Was JESUS BORN in Bethlehem or Nazareth?

Written by Benoît Santos - Updated on Oct 27, 2024

Do you think you are under-informed about the birth of Jesus? Have you ever wondered where Christ was really born? In Bethlehem or Nazareth? And what do the authors of Christian theology think about it?

These are all questions that curiously capture the attention of our team and that were able to find concrete answers. We invested ourselves in the search for elements of answers in order to bring you enough information. Briefly remember this:

According to the story, a virgin named Mary, betrothed to Joseph, a descendant of King David, was visited in Nazareth of Galilee by the angel Gabriel, who announced to her the birth of Jesus. However, Mary's virginal conception is only briefly mentioned. He will spend most of his time in ministry, announcing the good news.

In this article you will discover:

What the stories tell;
Where was Jesus really born;
Why do people say he was born in Bethlehem;
What the apostles say about the birth of Jesus.

If you want to know more about the story of Jesus' birth, here are several articles that might interest you:

Let’s get to the heart of the matter!

Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus: myth or reality?

Today, you are free to refute the question that Jesus was born in Bethlehem . What could be more normal! Since religion through the disciples and apostles have taken great pains to forge in each Christian an ideology and a philosophy with regard to the subject, because as many epistles in the Bible report, Jesus would have been born in Bethlehem . Matthew and Luke were able to say in the very first chapters when they write " Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea , in the time of King Herod ".

But a question needs to be asked : if Jesus was born in Bethlehem why the name Nazarene and Galilean? ? and even why the city of Bethlehem has not reappeared as the birthplace of Jesus other than in the biblical stories about his childhood? In a word, many people have asked themselves the question of whether, on the contrary , Jesus was not born in Nazareth . A priori, a small nuance deserves to be made : Bethlehem is a city well known in the Jewish Bible and recognized in the New Testament as the place of King David and future savior while Nazareth is a much less known village since it was a small agricultural village from where the disparity that exists between Bethlehem and Nazareth is evident.

We are most often tempted to think that the vagueness surrounding the birth of Jesus is due to the divergence of the stories elaborated by different authors of Roman theology. But why must we associate the city of Nazareth with the birth of Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem ? After the birth of Jesus , his parents had to flee the city where he was king and did not reappear until after his death. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to save the child; and he tried to do so. But when he heard that he was the king of Judea instead of his father Herod , he was afraid to go. When he heard this in a dream, he withdrew to the regions of Galilee and immediately arrived, he went to live in a city called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: " He will be called a Nazarene ."

Jesus around a controversy: what the apostles and the researchers

The opinion of Matthew and Luke.

According to Christian custom, the accounts of Matthew and Luke should not be considered as antitheses but rather complementary. They contain supernatural and mysterious creatures and phenomena as well as other elements such as angels, stars, persecution of the newborn hero. It is also indisputable that the evangelists , in this case Matthew, have the implicit intention of demonstrating the messianic nature of Jesus by the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament, but this does not necessarily impact the story. Many modern scholars, based on the convergence of the different accounts of Matthew and Luke, which represent the only historical sources related to the birth of Jesus, affirm the birthplace of Jesus as Bethlehem .

In contrast to modern scholars, contemporary secular scholars and some Christians strip the childhood stories of their historical value. According to these scholars, the fact that Jesus is said to have been born in Bethlehem is not a historical fact but a theological symbol of Jesus' Davidic messiahship. It has been hypothesized that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Galilee , and a city called Bethlehem of Nazareth is located seven miles from Nazareth, where it is possible that Jesus was born as mentioned in the Epistle of Joshua (Joshua 19:15 ). Other scholars, although they do not indicate a place, have ruled out the possibility that he was born in Bethlehem . Although scholars have not been able to indicate a very precise place of Jesus' birth, it is still ruled out that he was born in Bethlehem .

In the epistle of John, as in that of Mark, the birth of Jesus is not described which creates the confusion within the Jewish people that it is the Christ. Most believe that it is the Christ but others on the other hand think that the birth of Christ does not correspond to the Davidic scriptures according to which the Messiah should be born in Galilee and that is to say according to the scripture the Christ will come from the line of David and from Bethlehem, the village of David. Why reject the Messiah because his origins are not in accordance with the principle even though it is written that he was born in Bethlehem ? According to the priests of the Catholic Church, this passage should be considered as irony that sometimes characterizes the stories of John: the Jews refute the fact that Jesus is the Messiah by showing how according to them, he was not originally from Bethlehem.

Marc's opinion.

The Gospel of St. Mark speaks of Nazareth as the place from which the Master came . The great events of history usually correspond to the interests and objectives of the person who writes or the entity he serves. This has happened with events that are considered real, or characters who are not as real as their eulogies or biographies. For example, Nero was not as fierce as he is painted, and he did not play the lyre while Rome burned. All the greats of history have been surrounded by a glorious mystery and controversy. Jesus Christ, without being the only one, is the one who has aroused and been the object of the greatest and most abundant studies, especially with the passage of time and the discovery, in various regions of the Dead Sea, of the papyri of the time.

A number of works and investigations that are not known to have clarified anything or further obscured his life and teachings. These include his place and date of birth. Other writings, including the canonical and synoptic gospels, that is, those that are accepted as "revelation" by the Catholic Church, obey a specific objective or are targeted according to the audience to which they are addressed (for example, the letters or epistles of Saint Paul). Thus, some authors mention Bethlehem as his birthplace, and others Nazareth .

The Gospel of St. Mark , who is supposed to have been the first to write, around the 60s AD, about the life and teachings of Jesus, speaks of Nazareth as the place from which the Master came. According to canonical tradition, Mark is thought to be the most successful evangelist, because he is closest to the facts and the first to have seen where the other evangelists did not see. Mark therefore considers Nazareth as the cradle or birthplace of Jesus . It seems that at first glance it fits better with the story and with the frequency with which his countrymen called Jesus, the "Nazarene".

This is the theory supported by most scholars today, including Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his book " The Childhood of Jesus , " where he relies on Nazareth as the birthplace, and excludes Bethlehem . The Fourth Gospel of John also assumes that Jesus came from Nazareth.

Mark, the most reliable, having written 15 to 20 years after the events, supposes that Jesus was born in Nazareth. He tells this at the beginning of his book (chapter 1, 9-11) as soon as he begins to tell the beginning of his public life, when he relates his baptism : "He came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the river Jordan. And he does not mention any other city of origin apart from this one. And later, when Jesus goes to Nazareth, he notes that "he went to his own country". In the Greek language, in which the Gospels are written, " patris " means " native land ", "birthplace". Jesus himself confirms this when, faced with the scandal of his teachings in Nazareth, he exclaims: "A prophet is not despised except in his own country, among his relatives and in his own house. Which is to say: "No one is a prophet in his own country", and which comes from this Gospel site.

It is curious that in the New Testament everyone calls him "Jesus of Nazareth", or the Nazarene: the demon in Capernaum , the servant of the High Priest, the angel at the tomb who announces the resurrection... and even the evangelist himself likes to call him by this "nickname", the one that was most heard and most widespread in the early years and with which he was clearly identified, for better and for worse, as we will see later.

Jean's opinion.

The Gospel of John was written over a hundred years later, while he was exiled on the island of Patmos, far from the scene of the events in time and space, and yet it echoes the bad press that still persisted in the lands of Galilee, and therefore of Nazareth, the birthplace of Jesus . Nevertheless, it does not hesitate to report that the Master came from there: Jn 7:40-42 : "Then many people, having heard this saying, said: This is truly the prophet. Others said: "This is the Christ. But some said: "The Christ will come from Galilee". Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from the seed of David and from the village of Bethlehem, where David was from?

The adventures encountered by the apostles in announcing the news

For over 1900 years, Bethlehem has remained the place where Jesus was born. However, research in the last century has shown that because of the frequency with which it is referred to throughout the New Testament as "the Nazarene " (that of Nazareth), Bethlehem has been discarded and the idea of Nazareth prevails instead. The mention of Bethlehem, as we have seen, is an invention of the first two evangelists to clothe Jesus with one of the characteristics of importance and solvency of a Messiah, announced by Micah and whose fulfillment the Jews eagerly awaited in order to be freed from invading peoples, from the Babylonians to the Romans. His prophecy became famous, and by the time of Jesus, a large sector of Judaism expected the future Messiah to be born in the city of Bethlehem. And when this was not the case, they were disappointed. They are still waiting for the coming of this Messiah.

This is one of the reasons why the apostles had so much trouble proclaiming the new religion. When the apostles went out to proclaim the teachings they had received, they had difficulties in many Jewish circles, because the disciples said that Jesus was from Nazareth . And this is why some Christian communities decided to present the birth of Jesus as having taken place in Bethlehem .

The day and birth of Jesus

December 25 is a conventional date, established by the Church in the early 4th century to coincide with the pagan festivals of Mithras or the Unconquered Sun. According to Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born in the time of King Herod, shortly before his death in 4 BC. That is, Jesus was born before the Christian era , whose bad beginning was established about six years later. There is therefore a difference in our calendar regarding the number of years .

The day of his birth is not really known, and it is never mentioned in the Gospels. It is known that the Church adapted the ancient pagan festivals of rural culture to the time cycles, and welcomed the celebrations of the Roman gods, giving them a sacred motivation. It thus attributes to the winter solstice (December 20-25) the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, who brought "light" into the world. This date, close to the ancestral celebrations of winter, fell towards the last days of the year already in the time of the Persians in honor of the god Mithras. The Romans celebrated festivals dedicated to the sun, or those of Saturnalia in honor of Sarturno, god of fertility and wine, whose designated day was December 25 to celebrate the birth of the unconquered sun, which was established in the 4th century by the emperor Constantine, son of a Christian mother , when he was victorious, by the miracle of the cross in the sky ("with this sign you will win"), in the battle against the Magencio.

December 25th is therefore a conventional date, established by the Church at the beginning of the 4th century to coincide with the pagan festivals of Mithras or the Unconquered Sun. From the year 315, when Constantine declared Christianity official, the first Christian symbols began to appear on coins. It is probably at this time that the transition and the institutions of the feast of Christmas , on December 25, took place. The message of the cross in Constantine's famous vision, by which he legalized Christianity, signified the predominance of Christ over the Sun: Christ is the true and powerful God. The new sun. ☀️ 🙏

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by At the Center of Prayer 🙏🏼 (@croix_chretiennes_com)

Jesus Christ: the mystery of the century

As you will have understood, Jesus was born in Nazareth and spent his entire life teaching the word of God and above all sacrificed himself for men as he previously announced. Even if there is a lot of mystery surrounding his life in secret, his death and his resurrection, we can still say that we now have enough elements that can allow us to dissect all the notions surrounding the life and teachings of Jesus. Similarly, it would be appropriate for theologians to increase research to bring clarity to all the concerns of the Christians that we are.