* Isaiah vii, 20. The hair of the feet. The translators were
too civilized to render this sentence into plain English, so
they substituted the word "feet" in place of the
objectionable word in the Hebrew.
** Matthew ii, 14-23.
And when the days of her purification, according to the laws of Moses, were accomplished (eight days after birth of the child) they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord.... And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. *
When, then, did they visit Egypt?
According to the law of Moses, Mary, the mother of Jesus, having given birth to a child, could not appear in public until the days of her purification were over, and Jesus, the child, was required by another law, equally binding, to be circumcised on the eighth day, which he was, according to Luke's Gospel:
And when the eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus. **
* Luke ii, 22-39.
** Luke ii, 21.
But if Mary and her son remained in the land to perform these ceremonies, and if they appeared in the temple at Jerusalem, where Herod could have easily seized him, if he was really looking for him, what becomes of the story in Saint Matthew, that Jesus fled by night from Bethlehem to a foreign country, where he remained in hiding until Herod died? Matthew says, Jesus fled to Egypt; Luke says, he did not go to Egypt at all, but was taken to Jerusalem, and publicly circumcised in the temple, after which he and his parents went to live in Nazareth.
If Jesus followed the course laid down by Matthew, he could not possibly have gone to Jerusalem, eight days after his birth, and thence to Nazareth; if, on the other hand, he did as Luke reports, then it was a physical impossibility for him to have fled to Egypt. Is it not evident from these random and careless statements that the writers are not reporting actual events, but merely reproducing floating gossip?
Let us quote another instance: Mark says that "immediately" after his baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and that he remained there for forty days. Note the words "immediately" and "for forty days," and then read what John says about what Jesus did after he was baptized. According to this evangelist, Jesus, three days after he was baptized, went to a wedding in Cana of Galilee, where he turned water into wine. Will the interpreters of the Scriptures please tell us how Jesus could have gone to the wilderness immediately after his baptism and remained there for forty days, if, according to another report, he went to a marriage feast three days after his baptism? A historical account in which such contradictions occur would lose, and deserves to lose, the confidence of the reader.
Perhaps few events are so essential to the Christian plan of salvation as the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. But there is not a consistent report of even this all-important occurrence in the Gospels. Mark has it that Jesus was crucified at the third hour; John thinks that Jesus was not crucified until some time after the sixth hour. Now, if Jesus were really crucified, and these reporters were in Jerusalem at the time, and were also present at the crucifixion, they would have known, even without inspiration, at what hour the awful tragedy took place. The very fact that they report the time of the day shows that they are anxious to give to their report all the earmarks of a historical document. If, therefore, the event had really transpired, and if the apostles had been eye-witnesses of it, there would have been unanimity as to the hour in which Jesus was crucified. The lack of such unanimity shows, we believe, that the reporters were far removed from the supposed events they are describing, and that they had nothing more than rumors to guide them.