From a Post at BSA’s Bible Nerds Group by James DeFrancisco
In view of the Q hypothesis as well as Mark not having birth stories for Jesus it is suspected that the birth stories may have been added to Matthew and Luke after the original (whatever that means) gospels were written. This is supported by the problem of Isaiah 7:14 being brought into the picture with a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “almah” (young woman) as a virgin to comply with (midrash) in Matthew 1:23. The use of Isaiah 7 is in conflict with the Jewish view and Hebrew grammar. The virgin birth narrative is further complicated by the absence of a birth story in John.
Here is an article supporting the view that birth stories were added to both Matthew and Luke > https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/179agzp/how_could_matthew_and_luke_invent_the_birth_story/ Bart deals with Luke in his blog at > https://ehrmanblog.org/is-there-evidence-that-luke-originally-did-not-have-the-story-of-jesus-birth/
Here is a more detailed article relying heavily on the work of David Friedrich Strauss and Raymond E. Brown giving a much more thorough analysis > https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/lukes-nativity-story-critically-examined/ Does anyone have any further information or evidence on whether the birth narratives were added and, if so, by whom and when?
Matthew’s Nativity Story, Critically Examined – by Paul Davidson
From Luke’s Nativity Story, Critically Examined – An excellent article dated January 3, 2016 by Paul Davidson with much more than the extracted title, intro, and table below.
From Reddit sub AcademicBiblical – https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/179agzp/how_could_matthew_and_luke_invent_the_birth_story/?rdt=64605
How could Matthew and Luke invent the birth story of Jesus when there were still people in the first Christian communities who were related to Jesus or had known Jesus, Mary or his relatives personally?
Response by Naugrith
Your question begs several questions. First, you’re assuming the birth narratives were present in the same Christian communities that these eyewitnesses were located. This is certainly not a given. We don’t know exactly when the birth narratives were written or their vectors and timeframes of distribution. Neither do we know where the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ childhood ended up, or for how long.
Indeed, there is strong evidence (see BeDuhn, The First New Testament), that there were still major widespread communities in the Roman world who had no access to, or knowledge of the four canonical gospels even by approx 150 CE and later. Marcion and his communities only had the Evangelion, a version of Luke that was actually missing the birth narrative completely. Obviously by then anyone who had seen Jesus’ birth or even had known his family was long dead.
Indeed none of the epistles by Paul or others have any knowledge of any special birth events associated with Jesus, and neither does Mark, John, or anything in Luke and Matthew after the first two chapters. Nothing in the main part of those books refers back to anything in those chapters, or shows any awareness of it. And neither Luke or Matthew’s accounts have any knowledge of the traditions of the other, each being entirely independent and contradictory.
I consider it pretty likely that the birth narratives were added to the gospels later, in the mid-2nd century or later, many generations after all eyewitnesses (and even anyone who had spoken to any eyewitnesses) had long since departed. We know various other birth and childhood legends were being written around then (e.g. the Protoevangelion of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas), which also enjoyed wide popularity, so this kind of “pious speculation” was pretty common.
