Who got there before the three wise men?

Answer 1

A:

In Matthew's nativity account, wise men (although not necessarily three) came to visit the baby Jesus. We are not told when this was, but it could have been between the time of Jesus' birth and about two years later, as this gospel tells us that Herod ordered the death of all baby boys under two years old. In Luke's gospel, there is no mention of the wise men, but poor shepherds came to visit the baby Jesus. The visit of the shepherds was certainly in the first few weeks of Jesus life, as the young family left Bethlehem forever, heading home to Nazareth via Jerusalem, where Jesus was presented at the Temple. A superficial look at these events would mean that the shepherds probably visited first.

However, there is a problem with attempting to create a unified chronology out of both Matthew and Luke. If Luke is historically correct and the shepherds arrived first, the young family had already left Bethlehem before the wise men arrived. If Matthew is historically correct, the family could not have travelled home from Bethlehem to Nazareth, as Matthew says they fled from Bethlehem to Egypt. Moreover, Matthew tells us that Bethlehem was the home town of Mary and Joseph, and it was only after they began to return to this home in Bethlehem that they turned aside and travelled to Galilee where they settled in a city called Nazareth.

We need to read each nativity account on its own merits and accept what we like from each one, but without attempting to make a single, reliable history out of the two stories.