1, and following.
The omission of this narrative in Mark, and the two parallel passages, Matt.xiii.54, and Mark vi.

1, where Nazareth figures as the "country" of Jesus, prove that such a legend was absent from the primitive text which has furnished the rough draft of the present Gospels of Matthew and Mark.

It was to meet oft-repeated objections that there were added to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew reservations, the contradiction of which with the rest of the text was not so flagrant, that it was felt necessary to correct the passages which had at first been written from quite another point of view.
Luke, on the contrary (chap.iv.

16), writing more carefully, has employed, in order to be consistent, a more softened expression.

As to John, he knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem; for him, Jesus is merely "of Nazareth" or "Galilean," in two circumstances in which it would have been of the highest importance to recall his birth at Bethlehem (chap.i.45, 46, vi.