Below are Mr. Koolaid’s statements (in bold) followed by my response.

“Let’s stick to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life because they’re all in the New Testament. They’re all in the same genre: narrative accounts relaying a series of events. They’re all talking about the same people and events and the time, place, and contexts are the same.”

They’re all talking about the same people and events and the time, place, and contexts are the same. He will shortly contradict himself with his subsequent statement (below). Not all the gospels, even the synoptic Gospels, mention the same people and events. But since both Christians and atheists already know that, we’ll move on.

In addition to the contents, the context of each Gospel can vary according to the overall message each author is trying to convey and who his intended audience is. A good study Bible can help you see the overall context of each author’s Gospel and the author’s intended audience, among other things. My two favorites are the MacArthur Study Bible (dispensationalism) and the Reformation Study Bible (covenant theology).

“No mention of Herod’s massacre [in Luke]”

“Only two of the four canonical Gospels [Matthew and Luke] even tell the story of Jesus’ birth and these two accounts are irreconcilably different.”

Well, there goes the proclamation that “they’re all talking about the same people and events…and the context are the same.”

As to why there is no detailed genealogy in Mark and John, Mark emphasizes Jesus as the Father’s servant and genealogies are not recorded for servants. And there’s no detailed genealogy recorded in John because of John’s emphasis that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Actually, the two accounts fit together very well. The timeline for Jesus’ family’s escape to Egypt (Matthew 2:16-23) fits in nicely immediately after Luke 2:38, as mentioned above.

“…in Matthew after Jesus’s birth king Herod hears about baby Jesus described as the future King of the Jews, he feels threatened and has every baby under the age of two slaughtered.”

Ackshually, Matthew says Herod “slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under…” (Matthew 2:16). While this may seem a minor detail to some, it would be nice if he could have been more accurate with the text and represent it properly. Sometimes minor deviations from the accurate details as it is written in the text can make mountains out of mole hills. I can understand that someone can suggest he was probably winging it and trying to paraphrase Matthew’s narrative but that’s really no excuse to take liberties with the text. As we will see below, Mr. Koolaid took a lot of bigger liberties with the texts and this just adds to his misrepresentation of the texts.

While some Christians do seem to agree that Herod was probably “hedging his bets,” or even that he was engaging in overkill (no pun intended), that’s not in the text—but is speculation. Yes, Herod was historically known to be very cruel, but it’s just not in the text that Herod accurately ascertained the date of Jesus’ birth or that he was playing it “safe” when he gave orders to kill male children aged two and under.

“[In Luke’s Gospel,] Jesus’ parents peacefully stick around Bethlehem until it’s time for the baby’s ritual purification which was 33 days after His birth according to the Jewish law in Leviticus 12.”

Perhaps he read verse 21 in Luke’s Gospel and somehow missed verse 22 (for some reason) and associated Jesus’ circumcision with the purification ritual required of the mother. The circumcision required for males were to take place 8 days after birth (Genesis 17:10-14), not 33 days. That indicates a gap in time of eight days between verses 21 and 22. You’ll see gaps in time in the chronology in all the Gospels. Just like there’s a gap in time between verses 38 and 39.

Here, Mr. Koolaid refers to Leviticus 12:4-5 and he flashes the two verses quickly before anyone has time to read it. Maybe some of you stopped the video and read it. You may have noted that the scripture quoted is for the woman who gives birth, not the baby. Okay, so some of you might say it’s no big deal; just a minor slip-up. It’s not, because he explicitly stated that the ritual had to do with Jesus’ ritual purification. Seriously, I wonder if he actually pays attention to what he’s reading. I also wonder if he has any intention at all to represent the scriptures accurately. Why is he being so sloppy?

Moreover, the woman’s purification ritual took place after forty days, not thirty-three, after giving birth. For seven days after giving birth she is unclean and for thirty-three days after that she was to “remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days.” Then she is to go to the temple and offer up a sacrifice so she could be “cleansed from her blood,” or declared clean. You can read about it in Leviticus 12:2-8. Just wanted to make sure I represent the text accurately for you. You’re welcome.

“They do that [performing Mary’s ritual purification] in Jerusalem where Herod was ruling. And while there a righteous old man and a prophetess approach baby Jesus in broad daylight in a crowded temple and start shouting to everyone who will listen that this is the coming Messiah … and yet Herod does nothing and Jesus’ family immediately and uneventfully about a month after His birth head back to their home in Nazareth.”

A righteous old man. There is no age noted in Luke’s text for Simeon, the man named in Luke’s Gospel (v. 25). It is impossible to know how old he was from reading the text, aside from speculation. There is, admittedly, a verse that easily leads to speculation because of the apparent mention of death (“depart in peace,”) in verse 29, and it shows us that we need to read the texts carefully to avoid unnecessary speculations because the age of Simeon is unspecified in the text. But we all know well enough not to add or subtract from the text, so we always strive to avoid such speculation by not isolating one verse from its surrounding context. After all, we don’t like it when someone puts words in our mouth that we didn’t say, right?

In broad daylight in a crowded temple and start shouting. I honestly wonder what in the world made him say that. That’s definitely not in the text by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe he just doesn’t care about how sloppy he is in “paraphrasing” what the scripture says and has absolutely no desire to represent the text honestly and accurately. Or perhaps he knows none of his followers will bother to fact check him to see if those words are in the text. It’s obvious from the above quote (“and yet Herod does nothing”) he’s trying to suggest strongly through overt embellishment that Herod was already looking for Jesus at that time— and that simply is not in Luke’s text, nor is it even implied.

And yet Herod does nothing and Jesus’ family immediately and uneventfully about a month after His birth head back to their home in Nazareth. Luke’s statement that “when they they had performed everything” (2:29) does not preclude the family’s flight to Egypt. The above events in the temple (2:22-38) took place close to 40 or 41 days after Jesus’ birth, as already shown above.

Matthew’s Gospel makes it clear the magi had come to Jerusalem (not Bethlehem, by the way) seeking Jesus and inquiring about the location of His birth (Matthew 2:1-3). Herod learned about this and then inquired the chief priests and scribes (who were the experts in Old Testament scriptures) about the location where the Messiah was to be born and found out it was in nearby Bethlehem (vv. 4-6). But does the text say Herod knew that Jesus was already born? No, not at this point. That’s why Herod questioned the magi (verse7) while they were still in Jerusalem; to find out when an extraordinary sign (the star) was first seen by the magi—so he could try to interpret the best he could to try to figure out a birth date. The time the extraordinary phenomena appeared in the east would give him a clue (vv. 7-8). So in verse 8 we see Herod asking the magi to get back to him about precise details. How much time elapsed between verse 8 and verse 11? Depends on if they were walking, riding camels, or driving a Honda Accord. And don’t forget that they most likely had servants and other men with them for protection since travel at that time was hazardous for a small group to travel alone and face the possibility of running into bands of robbers. Whether that would slow things down or not, I don’t know, but for the heck of it, let’s say it doesn’t. So then, how long does it take to travel from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in those days? Well, according to Google maps, if you’re driving a car, it takes 22 minutes (if you take the shortest route via Hebron), and about 2 hours if you’re walking on modern roadways. We don’t know what the roads were like then or how long it would take to walk those roads but I’ll be generous and say not much longer than a day. But there’s one other thing to take into consideration, and that is how much time elapsed between Jesus’ birth, the magi arriving in Bethlehem and subsequently failing to report back to Herod, and Herod finally figuring out the magi pulled a fast one on him. And we have no idea how long Herod waited to get an answer back from the magi because the text doesn’t specify. The only clue we have is in verse 16, which says Herod got a bit upset and decided to order the slaughter of male infants aged two and under. And two years are a far cry from Luke’s narrative about Jesus’ circumcision, Mary’s performance of ritual purification, and Jesus being presented in the temple (Luke 2:23; Exodus 13:2, 12; 18:15) all around 40+ days or so after His birth. So it’s not very likely Herod realized he was bamboozled that soon according to the timeline of Luke’s Gospel, and most importantly because Luke makes no mention of it.

Luke’s Gospel does not say that Jesus’ family “immediately and uneventfully about a month after His birth” left for Nazareth. That’s adding to the text. Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier that there are two ways to read and understand the text: eisegesis and exegesis. If you don’t know what the two words mean, google them.

It then becomes very obvious that the two authors didn’t write contradictory events. Rather, what they separately and independently wrote to two different audiences (Jewish/Gentile) for separate purposes work together and gives us the opportunity to put together a more complete timeline from what is written in the two Gospels.

“But in Matthew, Joseph and Mary are residents of Bethlehem. … There’s no mention of a manger either, because why would you give birth in a barn when you have a local home. After Jesus is born, magi from the east set out on a journey from a foreign country to meet him and he’s still with his family from Bethlehem when they arrive, living in a local house.”

I don’t know how he got that from the following text: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king…” (Matthew 2:1a). True, verse 11 says the magi saw the Child after coming into “the house” but since there’s nothing inherent in the text that indicates ownership or residence, the question should be “who’s house?” and since that information is lacking we shouldn’t be taking those kinds of liberties with the text. Taking liberties with the text might be acceptable when making movies from novels but it doesn’t work when trying to sensationalize what one thinks is a contradiction in the Biblical texts. It just makes you look wacky when someone actually looks up the text to fact check your narrative. Matthew’s text says nothing about Bethlehem being their hometown nor about living in a local home or house as a resident of that town. Luke’s text, by the way, makes crystal it clear that Joseph and Mary resided in Nazareth before and after Jesus’ birth.