Chronology of Jesus' infancy?

[Pete_Holter]

Gospel 1: There was a man who barely graduated high school. He enlisted in the Army as an infantryman and was discharged for acne. After this, he was living with his mom until she made him leave home. And so he ended up living in his car for a length of time. He went on to marry his wife in a courthouse ceremony, and lived in a townhouse.

Gospel 2: There was a man who, after graduating high school, enlisted in the Air Force as a computer programmer. He became a Body-for-LIFE Grand Champion and graduated college with a bachelor’s majoring in computer science. After separating from the Air Force, he was a personal trainer at a local gym, married his wife in the Catholic Church, and lived in a single-family home.

Gospel 3: After graduating high school, a certain man attended a local community college for a year. Drifting though life, he ended up getting a job doing glass construction on 3 separate occasions, working for a landscaper pulling weeds and building hardscapes, selling paint at SEARS, and variously working as a substitute teacher, a high school teacher, and a home instructor for kids who had been kicked out of school. He tried to get a job as a prison guard but was denied because of certain pacifistic tendencies. He also had a brother who entered the Army and, after serving for 6 years, went on to serve in the Air Force as an F-15 pilot.

QUESTIONS:

Are you claiming that these three “gospels” are inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Evidently you are talking about three different individuals unless the same person went into the Army, then the Air Force, or didn’t join any branch of the service.

Is there some kind of point that you are trying to make?

Thanks for humoring me! Yup, it is the same person in all three accounts, and the three accounts harmonize with one another. The man went into the Army first and then into the Air Force. And he had a brother who also went into the Army first and then into the Air Force. So what I’m saying is that these three uninspired accounts – I shouldn’t have called them Gospels, really – do not seem to fit neatly together and seem to confuse multiple traditions. And yet, they do fit neatly together.

Try to do something similar with your own life, and maybe it will help you appreciate the possibility of the harmony of the Gospels. Even the lives of ordinary people offer us an incredible array of material to work with. Give it a try!

With love,
Pete