Who was the first to hear about Jesus' birth?

Answer 1

Answer
The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are quite different and, in many ways incompatible. To some extent, they could be considered two different stories, or at least two different versions of an uncertain story.

Matthew has the magi travel from the east to see the baby Jesus. Because, for Matthew, Bethlehem seems to have been the home town of Mary and Joseph, and because Herod was so uncertain of the time of Jesus' birth that he ordered the slaying of all the infants under two, we could imagine that the magi arrived some months - up to two years - after the birth of Jesus.

Luke has the shepherds come to see the baby Jesus. We know that this could only have been within weeks of the birth of Jesus because the young couple travelled to Jerusalem for the ritual purification of Mary, then returned peacefully to Nazareth.

The magi could have come later than the shepherds, but of course the stories give us nothing by which to prove they did. Either the magi or the shepherds coud have been first.

Another answer:

The shepherds. The visit from the wise men was up to two years later.

According to Luke's gospel, angels announced Christ's arrival to shepherds in the field on the night of His birth, and they immediately went and saw a "babe" (Greek brephos - "a new-born child") in the manger (Luke 2:8-15). Luke doesn't tell of the visit of the wise men.

Conversely, Matthew's account doesn't tell of the shepherds' visit; indeed, it says nothing of events on the night of Jesus' birth, and some time elapses between the close of Matthew 1 (the naming of Jesus, which would officially have taken place at His circumcision, when He was eight days old - Luke 2:26) and the beginning of Matthew 2.

When the wise men arrived, Matthew 2:11 says that Jesus was a "young child" (Greek paidion - "a young child, a little boy, a little girl; of a more advanced child"), and that they found Him in a "house" with Mary His mother (not in the manger). By this time, Jesus would have been up to two years old, as evidenced by Herod's subsequent "slaughter of the innocents:" all male children in the region aged two and under (Matthew 2:16).

Answer 2

The stories of the birth of Jesus ware found in Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel. We now know that Matthew's Gospel was written in the 80s of the first century and that Luke's Gospel was written around the end of the century. Both dates are so long after the birth of Jesus that the authors would never have met Joseph, Mary, Zacharias, Elizabeth, or any one who could have been a confidant of Mary or Joseph. In spite of this, both authors wrote detailed accounts of exactly what happened, even telling us what the parents thought and what they said.

Carefully reading the two nativity accounts, we find that they are, in fact, irreconcilably different.

In Matthew, the home town of Joseph and Mary was Bethlehem. They fled to Egypt with Jesus, for fear of King Herod, who ordered the slaughter of all the boys under two years old. After the death of Herod, they began to return home to Bethlehem but, being warned in a dream, turned aside and travelled to Nazareth in Galilee.

In Luke, the home town of Joseph and Mary was Nazareth. Augustus Caesar reportedly ordered a census of the whole empire so that everyone could be taxed. This required Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in a stable. Eight days after the birth of Jesus, he was circumcised. When the days of the purification of Mary were accomplished, Jesus was taken to the Jerusalem Temple, where Jesus seems to have attracted a great deal of attention, and the family then returned peacefully to Nazareth.

A well-known mystery in Luke's Gospel is the story of the census that led to Joseph and Mary travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Scholars say that there was only one census that involved Quirinius, and that occurred in 6 CE, yet the Gospel says that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, who died in 4 BCE. Since the author of Luke is known to have drawn material from the works of the Jewish historian, Josephus, it is likely that he learnt of the census of Quirinius from the same source, but did not realise that it was just too late to have been during the reign of Herod.

The pattern we see here, is that neither author really knew anything about the birth of Jesus. No one told them of when or where Jesus was born, but they felt that a birth story was needed, so they wrote one.

Answer 3

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There is no historical reference to the wise men, nor are they mentioned by Luke's Gospel, so we must rely solely on Matthew's Gospel for information about the wise men, but this Gospel does not say how they found out about the birth of Jesus, merely that they followed a star that they hoped would lead them to him.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world's Anglicans, has described the story of the three wise men as nothing but a "legend" and says there is little evidence that they existed. John Shelby Spong (Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus) calls Matthew's story of the magi, or wise men, Christian midrash and says that among people he knows in New Testament circles, the universal assumption is that the magi (wise men) were not actual people. If there were no wise men, or magi, we can not say how they found out about the birth of Jesus.

Answer 4

A:There are two stories of the birth of Jesus in the New Testament, in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says they are "massively different" and virtually irreconcilable. Seen in that light, no more than one of the two accounts could be historically true.

New Testament scholars say that Matthew was actually written in the eighties of the first century, which is almost a century after the birth of Jesus. Luke was written around the end of the first century and probably a little more than a century after Jesus was born, as King Herod is known to have died in April 4 BCE. In spite of traditional attributions, we do not really know who wrote these gospels, but neither author could have known Jesus, Mary or Joseph, all of whom died so long before the two gospels were written. The author of Matthew was no more likely than the author of Luke to have known the close personal details of the family life of Joseph and Mary, nor to have known the minutiae of the birth of Jesus. Both were just writing what they felt could have happened, in an accepted style of ancient times.

Answer 5

Beside mary the shepherds were the first people to hear of the birth of Jesus.

Answer 6

Jesus was first heard from Mary because she was his son

Answer 7

I'm pretty sure that they were the wise men/shepherds.

(unless you count angels)

Answer 8

Luke 2:8-15 simply says an 'angel'.