Here I connect the question of the truth of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke with the question of whether they were trying to bring their Gospels into conformity with the conventions of Greco-Roman biography. Would they have required that motive for including birth narratives? If they thought that these remarkable stories were true, wouldn't that have been enough to motivate them to include them?

For more on the Gospels' genre and on the genre of Greco-Roman biography, see The Mirror or the Mask: https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mirror+or+the+mask&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1 For last year's series on the Virgin Birth, see here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe1tMOs8ARn3za22QzE28xKqhTq5KvCB2

For some sensible reflections by classicist and NT scholar Colin Hemer on Luke's genre, see here: http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2017/06/colin-hemer-on-genre-of-lukes-writings.html While rewatching this after uploading it, I realized that I make what is going to look like an overstatement concerning whether or not Luke alludes to prophecy about Jesus' birth. What I had in mind was the narrator's alluding to prophecy and saying that a particular thing happened to fulfill Old Testament prophecy, as Matthew does at times. Of course the words of the angel to Mary, the Magnificat, and the song of Zechariah do allude to OT prophecy.

Merry Christmas to all my subscribers!

Originally uploaded 12.19.21

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