I had trouble blieving that I couldn't find this question in a search, but it kept returning 'search failed'.
I overheard a discussion last night about the nativity. The topic was things that are commonly accepted but aren't true. A couple of examples being that Joseph and Mary likely stayed with relatives rather than at an inn, and that the three wise men were actually kings who visited some years later.
I also have read where the entire story was likely created in order to fulfill some earlier prophesies about the messiah.
I'm interested in what is accepted by historians as likely true based on evidence. Is there any?
EDIT: holy guacamole, my first front page. Thanks for all the interesting answers and discussion.
There are two nativity stories in the New Testament, one in Matthew and one in Luke. Neither story is believed to have any historicity at all. The two stories are not even compatible with each other. They are set ten years apart with different, contradictory details and no real overlap.
In the view of mainstream scholarship, the Nativity stories were both independently invented by their authors as a means of getting Jesus born in Bethlehem in order to fit expectations and counter the perceived problem that he was from Galilee.
There are a number of details in each story which are either demonstrably ahistorical or highly implausible. Some problems with Luke, for example, include the fact that Augustus never ordered a census of the world, nobody ever had to travel to their ancestral towns to register for any Roman census and the census of Quirinius in 6-7 CE did not apply to Galilee and would not have applied to Joseph. Problems with Matthew are Herod killing all the babies in Bethlehem (almost certainly never happened), the obviously mythological nature of the star and the magi, the angels and flight to Egypt, etc.
As I said above, the stories also contradict each other. Matthew has Mary and Joseph starting out living in a house in Bethlehem, then has them flee to Egypt and then decide to relocate to Galilee only after they see that Herod's son, Archelaeus, has become Tetrarch of Judea. Luke has them starting out in Nazareth, only going to Bethlehem for the census, then going right back to Nazareth after presenting Jesus at the Temple. Their genealogies contradict. The census of Quirinius didn't happen until ten years after Herod died. Luke has no Magi, slaughter of innocents or flight to Egypt, Matthew has no census, no inn, no shepherds in the fields or singing angels. If you read the two stories together, you will see that they are not two different versions of the same story, but two completely different stories.
Matthew was trying to draw mythological parallels of Jesus to Moses. Luke was trying to ground Jesus' birth in some kind of pseudo-historical context. Neither story is believed to be historical in any degree at all. It is generally believed by critical scholars that Jesus was born in Galilee, that this was seen as a problem because the Messiah was expected to be born in the same town that David was born, and the nativity stories were invented as independent attempts to solve that problem.
The definitive book on this is probably Raymond Brown's Birth of the Messiah, but these same main points are reiterated in pretty much any academic assessment you would find. Crossan's Historical Jesus is another one that really goes into this in detail.
Hello everyone,
A friend of mine mentioned this discussion to me. Having briefly read over the discussion, I believe he is cherubim45 in this conversation. I created this reddit account so I could add my brief contribution to this discussion (btw, how cool is it that the username "ntscholar" wasn't taken yet?).
First, a bit about me, I am a New Testament scholar and my academic focus is the use of Jewish symbolism and theology in the Pauline epistles, including Hebrews, which many scholars doubt was actually written by Paul. I did my graduate studies at a state school known for its religious studies program. I won't say more than this for two reasons: 1. I prefer to keep my life private and 2. one should weigh historical arguments not on the basis of who is saying it, but on the strength of the arguments and evidence provided.
My answer to the original question will unfold in two parts. First, I will highlight a bit about what exactly it is that historians do and don't do (or should and shouldn't do), and thus what historians may rightly conclude from assessing artifact and manuscript evidence. Second, I will explain how New Testament historians approach the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul. Third, I will discuss what "mainstream scholarship" means in the field of New Testament Studies. Finally, in light of these first two points, I will provide my answer to the original question.
As one surveys the history of history, she discovers that the discipline as practiced is much more complex than merely assessing the information available and reaching a clear conclusion. The historian must (or should) attempt to place herself in the shoes of the individual(s) who made or wrote the artifact. This involves asking questions such as what certain words, symbols, and entire stories meant to the groups in which they were used. It is also important that a historian not posit claims or conclusions beyond what the evidence justifies. Unfortunately, public demand for sensational "history" that is new and interesting, or "history" that bolsters already held beliefs sometimes sometimes leads historians to do just this. Additionally, historians as all human beings are influenced by the ideological trends of their eras and regions. This is why Marxist history (a historical method that emphasizes social class and economic constraints) saw an increase in the wake of the rise of political Marxism. Everyone holds ideological beliefs, but for the historian, if unmentioned or unchecked, these presuppositions can deceive the untrained reader. For instance, if the Marxist historian brings to his study the presupposition that historical outcomes are primarily the result of social and economic factors, this might prevent her from seeing that the primary agent of change in a certain event may have been ideological or environmental.
I bring all this to light because New Testament scholars too are subjects of their environment, and thus what is important when assessing the arguments being offered by New Testament historians is not the majority opinion, since this often changes as ideological trends come and go, but the actual strength of an argument in light of the ideological presuppositions that are shaping it. Revolutions in historical thought happen all the time not only due to ideological shifts, but the discovery of new evidence.
When a New Testament historian approaches the Gospels or the Epistles she asks (or, once again, should ask) several key questions. What is the genre? Why was this text written? What is the provenance of the text (Who, where, and when is the text from?)? Because the New Testament originated almost two millenia ago, it has been challenging at best and impossible at worst to provide answers to these questions. Nevertheless, New Testament historians have offered many interesting theories, varying in degree of persuasiveness. It is important to distinguish between theories supported by material evidence and sound logic and theories lacking one or both of these qualifiers.
The term "mainstream scholarship" is problematic for several reasons. First, history has become so specialized that "mainstream scholarship" on an issue might consist of the writings of only two people. Second, as mentioned previously, trends within these circles of specialization are constantly experiencing revolutions as a result of ideological changes or new discoveries. Finally, it is difficult to know what exactly one means by "mainstream scholarship." For instance, some might exclude works published by seminaries even though most and some of the best New Testament scholarship comes out of these seminaries. In my estimation, throwing around the term "mainstream scholarship" risks being a fallacious appeal to majority that might not even exist at all. This isn't to say that what the majority of scholars accept on an issue is unimportant, but rather that it shouldn't be a point of conclusion. One ought to find out what the scholarly consensus is, how and why they have reached this consensus, and if there are problems with it. This is a major aspect of how historical discourse unfolds.
Finally, the original inquirer asks "How much of the traditional story of the birth of Jesus is accepted as historically accurate?" I brought up the question of genre earlier and it is relevant here. The nativity stories, while they may have historical value, were not written as history, at least not as we understand the historical genre. Keep this in mind as I continue. The original inquirer's question can be assessed by dividing up the different propositions in the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke and assessing 1) whether it is a question for the historical discipline, and 2) what evidence and consensus is available. I should state again, though, that given how far removed we are from the recorded events, it is difficult to provide a historical assessment of these propositions. Nevertheless, here is an assessment of probability: