I don’t honestly know-- there are times when you identify a person by their mother (ie, “ben Sarah,” as opposed “ben Avraham”), and even very Orthodox do, such as when you are reading a list of people who are ill, and for whom you are praying-- they are are “ben mother’s name.” I have no idea why, and no idea whether or not this was true 2000 years ago, nor what about the situation would call for the mother’s name over the father’s.
But both things could be true-- that Jesus was being put down both by questioning his paternity AND by saying that only a sage could figure out why he could gain a following in Jerusalem.
Aslan, among many others, suggests that the travel to Bethlehen, and birth there was a later embellishment by the early scriptural writers to explain how someone from Nazareth was born in Bethlehem and descended from David as required by the scriptural references. The census in Syria about a decade before (the only thing that fits) had no requirement that people “go home” to register. OTOH, 50 years later when it’s time to write things down, who would remember those details, a large percentage of people were not even born then.
Although there are frequent references to James, brother of Jesus. Supposedly he was the leader among the Christians hanging around the temple, until Jerusalem was sacked.
Bu then, likely again thanks to writer embellishments, the heirs of Peter made sure that the church in Rome got top billing.
I’ll admit that I’ve never understood that part, and the fact that Matthew specifically calls it out: “They named him Jesus, to fulfill the prophecy that he would be named Emmanuel”
That’s the most convincing set of arguments that I’ve heard. The word would’ve been somethng like “builder” but we’d have recognized these people as “construction day laborers.” Though one might suspect that Tiberias wasn’t built in a day, like other cities of similar reknown.
Jesus was a carpenter
He ate organic food
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes
Long hair, beard and sandals
And a funky bunch of friends
Reckon may just nail Him up
If He come down again
'Cause everybody’s gotta have
somebody to look down on
Prove they can be better than
at any time they please…
Emmanuel is a Hebrew name/word that means something like “God is with us”. (“El” meaning “God”). So they said of Jesus, “God is with us”, whatever his name was. I mean, it’s also a name, but it’s not crazy to just interpret it by its meaning.
The discrepancy is probably an argument in favour of the historical existence of Jesus (though not for his divinity, of course). If he were all made up, those who made him up would have given him the name Emanuel, to fulfil the prophecy. But if he existed, and was known among his contemporaries as Jesus, then there’s a need for the gospels to gloss over this point. It’s the same with the story about the census of Quirinius, which is evidently an attempt to explain why someone who was known to have grown up in Nazareth was supposedly born in Bethlehem, as is said in the Book of Micha.
Plus doctrine ignores the contradiction that the saviour would be descended from David, but that later church doctrine held that Joseph was descended from David (the excuse for going to Bethlehem) but also not really Jesus’ father.