The Source of the Story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem

Chapter III

The Sources of the Gospels and the Way of Writing Them

Section IV

The Texts that were attributed directly to the Old Testament in the Gospels

In this section we will examine the texts of the Old Testament that were attributed directly to it, and the Gospels authors said that they have not been fulfilled, and achieved only in Jesus and his time and his generation, to find out what is the truth and the reality of them, and if the Gospels authors have told the truth or not.

2 - The Source of the Story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem

Matthew 2:3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

Matthew 2:4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

Matthew 2:5 So they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:

Matthew 2:6 ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel’."

In this text Matthew says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, for it is written by the prophet: "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel". So, is it true that this text apply to Jesus or Bethlehem as Matthew said, or not?

Let's read the quotation from the Old Testament to find out the truth of this issue, which is mentioned in the Book of Micah, Chapter V, which is as follows:

Micah 5:1 Now gather yourself in troops, O daughter of troops; He has laid siege against us; They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

Micah 5:2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting."

Micah 5:3 Therefore He shall give them up, Until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; Then the remnant of His brethren Shall return to the children of Israel.

Micah 5:4 And He shall stand and feed His flock In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God; And they shall abide, For now He shall be great To the ends of the earth;

Micah 5:5 And this One shall be peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land, And when he treads in our palaces, Then we will raise against him Seven shepherds and eight princely men.

Micah 5:6 They shall waste with the sword the land of Assyria, And the land of Nimrod at its entrances; Thus He shall deliver us from the Assyrian, When he comes into our land And when he treads within our borders.

Micah 5:7 Then the remnant of Jacob Shall be in the midst of many peoples, Like dew from the LORD, Like showers on the grass, That tarry for no man Nor wait for the sons of men.

Micah 5:8 And the remnant of Jacob Shall be among the Gentiles, In the midst of many peoples, Like a lion among the beasts of the forest, Like a young lion among flocks of sheep, Who, if he passes through, Both treads down and tears in pieces, And none can deliver.

Micah 5:9 Your hand shall be lifted against your adversaries, And all your enemies shall be cut off.

Micah 5:10 "And it shall be in that day," says the LORD, "That I will cut off your horses from your midst And destroy your chariots.

Micah 5:11 I will cut off the cities of your land And throw down all your strongholds.

Micah 5:12 I will cut off sorceries from your hand, And you shall have no soothsayers.

Micah 5:13 Your carved images I will also cut off, And your sacred pillars from your midst; You shall no more worship the work of your hands;

Micah 5:14 I will pluck your wooden images from your midst; Thus I will destroy your cities.

Micah 5:15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury On the nations that have not heard."

The second paragraph in this text says that there will be a ruler in Israel from Bethlehem, and Matthew says that this text has been achieved and fulfilled in the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, i.e., that Jesus should be a ruler in (or over) Israel. So, was Jesus a ruler over the people of Israel?

Anyone who reads the Gospels knows that Jesus was not in one day of his life a ruler over the people of Israel, even that the Gospels authors have written that he was subject to Caesar, and pays taxes to the governor, and asked the Jews to give Caesar what he wants by saying "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's", as in the following texts:

Matthew 17:24 When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, "Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?"

Matthew 17:25 He said, "Yes." And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?"

Matthew 17:26 Peter said to Him, "From strangers." Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free.

Matthew 17:27 "Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you."

Matthew 22:20 And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"

Matthew 22:21 They said to Him, "Caesar’s." And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s."

Moreover, Caesar's governor, eventually, has sentenced Jesus to death, and crucified him, as say the four Gospels!

As for his ruling over the Jews, it did not happen in one day during his life, because Jesus throughout his life was afraid of the Jews, and feels that they are trying to kill him, as in the following text:

John 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.

So how he was ruling over them and this is his status, so that Jesus escaped when they tried to make him king to achieve (or to fulfill) this text or other! As in the following text:

John 6:15 Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Besides, he was keen to show himself that he is subject to the priests and not to show himself as a prophet to them who has a task to rule them, as in the following text:

Matthew 8:4 And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

In addition, he was refusing to announce that he is Christ who has a task to rule the Jews, as in the following text:

Mark 8:27 Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, "Who do men say that I am?"

Mark 8:28 So they answered, "John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets."

Mark 8:29 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ."

Mark 8:30 Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.

Even, increasing to hide himself, whether because of fear of the Romans or the Jews, he has declined to condemn the woman who was caught in adultery, and said "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first", as in the following text:

John 8:1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

John 8:2 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them.

John 8:3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,

John 8:4 they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.

John 8:5 "Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?" 

John 8:6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.

John 8:7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

John 8:8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

The churches say that Jesus was without sin, so why he did not implement the judgment of the Lord; if his task was to rule Israel?!

Finally, he has declared very clearly that his kingdom is not of this world as in the following text:

John 18:33 Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?"

John 18:34 Jesus answered him, "Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?"

John 18:35 Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?"

John 18:36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here."

So, if his kingdom is not of this world, it means that Jesus was not intended in the text of Micah, because the text speaks of a man who will rule the people of Israel in the Holy Land, not of a man who his kingdom is not of this world.

From this explanation we know that Jesus was not in one day during his life a ruler over the people of Israel.

Now let's continue reading the text of Mica:

Micah 5:3 Therefore He shall give them up, Until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; Then the remnant of His brethren Shall return to the children of Israel.

In this paragraph we read that Israel will be abandoned, until the time when she who is in labor gives birth; then the remnant of his brethren will return to the children of Israel, and these words refer to the captivity to Assyria and Babylon and then return from there to the Holy Land, as it appears in the following paragraphs, and this confirms that the text does not speak about Jesus, because the Jews at the time of Jesus were subject to the Roman Rule, and Jesus did not make them free from the Roman Rule. Moreover that the Gospels and other sources did not tell us that anyone of the children of Israel returned to the Holy Land as a result of the birth of Jesus, or during his preaching, or even after his ascension into heaven, thus, this text was talking about periods certainly not in the time of Jesus.

Micah 5:4 And He shall stand and feed His flock In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God; And they shall abide, For now He shall be great To the ends of the earth;

This paragraph talks about the care of the ruler of the children of Israel to them, and as shown previously that Jesus was not a ruler over Israel in one day during his life, and he didn't take care of them, and this means that the text does not talk about Jesus.

Micah 5:5 And this One shall be peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land, And when he treads in our palaces, Then we will raise against him Seven shepherds and eight princely men.

Micah 5:6 They shall waste with the sword the land of Assyria, And the land of Nimrod at its entrances; Thus He shall deliver us from the Assyrian, When he comes into our land And when he treads within our borders.

These paragraphs talk about the Assyrian and their invasion of the Holy Land; and that the Lord will punish them with the sword, and destroys them, and the LORD will deliver Israel from Assyrian, and all these events had occurred before hundreds of years of Jesus' birth. So why Matthew did not notice these facts when he cut from the text that paragraph that says ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel’; to say to us that this paragraph was talking about the place of the birth of Jesus?! Unless, it was an approach and method and way to write his Gospel by quoting the texts of the Old Testament and reformulating them in a kind of narratives to record the story of the life of Jesus away from the historical events and the true meaning of the Old Testament texts.

Micah 5:7 Then the remnant of Jacob Shall be in the midst of many peoples, Like dew from the LORD, Like showers on the grass, That tarry for no man Nor wait for the sons of men.

Micah 5:8 And the remnant of Jacob Shall be among the Gentiles, In the midst of many peoples, Like a lion among the beasts of the forest, Like a young lion among flocks of sheep, Who, if he passes through, Both treads down and tears in pieces, And none can deliver.

Micah 5:9 Your hand shall be lifted against your adversaries, And all your enemies shall be cut off.

These paragraphs talk about the characteristics of Israel at that time, and I do not think that anyone disagrees with me that they were not the characteristics of the Jews in Jesus' time, for they were under the Roman Rule and subject to their power, and even that Jesus himself was paying taxes to Caesar!

Micah 5:10 "And it shall be in that day," says the LORD, "That I will cut off your horses from your midst And destroy your chariots.

Micah 5:11 I will cut off the cities of your land And throw down all your strongholds.

These paragraphs like its predecessors talk about things took place before

hundreds of years of Jesus' birth.

Micah 5:12 I will cut off sorceries from your hand, And you shall have no soothsayers.

Micah 5:13 Your carved images I will also cut off, And your sacred pillars from your midst; You shall no more worship the work of your hands;

In these paragraphs the LORD says that He will cut off the carved images, and the people should not worship the work of their hands, so if this text has been fulfilled when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, why the churches worship the work of their hands, and made millions of carved images to Jesus and the others?!

From all of the above, we conclude that Matthew was not successful by saying that this text was talking about the birth of Jesus, which was an attempt to make what is written in the Gospel compatible with the texts of the Old Testament, nevertheless, a big difference between what was the text of Micah talking about, and what is written in the Gospels about Jesus and his time and his contemporary generation, and this indicates to the way of writing the Gospels, which is the quoting from the texts of the Old Testament and reformulating them in their stories about the life of Jesus, regardless of what the texts are actually talking about, to bestow a state of holiness and credibility and reliability on the Gospels, which means that our law in this book "do not accept the lying and false" applies to the Story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.