Four Source Hypothesis
1st source: Mark - believed to be the first gospel written (7% unique; 93% common)
2nd source: Q - Quelle meaning source (in German) = material found in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark - a hypothetical document that doesn’t exist today and may never have existed. But many scholars hypothesize that Matthew and Luke had access to a collection of sayings about Jesus.
3rd source - Matthew (42% unique; 58% common)
4th source - Luke (59 percent exclusive to Luke, 41% common)
“The New Testament begins with four Gospels, four announcements of the good news that Jesus was born, taught, died for us, and was resurrected to sit at the right hand of the Father. Each is a testimony of Jesus’s mission and divinity written by a different author for a different audience and different purpose. There are “harmonies” of the Gospels, documents that show how to harmonize the events of Jesus’s ministry as each of the Gospels reports them. There is one in the LDS edition of the Bible. But I don’t refer to such harmonies because they treat the Gospels as histories and may encourage us to forget that they are fundamentally testimonies.” James Faulconer - The New Testament Made Harder
“If you wonder why some of our friends, particularly our Catholic friends revere Mary, there was never a greater woman in the history of the universe, Eve notwithstanding, than Mary of Nazareth. There was never a greater and more trusted servant of the Lord, all the prophets notwithstanding, than Joseph of Nazareth whom God the Father, would trust to raise His Son.”
Dr. Jeffrey Chadwick
Follow Him Podcast
December 2022
“Second, on no fewer than two occasions he received visitations from angels.
To be sure, the angels’ messages had to do with Mary’s coming child and the safety of the infant Jesus, both celestial concerns. But another source tells us that angels communicate with ‘the chosen vessels of the Lord' (Moroni 7:31). Joseph evidently fit into this category of 'chosen vessels.’”
S. Kent Brown
“Zacharias and Elisabeth, Joseph and Mary,”
The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ: From Bethlehem through the Sermon on the Mount
Edited by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Thomas Wayment
“I believe, that this disappearance of Jesus into childhood was not by chance but by heavenly design. There is something so important that occurs during these formative years that our Father in Heaven wanted His Son to experience it. In other words, it was important for Jesus to be not only the Son of God but also the child of Mary and Joseph.”
J. R. Kearl, “Christmas and Childhood,” in The Religious Educator 2,
no. 2 (2001):112.
“To me, what that whole story, going back to Joseph and Mary and the way, at least, that I understand the story being very different in tradition, not victims of circumstance, but anxiously engaged people coming to understand through revelation what they needed to do and being brave enough to go do it as a couple, what an example for every married couple, every young couple. Just go and do and serve and do what you need to do, but that's what life does to us. We'll do the best we can, and then something will broadside us through the intersection and change the direction of everything. Then, what do you have to do? Start over, and keep going. That, again, is the story of Joseph and Mary and Jesus. Start over and keep going.”
Dr. Jeffrey Chadwick
Follow Him Podcast, December 2022
“The shepherds needed to pay special close attention because these were shepherds that had to witness the birth of the firstborn and be able to verify that this sacrificial lamb was indeed the firstborn. And when we think about that, then how appropriate for God to call these shepherds, not just any shepherds, but these just and holy men, and there were probably women among them as well, to come and witness the birth of the firstborn of the father in the spirit. These were not ordinary shepherds, not ordinary shepherds at all.”
Bradley R. Wilcox
Follow Him Podcast
January 2023
The temple complex was colossal, almost a quarter of a mile in length. There the Spirit drew two aged souls, Simeon and Anna. The spiritual workings show the importance of witnesses who could counteract rumor and their potential damage.
Simeon was “just,” “devout,” and, according to Luke, “waiting for the consolation of Israel”—that is to say, for the coming of the Messiah. His expectation was sure because the Holy Ghost had revealed to him “that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.”
“Softening the blow of the latter part of Simeon’s blessing came the praise of the aged prophetess, Anna. Her words are not recorded but she shared her testimony when she “spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”
Richard Draper
“From the Annunciation Through the Young Adulthood of the Lord”
The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ: From Bethlehem through the Sermon on the Mount
pg. 141-143
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Thomas Wayment
Wise Men - Bible Dictionary
Matt. 2:1–12 states that wise men (how many is not recorded), guided by a new star, came to Bethlehem to worship Jesus sometime after His birth. Who these men were we are not told, but it is certain they were not ordinary men. That they were privileged to search out the Son of God and give Him gifts, and that they were spiritually sensitive and knowledgeable, suggests that they were actually prophets on a divine errand. The customary identification of them as astrologers is a gross misrepresentation. They evidently were holy men from a land east of Palestine.
Magi - Bible Dictionary
Called “wise men” (Matt. 2:1). Their identification is not made known in the scriptures, but it is certain that they were righteous men sent on an errand to witness the presence of the Son of God on the earth. Their spiritual capacity is evident: They saw the star, knew its meaning, brought gifts to the young child, and were warned of God in a dream to return to their home by a safe route. Their knowledge was precise and accurate. It seems likely that they were representatives of a branch of the Lord’s people from somewhere east of Palestine, who had come, led by the Spirit, to behold the Son of God and who returned to their people to bear witness that the king Immanuel had indeed been born in the flesh. We are not told how many wise men there were, but tradition usually speaks of three, because of the three gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense. If they were serving in the capacity of witnesses, there would of necessity have been two or three.
“For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.”
Leonardo DaVinci
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