Luke 2:1-7 says Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth and traveled to Bethlehem only because of the census. Matthew 2:1-11 has Joseph and Mary already in Bethlehem, in a house, with no mention of a Nazareth residence or any travel. Matthew first mentions Nazareth in 2:23, after the return from Egypt — and frames the move there as fulfilling prophecy, not a homecoming.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
They lived in Nazareth, and traveled to Bethlehem because of a census.
1Now in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.2This was the first enrollment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.3All went to enroll themselves, everyone to his own city.4Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to David’s city, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David;5to enroll himself with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him as wife, being pregnant.6While they were there, the day had come for her to give birth.7She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn.
1Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying,2“Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.”3When King Herod heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.4Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he asked them where the Christ would be born.5They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is written through the prophet,6‘You Bethlehem, land of Judah, are in no way least among the princes of Judah: for out of you shall come a governor, who shall shepherd my people, Israel.’ ”7Then Herod secretly called the wise men, and learned from them exactly what time the star appeared.8He sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child. When you have found him, bring me word, so that I also may come and worship him.”9They, having heard the king, went their way; and behold, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was.10When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.11They came into the house and saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Opening their treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
Read in parallel, the two infancy narratives encode opposite assumptions about where Joseph and Mary lived before the birth, and the difference is built into their respective vocabularies. Luke makes Nazareth the family's home from the outset: Gabriel is sent *eis polin tēs Galilaias hē onoma Nazareth* to find Mary (Luke 1:26), and the couple travels to Bethlehem only because of Quirinius's census (Luke 2:4-5), Joseph going up "because he was of the house and lineage of David." After the purification rites at the temple they return — *epestrepsan eis tēn Galilaian eis polin heautōn Nazaret*, "they returned to Galilee, to their own city Nazareth" (Luke 2:39). The possessive *eis polin heautōn* ("to their own city") identifies Nazareth as the prior, settled home.
Matthew supplies no pre-Bethlehem backstory whatsoever. Joseph and Mary first appear together already in Bethlehem (Matt 2:1), and the magi find them not in temporary census lodging but in an *oikia*, a house (Matt 2:11). Nazareth is never mentioned until the family relocates there after the Egyptian sojourn, and even then the language is telling: *anechōrēsen eis ta merē tēs Galilaias* … *katōkēsen eis polin legomenēn Nazaret* — "he withdrew into the regions of Galilee … and settled in a city called Nazareth" (Matt 2:22-23). The verb *katoikeō* ("settle, take up residence") denotes establishing a new dwelling, not returning home, and Matthew frames the move as the fulfillment of a prophecy ("He shall be called a Nazarene") rather than as a homecoming. A reader with only Matthew would naturally infer that Bethlehem was the family's original home and Nazareth a later, providentially directed relocation.
The strongest harmonization — advanced by Blomberg and Witherington — interleaves the accounts: Luke narrates the Nazareth-to-Bethlehem census journey, Matthew narrates a later moment with the family still in Bethlehem, and Luke 2:39 is read as a compressed summary that silently passes over the Egypt detour before the eventual Nazareth settlement. The proposal is not absurd; ancient narrators routinely abbreviate. But it founders on Luke's own grammar. *Epestrepsan* ("they returned") presents the move to Nazareth as continuous with the temple visit, and *eis polin heautōn* presupposes Nazareth was already theirs. To make the harmonization work one must hold that Luke knew the Egypt tradition and deliberately erased it while writing a sentence whose verb and possessive both deny any gap — a maneuver Brown and Fitzmyer both reject as reading into the text what is not there.
The more economical critical explanation is that Matthew and Luke inherited independent traditions about the family's residence and reasoned backward to the fixed point both needed: a birth in Bethlehem to satisfy Micah 5:2's prophecy of a ruler from Bethlehem, combined with the universally known fact that Jesus was "of Nazareth." Luz argues that Matthew, assuming Bethlehem was home, required a mechanism (Herod's threat, the flight to Egypt, the prophetic "Nazarene" formula) to deposit the family in Galilee. Luke, assuming Nazareth was home, required a mechanism (the census) to relocate the birth to Bethlehem. Both narratives are theology-driven solutions to the same constraint, approached from opposite ends. Davies and Allison reach the same verdict from the Matthean side, and Bovon from the Lukan.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction. Luke states that Nazareth was the couple's home before the birth; Matthew implies Bethlehem was, with Nazareth a later prophetically motivated resettlement. The harmonization survives only by attributing to Luke a silent omission that his own *epestrepsan eis polin heautōn Nazaret* contradicts.
Sources for this reading
Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (new ed.; Anchor Bible Reference Library; Doubleday, 1993) pp. 224-225, 668-672rejecting the silent-omission harmonization of Luke 2:39Luke 2:39
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (Anchor Bible 28; Doubleday, 1981) pp. 425-426on Luke 2:39 as a continuous-action return to NazarethLuke 2:39
Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch (rev. ed.; Hermeneia; Fortress, 2007) pp. 119-127on the Nazarene fulfillment formula and Matthean redaction
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 1 (International Critical Commentary; T&T Clark, 1988) pp. 270-281on the aims of Matthew's infancy narrative
François Bovon, Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1-9:50, trans. Christine M. Thomas (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2002) pp. 105-106on Nazareth as the home presupposed by Luke
Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008) representing the interleaving harmonization of the infancy itineraries
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
Read in parallel, the two infancy narratives encode opposite assumptions about where Joseph and Mary lived before the birth, and the difference is built into their respective vocabularies. Luke makes Nazareth the family's home from the outset: Gabriel is sent *eis polin tēs Galilaias hē onoma Nazareth* to find Mary (Luke 1:26), and the couple travels to Bethlehem only because of Quirinius's census (Luke 2:4-5), Joseph going up "because he was of the house and lineage of David." After the purification rites at the temple they return — *epestrepsan eis tēn Galilaian eis polin heautōn Nazaret*, "they returned to Galilee, to their own city Nazareth" (Luke 2:39). The possessive *eis polin heautōn* ("to their own city") identifies Nazareth as the prior, settled home.
Matthew supplies no pre-Bethlehem backstory whatsoever. Joseph and Mary first appear together already in Bethlehem (Matt 2:1), and the magi find them not in temporary census lodging but in an *oikia*, a house (Matt 2:11). Nazareth is never mentioned until the family relocates there after the Egyptian sojourn, and even then the language is telling: *anechōrēsen eis ta merē tēs Galilaias* … *katōkēsen eis polin legomenēn Nazaret* — "he withdrew into the regions of Galilee … and settled in a city called Nazareth" (Matt 2:22-23). The verb *katoikeō* ("settle, take up residence") denotes establishing a new dwelling, not returning home, and Matthew frames the move as the fulfillment of a prophecy ("He shall be called a Nazarene") rather than as a homecoming. A reader with only Matthew would naturally infer that Bethlehem was the family's original home and Nazareth a later, providentially directed relocation.
The strongest harmonization — advanced by Blomberg and Witherington — interleaves the accounts: Luke narrates the Nazareth-to-Bethlehem census journey, Matthew narrates a later moment with the family still in Bethlehem, and Luke 2:39 is read as a compressed summary that silently passes over the Egypt detour before the eventual Nazareth settlement. The proposal is not absurd; ancient narrators routinely abbreviate. But it founders on Luke's own grammar. *Epestrepsan* ("they returned") presents the move to Nazareth as continuous with the temple visit, and *eis polin heautōn* presupposes Nazareth was already theirs. To make the harmonization work one must hold that Luke knew the Egypt tradition and deliberately erased it while writing a sentence whose verb and possessive both deny any gap — a maneuver Brown and Fitzmyer both reject as reading into the text what is not there.
The more economical critical explanation is that Matthew and Luke inherited independent traditions about the family's residence and reasoned backward to the fixed point both needed: a birth in Bethlehem to satisfy Micah 5:2's prophecy of a ruler from Bethlehem, combined with the universally known fact that Jesus was "of Nazareth." Luz argues that Matthew, assuming Bethlehem was home, required a mechanism (Herod's threat, the flight to Egypt, the prophetic "Nazarene" formula) to deposit the family in Galilee. Luke, assuming Nazareth was home, required a mechanism (the census) to relocate the birth to Bethlehem. Both narratives are theology-driven solutions to the same constraint, approached from opposite ends. Davies and Allison reach the same verdict from the Matthean side, and Bovon from the Lukan.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction. Luke states that Nazareth was the couple's home before the birth; Matthew implies Bethlehem was, with Nazareth a later prophetically motivated resettlement. The harmonization survives only by attributing to Luke a silent omission that his own *epestrepsan eis polin heautōn Nazaret* contradicts.
Sources for this reading