NOT A PERFECT HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS: Like any evangelist, Jesus repeated himself on many occasions, some of which were similar to what he had before encountered. If we are simply trying to correlate historical material from exactly the same moment, hour, or day in time, we can seldom be sure we have made a correct comparison. However, if that is not our goal, but rather we aim to gain a better perspective on what Jesus taught on a particular subject, then comparing similar events is indispensible. The method is like laying out before us four books by the same author in the hope of gaining insight into the working of his mind. After all, our main goal as Christians is to know Christ better; and to know him is to know God, the Father, who we cannot know apart from Jesus Christ.

ACTS CHART SOMETIMES USES "BEST ESTIMATE": The association of the letters of Paul and others with the record in Acts is sometimes a best estimate process. Often we can see exactly where an epistle fits in with Luke's History. In a few cases, we have to use some scant evidence to make a judgment. At that point it is not helpful to be dogmatic about the time or place of composition. People may differ, and it is good to know both sides of the argument before settling on a correlation. Either way, the material in the letter in question remains a necessary part of the New Testament; Nothing of its inspiration or authority is lost because of our limited knowledge of the events that prompted its writing.

TRANSLATIONS AVAILABLE: These verses are linked to the King James Version of the New Testament. However, the way I set this up, any version can be followed. Simply click on a verse and when it appears, change the translation. Use your browser's back button to return to this Harmony of the New Testament. From that point on, every verse you reference will appear in the translation you chose, or even in Greek, if that was your preference. The advantage to this method is that a student of the New Testament may follow one translation over a range of content; Then to go back over that content using a different rendering, he need only change his translation preference once. (Since different browsers do not handle commands the same way, this method may not work in them all. I have tested it using IE 6, and with the latest Firefox/Mozilla browser. Please email me with the name and version of your browser if the method does not work for you.)

JESUS' ANCESTRY: Matthew's and Luke's birth stories differ in a number of respects, none of which should cause insurmountable confusion for the serious Bible student. The lists are intentionally different. Why would one writer just repeat what is already known to many people and recorded in another gospel? In addition, Matthew was writing for 1st century Jews, using a Hebrew style. Luke had a Gentile audience in mind. Neither one was writing for us today; if they had known about us, they would have needed to first write a primer for dummies.

Matthew did what Jews of the time did when learning and reciting their genealogies. He included two important mnemonic devices, symmetry and repetition. That necessitated some creativity in the presentation. He decided on three sets of 14 ancestors, and he had priorities about who to include in these subsets. Like most of us, he wanted Jews to remember the important people in the lineage of Christ, not the ones that wound up being duds.

In the end, Matthew wanted his gospel to be consistent throughout. Since Jesus is the rightful heir of David, Matthew made David the most prominent person in the list of Jesus' ancestors. Matthew achieved that by repeating David's name twice. All in all, Matthew's method was easily understood by Jews of the time, and the result was an effective tool for memorization. The reader should know that with the scarcity and expense of writing materials, lists like this had to be carried around in one's head.

Matthew achieved the goal that was important to a Christian Jew, to maintain that Christ was in the line of Abraham, through David. In evaluating Matthew's writing style, we must be fair. He was indeed creative, just like some Bible writers of the Old Testament had been, but like them, Matthew did not fabricate anything. What he recorded is the truth.

Still, Matthew's account is not sufficient. There was a major obstacle to making a list of people in Jesus' ancestry. He was not a normal human being. He was not the natural son of any man on earth. He was the Son of God and he had only one human parent, a woman named Mary. To make a normal Jewish genealogy that claims a natural human lineage for him through Joseph would shortchange not only the reader, but also Jesus himself. He was not a natural descendant of Abraham through Joseph. Yet, Jesus could be a legal descendant of Abraham, couldn't he? The moment Joseph decided to claim Jesus as his own child, any charge that Jesus might have been an illigitimate child no longer would have legal force.

So now the problem is, how do we create a list that gives Jesus a natural lineage back to (or at least through) Jewish ancestors while allowing the legal right to be who he claimed to be, the son of David and the rightful heir to his throne? That is the tough problem Luke faced.

Luke also had to kill another bird with this one stone. He was dealing with Gentiles and from what he had learned from Paul, Luke understood that the Messiah came to all people the world over. The church was not intended to be made up only of Jews and Jewish proselytes. Luke could not fight the Judaizer's notion of racial and cultural superiority by tracing Christ's lineage through Joseph's adoption of Jesus and then by stopping there. Luke's list had to show that although Jesus Christ's lineage is through Abraham, it actually extends back to Adam.

Luke could handle the problem of human ancestry only by tracing Jesus' lineage through Mary. However, at the beginning of his list, Luke would need to satisfy Jewish legal requirements by including Joseph's name as the legal father of Jesus. Honesty required Luke to include a short disclamer with respect to Jesus' natural relationship to Joseph. A sentence like, "Jesus was the son (so it was thought) of Joseph," would do that well. Then anyone who compared the public records on that family at the courthouse would know Luke was a straight shooter.

It is a good thing Luke handled the problems he anticipated from skeptics in his day. A Christian 20 centuries down the road would not have known how to do that. Yet in some ways our problems today are also great. People's mindset now makes them attempt to use the scientific method on everything in the Bible. We compare small bits of information, looking for minute differences, and that often means getting so bogged down in details that we cannot see the overall picture. A broad study of the Bible helps. Even honest skeptics today would not have a sufficient understanding of 1st century Jewish culture to know what a sincere Bible student can know by intense investigation of matters like this. Without that background, we cannot understand the way Matthew and Luke handled the genealogy of Christ. That Matthew repeated David's name becomes a "mistake" to the average skeptic, rather than a point of pride, as it is for the Christian, who waits expectantly for Jesus to return and take his rightful place as King on the throne of David.

A POSSIBLE CENSUS: There may have been a first census in 4 BC. Herod had his own tax collectors and paid tribute to Rome from the proceeds. However, things were not going well for Herod and Judea was placed more and more under direct Roman rule. Herod the Great was paranoid and dangerous. Josephus records in Antiquities of the Jews, XVI, ix 3 that Augustus was furious with Herod in 8 BCE and threatened to treat him no longer as a friend, but as a subject, subject to taxes.

JESUS' “STAR”: What evidence is there? A conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the star constellation of Pisces. In 1925 references to this conjunction were found in the cuneiform inscriptions of the astrological archives of an ancient school of Astrology at Sippar, an ancient Sumerian city in Babylonia. German Scholar P. Schnabel found, among the endless cuneiform records of dates and observations, a note on a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces. The position of Jupiter and Saturn, converged in Pisces, had been recorded over a period of five months in 7 B.C.! The conjunction was observable three times over the course of the year, May 29, October 3, and December 4.

JEWISH REVOLT AGAINST ROME: Desecration of the Temple, even of a minor sort, and an illegitimate priesthood were constantly re-occuring themes that inflamed zealous Jews of Judea from the second century B.C. to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. A revolt led by Judas and Matthias in 4 B.C. was put down, and Matthias and some of his followers were burned by Harod. With the terrorist mindset of the Jews, that event became fuel for a larger rebellion. The number of zealots continued to increase. Herod's son Archelaus, who took his father's place on the throne, failed to appease the rebels. A year later, 3000 Jews were slain in Jerusalem. Josephus says that the number of active rebels soon increased to "many ten thousands". They came to Jerusalem at Pentecost from many places to join the fight. Josephus mentions Galilee, Idumea and across Jordan. In response, Roman soldiers poured out of Herod's Palace and began a great slaughter. However, it soon looked like the zealots might win as the insurrection spread throughout Judea.

REBELS CRUCIFIED: Finally Rome got the upper hand; the Roman general Varus brought in two legions and four troops of horsemen from Syria. Several Jewish villages were burned, people were slaughtered and 2000 zealotes were crucified. That slowed the rebellion but did not put a stop to it.

SICARII TERRORISM: Sicarii terrorism (Acts 21:38, sikarios, "dagger man", "assassin", "murderer") started as a function of Jewish resistance to Roman rule in Palestine, which began in 40 BC. In 6 AD, Judea and two other districts were combined and put under the control of Roman ruled Syria. Jewish groups began violent resistance to Roman rule around 50 CE, when the Sicarii and other groups started using guerrilla or terrorist tactics. All out war between the Jews and the Romans broke out in 67, when Romans invaded Palestine from both Syria and Egypt. The war ended in 70 CE, when Roman forces completely devastated Jerusalem. Masada, Herod's famous fortress was conquered by siege in 74.

The Sicarii operated primarily in the urban environment of Jerusalem, including within the Temple. However, they also committed attacks in villages, which they raided for plunder and set on fire in order to create fear among Jews who acquiesced or collaborated with Roman rule.

Sicarii Leader: Menahem ben Jair, a grandson of Judas of Galilee, was the leader of the Sicarii until his assassination. His brother Eleazor succeeded him.

Sicarii Objective: To end Roman direct rule over the Jews of Palestine, which is also called ancient Israel.
Sicarii Tactics: The Sicariis most notable tactic was the use of short daggers to kill people. This method of murdering people in crowded places before slipping away caused extreme fear among surrounding onlookers. As political scientist and terrorist expert David C. Rapaport has pointed out, the Sicarii were distinct in primarily targeting other Jews who were considered to be either collaborators or quiescent in the face of Roman rule. They attacked, in particular, Jewish notables and elites associated with the priesthood.

This strategy distinguishes them from the Zealots, who aimed their violence against Romans.