The Early Prominence Of Luke's Gospel And Its Christmas Material

Trent Horn recently put out a video that largely reiterates some points he's made before about sola scriptura. In the process, he repeated the claim that none of the New Testament documents were "prominent" before Irenaeus wrote in the late second century. I want to respond to that claim with an example that's relevant to the current Christmas context. On the other issues brought up in his video, see my earlier responses to Trent here and here.

Go here to watch Trent citing Lee McDonald's remarks about the lack of prominence of the New Testament documents before Irenaeus. What I want to do in the remainder of this post is focus on the gospel of Luke as a counterexample. With Christmas coming up later in the week and the popularity among skeptics of denying that the earliest chapters of Luke's gospel were part of the original document, I want to discuss not only the early prominence of the gospel of Luke, but also the inclusion of our first two chapters and other Christmas material in the gospel. (For more about the Christmas material in Luke outside the earliest chapters, see this post.)

Matthew As A Source On Jesus' Childhood

The authorship of the gospel of Matthew has important implications for issues related to the childhood of Jesus. The gospel says a lot about his childhood, including in chapter 3 and beyond. The apostle Matthew would have been in a good position to have had a lot of reliable information on Jesus' background. But the evidence for his authorship of the gospel has been largely neglected, including among conservative scholars. You can find a collection of articles we've written about that evidence here. See the comments section of the thread for notes about how the collection has been updated over the years. For example, I added a link a few years ago to an article about the significance of Matthew's living and working in the area of Capernaum. More recently, I added a link to a post about evidence for Matthean authorship in the lists of Jesus' disciples in the Synoptics and Acts. That post also discusses the significance of the use of Hosea 6:6 in the gospel of Matthew. And I added a link to a post about evidence for the financial interests of the author. See the collection of links for more evidence of Matthew's authorship of the document and responses to objections.

Did John 19:27 actually happen?

Last year, I wrote about the implications of John 19:27 for Mary's influence on the apostle John, the church of Ephesus, and other sources. But what reason do we have to think John 19:27 is historically accurate?

Why People Prefer Christmas To Easter

Regardless of whether you have that preference yourself or approve of it, it seems that most people have it. I think Susan Roll is right about some of the reasons for that preference:

Disproving Luke's Census Wouldn't Disprove The Bethlehem Birthplace

Nor would disproving the star of Bethlehem, the Slaughter of the Innocents, etc. Events like those are relevant to Jesus' place of birth. They can offer evidence pertaining to it. But the truthfulness of his birth in Bethlehem doesn't depend on something like the accuracy of Luke's census account or whether the Slaughter of the Innocents occurred. In his video I responded to in my last post, Bart Ehrman addressed events like the ones I just mentioned while ignoring the large majority of the evidence relevant to where Jesus was born.

Bart Ehrman Is Wrong About Jesus' Birthplace

He just posted a video arguing against the Bethlehem birthplace. There are a lot of problems with his argument:

Why would early sources who believed in the virgin birth not mention it?

Critics of the virgin birth often suggest that it surely would have been mentioned by sources like Paul and the authors of the gospels of Mark and John if those individuals believed in it. I've discussed the evidence for the virgin birth elsewhere, including evidence for the earliness of belief in it, and that evidence is weightier than objections like the one I'm considering in this post. Still, I want to say more about that objection.

How plausible is Augustus' initiation of a census in Israel around the time of Jesus' birth?

It's often claimed that the Romans wouldn't have enacted a census in a client kingdom, which Israel was at the time of Jesus' birth. See Glenn Miller's argument to the contrary here and here. And Augustus wouldn't have to be directly responsible for the census in order for Luke's account to be accurate. Indirect involvement would be sufficient. If Herod implemented a census in an effort to please Augustus and conform Israel to Roman culture, as Herod did in other contexts, that would be enough to justify Luke's comments. The process of taking a census of the empire was initiated by Augustus. Whether that led to a census in Israel in a more direct or more indirect manner is a secondary issue, and the accuracy of Luke's account doesn't depend on it.

Another common objection is the alleged silence of sources other than Luke on the existence of a census in Israel at the time of Jesus' birth. I've addressed that subject before, such as in a post a couple of years ago. But here are some other points that can be made about both of the objections under consideration:

How To Argue That The Early Sources Agree About Jesus' Childhood More Than Critics Suggest

I've discussed forty examples of agreements between Matthew and Luke about Jesus' childhood. More examples could be cited. Yet, critics often suggest that Matthew and Luke only agree about a few things, or they list some higher single-digit number of agreements, for example. Even lists that consist of some low double-digit number are way off in the direction of underestimating the amount of agreement.

Though these discussions are often framed in terms of what Matthew and Luke have in common, we don't have to limit ourselves to those two sources (or just the infancy narratives within those two sources). There are many agreements among many early sources, not just Matthew and Luke.

One way to effectively remember and illustrate some of the agreements is to place them in categories, such as chronological issues or geographical issues. Think, for instance, of how many agreements there are between two or more sources on issues related to Jesus' familial circumstances:

What relationship did Joseph have with Bethlehem?

People often suggest that Joseph lived in Nazareth at the time of the opening verses of Luke 2 and that his only relationship with Bethlehem was one of distant ancestry. In a post several years ago, I explained why Luke probably wasn't saying that the census in Luke 2 required people to go to their places of ancestry, much less distant ancestry. When considering Joseph's relationship with Bethlehem in general, we can go beyond the census account, though that account is part of the evidence that needs addressed. Here are several reasons for thinking Joseph's relationship with Bethlehem was more than ancestral:

Christmas Resources 2024

A couple of years ago, I put together a collection of approaches that can be taken to begin an argument for a traditional Christian view of Jesus' childhood. I've added more material to the post since then. You can find it here.

An important topic to inform yourself about is how much Matthew and Luke agree concerning the childhood of Jesus. They agree more than people typically suggest. See the post here for forty examples of the agreements between Matthew and Luke. For a discussion of the agreements among other early sources, see here.

Isaiah 9:1-7 is significant in the context of Christmas for a lot of reasons (Jesus' self-perception, demonstrating continuity between the accounts of his childhood and the accounts of his adulthood, etc.). Here's a collection of posts addressing the passage.

We've also addressed many other Christmas issues over the years. For example:

Comradeship in battle? Or company for dinner?

"David is struggling with loneliness. This often goes in hand with a life devoted to radical obedience and hardship. People pull back. You are uneasy to be around, and it is too threatening. It happened to Paul at the end of his life in prison (2 Timothy 4:16) and it happened to Jesus in Gethsemane….You know who your friends are when trouble strikes and life together is comradeship in battle not just company for dinner." (John Piper)

I Cannot Go Broke

"Give me ten million dollars, and one reversal of fortune may scatter it. Give me a spiritual hold on the divine assurance that 'the Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want' (Ps. 23:1), and I am set for life. I cannot go broke with this stock in my hand. I can never be bankrupt with this security." (Charles Spurgeon, in Roy Clarke, ed., Beside Still Waters [Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1999], 60)

Video Resources On The Non-Pagan Origins Of Christmas

Some good videos on the subject have come out in recent years, and some of them haven't gotten much attention. Here and here are a couple of interviews with Philipp Nothaft, a scholar who's done a lot of work on the early history of the Christmas holiday. And here's an interview with Tom Schmidt, another scholar who's done a lot of work on the subject, especially on Hippolytus. Here's Tim O'Neill and a couple of other skeptics of Christianity discussing the evidence against the pagan origins of Christmas.