The Birth of Jesus: The Bible Story Explained

Most people know the birth of Jesus from cards, carols and school plays. The Bible tells it differently, and in more detail. Two writers tell the story, Luke and Matthew, and each one tells a different half. This guide puts the birth of Jesus, the Bible story, in order, explains the names and places, and shows you where the cards and the text do not match.

You do not need to know anything about the Bible to read this. Every name is explained when it first appears.

Two writers, two beginnings

The Bible has four accounts of the life of Jesus. They are called Gospels, a word that means "good news". Only two of them describe his birth. Mark begins with Jesus as a grown man at the river Jordan. John begins before the world was made. Luke and Matthew begin with a baby.

Here is the surprising part. Luke and Matthew do not tell the same events. They agree on the main facts: Mary was a young woman engaged to a man named Joseph, her child was born in Bethlehem, and he was given the name Jesus. After that, each writer chooses different scenes.

Luke tells the story mostly through Mary, Elizabeth, the shepherds, Simeon and Anna. These are ordinary and humble people. Luke is the only writer who gives us the manger.
Matthew tells the story mostly through Joseph, the wise men and King Herod. He is the only writer who gives us the star and the escape to Egypt.

Many Christmas scenes mix the two. A stable with shepherds and wise men standing together is a picture made by joining two different accounts. Neither writer puts them in the same place. Reading each account on its own is the quickest way to understand it.

Luke: the priest, the angel and two mothers

Luke starts earlier than the manger. He begins with a priest named Zechariah, who serves in the temple in Jerusalem. The temple was the one place where Jewish people offered sacrifices to God. Priests took turns to serve there, and the job of burning incense inside the holy place was given to one man by lot. Zechariah was chosen that day. He was old, and he and his wife Elizabeth had no children.

An angel appears and tells Zechariah that Elizabeth will have a son, who is to be named John. Zechariah doubts it, and the angel says he will be unable to speak until the child is born. The reason, and what it means, is a story of its own: see why Zechariah was struck mute.

This child grows up to be John the Baptist, the man who later baptizes Jesus. Luke wants you to see from the start that the two families are linked. Elizabeth and Mary are relatives.

The angel comes to Nazareth

In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, the same angel, Gabriel, goes to a town in Galilee called Nazareth. Galilee is the northern region of the land, and Nazareth was a small place far from the capital. Gabriel speaks to Mary, a young woman engaged to Joseph, who was descended from King David.

King David lived about a thousand years before this. The Jewish people believed God had promised that a descendant of David would one day rule forever. That is why the family line matters in both accounts. Gabriel tells Mary she will have a son, that she is to call him Jesus, and that he will be given the throne of David. Mary asks how this can be, since she is not yet married. Gabriel answers that the Holy Spirit will come on her. Christians call this the virgin birth. Mary replies with a short sentence of trust: let it be to her as the angel has said.

Mary visits Elizabeth

Mary travels to the hill country of Judea to see Elizabeth. When she greets her, Elizabeth feels her own child move and speaks a blessing over Mary. Mary answers with a song that Christians have sung for many centuries. It is called the Magnificat, from the first word of its Latin version. You can read what it says and why it matters in what the Magnificat is. It is a song about God lifting up the poor and bringing down the proud, sung by a young woman from a small town.

John is born. Zechariah writes on a tablet that the boy's name is John, and at that moment he can speak again. He praises God.

Luke: the manger, the shepherds and the temple

Now comes the part everyone knows. Luke opens chapter 2 by placing the birth in the wider world. The Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, orders a census, a count of the people, for the whole empire. Everyone must go to their family's home town to be registered.

Joseph belongs to the house of David, so he travels from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the town of David, some days' walk to the south. Mary goes with him. She is pregnant. While they are there, she gives birth to her first son, wraps him in cloths and lays him in a manger. A manger is a feeding trough for animals.

Luke says there was no room for them in "the inn". The word he uses is also used elsewhere in the Gospels for a guest room in a house. In many homes of that time, animals were kept at one end of the main room at night, and a family with a guest could be crowded. Some readers picture a hotel with a hard-hearted keeper. The text is quieter than that. It only says the guest space was full and the baby was laid where animals ate. Luke does not mention a stable, a donkey, or a cave.

The shepherds

The first people to hear the news are shepherds, working in the fields at night. Shepherds were poor workers, not important people. An angel appears, and the glory of the Lord shines around them, and they are terrified. The angel tells them not to be afraid: a Savior has been born in the town of David, and the sign is a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Then many angels appear and praise God. The shepherds go to Bethlehem, find the child as the angel said, and tell everyone what they were told. Mary keeps these things in her heart.

Eight days and forty days

Luke then gives two short scenes that readers often skip. On the eighth day the child is circumcised and named Jesus, as the angel had said. This follows the law of Moses, which Joseph and Mary keep. About forty days after the birth, they take him to the temple in Jerusalem, because the law asked a mother to make an offering after a birth. Luke says they gave a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. That was the offering allowed for families who could not afford a lamb. It tells you something about the family's money.

Simeon and Anna

In the temple they meet two older people. Simeon is a righteous man who has been told he will not die before he sees the one God promised to send. He takes the baby in his arms and thanks God. He also tells Mary something hard: a sword will pierce her own soul. Joy and sorrow are in the same blessing.

Anna is a prophet, a widow who is very old and never leaves the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer. She thanks God and speaks about the child to everyone waiting for Jerusalem to be set free.

Luke ends the birth account with one more scene. When Jesus is twelve, the family goes to Jerusalem for Passover, and he stays behind in the temple. His parents search for three days and find him asking questions among the teachers. This is the only scene of his childhood in all four Gospels.

Matthew: Joseph, the star and the flight to Egypt

Matthew starts with a list of names. It is a family tree, and it opens his Gospel. It traces Jesus back through David to Abraham. To a first reader, this was not boring. It was an answer to the question "Who is this child, and why does he matter?" Matthew is telling a Jewish audience that Jesus belongs to the line God had promised.

After the list, Matthew tells the story from Joseph's side. Joseph is engaged to Mary and learns she is pregnant. He plans to end the engagement quietly, because he does not want to shame her. In a dream, an angel tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because the child is from the Holy Spirit. He is to name the boy Jesus, which means "the Lord saves". Matthew adds that this fulfils a promise given long before through the prophet Isaiah, about a child called Immanuel, "God with us". Joseph wakes up and does what the angel said.

The wise men

Then Matthew tells of visitors from the east. He calls them magi. The word describes learned men who studied the stars. Matthew does not say they were kings. He does not say there were three. He names three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Frankincense and myrrh are fragrant resins, used in worship and burial. The question of their number is explained in how many wise men there were.

The magi arrive in Jerusalem and ask where the child born king of the Jews is, because they saw his star rising. King Herod hears this and is frightened. Herod was the ruler the Romans had set over the region, and he was known for guarding his throne with violence. He asks the priests and scholars where the Messiah, the promised king, is to be born. They answer from the prophet Micah: Bethlehem.

Herod sends the magi there and asks them to report back. The star goes ahead of them and stops over the place. They find the child with Mary, bow down and give their gifts. Matthew says they came to a house, not a stable, and he calls Jesus a young child by then. They are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and they go home another way.

The flight to Egypt

An angel warns Joseph in another dream to take the child and his mother to Egypt, because Herod wants to kill him. They leave at night. Herod, enraged, orders the killing of the baby boys in and around Bethlehem who are two years old and under. Matthew links this grief to words from the prophet Jeremiah about Rachel weeping for her children.

After Herod dies, the angel appears a third time and tells Joseph it is safe to return. Joseph is afraid to go back to Judea, where Herod's son rules, so the family settles in Nazareth in Galilee. That is how a child born in Bethlehem comes to be known as Jesus of Nazareth.

John: a beginning before Bethlehem

John gives no manger, no star and no shepherds. He begins his Gospel with one of the most famous passages in the Bible. "In the beginning was the Word," he writes, and then says the Word was with God and was God, and that the Word became flesh and lived among us.

For John, the birth of Jesus is the moment when God entered human life. He does not tell the story of one night in Bethlehem. He tells what that night meant. Greek readers knew the word "Word" as a name for the reason behind all things, and Jewish readers heard in it God speaking the world into being in the first chapter of Genesis. A full reading of the passage is in what "In the beginning was the Word" means.

John also tells of Jesus' first public sign, at a wedding in Cana, long after the birth. That story shows what kind of life began in Bethlehem. See why Jesus turned water into wine.

Names, places and customs in the story

A short reference for words that can trip up a first reader.

Messiah and Christ mean the same thing: "the anointed one", a king chosen by God. Messiah is Hebrew and Christ is Greek.
Bethlehem is a small town in Judea, near Jerusalem. It was known as David's town.
Nazareth is a village in Galilee, far to the north. In Luke, it is where Mary and Joseph live before the census.
Jerusalem is the capital, where the temple stood.
Herod is the king in Matthew's story. He ruled under Roman permission.
The census is the registration Luke describes. Luke names the governor of Syria in connection with it, and historians discuss how to match this with other records. A fair reader can say that the date is debated while the story's main point is clear.
Manger is a feeding trough for animals, not a bed made for a child.
Magi are learned men from the east. The text gives no names, no number and no crowns.

Common mistakes readers make

Some of what people "know" about the birth of Jesus comes from tradition rather than the text. None of these points is a reason to stop singing the carols. They are only a way to read the Gospels as they are written.

Putting the shepherds and the wise men together. In Luke the shepherds come on the night of the birth. In Matthew the magi arrive later, to a house.
Saying there were three kings. Matthew says magi, and names three gifts. He never gives their number.
Picturing a stable with an unkind innkeeper. Luke has no innkeeper and does not use the word stable.
Fixing a date for the birth. No Gospel gives a day or a month. The date used by churches was set later, and how that happened is debated.
Reading Luke and Matthew as one story. They are two accounts with different scenes and different aims. Where they differ, a careful reader notes it and keeps reading.
Skipping the family tree. Matthew's list is the answer to "why Bethlehem, why David?" It rewards a second look.

Christian traditions read some details differently, such as the role of Mary or how to fit the two accounts together. A good reader can say where churches differ without choosing a side.

Questions people ask

Where does the Bible tell the birth of Jesus?

It is told in the first two chapters of Luke and the first two chapters of Matthew. John 1 describes the meaning of the birth without the events. Mark has no birth story.

Was Jesus born in a stable?

Luke says Mary laid the baby in a manger and that there was no room in the guest space. He does not say stable. The picture of a stable comes from later tradition, based on the manger.

Who were the wise men?

Matthew calls them magi from the east, men who studied the stars. He does not say they were kings, and he does not give their names or number. They come after the birth and find the child in a house.

Why did Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem?

According to Luke, a census ordered by the Roman emperor required each person to register in their family's home town. Joseph was from the house of David, whose home town was Bethlehem.

Why did the family go to Egypt?

According to Matthew, an angel warned Joseph in a dream that Herod wanted to kill the child. The family went to Egypt and stayed until Herod died.

Learn this passage in five minutes

The track "Born in the City of David" follows Luke's account in five short lessons: the manger, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna and the boy in the temple. Each lesson reads one passage, explains the world around it and ends with three things to remember.