Luke's History Mary's Story

ADVENT and time to think about the Xmas Story.
and yes links to the influence of Greek literature

So how do I explain the differences between Matthew and Luke's versions of the Xmas Events.

Matthew's descriptions suggest stories he heard from people who were in Jerusalem at the end.
He talks about the visit to Herod's court of the 3 Magi and the disturbances that caused.

Luke however ...

Luke seems to be influenced by reading Greek History.

He starts with a prologue declaring his method and intents like a Greek History writer however he needs his readers apart from Theophilos will include Hellenized Jews so he includes a genealogy like Matthew and emphasizes Mary's links to Priestly families before he gets to the Birth.

Unlike a certain Christmas carol Lukes says PLACE NOT ROOM in the inn and focuses on the Shepherds and I do wonder could he have had a relative working as a scribe or some kind of official  in Bethelhem who was an eyewitness or interviewed the shepherds?

We also have verification of a later tradition that Luke had some kind of connection to Mary.

Luke 2:19 says that Mary .."all she remembered the events these thinking about them in her heart

suneteerei and sumballoo are the verbs.

If you're teaching Greek here's a great opportunity to show how adding sun as a prefix changes the meaning of a verb!

So Mary thought about what happened and how to tell the story later.

We have Mary's version  but also someone apparently talked to the innkeeper and the shepherds hence Luke's saying he used eyewitnesses.

Your choice if you think its all fiction but what a story!

A Hellenic timeline

A Hellenic Timeline with some terminology explained

Palaeolithic means Ancient Stone an era when the population of Greece was sparse.

Mesolithic is the following Middle Stone Age

The Neolithic era in Greece when farming begun runs from 6700 -3200 with the first farming settlements appearing in Thessaly and later in the South.

Early Neolithic 6700 – 5800

Middle Neolithic 5800 – 5300

Late Neolithic 5300 – 4500

Final Neolithic 4500 – 3200

The Preclassical Minoan cultures of Crete are described as

Prepalatial Protopalatial Neopalatial Final Palatial and Post Palatial followed by the SubMinoan era.

There are also further subcategories.

The Bronze Age of Greece and the Aegean is split into three areas

HELLADIC (Mainland Greece) MINOAN (Crete) CYCLADIC (the Aegean islands)

with Helladic being split into

Early 3200 -2200 Middle 2100 – 1800 and Late or Mycenaean 1800 -1200

followed by the Sub Mycenaean / Minoan era and then the IRON AGE

Protogeometric 1050 -900

Early Geometric 900 – 850

Middle Geometric 850 – 760

Late Geometric 760 – 700

then there is the ARCHAIC 700 – 480

The Persian Invasion is the starting point of the Classical era 480 – 323

The Hellenistic 323 – 146 is the age of Alexander's successors up to the time the Romans took control of Greece. Some scholars treat the Hellenistic as overlapping with Republican and Imperial Rome.

Now you have a basic timeline to copy share and discuss or modify by adding more data.