I don't have information either way, and neither do you. For all we know, Matthew may have made up the whole "flight to Egypt" story. No other gospel mentions it.
That's your rationale for thinking that Matthew may have made up the flight to Egypt? What would be his motivation for doing such?
If you don't have the information, then you can't assume that Matthew fabricated Herod's decree and/or the flight to Egypt.
Stella, if another gospel mentions it, that would make it more likely that the story about a trip to Egypt was more widespread among the early Christians, and not just the figment of one evangelist's imagination.
loco, I like McWay's theory, but it involves superimposing verses on one another. Why didn't Matthew just tell it like it is? Why couldn't Matthew say "when Jesus was born, they went from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, then to Nazareth. Two years later, they were in Bethlehem en route to Jerusalem, and the wise men came..."
So, your complaint is that Matthew didn't give the account the way you wanted. That hardly qualifies as making the account (particularly the flight to Egypt, as the result of Herod's decree) a "figment of someone the writer's imagination". As long as the information is accurate, Matthew can give as much (or as little) detail, as he deems necessary to make his point.
Again, your claim was that Matthew and Luke contradict each other, because you assumed that the "itineraries" happened when Jesus was the same age. That is not the case, as has been shown.
Silence is NOT a contradiction. Luke is silent on the flight to Egypt; Matthew is silent on the trip to the temple. However, as it was Levitical law that a newborn baby be taken to the temple once the mother's purification is done (at least six weeks), one can easily assume in Jewish culture that such happened.
Plus, it appears that Luke mentions the trip is to emphasize that Jesus is the Messiah, based on the words of the high priest, Simeon.
Surely, if the Holy Spirit were "guiding" the gospel writer, he could have filled him in on the details, instead of leaving it to posterity to put together a jigsaw puzzle.
And this rule that mandates that the accounts of Luke and Matthew be identical would be.........
If another gospel mentioned Herod's edict, all Biblical skeptics would do is claim that the authors of the other Gospels copied it from one particular Gospel (as they already do, with the information that all four Gospels share, claiming that the others copied it from Mark).
The Gospels complement one another, with each one giving unique information that the others do not. That's to be expected from four different authors.I've yet to see, past or present, four people give the exact same details about a period of history or event.
