Luke 2:39-40: Is there a problem?

(Taken from Sunday School on Dec 13th)

Luke 2:39 says the following:

And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

The question then becomes, is Luke saying that after Jesus is blessed by Simeon and Anna that they went to Nazareth and that was it? Is he saying that there was no fleeing to Egypt, no wisemen, no confrontation with Herod?

There needs to be some considerations before we begin this discussion.

1. If my memory serves me correctly, a typical scroll of this time period was about 40 feet long. The characters were fairly large, so that 40 feet isn't quite as large as it would seem to us. We are used to Word Documents that are endless, but all writers of the time period knew that there was a time when their space ran out. So Luke and Matthew had only a limited amount of space to write about Jesus' entire life. That is why there is a 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, etc. They could not fit on one scroll. The Psalms were not kept together on one scroll, but a collection of them, others in similar fashion.

2. A comparison of the birth stories in Matthew and Luke show the following: (click the picture for a readable size).


It is interesting that Luke and Matthew do not mirror one another's telling of the story of Jesus' birth, though their gospels mirror one another a lot. The gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often called the "Synoptic Gospels" because of the stories that are contained within each one of them.

It is hard then to make the case for either one of them being a rogue gospel, since there are so many similarities between them. Matthew and Luke were written, as each of the gospels were, to be "stand alone" gospels. They needed no other gospel to communicate the message of Jesus to people.

HOWEVER, it seems likely that Luke knew of Matthew's gospel, and the perspective that is told of Jesus' birth in it. The birth narrative is very important, but it is Jesus' adult ministry that really teaches and shows and clarifies who He is, why He came, and what that means and calls mankind to do.

3. So, the assumption can be made, and it is an assumption, that at least Luke perhaps knew of the narrative in Matthew, and that is why on the birth narrative he told the other perspective of what happens (from Mary's perspective). Matthew's birth narrative is almost entirely Joseph, Mary is a supporting character. The opposite is true in Luke, even the genealogy in Luke 3 is Mary's (as Luke notes that Joseph was only "thought" to be Jesus' father, then the next male back that Jesus was descended from was Heli (Mary's father), so he is listed next - compare the genealogy in Matthew 1 and you will see that Joseph's father is listed there, and it is not Heli. Matthew is examining Joseph's line as an affirmation of Joseph's role in Jesus' life, but not claiming true fatherhood in a DNA sense).

So, then...

The question becomes, what does Luke mean when he gives verse 39. At first glance it seems to indicate that when Jesus was 8 days old and had fulfilled the law of the Lord at the temple, everyone went home and hung out until Jesus was 12.

I don't think that this is a contradiction, I simply think that Luke doesn't deal with the other things because he has limited space, and Matthew has dealt with it already. In Eusebius' History of the Church (dated about 312 AD) it is mentioned that when John wrote his gospel, he did so wanting to tell the story of things that were not mentioned in the other gospels that he had read, and had access to. John ends his gospel by saying "and Jesus did many more things as well, I suppose that if they were all written down that the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

And so we have to recognize, in our world that demands to have the loose ends tied together, that we do not know for sure the order that things happened even with all of the Scripture written about Jesus' birth and early life being correct and systematic (connecting and complimentary).

- Jesus could have been circumcised, headed back to Galilee with them, and for unforeseen circumstances that we aren't told about, they moved back to Bethlehem so that the wisemen would find them so close to Jerusalem, and prophecy could be fulfilled, and then the flight to Egypt would occur.

- As Luke refers to the "Law of the Lord" in verse 39 he could be referring to the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by the flight to Egypt and return along with the circumcision at the temple, though he does not mention them.

- a lot of other possibilities are there as well. But I hope that this helps you as you look at these Scriptures to take a bigger approach then simply thinking, "well I guess that doesn't fit, one of these is wrong." While the Bible is accurate historically, its goal is not simply connecting details for us, it is the story and message of Christ, that was given in a time when 600 page histories were not written by just anyone. Can you imagine trying to be people of faith if the life of Christ was given in a 12 volume encyclopedia set? We'll know all the details one day, but for now "only as in a mirror dimly" (I Cor 13:12).