Are the gospels inerrant?

mako · **mako**

If Christianity is valid, then why doesn’t the gospels agree on Jesus’ birth? A close look at Matthew and Luke show that they disagree not only on the date but also on the century that Jesus was born. Not only that but they both disagree with recorded history.
Matthew says, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,”
Notice, no reason for being in Bethlehem, just that they are there. He also establishes a time line of during Herod’s reign (37 – 4 BCE), so most scholars (including the large majority of Christian scholars) place his birth between 8 and 6 BCE, giving time for the “Slaughter of the Innocents”, “Fleeing to Egypt” and returning after Herod’s death was announced by the angel to Joseph.

On the other hand, Luke is very specific that it took place when Augustus decreed all the world would be taxed and when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. He reported, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

In his testimony to the people of Rome, Augustus reported the censuses that he ordered accomplished, “As consul for the fifth time, by order of the people and the senate I increased the number of the patricians. Three times I revised the roll of the senate. In my sixth consulship, with Marcus Agrippa as my colleague, I made a census of the people. I performed the lustrum after an interval of forty-one years. In this •lustration 4,063,000 Roman citizens were entered on the census roll. A second time, in the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius, I again performed the lustrum alone, with the consular imperium. In this lustrum 4,233,000 Roman citizens were entered on the census roll. A third time, with the consular imperium, and with my son Tiberius Caesar as my colleague, I performed the lustrum in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Apuleius. In this lustrum 4,937,000 Roman citizens were entered on the census roll. By the passage of new laws I restored many traditions of our ancestors which were then falling into disuse, and I myself set precedents in many things for posterity to imitate.” He also recorded, “And in the consulship of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius I contributed one hundred and seventy million sesterces out of my own patrimony to the military treasury, which was established on my advice that from it gratuities might be paid to soldiers who had seen twenty or more years of service.” This last part was further explained by the Roman historian Dio Cassius, in his “Roman History” where he wrote that in 6 CE Caesar Augustus set up a fund to benefit the Roman military and had kings and certain communities contribute to it. He also made a sizable contribution and promised to do so each year. When this did not provide sufficient funds to keep the military going, he issued a worldwide decree that there would be a 5% inheritance tax on estates/inheritances, something beyond normal taxation. Such taxation would require a census to register transferable assets, such as land, and to record genealogies to establish “very near relatives” (Roman History LV 25:5-6).

This date neatly coincides with another fact that Luke recorded - the time that Cyrenius was governor of Syria. Therefore, Luke reports that Jesus was born in 6 CE. This is a 14 to 12 year difference between the two dates offered by the gospels and since only these two gospels mention anything about the birth and youth of Jesus, they are the only source we have.

However, the differences in dates are not the only problems with the birth of Jesus. If Matthew is correct assigning Jesus’ birth during Herod’s reign, then he would have to have started his ministry somewhere between 22 and 24 CE (based on about 30 years of age). This causes an insurmountable problem in that Jesus would have been executed between 24 and 26 CE. John the Baptist didn’t start his ministry until the 13th year of Tiberius which would have been 29 CE, so Jesus could not have been baptized by John and would have died nearly a decade before John and not afterwards as reported by the gospels. Also, Pontius Pilate did not start his term of office until 26 CE and as with Roman tradition would not have been “sworn in” until 1 January of that year. Since September to April is the rainy and stormy season on the eastern Mediterranean sea (a fact I can verify, having lived in Athens Greece from 1977 to 1982) and sea travel was severely curtailed during that period, necessitating either a very dangerous sea journey from Rome or a roundabout land trip with a short sea leg from Italy to Greece, across Greece and a second very short sea leg to the Province of Asia and a land trip down to Judea. If Jesus was born in 8 BCE and started his ministry in 22 CE, Pilate would still be in Rome when Jesus died and if he was born in 6 BCE, Pilate would probably not have arrived in Judea until late April or early May, after Passover. Consequently it is highly improbable that Pilate was the one that condemned Jesus. Looks like old Matt done got 3 strikes against him…

Now, if Luke was right, then Jesus would have started his ministry in 36 CE, about one year after John the Baptist was executed by Herod Antipas (as reported by Josephus) and would not have been executed until 38 CE, two years after Pilate was recalled in disgrace to Rome. So seems old Lukey boy also has three strikes against him.

There is a further problem, one that has to do with citizenship and inheritance. When Herod the Great (of “Slaughter of the Innocents” fame) died in 4 BCE, his kingdom was divided up among his heirs with Herod Archelaus getting the lion’s share and Herod Phillip getting Iturea, Gaulanitis and Trachonitis and Herod Antipas getting Galilee and Perea. After a decade of mismanagement, the Judean’s partitioned Augustus to remove Archelaus, which Augustus did, sending him into exile in Gaul and taking over Judea as part of the Syrian Province. This was in 6 CE (sound familiar), but even though Judea had be absorbed by the Empire, Antipas and Phillip remained independent Tetrarchs, ruling independent client states. Rome had no authority over the citizens of these states. Joseph and Mary were citizens of Galilee (as reported by Luke). Consequently, when Augustus declared the taxation in 6 C Joseph and Mary, as citizens of an independent state would have no reason to abide by Caesar’s proclamation. Wow, strike 4 for old Luke boy!

Consequently, we can see that god’s inerrant word is not so inerrant!
When something as simple as when and where an individual was born is in contention and error, it throws the entire story into question. After all, if you can’t trust the authors to tell the truth about something this simple, how can you trust them to tell the truth about the rest. As for the rest of the story, scholars readily admit that Mark was the oldest of the gospels and Matthew and Luke copied extensively from this work, (Matthew over 90% and Luke over 78%) adding extra material in various places. Even then, the validity of Mark was questioned at an early date. Papias, Bishop of Herapolis (60-130 CE) wrote that Mark, as Peter’s interpreter wrote down whatever he could remember what was said and done by the Lord, but not in order. Papias claim was based on things he heard from a Presyter. Eusebius, the first church historian, had serious doubts about Papias’ reliability, since he was much given to embellishment. Eusebius also reported that Mark died in the 8th year of Nero (61 CE), which is before Peter is traditionally said to have been executed, a contradiction to the tradition that Mark wrote down Peter’s stories after his death. So suddenly we have a very “iffy” story with all the reporters either writing “what he could remember” either before the death of the story teller he got the information from or after the death of that story teller or plagiarising the work of the first reporter and adding frills and bogus miraculous virgin birth stories that do not agree internally or with recorded history....If you go by the Christian mythology and make it answer to logic and history, he probably wasn’t born (at least the biblical Jesus). Orc ass