I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my question in Q632. However, there are some loose ends I'd like to clear up. First, you said "Then why, you might ask, does Luke place Jesus in Bethlehem?" Don't you mean Matthew and not Luke? There is no problem with Luke placing Jesus in Bethlehem as an infant, but as you said, in Matthew he was already two years old. Second, Herod sent the Magi to Bethlehem because of the prophecy that the king of the Jews would be born in there, but does the language of the gospel support only the view that Jesus was found by the Magi in Bethlehem? Can the language also support the view that the star led (Matthew 2:9) them from Bethlehem to "the place where the child was" (possibly Nazareth)? After all, Matthew does not state that Joseph and his family left from Bethlehem and Herod's edict to exterminate two year old boys in Bethlehem may be based on his mistaken view that Jesus was still in Bethlehem. Third, in Luke 2:41 it says that his parents went to Jerusalem every year and Jesus went with them on his twelfth year. Is it reasonable then to suppose that Jesus stayed in Egypt in his first twelve years? Is this correct? -- Rommel J. Casis (Manila)
I agree with you that Jesus may well have left Bethlehem by the time of "the Slaughter of the Innocents." I doubt very much that he stayed in Egypt till he was 12, since the Bible says that Joseph was told to return after the death of Herod. Herod the Great died in 4 BC, when Jesus was probably still a toddler. I appreciate your wrestling with the text and trying to harmonize Luke's and Matthew's accounts. I wish all Bible readers dug as deeply!
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