If Egypt had secured it's borders in 1 AD, King Herod would have killed the baby Jesus...

[NAO]

...and then where would we be? Going to Hell, that's where!

In the Gospel According to Matthew, we are told that King Herod killed all the infants 2 years old and younger so he could eliminate JC. So Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus were, literally, political refugees.

Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it!!

[Vogon_Glory]

1. There you go again!

There you go again, making right-wing heads explode!

[linuxman]

2. Wait,

Did ancient rulers not believe in defined borders and ruthlessly try to prevent people from crossing them in both directions?

[Ex Lurker]

3. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Egypt was a Roman province in 1 AD NT

[former9thward]

4. Don't bring facts here.

#historycontextmatters

[CBGLuthier]

6. Well an even finer point would be that he is off by 3 to 7 years and there is no evidence

that the slaughter of the innocents ever occurred.

But it is still accurate enough to be a meme.

[dembotoz]

11. truth or not the fundies will swallow it and slurp it down with holy water

i love it

i am gonna steal it

[Sam_Fields]

5. The whole Jesus fleeing to Egypt is made up.

Luke wrote the family went to Jerusalem to the temple then returned home. It is believed that the writer of Matthew wanted to tie Jesus with Joseph from the old testament.

[bklyncowgirl]

8. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. There was a large Jewish community in Alexandria.

It's not impossible that Joseph and his family migrated there whether they were under threat from Herod or not. It would be a good place to live and there would have been plenty of work for a carpenter. Perhaps too the circumstances of Mary's pregnancy might have made living in Nazareth difficult. There were rumors that Jesus was really the son of a Roman soldier--not a good thing.

This is complete speculation, of course, but it's possible that growing up in a cosmopolitan city like Alexandria could have expanded Jesus's world view far beyond what he could have experienced in Galilee. You had Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Jews all living there and for the most part interacting and sharing ideas. The Jewish community was so integrated into the rest of the population that during the Jewish Revolt the Roman governor of Egypt, a guy named Tiberius Alexander, was an Alexandrian Jew.

Bottom line the early years of Jesus are pretty much a mix of legend, borrowed tradition and possibly some old family memories.

[rusty fender]

16. LOLOLOL!

Bottom line: Jesus was a Greek myth! People speculating on the early years of a fictional character is very funny

[bklyncowgirl]

18. You were there, I guess.

I find it much easier to believe that that Jesus was a historical figure around whom an entire religion was built over centuries than that no such individual ever existed. You have to imagine a a huge conspiracy being in place by the reign of the Emperor Nero, the first time Roman historians mention Jesus or his followers. It could have happened that way but it's a stretch.

[Xolodno]

12. What another poster wrote, concerning a large Jewish community in Eygpt, and...

Joseph was a carpenter...hence a contractor. His work would necessitate him moving from place to place.

[NAO]

7. Post was purely satirical - there's no historical evidence for the "slaughter of the innocents" -nt

[GaYellowDawg]

15. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Just saying.

[bklyncowgirl]

19. Historically Herod was a nasty piece of work.

He would have been capable of it. That doesn't mean he did it.

[Johonny]

9. I disagree, Trump's way is more efficient. These people had to wait ~30 more years to be saved

If the Egypt had gone full Trump then Jesus dies by the state's hands 30 years sooner and people start getting saved in his name 30 years sooner. Trump's way = more effective. I'm voting for Trump!

This post might not be an attempt at seriousness. You are best to ignore it.

[ananda]

10. Yes indeed, if I were an immigrant ...

... I would much prefer the immigrant status of hell
to rabid autarchs seeking to kill all my first-born sons.

Besides, one of them might be our new modern savior!

[sweetapogee]

13. actually

I'm no expert on these things and I don't want to offend anyone, but Herod killed the boys age up to 2 years in the area around Bethlehem. He did not kill every boy in Israel, to do so would have caused enormous outrage. So we could assume that Joseph and Mary could have taken Jesus to another region in Israel and he would have survived the purge. They went to Egypt because that is where they were told to go. This was not the first time a Jew found refuge in Egypt however the first time they ended up being enslaved by the Egyptians. Also the story is found in Matthew not Luke.

I say all this because if we want to make a case for having open borders we should do so based on the merits of it not trying to make up stores because that could make us look foolish.

[gratuitous]

14. Let's go further back than that

If that meddler Abram hadn't left Ur and gone to the region of Palestine, there wouldn't have been that whole patriarchal thing. Or if that lazy fuck Adam had just secured the borders of Eden, the serpent wouldn't have slipped in to tempt him and Eve.

[rusty fender]

17. Good one!