A historian named Julius Africanus was among the first Christians to wonder why the stories of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke differ slightly.
Around the year 200, Julius apparently sought Jesus' living relatives to ask them why the genealogies of Christ in the two Gospels aren't exactly the same. Was one of the accounts in error?
Jesus' ancient relatives explained, according to the third-century church historian Eusebius, that the lineage of Joseph, Jesus' adoptive father, included a Levirate marriage -- the Old Testament practice by which the brother of a man who died childless would marry the widow and father a child who was legally considered the descendant of the deceased man. One of the Gospel genealogies apparently follows the biological line and the other the legal line, Eusebius reported.
Though the Levirate marriage explanation has been debated by scholars, at least one thing is certain: for the nearly 1,800 years since Julius' inquiry, disciples and skeptics alike have continued to wonder why the Bible's two accounts of Jesus' birth report the story in slightly different ways. In response, three seminary professors have explained that the narratives do not contradict one another at any point and tell the story in different ways to highlight different aspects of Jesus' person and work. Read more
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