<\/p>\n
Nativity scenes usually depict the wise men kneeling before Jesus as He lies in His manger bed. Shepherds surround the family with gifts of lambs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because Herod killed baby boys two years of age and under, we assume Jesus was close to two years old at the appearance of the Magi. Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple when he was forty days old to dedicate Him to the Lord according to the Law of Moses. After this was accomplished, they went home to Nazareth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth<\/em>. (Luke 2:39)<\/p>\n For the wise men to have visited Jesus in Bethlehem, they had to be there when He was a month old or less. Matthew 2:11 tells us they saw the child in a house.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s assumed Mary faced a scandal due to her pregnancy. Different words are used in various translations for the state of Mary and Joseph\u2019s relationship, such as espoused or betrothed. But these words meant something different in biblical times than what we think about an engagement. In our day, engagements can be broken, but betrothals were binding agreements. Betrothed couples were considered married; they just didn\u2019t live together for a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The verses in Matthew tell us that when Joseph found out about Mary\u2019s condition, he thought about divorcing her. You don\u2019t get a divorce unless you are married. The King James Version states, \u201cput her away.\u201d One of the definitions of Strong\u2019s G630 is to release from bonds, to divorce<\/em>.<\/p>\n Then Joseph, her husband<\/strong>, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.<\/em> (Matthew 1:19 KJV, emphasis mine)<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know the time that Gabriel appeared to Mary with the news of Jesus\u2019 impending birth. The message could have come to her shortly before she and Joseph would have finalized their marriage agreement by living together. In this way, the public would assume Joseph was the father of her baby (John 6:42). Before Jesus\u2019 birth, they went to Bethlehem to obey Caesar\u2019s edict. The sequence of events could have prevented the scandal usually associated with Mary\u2019s condition. Since Mary and Joseph\u2019s betrothal contract meant they were married, she was not an unwed mother.<\/p>\n Photo Credit: \u00a9Unsplash\/Alasdair Elmes\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nativity scenes usually depict the wise men kneeling before Jesus as He lies in His manger bed. Shepherds surround the family with gifts of lambs.\u00a0 Because Herod killed baby boys two years of age and under, we assume Jesus was close to two years old at the appearance of the Magi. Mary and Joseph took<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1095,3153,45,813,488,3152],"class_list":{"0":"post-11991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-arent","9":"tag-beliefs","10":"tag-bible","11":"tag-christmas","12":"tag-study","13":"tag-traditional"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}10. Mary was an unwed mother.<\/h2>\n