Did Matthew really believe that baby Jesus was never circumcised?

First, here is a table of similarities between Matthew’s and Luke birth narratives.

Details in Common in Matthew’s and Luke’s Birth Narratives
1	His birth is placed during the reign of Herod (Luke 1:5; Matt. 2:1)
2	His father’s name is Joseph, and his mother’s name is Mary (Luke 1:26; Matt. 1:18)
3	Mary, mother to be, is a virgin betrothed to Joseph, but they do not yet live together (Luke 1:27, 34; 2:5; Matt. 1:18)
4	Jesus fulfills prophecies, whether by direct quotations or by OT patterns (Luke 1:31 and Is. 7:14; Luke 1:32 and Is. 9:6-7, 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Luke 1:37 and Gen. 18:14; Matt. 1:23 and Is. 7:14, 8:8; Matt. 2:2 and Num. 24:17; Matt. 2:6 and Mic. 5:2; 2:11 and Is. 60:6; Matt. 2:15 and Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:18 and Jer. 31:15; 2:23 and Is. 11:1)
5	Joseph is of the house of David (Luke 1:27; 2:4; Matt. 1:16, 20)
6	An angel from heaven announces the coming birth of Jesus (Luke 1:28-30; Matt. 1:20-21)
7	Angels in dreams and visitations direct the events and instruct Joseph and Mary (Luke 1:26-38; 2:13-14; Matt. 1:20-24; 2:13, 19)
8	Jesus is recognized to be a son of David (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20)
9	His conception is to take place through the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20)
10	Joseph is not involved in the conception (Luke 1:34; Matt. 1:18-25)
11	The name “Jesus” is imposed by heaven prior to his birth (Luke 1:31; Matt. 1:21)
12	The angel identifies Jesus as “Savior” (Luke 2:11; Matt. 1:21)
13	Jesus is born after Mary and Joseph come to live together (Luke 2:4-7; Matt. 1:24-25)
14	Jesus is born at Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-7; Matt. 2:1)
15	New family has visitors: shepherds (Luke 2:15-20) and wise men (Matt. 2:10-11)
16	Wise men visit the family in a house (Matt. 2:11), but shepherds see him in part of the house where animals were stabled (Luke 2:16)
17	Jesus settles, with Mary and Joseph, in Nazareth in Galilee (Luke 2:29, 51; Matt. 2:22-23)
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ. The Gospel according to Luke, I-IX. Vol. 28. The Anchor Bible. (Doubleday, 1981), p. 307, modified, adding five rows.

There are differences as well. One such difference is that Luke talks about Jesus getting circumcised, while Matthew has Joseph and Mary and the baby getting out of Bethlehem in a hurry, and going down to Egypt. They don’t seem to have time for a circumcision.

My reply is straightforward. The authors of biblical narratives compress their accounts or expand them. This is done throughout the Old Testament. Consider the parallel passages in 1 Samuel all the way to 2 Chronicles. The authors gave themselves permission to stretch out or contract their stories. The writers had different purposes. To me, it is obvious that Matthew compressed his account.

Differences in Gospel Parallels = Differences in OT Parallels

During the census when people had to find their place of birth (Luke 2:1-6), people moved around, and towns had visitors in them, particularly in the capital, Jerusalem. It was crowded. The small family could hide in the crowd. I believe Joseph and Mary were devout and followed the law, so Jesus was circumcised.

[…] Joseph her husband was faithful to the law (Matt. 1:19).

²² When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” (Luke 2:22-24, NIV)

I believe that Matthew himself, one of Jesus’s disciples (yes, I take Matthean authorship seriously), personally knew that Jesus had been circumcised, since they spent three (or more) years together. It would be inconceivable that Jesus, who fits into Abraham’s descendants–Jesus being the most prominent one of all–would not be circumcised (Gen. 17). This non-circumcision would exclude him from his rightful place as Abraham’s descendant. Matthew includes his genealogy in the opening to his Gospel, and Luke does this in his Chapter 3. None of his religious opponents, who knew the law of Moses very well and God’s command to Israel, accused him of not being circumcised.

Matthew decided to omit the Family’s stopover in Jerusalem after Mary’s purification, where the family met Simeon and Anna at the temple precinct (Luke 2). But it is a sure thing that they hid out in Jerusalem or in a nearby town, like Bethany.

Childbirth, Bodily Discharges in Leviticus 12, 15 from a NT Perspective

This is a realistic proposal, based on the biblical evidence itself and the ancient covenant with Abraham.

An account having information, while another account covering the same broad topic does not have the same information in the details, do not add up to a contradiction. A difference, yes, but not a contradiction, particularly when the differences can possibly be reconciled.

Equations:

Information in one account + Silence in another account ≠ Contradiction

Boiled down:

Information + Silence ≠ A Contradiction

But

Information + Silence = A Difference

Or

Information + An omission = A Difference

A Difference ≠ A Contradiction ≠ an Error

Differences are guided by the purpose of the biblical authors. Or we may not know why an author omits or includes bits of information. Whatever the case, we should not get panicky about them or deny the truthfulness of the accounts. This mindset is too fussy and demanding, not recognizing the texts as they present themselves. We unwisely impose our modern concerns on them.

I’m happy the Gutenberg Printing Press wasn’t invented until the mid 1400s. Now we can breathe the air of these oral stories being transmitted and eventually written down. To me, these differences seem authentic and follow biblical precedence in the OT. The Synoptic writers did not intend to copy each other verbatim in every verse. They went their own way.

Application and Recommendations

And so, our faith in God and his written word should not be brittle. It should not break when these differences emerge. Call it the dramatist’s art. All four biblical writers took small liberties to tell their stories, their own way.

Please relax a lot more about this. Don’t get stuck into a groove laid down by hyper-inerrantists, who nervously force all the small details to fit together. Keep the plain thing the main thing. The plain thing is those commonalities in the table: Virgin birth, his name Jesus, he is the Savior, and God is orchestrating the birth of his Son, and so on.

Recommendations

My view of Scripture: It’s very high, but I don’t believe in “total inerrancy” or “hyper-inerrancy”:

‘Total’ Inerrancy and Infallibility or Just Infallibility?

Begin a series on the reliability of the Gospels. Start with the Conclusion which has quick summaries and links back to the other parts:

15.. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Conclusion

The Gospels have a massive number of agreements in their storylines:

14.. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels

See this part in the series that puts differences in perspective:

13..  Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?

But the bigger picture is, as noted, to not allow your faith to become so brittle that it snaps in two because of these puzzles and differences. It’s time to stop demanding no discrepancies or else you will leave the Christian faith.

Bottom line: in my opinion, there are no contradictions in the two synoptic Gospels covering the birth narratives–just differences.

We should focus on and celebrate the similarities in the table and the differences not included in it.

RELATED

Reconciling Matthew’s and Luke’s Genealogies: Mission: Impossible?

Luke’s Birth Narrative: Pagan Myth or Sacred Story?

SOURCES

For the bibliographies, please click on these links and scroll down to the bottom:

Matthew 1

Luke 1