Flight Report

Matthew 2:13

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him."

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Getting a bachelor's degree in Religious Studies from a public university has had its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, I've been given a glimpse into a method of biblical interpretation that has raised important questions and often provided reasonable answers. My credibility as a Christian, I hope, has increased because of my familiarity with higher criticism, source criticism, etc. On the other hand, because of my experiences in the classroom (studying the New Testament under a Jewish professor, for instance) I have had to face subjects like Matthew's Infancy narrative and scratch my head a little bit.

Critics of "biblical inerrancy" often misunderstand what is being claimed by those who deny any errors in Scripture. If I believe that Matthew 2 is absolutely without error (in the original Greek), then it is claimed that I am blind to the authorial restructuring and the obvious literary retooling that the author engaged in to make his theological point (that Jesus is the new Moses, fulfilling prophecy and ushering in Messiah's kingdom). The misunderstanding is located in this obviously ridiculous premise: that historically inerrant texts must be disorganized, devoid of the author's personality, and have no interest in theological agendas. Sounds like the (impossible) constraints of historical objectivity being forced upon the written text.

The two most contested issues in Matthew 2 are the "Flight to Egypt" and the "Massacre of the Innocents." The historicity of the first (2:13-15) is questioned for its apparently "forced" parallel with the nation of Israel, orchestrated by Matthew in order to fulfill the Hosea prophecy. There is also the dilemma of this account being completely absent from Luke's version of the infancy narrative. The historicity of the second (2:16-18) is also questioned due to the claim that such an important event surely would have been recorded somewhere outside the Bible, though no such evidence has ever been found.

These objections have answers: the journey of one ancient family and the infanticide of one very small village were probably too insignificant to be noticed by contemporary historians like Josephus. As mentioned earlier, the "forced" parallel to Old Testament prophecy does reflect a theological agenda, but this does not necessitate it being historically false or untrustworthy. In fact, what we do know about the times (i.e. Herod's notoriety as a violently unstable ruler) seems to corroborate the biblical account.

Perhaps what is more important than these specific questions is the more fundamental issue of authority: Where do we get our basis for discerning Truth? The Bible itself claims to be such a basis for finding Truth. Modern interpretative methods, like academic higher criticism, certainly do not. Our finite historical knowledge, though substantial, must always submit to the final authority of God's infinite knowledge, which has been unchangeably revealed in Scripture.