section_path: Life and teachings in the New Testament/Genealogy and nativity
section_name: Genealogy and nativity
paragraph_text: Genealogy and nativity
  
  Jesus was Jewish, born to Mary, wife of Joseph. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer two accounts of his genealogy. Matthew traces Jesus's ancestry to Abraham through David. Luke traces Jesus's ancestry through Adam to God. The lists are identical between Abraham and David but differ radically from that point. Matthew has 27 generations from David to Joseph, whereas Luke has 42, with almost no overlap between the names on the two lists. Various theories have been put forward to explain why the two genealogies are so different.
  
  Matthew and Luke each describe Jesus's birth, especially that Jesus was born to a virgin named Mary in Bethlehem in fulfilment of prophecy. Luke's account emphasizes events before the birth of Jesus and centers on Mary, while Matthew's mostly covers those after the birth and centers on Joseph. Both accounts state that Mary, was engaged to a man named Joseph, who was descended from King David and was not his biological father, and both support the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus, according to which Jesus was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb when she was still a virgin. At the same time, there is evidence, at least in the Lukan Acts of the Apostles, that Jesus was thought to have had, like many figures in antiquity, a dual paternity, since there it is stated he descended from the seed or loins of David. By taking him as his own, Joseph will give him the necessary Davidic descent. Some scholars suggest that Jesus had Levite heritage from Mary, based on her blood relationship with Elizabeth.
  
  In Matthew, Joseph is troubled because Mary, his betrothed, is pregnant, but in the first of Joseph's four dreams an angel assures him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 2:1 – 12, wise men or Magi from the East bring gifts to the young Jesus as the King of the Jews. They find him in a house in Bethlehem. Herod the Great hears of Jesus's birth and, wanting him killed, orders the murders of male infants in Bethlehem and its surroundings. But an angel warns Joseph in his second dream, and the family flees to Egypt —later to return and settle in Nazareth.
  
  In Luke 1:31–38, Mary learns from the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a child called Jesus through the action of the Holy Spirit. When Mary is due to give birth, she and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Joseph's ancestral home in Bethlehem to register in the census ordered by Caesar Augustus. While there Mary gives birth to Jesus, and as they have found no room in the inn, she places the newborn in a manger. An angel announces the birth to a group of shepherds, who go to Bethlehem to see Jesus, and subsequently spread the news abroad. Luke 2:21 tells how Joseph and Mary have their baby circumcised on the eighth day after birth, and name him Jesus, as Gabriel had commanded Mary. After the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, Joseph, Mary and Jesus return to Nazareth.