Comparing The Birth Stories Of Matthew And Luke

In the Gospels according to Matthew and that according to Luke, Jesus’ birth and childhood is narrated. While both of these accounts mention Jesus as not only being the son of Joseph and his virgin wife Mary but also the Son of God, they also have numerous differences between the two. When compared and contrasted many scholars find historical inaccuracies between the two Gospels (especially when it comes to the birth and childhood of Jesus). That being said however, after a closer look at some of the historical problems one may be able to see that they are not nearly as important as the deeper motivation they bring out to the reader.

When looking in the Gospel of Matthew 15:21-28 and the Gospel of Mark 7:24-30 one can find that each of these pieces of their respective gospels have both some similarities and differences. There is evidence of overlap between these two which are quite easy to find whilst one is reading the sections of each. There also are points in which these two accounts diverge from one another by either telling a certain part of the other gospel in a different way, removing content from one of the other gospels, or adding something that may not have been referenced or described in the other. Either way these accounts from Matthew and Mark both have connections to each other even if not visible on the surface.

The foundation of the Christian faith is cradled within truth of the virgin birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As diverse as the world-wide Christian culture is, the truth in the birth and life of Jesus stands without border and language limitations. Just as each individual life story can be adapted to be relevant for a variety of audiences, the birth story of the Messiah was also. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are an example of the well-rounded and diverse narration of the birth story of Jesus—Matthew’s narration spoke to the history of the Jewish people and Luke presented to the citizen of Rome.

In Matthew 1-2, the infant stories are used to prepare the ground for the theme of Jesus; the new and perfect Moses, the great teacher and interpreter of God’s ways. A parallel can be drawn between the experiences of the infant Jesus and the experience of Moses. This can be seen in Matthew 2:16-18, where the slaying of innocent male Hebrew children occurred around the time of the birth of Jesus, and in Exodus 1:15-22, where Hebrew children were also murdered at the time of Moses’ birth. Just as Moses came out of Egypt, leading the people of God, so does Jesus. Following the infancy stories, the rest of Matthew’s Gospel is structured around five long discourses where Jesus teaches. On each occasion, the evangelist indicates that a great teacher has been at work (Maloney, 1988, p. 133-34).

It is possible to write on the life of Jesus from the information gathered from the bible. I will be dividing my essay into three parts. In the first part of the paper, I will talk about the nature of the gospels, John’s views vs. the Synoptic, discuss if the authors of the gospels are eyewitnesses and how they used written sources. Also I will talk about the Q source. Then I will elaborate on the topic of how Matthew and Luke were similar. Then I will continue on by discussing how the Old Testament uses Moses, Samuel and Elijah to interpret Jesus, and finally whether or not the Sermon on the Mount happened. In the second part of my paper, I will talk about Jesus’s birth and childhood, his miracles, his resurrection, and what Jesus did to cure people, spirits and how they are interpreted to the prophet, magician and the mad man compared to Saul and Elijah. The final part of the paper I will talk about what Jesus talked about as regards to the Kingdom of God vs. the Kingdom of the Romans and what he intended by speaking of the end of the world. I will also speak of the reasons behind the Romans executing him. My sources for this paper will be the New Jerusalem Bible Readers edition as my primary source and lecture notes from Professor Trumbach.

Jesus Christ is the central figure of Christianity, the only way of salvation and the second person of the Trinity. (Funk & Wagnalls, 2015) The Gospels Matthew and Luke introduce the birth and childhood of God’s one and only Son, Jesus. His story began when the Angel Gabriel visited His virgin mother, announcing that she would give birth to a son, and that she was to call Him Jesus, for He would be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:30-35) The incarnation of the Messiah, was the Word

There are many different gospels that tell a similar story. Matthew and Mark are two Gospels written in a similar way but have different audiences. The story is the Last Supper and is about the last meal that Jesus experienced with his Apostles before his Sacrifice. There are many similarities, but not very many differences. Overall, the same story is told, but from two different perspectives.

Let’s talk about the world about 2,000 years ago. It was a world where the mass of people were illiterate, taxes were extremely high, and the leaders would cheat and kill to feed their ever growing need for power. We all can relate to having a good storyteller in our lives, most were read to at night by their parents or are parents themselves that read to their children. What is the purpose of storytelling? It’s simple, comfort. A good story can ease your psychological unrest as well as offer a moral purpose. Sometimes you can even relate a story to your own life and offer an explanation to something you may be experiencing. This is exactly what the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were. They told their stories of Jesus to offer comfort to their people in a time when people could not pick up a story and read it themselves. It is part of human nature to have the desire for a good story. This paper will describe several events that were written by great storytellers in the bible.

The Gospel of Luke focuses on the conception and the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus. It also provides the histories of Elizabeth and Zachariah. It also describes Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Zachariah and the Virgin Mary.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the infancy narrative contributes a large sum of background information of Jesus that contributes to the development of Matthew’s Christology. In order to analyze how Matthew develops the Christology, we have to cut the infancy narrative into sections. This paper will discuss background information of the writing of this Gospel, literary elements of Jesus’ miraculous conception that reinforce his Jewishness, how Magi and literary devices help to understand Matthew’s Christology, what important biblical hero the infancy narrative parallels, and what foreshadowing is caused from this infancy narrative. Comparatively, the use of divine intervention in dreams to fulfill prophecy has been a key focus of the infancy narrative in order to create an unusual birth narrative and develop the unique Christology that Matthew envisioned specifically for the Jewish Messiah.

     The details of Jesus’ childhood were skipped by Matthew, most likely to show how significant his years of ministry were. The next important moment in the life of Jesus was his baptism. He went to the Jordan River where he met his cousin, John the Baptist, who was a prominent preacher of the time. John knew that Jesus was the Son of God, so he found it difficult to baptize him. He felt that Jesus should be the one baptizing him, but Jesus made it clear that it was his Father’s will that it should be done. As Jesus was baptized, the presence of God was felt among Jesus and the crowd. Matthew 3:16 tells of the heavens being opened up and the spirit of God descending upon him in the form of a dove. In Matthew 3:17, God said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” To anyone who is unfamiliar with Jesus, this is strong evidence of his powerful presence in the world to do the work of God.

The books of Matthew and John though have many similarities, also have many differences due to the goals that they are trying to achieve and the importance of points/events they are trying to get across. The reason behind the initial portrayals of Jesus helps achieve the goals of each book; whereas Matthew’s book tries to ‘convince’ the educated readers and quarrelers (Pharisees), John’s book does not care much about reputation per se. For example, Jesus turns on the Jews who believe in him to generate a readers response to him as the definitive expression of God 's will or revelation as opposed to Matthew’s intentional readers response to God 's will as expressed in the Mosaic Law. While there are many qualities I could delve into regarding the difference in characters of Jesus, my essay in particular will look at what each book views is especially important with regard to Jesus and his intentions. Specifically, my main focus will be on the presentation of Jesus and reasons for doing so; setting in context what the book is basically about.

The two books of the Bible, Matthew and Mark are alike in many ways, they do tell some of the same stories. On the other hand, if one takes a closer look there are small changes to the stories that bring a whole new meaning to the way that the story is told. I will focus on the stories of Jesus walking on water and the transfiguration of Jesus. In this paper, I will review the changes that Matthew made to the Gospel according to Mark. I will also explain the reasons why he may have made those changes and to what purpose those changes served.

Mason (2009), indicates it is very unlikely that Luke or Matthew was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life and that they relied upon other sources to formulate their gospels. Therefore, as previously discussed, it is imperative that the infancy narratives be viewed as separate stories and not one historically accurate recount. This is, in large part, due to the discrepancies and conflicting information readers are presented with.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are almost identical at times to each other, as well as the Gospel of Mark. Interestingly enough, it is believed that Mark was written significantly earlier than the other two Gospels mentioned. This means that it is very plausible that Mark was used as a source for the authors of Matthew and Luke. That being said, there are stories included in both Matthew and Luke that are almost identical to each other, but are not found in Mark. How could this be? This question has led scholars to believe that there existed a document, in which they named “Q”, that both authors of Matthew and Luke used as a source, other than Mark, when writing their books. In this analysis, I will try and answer why “Q” is believed to have