'Tis the Season

Ah, Christmas. A time to give celebrate friends and family, love and generosity... and uh... something else. What was it again? Oh, I know! It's the perfect time to reflect upon the birth of Jesus—specifically, the remarkable number of problems with his birth narratives. In fact, there are so many that I'll only be giving a brief overview rather than going through them in detail.

The Contradictions
To any unbiased observer reading Matthew 1:18-2:23 and Luke 1:26-2:40, it's patently obvious that they're two completely different, incompatible stories of Jesus' birth. Here's a summary of the two versions:

Leaving aside the fact that the stories differ on almost every point, there are basically two direct contradictions. First, Matthew strongly implies that Mary and Joseph's hometown was Bethlehem, while Luke states that it was Nazareth. I went into this problem in more detail in a previous post. Second, Luke has them going directly from Bethlehem to Nazareth, while Matthew has Jesus' family fleeing from Bethlehem to Egypt. Errancy.org has more on this.

The Prophecies
The birth narratives deal with quite a few alleged prophecies of Jesus. The first is Micah 5:2, which predicts that a savior would come from Bethlehem. Since Jesus was thought to have grown up in Nazareth, Matthew and Luke came up with different, conflicting ways to resolve this difficulty. But Micah 5:2 is referring to a tribe, not a town, and said savior was also supposed to defeat the Assyrians.

The birth narratives feature a virgin birth due to a misinterpretation of Isaiah 7:14, which appears to say someone will be born of a virgin. But the word translated "virgin" is more likely to mean "young woman," and the prophecy was already supposed to be fulfilled by Isaiah 8:3-4. The same verse also prophesies that "they shall call his name Immanuel," but there's no indication that Jesus was ever actually called by that name.

The gospel of Matthew is particularly big on attempting to fulfill prophecies. Matthew 2:23 says that Jesus' upbringing in Nazareth fulfills a prophecy saying "he shall be called a Nazarene," but no such prophecy appears anywhere in the Old Testament. Matthew 2:15 explains the flight to Egypt as a fulfillment of Hosea 11, which says, "Out of Egypt I called my Son." Yet looking at the original context, we instead see...

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my Son. As they called them, so they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images."

Not only is it not a prophecy of Jesus, but it's not a prophecy at all.

Culture and History
I want to quickly cover a few more points. First, some argue that Herod's massacre of the Bethlehem newborns didn't happen because it wasn't recorded by the meticulous historian Josephus, who recorded myriad other atrocities of Herod. Apologists reply that Bethlehem was so small that this would have been a minor event that Josephus may not have felt was significant enough to write about. I don't have enough information to conclude who's right one way or the other.

Then there's the Census of Quirinius, which is a massive problem for inerrantists. Here's a summary from Richard Carrier:

The Gospel of Luke claims (2:1-2) that Jesus was born during a census that we know from the historian Josephus took place after Herod the Great died, and after his successor, Archelaus, was deposed. But Matthew claims (2:1-3) that Jesus was born when Herod the Great was still alive--possibly two years before he died (2:7-16). Other elements of their stories also contradict each other. Since Josephus precisely dates the census to 6 A.D. and Herod's death to 4 B.C., and the sequence is indisputable, Luke and Matthew contradict each other.

Finally, there's the Star of Bethlehem, which the Magi follow to Bethlehem. It's described as a real astronomical event—a star that rises in the east just as any star would—yet astronomers have not identified any event that matches its description, and it's unclear how a star could be situated directly above a particular building in a particular town. More importantly, the Magi's interpretation of the star is a form of astrology, which as Adam Lee points out is harshly condemned by the Bible. In fact, the very word "magos" literally means "astrologer." When the author of Matthew has a supposedly demonic power directing the Magi to worship Jesus, it's pretty clear that he's not on the same page as the rest of Christianity.

Conclusion
The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are completely different and contain at least two major direct contradictions. At least four alleged prophecies either are not prophecies at all or are not fulfilled by Jesus. And there are multiple details that conflict with history or even Christianity itself. The birth narratives alone are more than enough to show that the Bible cannot be the inerrant word of God.

The Suffering Servant

One of the most popular Old Testament passages that supposedly predicts the life and death of Jesus is the story of the suffering servant, found in Isaiah 52:13–53:12. Although Christians try to equate this servant with Jesus, this view holds no water upon closer inspection.

As it happens, this passage is actually the fourth of four "servant songs" that are found in the book of Isaiah. Most Jewish scholars believe that the servant referred to in each of the four songs represents the nation of Israel. This makes sense, because the Bible refers to Israel as God's servant numerous times, both in Isaiah and elsewhere. In fact, just a few chapters earlier in the third servant song, God explicitly says that the servant in question is Israel:

"And He said to me, 'You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.' " (Isaiah 49:3)

As far as I'm concerned, that should really be the end of the discussion. This article describes in detail how Isaiah 53 applies to Israel—I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but it's certainly worth a look. However, Christians insist on making things more complicated than they are. Here's a summary of the main parallels that Christians see between the fourth servant song and Jesus' situation:

• "He is despised and rejected by men" (v. 3)
• "He was wounded for our transgressions" (v. 5)
• "He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth" (v. 7)
• "He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth" (v. 9)
• "They made his grave with the wicked—but with the rich at his death" (v. 9)

This passage seems fairly impressive at first glance, but let's look at it more carefully. First, does the Bible really say that Jesus was "despised and rejected by men"? Quite the contrary: the gospels repeatedly make reference to Jesus' immense popularity; it's only a small group of Jewish leaders that plots to kill him. This verse would have applied to Jesus far better had it said, "He is loved and admired by men."

At this point it's important to understand who Jewish scholars understand to be speaking in this passage: the rulers of nations rivaling Israel. Now in verse 5, the NET Bible says that the Hebrew word min would be better translated as "because of" rather than "for," as it carries a connotation of causality. This subtly changes the meaning: instead of suffering on behalf of others' sin like the vicarious atonement attributed to Jesus, the servant is merely suffering as a result of that sin. In other words, Israel is suffering as a result of the sins of rival nations.

What about verse 7? Did Jesus really not say anything while being accused and punished? If one looks only at, say, Matthew 27:12-14, one might think so. But several other verses show that this is clearly incorrect: not only did Jesus supposedly say seven different things while on the cross, but he also talks extensively with his accusers. If the goal of Isaiah 53 was to predict the circumstances of Jesus' life, it's an undeniable failure. And speaking of inaccuracies, Isaiah 53:10 says the servant "shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days"—Jesus had no children and lived to the ripe old age of 33. Apologists respond by interpreting this metaphorically, but why do so here and not for the other verses, unless one is starting with the assumption that the passage refers to Jesus?

What about verse 9? Did Jesus really never lie or do anything violent? Actually, the gospel accounts have Jesus killing a fig tree, as well as overturning the money changers' tables and driving them out with a whip. Sure, he didn't exactly murder anyone, but these were still violent acts. As for lying, look at John 7:1-10: Jesus tells his brothers he isn't going to a feast, then secretly goes anyway. (While Jesus ostensibly says "I am not yet going up to this feast," the NU-Text comprising the oldest and most reliable manuscripts omits the "yet," suggesting that some scribe likely realized Jesus' lie and tried to cover it up.) And in John 18:19-21 Jesus tells the high priest that he always spoke openly about his doctrines and said nothing in secret, yet throughout the gospels Jesus repeatedly keeps his exalted status, his imminent death, his miracles and the meanings of his parables a secret from the public.

And does Jesus' burial in the tomb of the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea fulfill the latter half of verse 9? First we should note that Jesus wasn't buried with other rich people; he was buried in a tomb provided by a rich man. All too often people excitedly overlook such details when they think they've found a fulfillment. More importantly, I've been assuming that the gospels provide accurate historical accounts of Jesus. But we already know that they altered details of Jesus' life to fulfill prophecy: I've written previously about a contradiction that resulted when the writers of Matthew and Luke concocted different birth narratives to fit a prophecy in Micah 5:2. Since the New Testament writers believed Isaiah 53 to be a messianic prophecy (based on their repeated references to it), it's quite likely that Joseph of Arimathea is a character invented for the express purpose of fulfilling that prophecy.

Finally, there are a few other relevant mistranslations in Isaiah 53 which demonstrate that Israel is the servant and not Jesus. In verse 8, which includes, "for the transgressions of my people he was stricken," the Hebrew word lamo is actually a plural pronoun. So the verse should read, "for the transgressions of my [the Gentile kings'] people they [the Israelites] were stricken." And in verse 9, the word translated "death" is a plural noun. The servant has multiple deaths, indicating that he represents multiple people (i.e. the Israelites).

At this point it should be clear not only that the fourth servant song doesn't refer to Jesus, but that it couldn't possibly do so. The servant is explicitly said to be Israel in the third servant song, the plural is used in reference to him multiple times, and several details run completely counter to the gospel accounts of Jesus' life. It's not too surprising that this passage seems to refer to Jesus at first glance; given a sufficient amount of ambiguous text, bits and pieces can be found and twisted to support virtually any view. But after nearly 2,000 years of feeble argument, it's high time for Christians to concede that this is not a prediction of the life and death of Jesus.

The Bible for Skeptics

Many unbelievers think that the Bible is universally opposed to the use of evidence when it comes to religious matters. However, there are a few exceptions. Below I'll summarize three instances where biblical passages actually allow or even endorse the use of skepticism and empirical support.

In 1 Kings 18, Elijah conducts an experiment to determine whether Yahweh or Baal is the true God:

"And Elijah came to all the people, and said, 'How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him. ...Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.' " (1 Kings 18:20-24)

When nothing happens to Baal's altar, Elijah mocks Baal for his inaction. Then Yahweh sends down fire from heaven to consume the offering to affirm his status as supreme being. Finally, Baal's followers are captured and executed. I just love happy endings, don't you?

Then there are the tests that Gideon conducts to ensure that God will fight for them in Judges 6–7:

"So Gideon said to God, 'If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said— look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.' And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water. Then Gideon said to God, 'Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.' And God did so that night." (Judges 6:36-40)

I have to admire Gideon's diligence here. One test isn't enough to convince him that God is on his side; he requires two. The evidence is weak by modern standards, but in that superstition-addled culture this would have been a rare moment of clarity. Gideon goes on to defeat the Midianites and execute its two princes. (I'm beginning to sense a pattern with the endings of these Old Testament stories.)

Finally we have the standard for prophecy that God offers in Deuteronomy 18. How do we determine who is a real prophet and who is a fraud?:

"But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, 'How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?'— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him." (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

The standard that God gives via Moses is simple and 100% evidence-based. If the prophecy doesn't come true, the prophet is not of God—no exceptions. The false prophet must then be executed. (That's three for three!)

So what have we learned here? The message of these passages is pretty clear, though it may not be one that the writers originally intended: when it comes to god-related claims, what really matters is the evidence. If you call on your god to do something and nothing happens, that god is a false one worthy only of mockery. If you think your god wants you to do something, ask him to communicate in a substantive, verifiable way to confirm it. And if someone claims to be a divine prophet, they had better have a perfect track record of successful predictions to show for it.

How, then, could anyone fault atheists for their unbelief? If we test God and his representatives and they fail to measure up, our response is exactly the one that the Bible itself endorses—well, minus the capital punishment. It's perfectly acceptable to ask for an impressive, objective, physical demonstration of God's power. It's perfectly reasonable not to put stock in the prophets of the Bible when their prophecies fail. And it's perfectly fine to disbelieve in God (and based on Elijah's response, even mock him) since he makes no demonstrable impact on the world.

Now, one can also point to countless instances where the Bible takes exactly the opposite view: that faith without evidence is a virtue, and skepticism toward extraordinary claims is a vice. One verse decrees that we should completely trust God over our own understanding. Another even specifically says not to test God. It's not surprising that one can find both stances; all this demonstrates is that the Bible is not a particularly consistent or unified book. What I've shown here is that the Bible does endorse a skeptical viewpoint in a few isolated cases—and that's enough to show that God fails to meet his own standard of evidence.

JI: How Christianity Evolved (Part 1)

It would surprise many Christians to learn that the beliefs of the very early church were totally different than those of modern times. If a Baptist preacher could go back in time and interview Christians from around 50 CE, he would find their views on the afterlife or Jesus' relationship to God and Judaism to be not just unusual, but completely heretical. In the seventh chapter of JI, Ehrman covers how Christian doctrines developed to become what they are today.

The first issue is that of how Jesus came to be seen as the Messiah. Ehrman points out that the Jews were expecting the Messiah to be a powerful king that would rise up to destroy their enemies or a cosmic judge of the world, based on the authority of Old Testament prophecy like Psalm 2:1-9 and Daniel 7:11-14. But Jesus could hardly have failed more spectacularly to fit this mold: he was a little-known, harmless itinerant preacher who was effortlessly crushed by the Roman Empire.

Uh, yeah, we're pretty sure you're not our guy.
We're gonna go ahead and wait.

So how did Christians come to view Jesus as the Messiah? After they became convinced that he had risen from the dead, their view that he was the Anointed One was cemented. All that was left was to reinterpret the OT. They explained away the "king" prophecies as spiritual, decided that any OT bits that happened to vaguely fit Jesus' life were prophecies, completely fabricated details of his life to fit other prophecies, and presto! Instant Messiah.

Another trend in the early church was the rise of anti-Semitism. Given that Jesus and his disciples were Jews, and that Jesus preached that people should repent according to Jewish law before the imminent apocalypse, this seems bizarrely inconsistent. However, as time passed, Christians reinterpreted Jesus' message, became frustrated with Jewish refusal to accept him as Messiah, and even began blaming them for his death. John's gospel calls Jews the "children of the Devil" (John 8:37-44), the bishop Melito repeatedly accused them of murdering Jesus, and Justin Martyr wrote that circumcision was meant to set Jews apart as worthy of persecution. This marked the first time that Jews were singled out as a persecuted minority—and it led to many others throughout history.

This chapter is a long and detailed one—not surprising given that this is Ehrman's particular area of expertise—so I'll stop here for now. Tomorrow I'll cover how the views of a divine Jesus, the Trinity, and the afterlife developed.

Problems with Biblical Prophecy

Christians believe that the Bible contains many instances of fulfilled prophecy, events predicted sometimes centuries in advance that eventually unfolded exactly as described. In fact, the Bible has no more predictive power than the Quran or the Book of Mormon. Its predictions operate on principles that have naturalistic explanations. I'll give a brief overview of them below, then cover some of them more deeply in the future.

The first and most pervasive problem with alleged biblical prophecies is vagueness. Many events that the Bible predicts are either so mundane that they happen constantly or have no time limit and are bound to happen if we wait long enough—sometimes both. Here are a couple of examples:

• "...scoffers will come in that last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming?'" (2 Peter 3:3-4)
• "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. ... For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places." (Matthew 24:6-7)

Both of these are predictions about Jesus' return to earth. They sound a lot like events that are happening in modern times, don't they? But here's the thing: they could just as easily apply to pretty much any other point in history. People have been scoffing for a good 1,900 years about the fact that Jesus was supposed to come "quickly"—and rightly so. Likewise, war and natural disasters are a permanent part of human life. Why didn't Jesus instead say, "X years from now, massive earthquakes will occur at locations A, B and C"?

Because he couldn't really predict the future. And when he tried, he failed.

Another example of vague "prophecy" is the alleged phenomenon of scientific foreknowledge. For example, some Christians marvel at Leviticus 17:11's pronouncement that "the life of the flesh is in the blood," saying that ancient people couldn't have known this without divine inspiration. Two problems: First, this would be easy to conclude simply by watching any animal bleed to death. Second, blood isn't even the only part of the body that's essential to life. One could just as easily say "the life of the flesh" is in the lungs, heart or brain.

Speaking of brains, the Bible never mentions them as the center of thought and consciousness—not even once. However, it does contain countless references to thoughts and feelings emanating from the heart and even the kidneys. It seems like if God wanted his book to be scientifically accurate, this might have been an important thing to get straight. Yet in fact, the Bible is chock full of such scientific errors.

Another problem with biblical prophecies is that many of them weren't even meant to be prophecies at all, and in fact mean something very different when put into their proper context. For example, Matthew says that after Jesus' birth, his family took him to hide in Egypt, thereby fulfilling a prophecy that said, "out of Egypt I called My Son." Not bad, right? Well, take a look at the original context:

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. As they called them, so they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to the carved images." (Hosea 11:1-2)

Funny, I don't remember Jesus being called Israel or making sacrifices to other gods. That's because he didn't, and this passage in Hosea is about the Israelites escaping from Egypt. Apologists try to spin passages like these as "double fulfillment," happening once in the original context and once at a later date. They can call it whatever they like, but what it amounts to is selectively reading into passages that often were never meant to be prophecies in the first place. Every bit of the Old Testament is a potential case of double fulfillment. With that much source material to work with, how could Jesus not have "fulfilled" some of it purely by chance?

There are two other ways the Bible can outright cheat to make it appear as though prophecies have been fulfilled. First let's take the previous example. Matthew's account of Jesus' flight to Egypt is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible, and directly conflicts with Luke's account. Here's what probably happened. The writer of Matthew is scouring the OT for passages about Jesus and stumbles across one where God mentions Israel as his metaphorical son. Perfect! Just replace Israel with Jesus, make up a story where he must escape to Egypt, and presto! Another prophecy fulfilled.

I'll use the book of Daniel to illustrate the second method of cheating. As it turns out, Daniel makes predictions about various wars and conquests with remarkable accuracy right up until about Daniel 11:39. The book is set as though it was written by Daniel under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II, around 600 BCE. But based on evidence in the text, biblical scholars believe the book was actually written in about 165 BCE, and that the writer tried to pass off the book as older than it really was. The so-called prophecies described events that had already taken place.

Which brings us to our final problem with biblical prophecy: Contrary to what Christians believe, some of the prophecies in the Bible flat-out failed. Everything up through Daniel 11:39 had already happened, but from Daniel 11:40 onwards the writer genuinely does try to make predictions—and of course, absolutely none of them were fulfilled. He prophesies, among other things, that Antiochus Epiphanes would utterly conquer northwest Africa, including Egypt. It never happened. By the Bible's own standard, Daniel was a false prophet and should have been put to death.

As we've seen, there are a host of problems with prophecies in the Bible. Without exception, each one suffers from some combination of vagueness, lack of time limit, lack of indication that they were even meant as prophecy, fabrication of events, forgery produced after an alleged fulfillment, or outright failure. None of these would be present if the Bible was truly the inspired word of God.

JI: Failed Prophets and Historical Methods

Last time I covered Ehrman's examination of the biblical and extrabiblical evidence for a historical Jesus, which turns out to be generally sparse and unreliable. Now I'll go over what he thinks we can know about him. He says that the parts of our sources that meet the criteria of biblical scholars are the parts that portray Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet rather than God incarnate. Jesus' mission was to get people to repent before the impending arrival the Son of Man, who would bring judgment upon the earth. Ehrman emphasizes that this is not a controversial idea, but rather one that is widely taught even in seminaries.

The earliest sources for Jesus, Mark and Q, contain numerous references to a coming judgment and the Kingdom of God. The examples Ehrman gives are Mark 8:38-9:1, Mark 13:24-30, Luke 12:39-40, Luke 17:24-30, and Matthew 13:40-43. These passages provide multiple attestation to the idea that Jesus spoke of imminent judgment. This message was common among prophets of the period—and most significantly, it was John the Baptist's message as recorded in Luke 3:7-9. Of course, judgment didn't come, meaning that Jesus' prediction failed like so many others before and afterward.

There are also some teachings that Ehrman thinks meet the criterion of dissimilarity, meaning they "cut against the grain" of what Christians would make up about Jesus:

• In Mark 8:34-38, Jesus seems to distinguish himself from the Son of Man—something a Christian writer probably wouldn't have done.
• In Matthew 19:23-30, Jesus says the disciples will sit on 12 thrones to judge Israel, evidently including Judas. Ehrman doesn't think the author would include this embarrassing mistake unless Jesus really said it.
• In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus explicitly says that people would go to heaven or hell based on their deeds—directly contradicting the later doctrine of faith-based salvation.

Virtually everything Jesus does in the gospels carries undertones of his apocalyptic message. His moral teachings were meant to get people in line before judgment arrived. His baptism from John the Baptist was an endorsement of John's apocalyptic views. His alleged healings and exorcisms were meant as a precursor to the banishment of suffering in the Kingdom of God. His overturning of the money changer's tables (or "cleansing the Temple") was meant to symbolize that the Temple would be destroyed when the Son of Man came.

Ehrman ends the chapter with an explanation of why the historical method can't be used to determine whether a miracle such as Jesus' resurrection occurred, regardless of the circumstances:

"If historians can only establish what probably happened, and miracles by their definition are the least probable occurrences, then more or less by definition, historians cannot establish that miracles have ever probably happened."

He stresses that historians don't say a miracle didn't occur, but only that if one did, it could not be determined historically. Then he goes on to give a possible explanation for the alleged resurrection: perhaps the body was stolen by a few of Jesus' followers (only Matthew says guards were posted at the tomb), and some of the disciples had visions of Jesus appearing to them. An extremely unlikely scenario, he says, but one that is by definition far more likely than a supernatural alternative.

JI: What was Mary & Joseph's Hometown?

Ehrman spends pages 29–35 of JI covering the Jesus' contradiction-riddled birth narratives (Matthew 1:18-2:23 and Luke 1:5-2:40). One that I think is particularly obvious when the texts are carefully compared is the location of Mary and Joseph's hometown. Here's what Ehrman says about it:

"According to Matthew, what is Joseph and Mary's hometown? Your natural reaction is to say 'Nazareth.' But only Luke says this. Matthew sats nothing of the sort. He first mentions Joseph and Mary not in connection with Nazareth but in connection with Bethlehem. [2:1-2] The wise men, who are following a star (presumably it took some time), come to worship Jesus in his house in Bethlehem. [2:11] Joseph and Mary evidently live there. There is nothing about an inn and a manger in Matthew. Moreover, when Herod slaughters the children, he instructs his soldiers to kill every male two years and under. [2:16] This must indicate that Jesus had been born some time before the wise men show up. Otherwise the instruction does not make much sense: surely even Roman soldiers could recognize that a toddler walking around the playground was not an infant born some time last week. So Joseph and Mary are still living in Bethlehem months or even a year after the birth of Jesus. So how can Luke be right when he says that they are from Nazareth and returned there just a month or so after Jesus' birth? Moreover, according to Matthew, after the family flees to Egypt and then returns upon the death of Herod, they initially plan to return to Judea, where Bethlehem is located. [2:22] They cannot do so, however, because now Archelaus is the ruler, so they relocate to Nazareth. In Matthew's account they are not originally from Nazareth but from Bethlehem."

Ehrman summarizes everything well, but I want to expand just a bit on that last part. Here's Matthew 2:22-23:

"But when [Joseph] heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'"

I'm going to break down the language in this passage to make it entirely clear why it shows that, according to Matthew, Mary and Joseph did not originally live in Nazareth.

1. "he was afraid to go there" – Joseph had planned to return to Bethlehem in Judea.
2. "he turned aside" – Joseph did not originally intend to go into Galilee.
3. "he came and dwelt in" – This perfectly describes moving to a new town. Had Matthew wanted to describe arriving home, he would have said "came back to" or "returned to."
4. "a city called Nazareth" – Matthew introduces Nazareth as a completely novel location, as though nothing relevant has previously occurred there.
5. "that it might be fulfilled" – The purpose is not to return home, but to fulfill a prophecy.

It's worth noting that there is no prophecy that "He shall be called a Nazarene" anywhere in the Old Testament. Apologists have tried to make sense of this in various ways, but the bottom line is that Matthew basically made it up. There's also a Bethlehem prophecy quoted in Matthew 2:6, a very rough paraphrase of Micah 5:2 (compare them here). Ehrman tells us why this is significant:

"[T]here is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these gospel writers to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? ... To get Jesus born in Bethlehem but raised in Nazareth, Matthew and Luke independently came up with solutions that no doubt struck each of them as plausible."

So, to review: Matthew heavily implies that Mary and Joseph were from Bethlehem, he gives every indication that they were not from Nazareth, and he has a prophetic motive for constructing the narrative the way he did. If we provisionally assume Luke's narrative is correct that Nazareth was their hometown, then Matthew's account on this point is thoroughly deceptive at best and irreconcilably conflicting at worst.