Bible Synapse
Did Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem or in Nazareth before Jesus was born?
Hard question · The life of Jesus · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Gabriel is sent to Mary in “a city of Galilee, named Nazareth”.
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
Joseph goes up from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, and Jesus is born there.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
After the rites of the law they return “to their own city Nazareth”.
And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.
Jesus is born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod; wise men come from the east.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
The wise men find the child with his mother in “the house”.
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
Back from Egypt, Joseph is afraid to go to Judea and settles in Nazareth.
But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea 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: And 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.
The objection
Luke says Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, went to Bethlehem only for a census, and went home to Nazareth once the rites of the law were done. Matthew says nothing of Nazareth until after the flight to Egypt: the family is living in a house in Bethlehem, and only after Herod’s death do they settle in Nazareth, apparently for the first time.
The answer
Each Gospel tells part of the story, and neither denies what the other adds. Luke is plain that Nazareth was their home: Gabriel came to Mary there, and Joseph went “up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth” to Bethlehem because of the census (Luke 2:4). Matthew begins with the birth in Bethlehem and does not say where the couple had lived before it. He never says that Bethlehem was their old home, and when they “came and dwelt” in Nazareth (Matthew 2:23) they were, as Gill noted, going back to the town where both had lived before.
The two accounts fit one sequence. The family stayed on in Bethlehem for some time after the birth, long enough to be living in a house when the wise men came (Matthew 2:11; Herod’s order reached boys up to two years old, 2:16), and Jerusalem, where Jesus was presented in the temple after forty days, is only about six miles away. Then came the flight to Egypt and, after Herod’s death, the move to Nazareth. Luke 2:39 says they returned to Nazareth when the rites of the law were done, but it does not say ‘at once’: Luke does not tell of the wise men or of Egypt, and simply moves on to the next part of his story. Matthew’s note that Joseph first meant to go back to Judea (2:22) fits a family who had thought of settling in David’s town after the birth.
Other answers Christians give
A visit home before Egypt
Some place a short return to Nazareth straight after the presentation in the temple, as Luke 2:39 might suggest, and then a move back to Bethlehem, where the wise men found them. This is possible, but it adds a journey that neither Gospel mentions.
Still open
The exact order of the presentation in the temple and the wise men’s visit is not certain, and commentators have long admitted it.
From the classic commentators
Which was a city of Galilee, and where Joseph and Mary had both dwelt before, Luke 1:26 here they came and fixed their habitationJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Matthew 2:23 (1746–1763)
It is perhaps best to leave this in the obscurity in which we find it, as the result of two independent, though if we knew all, easily reconcilable narratives.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary, on Luke 2:39 (1871)
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Matthew 2 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary: Luke 2 (1871), at Bible Hub