt and went to Nazareth only after Herod died (which is still ten years before Quirinius ever came to office.) There is no way of harmonizing that. The claim that there were several census events is BS – Roman records show that there were in fact NO census events at all, and you will need to produce some amazing reliable sources to back such a position. The genealogy is also inescapably different. “Stable vs house” is the least of your challenges. There are other contradictions later in the gospels as well. Wdford (talk) 17:09, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Gabby, Joe Kovacs isn't a biblical scholar, he's a journalist ("Executive News Editor of World Net Daily, acclaimed journalist, and Bible believer). If you want to find out about the nativity narratives, or about the gospels in general, there are plenty of genuine biblical scholars listed in the bibliography to this article. PiCo (talk) 22:09, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if YOU choose to consider him a scholar or not, the facts stand, that Luke and Matthew were not the same time frame, and different Greek words were used, and the fact that nowhere in Matthew does it say "Jesus was born in a house", and nothing changes the fact that your chart above is debunked. Your logical fallacies of overly-focusing and being uptight about the supposed credentials or lack thereof of the author are well-known already, but try focusing a bit more on what was said, and the merits and facts. I didn't cite or quote Kovacs with any intention of having him even put in any article, by the way. Just to show the point regarding the supposed "contradiction" of Matthew with Luke in "Bethlehem" versus "Nazareth" and "Magi" matter is no contradiction at all. Just a different time period, and elaboration. And, not understanding this, so-called "scholars" have stupidly put forward wrong assertions regarding it. And it's just a careless hasty mis-reading and assumption of Bible critics, who arguably want the Bible to have discrepancies in it, when it really technically does not. Elaboration and filling in details that others leave out is not necessarily "contradiction". And no, to repeat, there's evidence to show that Quirinius had a governorship and administration years earlier, as I said. (To Wdford above.) Gabby Merger (talk) 23:09, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

We have to stick to reliable sources Gabby. Borg is, Kovacs isn't. But there are more problems with the nativity stories than this - for example, the citizens wouldn't have been asked to travel for the census (the census officials did the traveling - they had to connect persons to property), Mary, as a woman (and a heavily pregnant one at that), wouldn't have been required to go with her husband (she'd have been left behind with her family), and Joseph, as a resident of Galilee, wouldn't have been subject to the Roman tax census. Please read the books in the bibliography, or at least some of them (I've overstuffed it, but unneeded ones can be weeded out later).PiCo (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Re: your claims about the census: firstly, there is solid evidence that the Romans required a census every fourteen years, because that's the interval between recorded censuses. One such census is known to have occurred around the time that the birth of Jesus would have occurred. Secondly, Galilee would not have been exempt, since even virtually autonomous cities like Apamea in Syria were not exempt despite having almost complete self-governance. Thirdly, a Roman edict from G. Vibius Maximus (concerning a similar Roman census) says explicitly that citizens were required to return to their home town, just as it says in the Bible. Fourthly, the same edict says that each man had to bring his entire family with him, just as it says in the Bible. GBRV (talk) 00:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Let's stick to the article and reliable sources (McDowell, who I guess is your source for what you've written here about Roman censuses, isn't a reliable source). I make no claims, I merely report what the sources say. PiCo (talk) 04:21, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

No, I didn't get it from McDowell, but rather from a summary of Roman documents on the subject. I can look to see if the same information is in a secondary source that WP considers an RS. GBRV (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

No need to look it up, since there's nothing about it in the article. But just FYI, none of that information is true. (See, for example, Fergus Miller on the census in Judea/Galilee and Kevin McGeough on Roman taxation PiCo (talk) 00:48, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

However, our existing article on Census of Quirinius states the census in Judea to be a proven fact. What are we missing here? Wdford (talk) 08:12, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Is anyone denying that there was a census of Quirinius? When I said that none of the information in GBRV's paragraph was true, I meant:

• It's not true that the Romans required a census every 14 years - they were irregular, varied according to region and period, but yes, they did carry out censuses for tax purposes;
• It's not true that Galilee would not have been exempt from the census carried out in Judea by Quirinius when it became a Roman province - all the sources say it would have been; and it's not true that the city of Apamea can be used as a pattern for Galilee/Judea - that's OR on GBRV's part, he needs to stick to sources;
• What Vibius Maximus says is not what the bible says (Max says that people were to return to the home villages from the cities where they lived, while the bible says people were required to travel to villages where their distant ancestors had lived a thousand years previously, whih is, frankly, pretty weird);
• Vibius Max is not, in any case, relevant: he was governor of Egypt, and was applying the administrative system used by the Ptolemies over the previous 3 centuries - the Romans had different tax systems for every province, as one of the two sources I gave above points out;
• So one more time, stick to Reliable Sources and don't try to do your own classical scholarship! Takes years of training and experience, which we don't have.PiCo (talk) 08:40, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Fergus Miller's argument on this point was based on the claim that Galilee was then (at the time of Jesus' birth) part of "the tetrarchy" of Herod Antipas, which is an anachronism because the formation of four tetrarchies didn't occur until after the death of his father, Herod the Great. Each of his four sons, including Herod Antipas, were given a fourth of the kingdom. This is the consensus among historians, in fact the very word "tetrarchy" refers to the division of the kingdom into four parts (from "tetra", meaning "four"), which is why the "tetrarchy of Galilee" did not, and could not, exist before that division. This isn't just my OR, because every historian (AFAIK) takes that view.

The Kevin McGeough passage doesn't even mention censuses, since he's talking about tax collection (an ongoing process every year) rather than counting the number of taxable people (which occurred only periodically as a separate process). Yes, each province had a different set of local taxes, but that isn't the point that's in dispute. It also doesn't address whether the central government in Rome ordered a regular estimate of the empire-wide population at standard intervals to provide estimates which might be needed for more than just tax purposes (a wide variety of policy decisions would benefit from knowing the number of people in the empire).

On the issue of Vibius Maximus' decree: firstly, it says that "all" people have to travel if they are away from their home town, not just merchants. Secondly, the fact that he was governor of Egypt would only be an issue if it could be proven that Judean censuses had a different requirement, which can't be established because no documents have survived on that subject aside from the accounts compiled into the Bible itself. So you're dismissing both the Vibius Maximus decree and the accounts in the Bible based on nothing but the assumption that they "must" be wrong, and you believe they must be wrong because you claim the Romans would never inconvenience provincial citizens by requiring them to travel, despite the many Roman policies which were far more inconvenient. The heavy taxes themselves were often far more inconvenient than the need to travel for a census, and many Roman policies were downright cruel. You also said that the Bible allegedly says Joseph was required to go back to his ancestral village, which you claim contradicts Roman practice; but the Bible merely says he went back to his "own town" - implying that he was only in Nazareth temporarily (moving there permanently only later on) - and then adds that he was of the "house and lineage of David" in which case his "own town" would happen to be the same as his family's ancestral town in his specific case. It doesn't say that the Romans required people to return to their family's ancestral place. You're inferring a lot of things that aren't actually stated in the text.

Bottom line: the normal procedure in history is to base theories on whatever written accounts we have, rather than rejecting them based on a purely speculative claim of what the Romans "really" did (or "would've" done, or "should've" done) instead. Neither of these books give any reason to doubt the Roman documents I mentioned. These documents certainly need to be mentioned in the article for the sake of providing something other than one side's biased viewpoint which stubbornly ignores all the evidence, even from pagan sources. I can try to find a secondary source that would be considered an RS. GBRV (talk) 06:50, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

The bottom line is that we need to stick to reliable sources. Fergus Miller is, Josh McDowell isn't. PiCo (talk) 09:58, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I didn't get the information from McDowell, as I said before. GBRV (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Prote

In another place there has been some discussion as to whether the Greek word "prote" should be translated as "before", giving us Luke 2:2, "This census took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria." The answer is "no". (So why does the NIV go with the conservative non-consensual minority? I have no idea, but I suspect that selling bibles might be a factor). Stick to sources, people. PiCo (talk) 00:07, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

That's one book, not the universally accepted truth. I could look up sources which give the other view; but certainly one book does not prove a consensus. GBRV (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

• sigh*PiCo (talk) 03:49, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Request permission to do some editing

Much as respect the DRN process, it does seem to be dragging on and on. Meanwhile, I'd like to do some editing on the article. What I'd like to do is simply give summaries of the two birth narratives, without comment or notes. After all, it seems a pretty basic thing to have in an article like this. Would anyone object? I wouldn't delete anything that's already there.PiCo (talk) 11:25, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not such a simple thing, because a simple summary without any context is badly misleading and can be extremely partisan, especially if you line up descriptions side by side as if they describe the same event when in fact they are arguably separate events entirely (such as the visit of the shepherds and the visit of the magi), in fact that's what the debate is about for some of these issues. You're taking a list from one partisan author who only represents one side of the issue. So how would you provide a neutral list when it's the timing of these events which is often the entire point of dispute? GBRV (talk) 02:55, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'd do it like this:

Summary: the nativity of Jesus according to the gospels of Matthew and Luke

The nativity is described in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Scholars divide the overall narrative into "pericopess", individual stories; frequently one pericope will be described in one gospel but not the other:

Pericope	Gospel of Matthew	Gospel of Luke
[[Genealogy of Jesus	Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus from David in three groups of fourteen generations, beginning with Abraham.	Luke traces the genealogy from Adam; like Matthew, he stresses Jesus' descent from David.

(And so on, just sticking to facts, no interpretation). PiCo (talk) 06:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Very happy with this idea in principle; I'm not sure whether the genealogies should be covered in this article, though. I wonder if there is actually a consensus among scholars (yes, those two words again) as to whether the genealogy comes under nativity/birth/infancy narrative. For what it's worth, we separate them on Template:Jesus footer, etc. StAnselm (talk) 08:08, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take it a bit further. I have no opinion on whether the genealogy should be in the nativity article - I'll leave it for now nad it can be taken out later if that's the decision. But the nativity is in fact a group of pericopes, not one - the Annunciation, the John the Baptist material, and so on. If it were limited just to the birth there'd be very little to say. PiCo (talk) 08:59, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Just a note on one thing that's always struck me as odd - Luke refers to Adam as the "son of God" - is he implying that Jesus is directly descended from God? Maybe. PiCo (talk) 09:00, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

It's interesting, isn't it? Anyway, there more I look at this article, the more problems I see with it. For a start, we have a WP:REFERS violation in the first sentence. But what is the scope meant to be? The lead doesn't mention the Annunciation, but it's covered in the "Gospel of Luke" section. StAnselm (talk) 09:10, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I noticed the WP:REFERS problem too. And then the lead compounds the problem by saying that the article isn't about the birth of Jesus but about the accounts of the birth. PiCo (talk) 10:09, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

With the best will in the world I cannot make this work as a table. Ok, so let's have a section called "Narrative" os something, in which we summarise each of the two narratives - pretty much as is already there, but more directed at simply summarising the two stories. PiCo (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

There is a case at the DRN regarding this page.

This message is to inform interested editors of a discussion at the Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding issues relating to NPOV. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. Any editors are welcome to add themselves as a party, and you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Talk:Nativity of Jesus#Edit war". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! —☮JAaron95 ^Talk 04:18, 21 October 2015 (UTC) (DRN Volunteer)

• Please also try not to make significant changes to the article in the mean time. Thanks and regards—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 04:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC) Case has been closed. Regards—UY Scuti ^Talk 18:46, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks ☮JAaron95, but I think GBRV distrusts me too much for my involvement at the DRN be helpful. I'm not making any changes to the article itself (as distinct from adding potential sources to the bibliography) until the DRN is finished. Even then I'll try to bring GBRV and Gabby with me. PiCo (talk) 04:24, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Just looked at the DRN and saw that GBRV is complaining that I added 31k of material to the article That would indeed be out of order with the dispute in progress, but it's only books in the bibliography section. Still, it can be removed if he really objects strongly. PiCo (talk) 04:27, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

My objection to the bibliography stems from the fact that I would need to wade through it and see how balanced it is. If it's mostly books promoting one viewpoint, then that's likely a problem. It may not be a part of the article's main text, but it's still part of the article's page. GBRV (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

No need to wade through - that would be too much to ask, there must be 60 books there! It's just a resource for future work on the article, after the DRN is done. It won't be left there.PiCo (talk) 00:46, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Imho, these are books representing mainstream Bible scholarship. Rendering the mainstream views isn't POV-pushing by Wikipedia standards. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I think they'd be hard to fault. Are you guys getting anywhere near finalising the DRN? It seems to be dragging on a bit. PiCo (talk) 06:12, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

If it's a reference list for WP editors to use and won't be left in the article, then what's the point of putting it in the article now? If it's for usage by WP editors, then put it on the talk page or something. Can I move it over here, or will you just revert my edit like you always do? GBRV (talk) 06:50, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

You can move it here, no problem.PiCo (talk) 09:59, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Good News Publisher is not a reliable source

Good News Publisher is a Christian ministry publishing gospel tracts. It could arguably be used to make a theological point, but using it as an academic source is in breach of WP:RS. The publisher itself makes no claim of being a scholarly publisher. Jeppiz (talk) 15:19, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

No, the publisher is actually Crossway, which is a highly respected publisher. It's published the ESV Bible and countless academic books. The WP article Good News Publishers (with an s) needs serious improvement, and possibly a move to Crossway Books. StAnselm (talk) 19:09, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Publishers aren't sources, people are sources. One way of establishing whether books/authors are RS is asking who the publisher is, but that's far from infallible (publishers are in business to make money, they aren't always overly concerned with academic credibility, and that little para on the back page of so many books saying that every effort has been taken to check for factual accuracy is all too frequently a blatant lie). All that said, I don't think I can accept Mark Roberts as a reliable source. He describes himself as "pastor, author, speaker and blogger", he holds no academic position and I can't find any reference to his own education. I don't have much time so I'll ask others to follow up, but the most relevant piece I can find about his status describes him as Executive Director at a Centre for Leadership at Fuller Seminary - I have no idea what Fuller Seminary is - and gives an outline of his career prior to that - but he seems more pastorally-oriented than academic to me. If the things you want to say via Roberts are worth saying, better sources surely exist.PiCo (talk) 02:00, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Let me wiki that for you... StAnselm (talk) 02:16, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

But you're right of course - for the lead, someone like Craig Blomberg would be a far better person to mention. StAnselm (talk) 02:20, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I think it might be better to start with the body of the article and come to the lead last. To begin, I'd like the "narrative" section to be simply a summary of what Matthew and Luke say, without interpretation or comment. And I think drop the genealogy, though I'm open to other opinions.PiCo (talk) 17:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Duplication of Art material

There is already a huge article called Nativity of Jesus in art. Nonetheless we have a big section here on the very same topic. Since this article is already excessively large, should we not move all this material across to the Nativity of Jesus in art article? Wdford (talk) 17:45, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

No, because that is not how Wikipedia works - the art sub-article is correctly summarized here (though not terribly well). See Wikipedia:Summary style. The section here is 217 words, and probably should be longer. The music section is much longer than that. I don't think the article overall is "excessively large" either. Johnbod (talk) 12:04, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Duplication of theology material

There is already a huge article called Jesus in Christianity, which deals in detail with the themes and interpretations of the Nativity - among other things. Nonetheless we have a big section here on the very same topic. Since this article is already excessively large, should we not move all this material across to the Jesus in Christianity article? Wdford (talk) 17:51, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Probably not, and see last section. Johnbod (talk) 12:05, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Sola Scriptura shows us the season

In Luke 1:26, it says, "in the 6th month (that is the Bibical month, not the Gregorian calendar that we use today) the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to the virgin Mary. vs. 31 you shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. So count from this account 9 months and you will find the exact time when He was born. If we read scripture, we can find the correct answers. Then in Lu 1:36, your cousin Elizabeth, is now in her sixth month so we know John's birth as well.

— momzhere, jesuspolice.com

I know this is WP:OR. So, has any scholar put this idea in a reliable source? Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:40, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

The sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy is what Luke 1:26 refers to. Elizium23 (talk) 01:23, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

However the angel Gabriel did NOT say to the virgin Mary: "You will fall pregnant TONIGHT", it could have been "you will fall pregnant sometime soon", where soon could mean many months. The gospel doesn't tell us that Mary fell pregnant in the six month specifically. Wdford (talk) 08:50, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Still needs a RS. There are plenty of commentaries to consult. PiCo (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Rewriting New testament narratives section

I've rewritten the "New Testament narratives" section so they're simply summaries of the stories in Matthew and Luke. Partly this is because they contained a lot of explanation that's already covered in other sections, and partly because I feel the readers will want to know just what the two narratives say, without comment. The two overviews are quite brief and can be expanded. I've left out the genealogy of Jesus - I feel they don't quite fit, and although Matthew's is in front of his birth narrative and seems to form part of it, Luke's is attached to his story of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus.PiCo (talk) 10:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Spinout

The material on the Date of Birth of Jesus has been spun out into a new article called Date of birth of Jesus of Nazareth, partly because of the size of this article, and partly because many articles repeat the same material and it will be better to keep (and develop) the topic in one place. Wdford (talk) 18:58, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

And you didn't think you should ask first? Johnbod (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

0 BC

0 BC did not exist. See 0 (year). So, it is ridiculous to claim that Jesus was born in the year 0. Besides, there is no church dogma that Jesus were born in either 1 BC or 1 AD. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Historical analysis section

The historical analysis section is heavily biased. It needs to include arguments in favor of historicity (various scholars have made them). There also counter-arguments to issues like the census.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:16, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Picture

What is wrong with the picture?The New Classic (talk) 02:44, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The Nativity by William Blake, (c. 1790-1800), tempera on copper, 27.3 x 38.2 cm, in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Census of Quirinius

The historicity of the census has never been in doubt, what does not match historical records is putting it in 4 BCE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

That is only if one assumes the census referred to in Luke is the same as the census conducted by Quirinius in 6 CE. The Greek grammar of Luke 2:2 is ambiguous. It can either mean "This was the first census... while Quirinius was governor of Syria" or it can mean "this census was prior to... Quirinius [being] governor of Syria." There is also an incomplete manuscript describing a "legate of Syria" receiving the office for a second time, which unfortunately is missing the name, but describes a career and time frame likely to match Quirinius, suggesting he held the post twice and therefore conducted a census twice (the first now being lost to the historical record) (cf. Smith, Mark. "Of Jesus and Quirinius." CBQ 62 [2000], 278-93). Or it could mean a separate Quirinius held the post during this time, as a coin has recently been discovered with a Quirinius serving as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia during Jesus' birth (cf. McRay, John. Archaeology and the New Testament. [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991], 154). Though each of these possibilities comes with scant evidence, it does suggest that a Quirinius held an Imperial position of power during Jesus' birth, and may indeed have issued a census.The Famous Adventurer (talk) 06:12, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The article states, "Sanders considers Luke's census, for which everyone returned to their ancestral home, not historically credible, as this was contrary to Roman practice; they would not have uprooted everyone from their homes and farms in the Empire by forcing them to return to their ancestral cities." Though Sanders does indeed make this contention, there is manuscript evidence from BL Papyrus 904 that the Prefect in Egypt during the reign of Emperor Trajan (104 CE), Gaius Vibius Maximus commanded all those within his territory to return to their homes for a census. A copy of the papyrus and a brief write up can be found here: http://cojs.org/papyrus_census_order-_104_ce/ Whether this means their ancestral homes, I am not sure, but it does suggest that the Roman authorities had no qualms about uprooting people to conduct a census.The Famous Adventurer (talk) 06:21, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Lead section needs work

By the third sentence, the lead section dives into minimizing the differences between Matthew and Luke, in a way that is not reflected in the source cited. The Robinson 2009 page 111 does not state the two accounts "differ slightly in content", rather states "... it would be rash to place too much credence in the historicity of two accounts that are so very different.". Nor does the source suggest that the account authors "chose to omit" material included by the other, rather states the opinion of most scholars that "the two infancy accounts are independent of each other". Clearly this editor is presenting his own POV, not that of the source cited. Pekoebrew (talk) 20:17, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Which Jesus???

As a matter of Encylopaedic neutrality and clarity, this article should be retitled "Nativity of Jesus Christ."

Recall that "Jesus" is an ordinary personal name in many languages, notably Spanish. Technically, the "Nativity of Jesus" might apply to any one of them.

Indeed, I wonder why a separate article from "Christmas" is necessary. But that is a separate issue.

2601:645:C300:C1C:D180:3295:19F9:13ED (talk) 17:44, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

This Jesus. Editor2020 (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality of the Lead

The first paragraph of the lead effectively says that the nativity story is historically accurate, and that the many fundamental differences between the gospels are reconcilable. The wording needs to be tweaked a bit further, to include the views of all the other historians who believe that the nativity stories are not historically accurate. Wdford (talk) 09:12, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Section on nativity in Islam?

It strikes me that it would be good to have a section here on the birth of Jesus in Islam. The section might cover the account of the Nativity in the Qur'ān and mention the extensive later accounts by Muslim writers. It could link to the main article Jesus in Islam. I'm happy to write this (basing it primarily on the Encyclopaedia of Islam but also more recent scholarship, such as Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (New York: St Martin's Press, 2017) and Oddbjørn Leirvik, Images of Jesus Christ in Islam, 2nd edn (London: Continuum, 2010)). But I thought this might be a contentious idea, so figured I'd post here first. Any views? Alarichall (talk) 11:10, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

"Debate" over harmonization

"the first paragraph is supposed to summarize the overall subject, which covers a lot more than just this one debate over harmonization." I'd just mention that there's no debate over harmonization: it's universally accepted that the two narratives can't be harmonized. This should be in the lead.PiCo (talk) 14:50, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Nativity of Jesus

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Nativity of Jesus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Dues":

• From Christmas tree: Greg Dues (2008). Advent and Christmas. Bayard. pp. 13–15. ISBN 978-1-58595-722-4. Next to the Nativity scene, the most popular Christmas tradition is to have a Christmas tree in the home. This custom is not the same as bringing a Yule tree or evergreens into the home, originally popular during the month of the winter solstice in Germany.
• From Nativity scene: Dues, Greg.Catholic Customs and Traditions: A Popular Guide Twenty-Third Publications, 2000.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 11:12, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Peculiar euphemism

Why does the lede decide to attribute Jesus' virgin birth to "divine intervention" without specifying what in the world that is? Could it not at least say that he has no earthly father? What is the purpose of completely omitting Mary's virginity from the introduction, other than a WP:EGG link? Elizium23 (talk) 09:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)