Introduction
Every year following Thanksgiving, we start to see Christmas lights glowing on houses, trees filled with ornaments, and nativity scenes set up on a side table or in a front yard memorializing the birth of Jesus. Eventually, many of us will turn our attention to familiar Christmas movies like A Charlie Brown Christmas1. And, we’ll listen as Linus recounts what “Christmas is all about.” The spotlight is fixed upon him as he stands on the school stage. He quotes from the Gospel of Luke. He tells all listening about the announcement to the country shepherds that Jesus, the Savior, has been born.
For some of us, that might be the extent of our contemplation about Jesus’ birth. But others may wonder where the bible speaks of Jesus’ birth. After all, Jesus didn’t simply magically appear out of nowhere. He has a past, a mother, a hometown, and a history. We find this history, the narratives that report the birth of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
The reported details differ since the two authors wrote the two accounts of Jesus’ birth for different audiences. These New Testament books include details that the other omits and vice versa. In this article, we’ll consider the similarities and differences in these accounts while also reflecting upon how we should appropriate these differences.
Before discussing the differences, let’s examine each narrative and how they describe Jesus’ birth.
Matthew
Genealogy
Matthew’s gospel begins with a genealogy that culminates in the birth of Christ. Matthew 1:17 tells that from Abraham to David, there were fourteen generations. From David to the Babylonian deportation, there were another fourteen generations. Finally, from the deportation to Jesus, fourteen generations passed (Matt. 1:17). This statement summarizes Jesus’ genealogy, showing that he came from the lineage of David. Matthew includes this information to set the stage for seeing how Jesus fulfilled the promise made to David in 2 Samuel 7. In that passage, God promised David that the Messiah would come from the line of David. The Messiah had to be a son of David, and Matthew 1 shows that Jesus is that Son.
The Angel’s Announcement
Matthew explains how the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and Mary. Though Mary was engaged to Joseph, he did not father the child she carried. Thus, Joseph decided to break off the engagement and send Mary on her way without any public shaming or condemning of her (Matt 1:19). Yet, as he contemplated how to go about this, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. The angel told him that Mary had done nothing wrong. Her pregnancy was a miraculous act of God, and the son she bore was “conceived in her…from the Holy Spirit”(Matt 1:20). In other words, Mary had not been unfaithful. She remained committed to her husband, Joseph. A miracle conceived the son she bore.
The Wise Men
Matthew’s account moves quickly from the angel’s announcement to the days following his birth. Many believe the occasions described in Matthew 2 occurred months after his birth. Some have speculated that Jesus was around twelve months old. We can’t be exactly sure.
We have come to assume many things about the wise men. But little is spoken of them in the actual passage. Matthew 2:1 tells us they came from the east. They went first to Jerusalem, assuming that the King of the Jews would be born in the religious center of the Jewish people (Matt 2:1). The rising of a star prompted them to find this newborn king (Matt 2:2). When they inquired about Jesus’ birth, King Herod, having consulted with the chief priests, told them the Old Testament expected the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David (Matt 2:4-8). When they arrived in Bethlehem, they offered gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child (Matt 2:11). People commonly limit the wise men to three because of the number of gifts. However, the passage does not tell us how many wise men existed, where they came from, or their names or histories.
Significance of the Wise Men
Though we don’t know much, we do know certain significant things. First, the fact that they came from the East; second, they lacked knowledge of the Old Testament prophecy concerning the Messiah’s birth, indicating that they were from outside the Jewish people. This is significant because when they found the baby Jesus, they worshiped him (Matt 2:11). Thus, from Jesus’ earliest days, the nations were honoring and celebrating him. This was to fulfill the promises made in the Old Testament that the Messiah would be a blessing to all the world and that the nations would sing for joy at his rule (Ps 2:7-12).
Significance of the Location
Another significant aspect of Jesus’ birth narrative is the location—Bethlehem. As already noted, the prophets, specifically the Prophet Micah, foretold that the shepherd of God’s people would come from this small town in the land of Judah (Micah 5:2). Thus, the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem of Judea fulfills the Old Testament prophecy and points to the reality of Jesus as the Messiah.
Having looked at Matthew’s description of Jesus’ birth, let’s now turn to Luke’s.
Luke
Mary and Elizabeth
While Matthew began his narrative with Jesus’ genealogy, Luke begins with Jesus’ extended family. He recounts how Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, was old, beyond the age of being able to have a child, and was expecting a son. The Angel used this reality as evidence to Mary that the miraculous conception the angel proclaimed to her would happen. When the Virgin Mary asked how she could be pregnant though she was a virgin, the angel Gabriel spoke of the power of the Most High and appealed to the fact that Elizabeth was in the sixth month of her pregnancy as evidence that nothing is impossible with God (Lk 1:37).
Though both pregnancies were miraculous, Jesus was unique in that he was the Son of God. These two stories are intertwined in the early portions of Luke. The son Elizabeth gave birth to was the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist. John was the one who went ahead of Jesus, proclaiming that the Messiah had come (Lk 3:2-6).
The Town, the Angels, and the Shepherds
Following the announcement of these two miraculous births, Luke turns his attention to the specifics of Jesus’ birth. During the governorship of Quirinius in Syria, Caesar Augustus initiated a world registration, requiring people to register in their own towns. Historical accounts place this event in that time.”
This was the first registration under Quirinius (Lk 2:1-2). This prompted Joseph to take his family from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem. There, Mother Mary gave birth to Jesus (Lk 2:4-7). An element that Luke includes that Matthew doesn’t speak of is the angelic announcement of Christ’s birth to the shepherds who were in the same region. The shepherds tended to their flocks when, quite unexpectedly, the angel of the Lord appeared and declared that Jesus had been born (Lk 2:2-12).
Following this announcement, the sky was filled with “a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’” (Lk 2:13-14). The angels declared the good news of great joy for all people. Upon hearing this incredible news and seeing the sky filled with angels, the shepherds went to where Jesus was, recounted what had occurred, and glorified God (Lk 2:19).
The inclusion of the angelic song in the presence of the shepherds and the description of the shepherds giving God glory because of Jesus Christ’s birth depicts how his birth is an occasion for not only the nations (i.e., the wise men) but the ignored (the shepherds) and the cosmos (the angels). In this moment of Jesus’ birth, both those who dwell on the earth and those who inhabit heaven sing praise to the glory of the Lord. It shows us that the universe, the world we see, and the world we don’t see, is centered upon Christ.
Accounting for Differences
A natural question arising from these narratives, especially from comparing them, is how to account for the differences. It would be easy to conclude that because the narratives include differing details, they must be contradictory. However, that’s not the right approach.
How should we understand these differences?
Authorship
First, we should remember that they are authored by two different people: Matthew and Luke. This fact reminds us that different people often focus on different details, even when discussing the same event. This pointing to varying elements of the same story doesn’t mean that one or the other is wrong and the other is right; it simply reflects that each has a focus that the other may not.
We experience this reality whenever we compare history books about the same event. For instance, when reading the account of “The Battle of the Bulge” in Stephen Ambrose’s book, The Band of Brothers2, his focus is on the portion of the Battle at Bastogne, the location where the 101st Airborne’s Easy Company fought. However, when listening to the four-part series on the same battle in the podcast “We Have Ways of Making You Talk,”3 those episodes don’t discuss Bastogne at all.
These two historical reflections speak of the same battle but focus on different aspects. It would be wrong to say that because they speak of different aspects of the same event, one or both must be wrong. We understand they focus on different elements, and both are trustworthy. The same is true of the Gospels.
Audience
The other thing we should note is that the Gospel accounts not only have differing authors, but they also have different audiences. Luke was writing for the sake of his friend Theophilus (Lk 1:3) and was writing so he would “have certainty concerning the things [he had] been taught” (Lk 1:4). Thus, Luke was providing a written record of what Theophilus had learned to reinforce what he had been taught.
Matthew, on the other hand, was likely writing to a primarily Jewish audience. One of the reasons for believing this is that Matthew includes many Old Testament references and speaks of how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. This is seen even in the birth narrative, where we have a genealogy (Matt 1:1-17) and references to how Jesus’ birth would fulfill Old Testament expectations (Matt 1:23; 2:6, 18). The different audiences can also account for the different details each author includes.
Thus, instead of seeing the different specifics as pointing to contradictory accounts, it is better to see the two gospels as complementing one another and parts, when taken together, make a whole. In saying this, I’m not saying that Luke isn’t sufficient apart from Matthew or vice versa. Each is sufficient on its own. However, they give a more complete accounting of Jesus’ birth when taken together.
Similarities
We see several similarities between the two accounts. Both agree on:
- The timing of Jesus’ birth: In the days of Herod (Lk 1:5; Matt 2:1).
- Jesus’ parents: Mary and Joseph (Lk 1:27; Matt 1:20).
- The place of his birth: Bethlehem (Lk 2:4; Matt 2:1.
- The miraculous nature of his birth: (Lk 1:26-38; Matt 1:23).
These shared details, which don’t contradict one another, reinforce the truthfulness of what we read in the gospel accounts: Jesus came in space and time, was of the house of David, miraculously conceived, and born in Bethlehem as the Old Testament foretold. He is the very Son of God and took on the name Immanuel, which means God with us (Matt 1:23), the one who would give his life to bring eternal life to his people.
Recommended Resources
“Here’s Why This Gospel Is My Favorite” by Michael J. Kruger
The Incarnation in the Gospels by Philip Graham Ryken, Richard D. Philips, and Dan Doriani
Endnotes
- A Charlie Brown Christmas. Directed by Bill Melendez. 1965. DVD. Lee Mendelson Film Productions/Bill Melendez Productions. ↩︎
- Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose, 2012. Simon and Schuster. ↩︎
- “‘Band of Brothers’ Miniseries.’” n.d. “We Have Ways of Making You Talk.” ↩︎
Credits
Photo by Inbal Malca: Featured image, silhouette of camels and drivers.
