Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Matthew 2:19-23

KJV
19But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

20Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.

21And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

22But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:

23And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.


Do you see what I see? In this gospel, Jesus isn't really from Nazareth. In fact, he seems to be from Bethlehem. The whole census thing, the whole looking for a place to stay thing, it's all missing from Matthew. In this gospel, Nazareth is an afterthought, a place he ended up due to Joseph's avoidance behavior.

But but but ... there seems to be a lot of agreement among scholars that there really was this guy Josh and he really was from Nazareth. Not total agreement, but a lot of agreement.

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