Nativity accounts

Critics allege that the nativity accounts are mutually contradictory. Here's how two scholars arrange them:

Annunciation (Lk 1:26-38)

Mary visits Elizabeth (Lk 1:39-56)

Birth of John the Baptist (Lk 1:57-66)

Benedictus (1:67-80)

Joseph's reassuring dream (Mt 1:18-25)

Jesus born in Bethlehem (Lk 2:1-7)

Angelic announcement to shepherds (Lk 2:8-20)

Presentation in the Temple (Lk 2:21-38)

The Magi (Mt 2:1-12)

Holy Family flees to Egypt (Mt 2:13-15)

Massacre of the innocents (Mt 2:16-18)

Holy Family returns to Nazareth (Mt 2:19-23; Lk 2:39-40)

D. Bock, Jesus According to Scripture (Baker 2002), chap. 2; G. Knight, A Simplified Harmony of the Gospels (Holman 2001), vii.

Both scholars have the same sequence of events.