The three canonical Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John are three praise biographies of Jesus Christ, written by three distinct authors at different times. Unlike the Gospel of Mark, these three Gospels offer limited information about the origin story of Jesus, either through an enumeration of his genealogy, a description of his birth narrative, or an introduction of his ethereal origins with a hymnic prologue. Though ultimately describing the same figure of Jesus, the three origin stories from Matthew, Luke, and John differ in both their content and style of writing.
The Gospel of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, listing the generations of Abraham to Christ in Matthew 1:1-17. Matthew structures this genealogy into three groups of fourteen generations, repeatedly using the expression “the father of”. The Gospel of Luke also mentions the genealogy of Jesus later on in Luke 3:23-38, listing the generations from Jesus to Adam, repeatedly using the expression “the son of”. Luke’s genealogy differs from Matthew’s in genealogy order, length, and names mentioned. For example, Matthew lists Jacob as Joseph’s father (Matthew 1:16) while Luke lists Heli as Joseph’s father (Luke 3:23). A possible explanation for these differences could be that Matthew traces Jesus’s legal ancestry to the throne of David while Luke traces Jesus’s biological ancestry to the line of David. This legal ancestry, which includes possible instances of levirate marriages (the brother of a deceased man marrying his brother’s widow), would account for the differences in names of fathers as there could have been more than one. Additionally, Matthew lists 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus while Luke lists 78 generations in reverse from Jesus to Adam.
A possible explanation for these differences could be explained by the intended audiences for these two writings. Based on the numerous listings of prophecies from Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Jeremiah found in Matthew (Matthew 1:23, 2:6, 2:15, 2:18 respectively), it is likely that Matthew was written for a Jewish audience, who would have been familiar with Old Testament prophecies. As a result, the genealogy in Matthew could be mentioning familiar Jewish figures (including women like Ruth and Rahab) to show that Jesus came from a notable, Jewish lineage. Furthermore, based on the explicit descriptions of Jewish laws in Luke (e.g. Luke 2:23), it is likely that Luke was written for those from a non-Jewish (Gentile) background, who were not familiar with Jewish customs. As a result, the genealogy in Luke would trace Jesus’s biological lineage to Adam to possibly show Gentiles that Jesus was an ordinary man like one of them.
The birth narratives between Matthew and Luke are also different with minor overlap. Matthew recounts the birth of Jesus Christ, the visit of the wise men, Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt, the Herodian Massacre, and Joseph and Mary’s return to Nazareth. In Luke, the descriptions of the birth narrative are much more detailed and extensive. For example, Luke’s Gospel includes a dedication to Theophilus, the foretelling of John the Baptist and Jesus’s birth, Mary’s song of praise to God, Zechariah’s prophecy, the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, the visit of the shepherds and angels, the presentation of Jesus at the temple, and a description of Jesus as a boy at the Jerusalem temple. Thus, Matthew records events not recorded in Luke while Luke records events not recorded in Matthew. In particular, the description of Jesus as a boy at the temple is unique to the book of Luke and not found in any of the other canonical Gospels.
Even in their recordings of similar events, Matthew and Luke’s Gospels contain differences. For example, Matthew and Luke both describe angelic visits before Jesus’s birth, but Matthew describes the visit of an angel to Joseph while Luke describes the visit of an angel (Gabriel) to Mary. These differences in content are likely due to differences in the author’s writing styles, personalities, and purposes for writing.
In the comparison of genealogies and birth narratives between Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of John has been left out. This is because there is no genealogy or birth narrative in the Gospel of John. Instead, John introduces the origin of Jesus with a majestic, hymnic prologue, which is unique among the Gospel writings. This prologue introduces many theological, spiritual themes such as the physical manifestation of the Word of God (John 1:14) and the “true light” (John 1:4-9). Though the name of Jesus Christ is not mentioned until John 1:17, it is likely understood that the “Word,” “life,” “light,” and “only Son” are all metaphors in reference to Jesus Christ because these titles are used to describe Jesus throughout John’s Gospel. Thus, the text, as commonly interpreted, appears to assert that Jesus (“the Word”) existed before time (“in the beginning”) with God, and was also God Himself. This Gospel is also unique among the Gospels because it is known to have been likely written the latest (around AD 90) toward the end of John the apostle’s life. As a result, this Gospel is likely John’s retrospective, spiritual interpretation of the events that took place during his lifetime regarding Jesus Christ.
With the understanding that the Gospel of Mark was written earliest among the four canonical gospels, there could be various possibilities why the origin-of-Jesus stories are included only in the later Gospels and not in Mark. Firstly, the genealogies and birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke might have been likely added or emphasized in order to validate the historicity of Jesus’s Jewish lineage and his fulfillment of various Messianic prophecies. For the early Christian communities who believed that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, including this information would strengthen their claim that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament for future readers. For example, the inclusion of Jesus’s genealogy from Adam in Luke shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of the first prophecy in Genesis 3:15 since Luke shows that Jesus is the offspring of Adam and Eve through the genealogy. Another example is the inclusion of Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt in Matthew 2:13-15. This text could have been added by early Christians to justify their claim that the prophecy in Hosea 11:1 (“Out of Egypt I called my son”) has a dual meaning, referring both to the Israelites and also to Jesus Christ.
Secondly, early Christian communities may have added these origin-of-Jesus stories in order to spiritualize Jesus’s origin, making him seem more godlike and supernatural. For instance, Matthew and Luke both seem to emphasize that Jesus’s conception was extraordinary. Matthew 1:18 says “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Additionally, Luke 1:35 says “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.’” The details of a divine birth would further encourage early Christians to follow Jesus Christ’s heavenly teachings. Ultimately, it is possible that early Christian communities and their interlocutors wanted to clearly portray Jesus as the fulfillment of various Messianic prophecies and highlight his divinity by including details of his origin decades after his death.
Apart from the birth narratives and Luke’s account of Jesus as a boy at the Jerusalem temple, there is no other information about Jesus’s childhood or teenage years in the Bible. However, centuries after Jesus’s death, non-canonical Gnostic writings like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas began to circulate within the early church, which offered an account of Jesus’s early childhood. In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is mainly depicted as a violent, petulant child who uses his spiritual powers frivolously, causing many people to fear him. For example, Thomas mentions how Jesus curses and kills a child who hits him in the shoulder while running, and in another instance, Jesus “withers” a child who messes with a pool of water that Jesus had collected. Though some of Jesus’ miracles in the Infancy Gospel are similar to his miracles in the New Testament Gospels (like Jesus’s resurrection of a child), most are not. Interestingly enough, the last section of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is nearly identical to Luke 2:41-52. This ending might have been concatenated to the narrative in an attempt to authenticate the Infancy Gospel of Thomas as a piece of canonical writing. Regardless, this Infancy Gospel was largely rejected as a collection of fanciful, speculative stories by the early church.
With so many details of Jesus’s childhood absent in earlier writings like the Gospel of Mark, it is understandable why the veracity of origin-of-Jesus stories in Matthew, Luke, John, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is highly contested.