The Nativity part 1- the authors

The Nativity

The purpose of the next few articles will be to establish what can and can't be known about the birth of Jesus, by asking a series of simple questions that have fairly simple answers.

First, we will ask,"Where can we find reliable extrabiblical historical information about the birth of a first century male named Jesus who corresponds to the Jesus in the bible?"
Answer: nowhere. There is absolutely no  known mention of his birth in the historical record outside the bible, contemporary with that time period.

Question: Where are the circumstances of his birth clearly recorded in the bible? (This does not include supposed prophesies.)
Answer: Only in two books, Matthew and Luke.

Question: Who wrote the books of Matthew and Luke?
Answer: No one knows. The authors are anonymous. The text makes no claim about their identity.

Question: Could either of the authors have been an eye witness to the events?
Answer:  Not a chance. Not only do they not claim to have been there, Matthew and Luke would have been mere children themselves, or not even born yet, if they ever existed in the first place. This means we are getting Matthew's story second or third hand at  best. In the case of the book of Luke, it would be third hand at the very least, and that's being generous.

Question: Do Matthew or Luke reveal the sources of their information?
Answer: No.

Question: When was the book of Matthew written?
Answer: Most scholars think it falls within 70-110 C.E. We will see that this means it was not written till at least 64-74years after the events supposedly took place, depending on which version you read. Plus it could have been written as much as 115 years after the events.

Question: When was the book of Luke written?
Answer: The probable dates are between 80-100 C.E. Time spans similar to the book of Matthew, between events and writing,  apply.

Question: Do Matthew and Luke tell the same story?
Answer: (spoiler) NO. The stories are about the same three people, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, but we will see that they differ in most of the details.

Question: Are Matthew and Luke reliable sources for the birth of Jesus?
Answer: You tell me. In today's world, would you accept a story of a virgin birth told third hand by an anonymous person, from an unknown original source, with no outside corroboration?

Question: Are there any extrabiblical accounts of the nativity?
Answer: There are some apocryphal gospels that contain accounts of Jesus birth, but they are usually considered unreliable, even by christians.

Edited.