Matthew and Luke are the only two gospels that contain a birth narrative for Jesus, so we have only two stories to look at. The author of Matthew starts his gospel by presenting a genealogy for Jesus. This is strange because before we finish reading the first page of the gospel we learn that Joseph is not Jesus' biological father. This is really Joseph's genealogy and is irrelevant to this story. This is Jesus' story not Joseph's.
Mary, Joseph's betrothed, is found to be with child of the Holy Spirit before she and Joseph had ever "come together". Joseph resolves to quietly divorce her (I don't believe they were married so I don't know why this was possible or necessary) to avoid putting her to shame. I would have thought that being pregnant and unmarried during this era would have been shameful and he would have wanted to marry her as soon as possible to spare her this embarrassment. During a dream an angel of the Lord tells Joseph it's okay for him to take Mary as his wife; the child she conceived is of the Holy Spirit. So, the annunciation in Matthew is to Joseph and not Mary. Mary must have found out what was happening to her from Joseph. This must have seemed like a cart full of weird coming down on her. She finds herself pregnant without ever having had sex with a man and her fiancé tells her he had a dream in which an angel of the Lord explained to him that her child is of the Holy Spirit. It's a wonder she didn't run for the hills.
The author of Luke also provides a genealogy for Jesus. However, there are many discrepancies between his version and the one that appears in Matthew, and not just that Matthew's goes back to Abraham and Luke's goes back to Adam. For example, Joseph's father is Jacob in Matthew's genealogy and Heli's in Luke's. Some apologists have attempted to harmonize the discrepancies in the genealogies by claiming that one is Joseph's and one is Mary's. This doesn't make sense because both genealogies end up with Joseph. Mary would certainly have been in her own genealogy. And again, still irrelevant.
Luke's annunciation is to Mary and not to Joseph, and not in a dream. The angel Gabriel is sent in person by God to tell Mary she will conceive a son to be named Jesus. This is to happen when the Holy Spirit comes upon her and the power of the most high overshadows her. So in Luke, Mary is not pregnant yet, she just knows she will be. Why didn't she tell Joseph about her experience with Gabriel and they could have gotten married ASAP before the Holy Spirit performed its task and no one would have been the wiser.
According to Matthew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Neither Nazareth, nor a trip from there is mentioned, so Mary and Joseph must have lived in Bethlehem and Jesus must have been born in their home. There is no mention of an inn, or a stable, or of any shepherds in Matthew's narrative. Herod the Great was the king of Judea at this time, according to Matthew, although historians generally record his death as having taken place in 4 BCE. Wise men, or Magi, from the east appear in Judea, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him." This is hard to fathom. They see a star shining in the east and from this they draw the following conclusions. There has been a male child born in Judea, he will become king of the Jews when he grows up and they know that this star is his. That's a lot of highly specific information to garner from a light in the night sky. The number of Magi isn't mentioned.
Herod hears of these men and doesn't like what he's hearing. This future king could grow up and usurp his throne. He summons them to Jerusalem and extracts what information he can from them. In the meantime, Herod asks the chief priests and scribes about this future king and where he will be born. They tell him Bethlehem. Herod sends the wise men to Bethlehem and asks that they report back to him. The star from the east suddenly appears before them and guides them to that town. This seems completely unnecessary. The town is not all that far from Jerusalem (approx. 10 kilometers) and almost anyone they asked could have given them directions. The star stops over the house (yes, house not stable) of Joseph and Mary. Let's think about this. For a light source to be seen as being over a particular building, it would have to be only a few hundred feet from the earth's surface. This is not an ordinary star or it would fry the entire planet. It would have to be something like a large lantern, but then how could it have been seen way off to the east? This doesn't make sense.
Are these wise men Jewish? They are not being identified as Jewish. Indicating that they came from the east would suggest they were not from Judea, but from further east, beyond Judea. It doesn't seem very likely that they were. And if they're not, their behaviour is strange indeed. Why would a future Jewish king be on their radar and why would they care if it were? And why would they want to travel afar and worship him? He won't be their king.
The wise men find Mary and Jesus in their home. They worship him and give him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They go straight home, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod. An angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to flee to Egypt with his family and to stay there until he tells him, for Herod wants to kill their newborn son. They do so, and remain there until Herod's death. Herod goes on a killing rampage and executes all the male children he can find under the age of two, living in and around Bethlehem. There are no non-canonical historical records that corroborate any such slaughter of children taking place in this area at this time. This would obviously have been a major event in Judean history.
After Herod's death, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph once again in a dream, and tells him to return to Israel as Jesus' life is no longer in danger. They start their return to Bethlehem, but learn that after Herod's death his son Archelaus now reigns over Judea. They are nervous about returning and are warned, in yet another dream, so they proceed further north, to Galilee and settle in the city of Nazareth.
Luke's birth narrative is very different from Matthew's. As we've seen the annunciation is to Mary not Joseph. Mary and Joseph live in Nazareth from the beginning and not Bethlehem. This poses a problem for Luke's author; how to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem so Jesus can be born there? This is seen to be important because it was believed that future kings or messiahs would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. The author solves this problem by saying that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all in the world should be enrolled and Mary and Joseph must go to Bethlehem to register. There is a lot wrong with this. First of all, it is well established that the Romans did conduct censuses, but there is no record of them conducting a census at this time in Judea and Galilee. Secondly, they only required men to register. They wanted to know where the men lived and how much they were worth; that is, who could they collect taxes from and how much could they collect, and where did they have to go to collect them. Mary, not being a male, obviously didn't have to register, so she wasn't obliged to accompany her husband to Bethlehem. If she went with him it would have been her choice. Mary must have been approximately nine months pregnant at the time they traveled to Bethlehem. How many women who are nine months pregnant would volunteer to make a long trip (approximately 113 kilometers) by foot, cart or bouncing around on a donkey, just to keep their husband company? I'm guessing none. Thirdly, Joseph, for he is of King David's lineage, had to register in Bethlehem, the city in which King David was born. According'to Luke's genealogy there are approximately 40 generations between Joseph and David. It seems ridiculous the have to delve that far back into the past to figure out where you had to register for a simple census. If Luke's author meant that men had to register in the place of birth of their family patriarch, this would also be problematic because after so much time there must have been a lot of inter-family marriages, drastically blurring the lines between the patriarchal families; again making it impossible to know where one should go to register. And let's not forget the Romans only wanted to know where you (if you were a male) lived, not where your long deceased relative was born. Lastly, Nazareth was in Galilee and Bethlehem was in Judah. Why on earth would someone living in Galilee, a more or less independent state have to register and pay taxes in Judea, a part of the Roman Empire?
Continuing with Luke's story. When Joseph and Mary get to Bethlehem they can't find a room anywhere so they find a stable where Mary gives birth to Jesus. An angel of the Lord appears to some shepherds tending their flocks nearby. He tells them of Jesus' birth. The shepherds go to Bethlehem and find Mary, Joseph and her baby. They tell others what they have seen and heard. Mary and Joseph return to their home in Nazareth.
Missing from Luke's narrative are the annunciation to Joseph, the wise men, the star of Bethlehem, Herod and the slaughter of the children, Mary and Joseph's flight to Egypt and their subsequent return to Israel, and Joseph's four dreams in which he receives instructions and warnings from an angel of God.
Missing from Matthew's narrative are the annunciation to Mary, the Roman census, the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the stable birth, and the shepherds.
Interesting Notes:
1. In the Matthew narrative the wise men have one dream in which they receive a warning from an angel of the Lord. Joseph has four dreams in which he receives warnings or instructions from an angel of the Lord. Matthew - five divine communication dreams; Luke - zero. In Matthew, God communicates with Joseph and the wise men only in dreams via an angel. In Luke, he communicates only with Mary, and then, only via an in-person angel, namely Gabriel. It would seem to me that the latter method of communication would be far superior to the former. If an angel of God sat on the end of my bed, I'd sit up and take notice of what was being said. However, if I dreamed an angel of God sat on the end of my bed and talked to me, when I woke up, I'd probably think to myself, "Wow, hell of a dream", and go about my business. My point being, how would Joseph know which of his dreams were divinely inspired and which were just his own natural dreams. It seems to me dreams are a poor conduit for conveying information to people. I doubt God would use them, and apparently so did Luke's author.
2. The four gospels are anonymously written. The originals are all lost or destroyed, as are the originals of all the books of the new testament. The names that we now attach to them were assigned to the gospels long after they were written.
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