025. Chapter 5 - The Place of Jesus' Birth

Chapter 5 - The Place of Jesus’ Birth The Old Testament Prediction

One of the most definite Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament is that which declares: “And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, art in no wise least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come forth a governor, who shall be shepherd of my people Israel” (Matthew 2:6; cf. Micah 5:2). Critics attempt to becloud and deny the various prophecies of the Bible or make out that they were written after the events occurred. But there is no escape from this prophecy. It is clear-cut proof of the miraculous foresight of the prophet. The prophecy was so plain that it was clearly understood. The answer of the scribes to Herod as to where the Christ should be born was instantaneous. Pharisees, who seemed ignorant of the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, tried to use the prophecy against Him. “Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, What, doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” (John 7:41, John 7:42).

Records Supplement Each Other With the Gospel of Matthew alone to guide us, we might conclude that Bethlehem was the place of residence of Mary and Joseph. They are introduced and then the birth in Bethlehem abruptly recounted. And on the return from Egypt there is no intimation that in taking up their residence at Nazareth they returned to their former home. But Luke supplements Matthew by showing Nazareth as the home of Joseph and Mary and how the providence of God brought it about that the Child was born in Bethlehem. If we had Luke alone, we would conclude that they went directly back to Nazareth from Bethlehem, but Matthew supplements Luke by telling of the slaughter of the infants and the flight into Egypt. It is to be noted that it is not merely Joseph and Mary who bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Christ is to be born in Bethlehem. A Roman emperor who issues an edict is the moving cause. “How mysteriously God works His wonders to perform!”

Modern Bethlehem

Bethlehem lies six miles to the south of Jerusalem on the central ridge or watershed of the hill-country and the main line of travel between Jerusalem and all the southern part of the land of Israel. A half century ago there were about 500 houses in the town and about 5,000 inhabitants — Greek or Roman Catholics, with a few Mohammedans. Today the population has increased to more than 15,000, and Jerusalem, instead of being six miles distant, has spread down the Bethlehem road three miles to the well of the Magi. The houses of the old section of Bethlehem have a “dull leaden color” because of their great age. The most famous buildings are “an Armenian, a Greek, and a Latin monastery and two churches all massed together in one confused pile. The oldest part of the structure, the so-called Church of St. Mary, is said to have been erected by Constantine in the year 330, over the Cave or Grotto of the Nativity.” Here in a small artificial cave “where a silver star is let into the pavement, is shown the very spot where Jesus was born, and on the opposite side is the manger in which he was cradled. The manger is made of marble.” But, as many travelers have pointed out, the traditions of the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches are in error in selecting this spot as they are so often in the sites they treasure in Palestine: Jesus was born in a manger — animals would not be kept in an underground cave reached by a steep flight of steps. Through the influence of the hermits and monks who lived in such grottoes, Catholic traditions locate practically all historic scenes in Palestine in caves as if the life of our Lord was lived underground. Justin Martyr (a.d. 140) says that Jesus was reported to have been born in a cavern near Bethlehem; but this does not agree with the Gospel of Luke which says He was born “in Bethlehem.” The Attack on the Narrative The methods which modernists employ to maintain their skeptical presuppositions are clearly illustrated by their attempt to destroy the miraculous evidence which is found in the prediction of Micah 5:2. They cannot deny that this prediction was uttered many centuries before Christ was born in Bethlehem. It was given centuries after the time of David, and therefore cannot possibly be construed to refer to him. Between the time of David and Christ no other famous individual ever arose from Bethlehem. No great figure has arisen from the village since the time of Christ. The prediction of Micah was so plain that the Jews clearly understood it to refer to the Christ. The actual birth of Jesus in Bethlehem occurred as the result of circumstances which make the historic event fulfill the prediction in the most surprising and dramatic way. How can the modernists, who declare a miracle or a miraculously inspired prediction is an impossibility, escape the force of this evidence? They attempt to prove that the predictions in Isaiah 53:1-12, Psalms 2:1-12, Isaiah 7:14, and other such passages refer to some Old Testament figure:the prophet who was speaking, his child, some unknown person of the time, or even to the nation, which is vaguely conceived as the Messiah. Thus they attempt to confuse the evidence which the Old Testament offers. But when they come to Micah 5:2, they find the prediction is so clear and definite that they cannot hope to untangle the knot. They, therefore, draw the sword of higher criticism and “cut the Gordian knot” by denying the historic fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This is the conduct of desperation. Without the slightest historic basis upon which to found their bold assertion, they declare that “Jesus was born at Nazareth, of Joseph and Mary.” So Pfleiderer, Bousset, Oscar Holtzmann, Schmiedel, Soltau, Unsener, Professor G. F. Moore, and others. The Evidence of Matthew and Luke for Bethlehem The effort to place the birth of Jesus at Nazareth is a flat contradiction of both Matthew and Luke, and of the repeated declarations of early Christian writers. The marvelous circumstances, which were woven together by the providence of God to cause the birth of Christ to take place in Bethlehem even though Joseph and Mary lived at Nazareth and the Messiah was reared there, are stated with such simplicity and emphatic power, and with such remarkable independence in the matter of details, that it is only by denying the testimony of both Matthew and Luke that the birth of Christ can be transferred from Bethlehem to Nazareth. Moreover, no conceivable reason can be offered for such a transfer except the determination of unbelievers to deny the deity of Christ and the declarations of the New Testament writers. It is significant that the denial of the birth in Bethlehem is always associated with the denial of the virgin birth. Matthew does not describe the early residence of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth, but he is very clear and explicit in declaring the birth of Christ took place in Bethlehem. Luke does not record the flight into Egypt, but he explains the exact circumstances which caused Joseph and Mary to come from Nazareth to Bethlehem and in the most emphatic manner declares that the birth of the Messiah occurred in a manger in Bethlehem. The miracles which surrounded the birth concentrate the attention of the ages upon the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Thus did God emphasize His fulfillment of the prediction He had vouchsafed through Micah. The coming of the Wisemen, Herod’s inquiry of the Sanhedrin as to where the Christ should be born, the miraculous star that pointed out the very house where the Child lay, the slaughter of the infants, and the fulfillment of the prophecy of Rachel’s weeping for her children, all give repeated emphasis in Matthew’s account to the fact that Christ was born in Bethlehem. Luke furnishes an entirely different chain of evidence which points to Bethlehem as clearly as did the star: the edict of Caesar Augustus and the lineal descent of Joseph (and Mary) from David, the peculiar circumstances as to the birth of Jesus in a stable, the revelation to the shepherds, and their visit to Bethlehem. James Orr argues powerfully against the group of critics who try to claim that all of this testimony is mere invention by Christians seeking to deify Jesus: “Given, then a faculty or disposition for invention, it may be thought easy to explain how a birthplace was sought for Jesus in Bethlehem. But there is one obvious difficulty. The passage (Micah 5:2) might suggest a birth in Bethlehem, but it would certainly not suggest the kind of birth we have described in Matthew and Luke. The prophecy in Micah speaks of a prince, a ruler, going forth from David’s city. How different the picture by the two Evangelists of the lowly Babe, cradled in a manger, because there was no room for Him — not to speak of a palace — even in the common inn! The prophecy was fulfilled, in God’s good providence, as Matthew notes; but it was not fulfilled in the way that human imagination, working on the prophet’s words, would have naturally devised. Is the story one that human imagination, granting it a free rein would have devised at all for the advent of the Messiah?” (The Virgin Birth of Christ) pp. 130, 131). The Silence of John The fact that John records the declaration of the Pharisees that Jesus could not be the Christ because He was from Galilee instead of Bethlehem, and that he does not refute their argument, is used by the critics in a futile attempt to argue that John did not agree or did not know that Christ was born in Bethlehem. This is the same type of argument they try to bring against the virgin birth — that John does not record it. John did not have to record it. It already had been recorded by Matthew and Luke. The fact that the Pharisees were ignorant of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or would not admit it, does not contradict the facts concerning the place of Jesus’ birth and the miraculous events surrounding it, any more than their denial of His miracles is to be accepted as proof that they never occurred. It is no more surprising that John did not pause to insert a declaration and argument against the Pharisees’ attack in John 7:41, John 7:42, than that Matthew did not attempt a defense of the moral conduct of Jesus when recording the charge that He was a “gluttonous man and a winebibber” (Matthew 11:19). It was unnecessary in either case to insert a defense. The refutation lay on the surface of the New Testament narratives. One of the most astonishing things in the New Testament is the way in which the Gospel of John continually confounds modern unbelievers, both by what John affirms and what he omits. According to their radical theory of development, the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin and born in a place which fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, and was in very fact the Son of God, grew up by gradual accretions and increasing assertions. The logic of this demands that John’s Gospel, which was written much later than the others, should be the most explicit and emphatic upon all these points. On the contrary, John does not even mention directly the virgin birth or the birth in Bethlehem! He is most powerful in his affirmations of the deity of Jesus but he adduces evidence which is, in the main, different and entirely independent of the other accounts. John presumes a knowledge of Matthew and Luke on the part of his readers and with a divinely inspired independence devotes the magnificent prologue of his Gospel to the pre-existence of Jesus. He did not need to tell again that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He emphasizes the fact that when Jesus was born into this world, it was not the beginning of His life but a change of state — as the Son of God came to earth from heaven where He had existed in inexplicable union with God from all eternity.