Our feature examined the historical facts of the Nativity
GOSPEL TRUTH
Your article ‘The True Story of the Nativity’ (Christmas 2019 ) asks why the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth differ. The explanation may be that Luke was written not for Matthew’s Jewish audience, but for Romans. The Acts of the Apostles (the fifth book of the New Testament) says that Luke accompanied Paul to Rome and stayed for two years; his Gospel may have been intended to show that Christianity was not an un-Roman activity. This would fit with Luke’s mention of Emperor Augustus, Governor Quirinius and a Roman census, none of which are included in the Gospel of Matthew. What’s more, Luke portrays Joseph as being loyal to Rome, so eager to register to pay his taxes that he dragged his heavily pregnant wife on a 90-mile journey. Matthew’s account of tributes of gold, frankincense and myrrh from Persia (Rome’s enemy), however, and the portrayal of Herod (Rome’s ally) as a child-killer may have been judged unsuitable for Roman readers.