Response to Top 10: Problems with Baby Jesus « Rationalists's Blog Part 2

Here is part two of my response to a tweet from TheGodless of a article that laughably tries to poke holes in the Christmas story as told in the Gospels. Again I have provided the title of the blog for laughs. His comments are quoted as he published them with mine following.

6. Despite extensive accounts of Caesar Augustus’ reign there are absolutely zero mentions anywhere that an empire wide census for which all citizens had to return to their ancestral home to register. NONE! And furthermore – how could such a thing ever logistically take place, for example –  the Bible says that Joseph must return to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there, but David lived 1000 years before Joseph. Do you seriously believe that every citizen living under the Roman empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from 1000 years prior??

This has been used too often to count. Let's try again and look at  Quirinius and the Census
and take a look at the following link also to see evidence for why we know the Census really did take place: Was Luke Wrong about the census under Quiriniua? and When Did the Luke 2 Census Occur?

7. Matthew writes than Joseph was pissed off  upon discovering that Mary was pregnant. He retires to bed that night, presumably with intentions to kill her the next morning as per Mosaic law, but an angel appears to him in a dream to comfort him that she is carrying the Holy Spirit’s child. Whereas Luke writes that Mary is unaware that she is pregnant but an angel appears to her to advise she is carrying God’s baby.

First the way the point is worded is highly misleading. It makes it seems like Jesus' conception was sexual and it wasn't. Secondly, although Joseph by right of Jewish law could have had Mary stoned, the text clearly states that he had no intention of shaming her or publicly punishing her. Thirdly,  the point that Mary did not know she was pregnant until an angel told her is false. When Gabriel appeared Mary was not pregnant yet! If the point here is that Luke and Matthew disagree then there is no point because there is no disagreement...both are true. Joseph got the information about how Jesus was conceived from an angel in a dream and Mary got it months earlier from an angel before she was even pregnant. There is no problem.

8. Matthew writes that three wise men are guided by a star from the east that leads them to Jerusalem. The star takes a breather. Starts up again and leads them to the very house that baby Jesus was born in. A star!!! Amazing shit isn’t it? Think about it, a star a million times bigger than earth parked above a small building? We can forgive the author of Matthew for this mistake as they believed stars to be basketball size fire balls 2000 years ago, but we can’t forgive those that believe this fable true today.

 As pointed out in the comments section on the article that this post is based, Matthew does not tell us how many wise men there were. Tradition assumes three because there were three gifts named that they brought the baby Jesus...I also would surmise the tradition of three wise men was also influenced by the Trinity Doctrine. However, the point is we don't know how many wise men visited the Baby. As for the star, I think the writer of the article is being too literal. Yes many stars are millions of times larger than the earth, however if the star was say millions of miles away, wouldn't it appear to be able to mark out a small building? Get real.  Of course the Bible is not describing a ball of fire "basketball size". Many debate about what the star really was. The Christian Research Journal published a great article on this. Read it here: http://www.equip.org/articles/the-star-of-bethlehem

9. Luke writes that shepherds are lead to the new born baby Jesus by an angel that visited them in a nearby field. Matthew wrote something completely contradictory (see point 8 )

The wise men (the Magi) were coming from much farther away and arrived maybe as much as two years after Jesus' birth. The shepherds' experiences of seeing the mulitude of angels heralding our Lord and Savior's birth was the same night as the birth. How is that contradictory? It is not!

10. Many other irreconcilable discrepancies of the gospels illustrated in the New Testament chapters of ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Making Sense of the Bible) available now on Amazon or Barnes & Noble

I've written several posts responding to such contradictions. I have seen many people try to show contradiction but they just don't work. No way does it make sense. It's been 2000 years, does anyone think they can come up with a fresh contradiction that has not been refuted yet? I don't think so either. This list sure doesn't add anything new.

Top 10: Problems with Baby Jesus « Rationalists's Blog