The Nativity part 4- summary of Matthew with comments.

Matthew:

Joseph discovers his fiancée is pregnant with someone else's child and decides to break off the engagement without a fuss. Then he has a dream (he would be the only one who would know the actual content of his dreams. No witnesses.)of an angel  telling him the father of the baby is the Holy Spirit and he should marry Mary anyway. The angel supposedly told him to name the baby Jesus. Joseph married Mary, but they didn't sleep together till after the baby was born. (We are told this to assure us the child was not Joseph's, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors. )

Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod. During that time, some magi from the east went to Herod and asked him where they could find the king of the Jews. They saw his star* and wanted to worship him. (These are Zoroastrians, not Yahweh worshippers, yet they are taken seriously by Jews?) Herod was troubled by this question and asked the religious leaders where the christ was supposed to be born. They said Bethlehem. Herod told the magi and asked them to report back if they found him. Luckily, the star was going in that direction, so they followed it to the house where Jesus and his mother were. They worshipped Jesus and gave him gifts of gold incense and myrrh. They went home, instead of reporting back to Herod, because they had been warned in a dream.

Joseph has another dream of an angel, telling him to go to Egypt, because Herod was going to try to find and kill Jesus. Herod gave orders for all the baby boys, in and around Bethlehem to be killed. (There is no historical record of this.) After Herod died, Joseph had another dream telling him to take Mary and Jesus back to Israel. When they got there and heard Herod's son was ruling in Judea, where they had come from, they were afraid. Another dream told him to go live in Nazareth of Galilee. (Those dreams were very helpful.)

What do we not find in this story:
-Zachariah, Elizabeth and the birth of John
-Mary being visited by Gabriel
-Mary visiting Elizabeth
-Mary speaking/ singing
-Mary and Joseph being previous residents of Nazareth
-A census and Quirinius as governor (He replaced Herod's son)
-A manger
-Shepherds with Angels
-The circumcision of Jesus and the presentation of him at at the temple
-Simeon and Anna
-Anything supported by the contemporary history of that time, except place names, Herod, and his son.

*The people of that time made a habit of studying the stars and keeping records of unusual things in the sky. There is no historical record of such a star appearing in the time frame required. Plus, stars are so far away, no one could tell if one was directly over a particular house, and they don't stop, start, and move freely.



Edited.