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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).

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