What were the sources used for the infancy narratives?

Answer 1

A:There is no known source that is based on actual events linked to the baby Jesus, but theologians and biblical scholars have established parallels with other written works, indicating that these were, at least in part, the sources used. It should be recognised that even if the apostles Matthew and Luke were really the authors of the gospels that now bear their names, they were probably not even born at the time of the nativity. However, biblical scholars say that the gospels were actually anonymous and that the gospel now known as Matthew's gospel was written around the eighties of the first century (although Raymond E. Brown says in An Introduction to the New Testament that several years should be allowed either side of that decade) and that Luke's Gospel was written no earlier than the nineties.

There are quite significant differences between the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke. In Matthew's Gospel, Bethlehem was the home town of Mary and Joseph. After the birth of Jesus, they fled to Egypt for fear of King Herod who sought to have Jesus killed. After the death of Herod, they began the return journey to their home in Bethlehem but, being warned in a dream, turned aside and travelled instead to a city called Nazareth in Galilee. In Luke's Gospel, Nazareth was already the home town of Mary and Joseph but that they travelled to Bethlehem for a census during the governorship of Quirinius. After the birth of Jesus, the young family travelled to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the temple, then returned peacefully to their homein Nazareth.

Scholars point out that Matthew sets out to draw parallels between Jesus and Moses. He begins with his genealogy of Jesus, which says that Jacob was the father of Joseph, just as Jacob was the father of Joseph in the Old Testament (Lukesays that Joseph's father was called Heli, but it is recognised that this is no more likely to be historically true). Joseph takes Jesus to Egypt to mirror the Israelite Joseph's journey to Egypt, and just as Moses travelled back to the Promised Land to save his people, Jesus travelled back from Egypt to save his people. Which leads us to the birth of Moses, when the Egyptian king, the Pharaoh, ordered the slaughter of all the Israelite infants under two years old, just as Herod did at the birth of Jesus. There are so many parallels that the Old Testament was undoubtedly the inspiration and source for Matthew's infancy narrative.

There is evidence that Luke's Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, by the same author, were both influenced by the works of the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus. Scholars say that the author was unlikely to have even known about the census under Quirinius other than from Antiquities of the Jews, published by Josephus in 93 CE. But Luke also uses the Old Testament as a source, although in different ways than Matthew.