Was Baby Jesus’ Life Threatened In Jerusalem – Contradiction?
Was baby Jesus’ life threatened in Jerusalem?
(a) Yes, so Joseph fled with him to Egypt and stayed there until Herod died (Matthew 2:13 23)
(b) No. The family fled nowhere. They calmly presented the child at the Jerusalem temple according to
the Jewish customs and returned to Galilee ( Luke 2:21-40)
The above is a claimed contradiction in the Bible accounts of Matthew and Luke. However, by combining the gospel accounts, we get a better picture of the events in Jesus’ life.
“Eight days later when the baby was circumcised , he was named Jesus . . . Then it was time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”—Luke 2:21,22 NLT
In Luke’s account, Jesus’ parents took him to the Temple to be presented to God after he was circumcised on the 8th day after his birth.
