Where was Jesus born?

[Fiasco]

No, it isn’t. Did somebody say that?

Hope not!

And that is a good indication of how difficult it is to do ancient history.

Too right!

It goes back to what I’m saying: “modern people are being too hard on Luke and projecting their expectations on him.”

True. These days, they`d want the exact minute Our Lord was born, referenced to Coyote Gulch, Arkansas, Local Time.

However, i sill have faith that Lukes impeccable Holy Spirit Guide led him through the history of it. Some of todays historical revisionists may well have spirit guides who er…aren`t so impeccable.

In any case, we know that the Bread of Life was born in the House of Bread and was laid in a feed box by His own Mother.

Just remembered: theres a hymn titled "The Bakerwoman". If you dont already know it, you`ll come to it after scrolling down a bit.:
www.boston-catholic-journal.com/advent_with_mary_the_bakerwoman.htm

Thanks for jogging my memory!

 

[adrift]

If you do have the book, can you post a few lines of what he says about it and from where he gets his research?
Much appreciated!

I finally found the book again. The sources he mentions are The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X. Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, Life of Christ Ricciotti.

 

[steve53]

Where was Jesus born?

A good guess might be Judah.

Here is the key question: What happened to Mary’s mother?

Usually, for a first birth, even where the father is uncertain and the girl is a social outcast, the mother will be there. But no where was Mary’s mother to be found.

Assuming Mary’s mother died, where would Mary go?

Maybe to Judah to be with her cousin Elizabeth, who already had John the future Baptist. Elizabeth’s husband Zacharias, was a long-time priest in the inner sanctuary of the Second Temple’s inner courtyards. He was older, and would have been well-established and probably in the upper-middle class. They would have been an inner part of the Jewish community, and Mary would have been well-cared for there. It was her first baby, after all, and women frequently died in first-birth situations. And they can labor for days before giving birth.

Of course, one would have to discount Luke.

Going way out on a limb with he-who-shall-have-no-name, the birth of Jesus’ brother James might have been the one Luke mistook for Jesus’ birth in A.D. 6. Jesus was born years earlier, in 12 B.C., and now Mary, with perhaps several other children to her credit, gave birth quickly in a manger in Bethlehem to James, who later became a leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem. And there were on their way to the census to be counted.

 

[patrick457]

Where was Jesus born?

A good guess might be Judah.

Here is the key question: What happened to Mary’s mother?

Usually, for a first birth, even where the father is uncertain and the girl is a social outcast, the mother will be there. But no where was Mary’s mother to be found.

Assuming Mary’s mother died, where would Mary go?

Maybe to Judah to be with her cousin Elizabeth, who already had John the future Baptist. Elizabeth’s husband Zacharias, was a long-time priest in the inner sanctuary of the Second Temple’s inner courtyards. He was older, and would have been well-established and probably in the upper-middle class. They would have been an inner part of the Jewish community, and Mary would have been well-cared for there. It was her first baby, after all, and women frequently died in first-birth situations. And they can labor for days before giving birth.

Of course, one would have to discount Luke.

Going way out on a limb with he-who-shall-have-no-name, the birth of Jesus’ brother James might have been the one Luke mistook for Jesus’ birth in A.D. 6. Jesus was born years earlier, in 12 B.C., and now Mary, with perhaps several other children to her credit, gave birth quickly in a manger in Bethlehem to James, who later became a leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem. And there were on their way to the census to be counted.

Simple question. You want this to turn into a ‘did Jesus have biological brothers’/‘did Mary have other children’ thread?

 

[steve53]

Not really.

Just throwing the obvious out there.

As a primigravida, Mary was in real danger of dying from a delivery, being untested. In the late stages of pregnancy, for Joseph to take her to Bethlehem from Nazareth for a census, well, that is not likely.

And being young and pregnant, if her mother had died, surely some female relative had taken her under her wing. That’s how humans work, generally.

Of course, with the Holy Spirit, anything is possible.

 

[JDGaney]

Bethlehem, translated as House of Bread.

 

[patrick457]

Not really.

Just throwing the obvious out there.

As a primigravida, Mary was in real danger of dying from a delivery, being untested. In the late stages of pregnancy, for Joseph to take her to Bethlehem from Nazareth for a census, well, that is not likely.

And being young and pregnant, if her mother had died, surely some female relative had taken her under her wing. That’s how humans work, generally.

Of course, with the Holy Spirit, anything is possible.

Steve, this is a Catholic forum. To insinuate that Mary the ever-Virgin had other biological children besides Jesus would very often inevitably lead to that discussion.

 

[farpinho]

And that is a good indication of how difficult it is to do ancient history.

The ancient “calendar” system was too yucky to be accurate when reconstructing History But, may Luke be accurate or not, what really matters is that the internal evidence is strong that Luke tried his best to place the events in proper chronological order.

Anyway, do you happen to know what are the sources we have nowadays to date the roman events, and what are the divergences/convergences between them?

 

[adrift]

Not really.

Just throwing the obvious out there.

As a primigravida, Mary was in real danger of dying from a delivery, being untested. In the late stages of pregnancy, for Joseph to take her to Bethlehem from Nazareth for a census, well, that is not likely.

And being young and pregnant, if her mother had died, surely some female relative had taken her under her wing. That’s how humans work, generally.

Of course, with the Holy Spirit, anything is possible.

You are using a modern mindset not what would have been the custom of the time. We don’t know if Mary’s mother was alive. We do know that she was married to Joseph. A wife goes where her husband goes that is the custom of that day.

 

[steve53]

The Roman historians wrote using consul-years as a reference. A Senate consul, or co-consuls, were appointed every January.
So within the Roman history framework, we have a good idea when things occurred.

It took Josephus to document a full lunar eclipse that occurred in the springtime of the year of the death of Herod the Great, who died later that year in the fall.

Calculating astronomically, that year was 4 B.C.

As the death of Herod the Great, a famous event, can be cross-linked to known Roman events, we have a timeline.

source: He-who-shall-not-be-named, first work

 

[farpinho]

The Roman historians wrote using consul-years as a reference. A Senate consul, or co-consuls, were appointed every January.
So within the Roman history framework, we have a good idea when things occurred.

It took Josephus to document a full lunar eclipse that occurred in the springtime of the year of the death of Herod the Great, who died later that year in the fall.

Calculating astronomically, that year was 4 B.C.

As the death of Herod the Great, a famous event, can be cross-linked to known Roman events, we have a timeline.

source: He-who-shall-not-be-named, first work

Thanks.

 

[steve53]

You are using a modern mindset not what would have been the custom of the time. We don’t know if Mary’s mother was alive. We do know that she was married to Joseph. A wife goes where her husband goes that is the custom of that day.

I don’t know about that.

The biggest cause of female mortality in those days was childbirth. And midwives tended to it. No men allowed. I just can’t believe that Mary as a primigravida would have been let out their sight in the late stages of pregnancy. And what was Mary- fifteen or so?

 

[farpinho]

We have no idea what private reasons Mary had to go along with Joseph, that is not specified… there sure is more to this story than the Gospel writers could tell, maybe it was obvious that time, maybe there was no way they could have known, either way we can’t dismiss something as unlikely just because all the reasons are not written. Luke’s main worry was to put the events in chronological order after all…