Study Religious Studies notes on Birth Narratives of Jesus for Secondary. Useful for revision, homework, and exam preparation in Zimbabwe.
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Compare and contrast birth narratives of Jesus in two gospels matthew and luke The birth narratives as recorded in Mathew and Luke. Mathew and Luke are the only gospel writers who recorded the birth narratives .The narratives are slightly different this is mainly due to theological interest.One shld note that the four gospel writers were theogians to a greater extent however; to a lesser extent they were historians. Mathew recorded the geneology of Jesus which is in descending order in which he mentioned women ie gentile women like Rahab,. This is unjewish to mention women but he could have done so alluding to his theme of universalism which comes later,The geneology is traced up to Abraham who was the founder of the Jewish nation thus bringing out his theology of projewish.Mathew had a Jewish audience,/ readership in mind so he did not want to offend them by tracing the geneology to Adam as in Luke s' gospel.Mathew also traces the descendance of Jesus through David because Jews expected and wld accept a Messiah from the Davidic dynasty as prophecied in the OT .Luke on the other hand Luke has the geneology in ascending order which ends at Adam the source of all human kind thus highlighting his theme of universalism, Mathew could have deliberately avoided tracing it to Adam to avoid offending his Jewish audience.Luke has the promises to Zechariah