Advent: the road to Bethlehem

Micah names Bethlehem Ephrathah, small among the clans of Judah, as the place from which a ruler in Israel will come.

The Bethlehem of the Gospels is Bethlehem in Judea, about 9 km south of Jerusalem; the name has survived at the same place.

In Matthew, the chief priests and scribes answer Herod with Micah's words: the Christ is to be born in Bethlehem of Judea.

Jewish readers also heard Micah 5:2 as a promise of the Messiah: the Aramaic Targum of the Prophets says outright that the one who comes forth from Bethlehem is “the Messiah”.

Targum Jonathan to Micah 5:1 (Hebrew numbering). It was written down in the early centuries AD, later than the Gospels, though it keeps older readings.

Isaiah promises a child born “to us”, who will sit on David's throne, with no end to the increase of his government and of peace.

Read as the Messiah. Matthew sees the “great light” of Isaiah 9:2 dawn in Jesus' preaching in Galilee (Matthew 4:13–16), and from the early church on, Christians have read the child of 9:6–7 as Jesus, whose kingdom has no end.

Rests on the New Testament's own use of Isaiah 9, and on the titles of 9:6, which go beyond any king of Judah.

Read of a king in Isaiah's own day. Some Jewish interpreters, from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 94a) to Rashi in the 11th century, connect the child with King Hezekiah, Ahaz's son; other Jewish sources read the passage of the Messiah.

Fits the setting of Isaiah 7–9 under King Ahaz. Open question: the “no end” of 9:7 and the title “Mighty God” are hard to fit to any one king.

Isaiah and Micah both prophesied in Judah in the late 8th century BC, in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, about seven hundred years before Jesus was born.

The kings are named in Isaiah 1:1 and Micah 1:1; the years follow the Time Map's chronology.

Luke has no innkeeper and no refusal. There was “no room in the kataluma”, a word Luke uses for a guest room (22:11), not for the inn of the Good Samaritan (10:34).

The common picture: Mary and Joseph were turned away by an innkeeper and sent out to a stable.

Kataluma in Luke 2:7 means a guest room or lodging space in a house, not a commercial inn. Luke uses it for the guest room of the Last Supper (22:11) and a different word, pandocheion, for the inn of the Good Samaritan (10:34).

Village houses had a lower end where animals spent the night, with mangers along the raised family floor. This is well documented in traditional Palestinian houses and fits the biblical hints of animals kept in the house.

The cave tradition is early. About AD 155 Justin Martyr says Joseph, having no lodging in the village, took shelter in a cave near it; about 248 Origen says the cave and its manger were shown at Bethlehem.

A cave behind a house was often part of the house and used for animals, so “the house” and “the cave” may describe one place.

Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem with Mary because of an enrolment ordered by Caesar Augustus, since he was of the house and family of David.

Josephus dates the census held when Quirinius governed Syria to AD 6, about ten years after the death of Herod the Great, yet Matthew and Luke both place the birth under Herod.

How Luke's census fits is debated. Proposals include reading 2:2 as a census “before” Quirinius governed, an earlier post held by Quirinius, or a registration begun years before it was completed. Each is possible; none is proven.

The journey was about 150 km by the Jordan valley, or about 125 km through Samaria: four to seven days on foot.

Mary riding a donkey comes from later tradition (the Protevangelium of James, 2nd century). Luke does not say how they travelled.

Luke does not say the birth happened on the night they arrived: “while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered”.

Shepherds were staying in the fields near Bethlehem, keeping watch over their flock by night.

Where the fields were is unknown. Tradition points to Beit Sahour, east of Bethlehem, where Byzantine monasteries marked a “Shepherds' Field”.

Some link these shepherds to Migdal Eder, “the tower of the flock” near Bethlehem, and to flocks raised for Temple sacrifice. The link is a later suggestion, not in the text.

The watchtower in the fields stands for the field towers of the Judean hills; none is known at this spot.

Flocks out in the fields at night are often taken to rule out winter. Others answer that flocks were kept in the open near Bethlehem in winter too, pointing to a Mishnah rule about animals found near Migdal Eder. Luke gives the night, not the month.

Both arguments are inferences from later or indirect evidence (Mishnah Shekalim 7:4, written down about AD 200).

No date or season is given. 25 December is first recorded as the feast of the birth in Rome in 336 (the Chronograph of 354); other early writers proposed other dates.

The common picture: It happened on 25 December, in snow.

Luke says a multitude of the heavenly host was “praising God, and saying”; he does not describe wings or singing.

The common picture: Winged angels sang in the sky.

The angel and the host are drawn as soft light. Luke says the angel of the Lord came upon them, the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and a multitude of the heavenly host was “praising God, and saying”; he does not describe wings, faces or singing.

The shepherds went with haste, found Mary, Joseph and the baby lying in the manger, and told what they had been told about him.

The Magi did not come on the night of the birth: they found a young child in a house, and Herod reckoned by the time the star had appeared, killing boys up to two years old.

The Magi came later, to a house, and found a young child. Herod's “two years old and under” suggests the visit could have been up to two years after the birth.

The common picture: The Magi knelt at the manger beside the shepherds.

If the family was still poor at 40 days, the Magi's costly gifts probably came later, one reason many place the Magi's visit after the presentation.

Luke moves from the presentation straight to Nazareth (2:39) and mentions neither the Magi nor Egypt; Matthew does not mention the presentation. A visit after the presentation, while the family was again in Bethlehem, is one common way of fitting the two together.

Herod died in 4 BC by the usual reckoning (a minority argue for 1 BC), so Jesus was born before then, probably between about 7 and 4 BC.

Matthew does not say how many Magi there were; he names three gifts.

That they were kings comes from later reading of Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60; Tertullian already says the East held magi to be “almost kings”.

The camels are traditional, from Isaiah 60:6; Matthew does not say how the Magi travelled.

A unique sign: Matthew's star “went before them” and “stood over where the young child was” (2:9), which no ordinary star or planet does. Many read it as a sign given for this purpose.

A planetary conjunction: Jupiter and Saturn met three times in Pisces in 7 BC, a sign that astrologers could read as a royal birth in Judea. Kepler proposed it in 1606.

A comet or a new star: Chinese records note a “broom star” (a comet or nova) seen for more than 70 days in 5 BC.

A sign in the astrologers' heavens: Jupiter rose in the east in Aries, a sign linked with Judea, in 6 BC, as ancient astrologers would have read it.

An angel: Some early Christians took the star to be an angel, since it moved, led and stopped, and Scripture links stars with angels.