THE ANSWER: There are certainly some parts of the Gospels that have at least some of the chronological events in reasonable sync with what had actually taken place.  Of course, I don’t remember my first couple of years just like so many other humans, and the events that surrounded my family before I was ever born are only know to me as they were later shared with me by those who actually experienced them for themselves; mostly from my mother and our immediate family.  There is certainly a great deal of disparity between what I was told firsthand and what was later written in the Bible.  Why don’t I just share what I remember?  First off, all that stuff about angels talking to my mother was something that I was never told by anymore, most particularly my mother who was mush later reported as having these heavenly visitations.  I was the first child that my mother had, but the circumstances were really quite different as they pertained to the actual relationship of my mother and father prior to my birth.  My father had had a wife before he had taken my mother to be his betrothed.  His first wife had died giving birth to their first born who survived and was given the name James.  Joseph and his family were well-known to my mother’s family, and when this tragic event occurred my mother was just fourteen years of age.  My mother had begged my grandparents to let her care for the motherless child, and when eventually given permission without too much hesitation, she moved into my father’s house in order to be there at all times.  She remained just as this most caring substitute mother to James for some three years before my father had come to realize that he had without any prior intention fallen very much in love with my mother.  He asked my grandfather permission to take my mother as is betrothed and because he was as respected as he was in our village; my grandparents were naturally excited about the union of the two families.  With these circumstances this immediately gave my grandmother an exceptional grandson to brag about.  My mother had so naturally accepted my brother, James as her own child that the union was an unaffected situation that required no further adjustments for this family of mine except that my mother was now a bride and wife; a beautiful wife and mother that was very much in love with my father and all that he stood for.  You might rightfully consider that my mother was probably a virgin when I was conceived because I was born at just that given time after my father had first taken my mother to be his bride.  I don’t believe that anyone, including my own mother ever considered my father to being God or any acceptable substitute thereof.  It is true that the political atmosphere under the ominous oppression of Rome and the threat to the absolute authority of our own people’s religiously based leadership caused my family to flee into the safety of Egypt.  I spent most of my youth there and in many ways that singular experience shaped the rest of my life.  Our time there was actually and fully experienced until I had reach the age of about sixteen and not just the some twelve years that are generally agreed upon by many Biblical scholars.  I have no way of knowing where or how that figure was arrived at nor do I have any concern!  My father was a skilled craftsman primarily with the working of wood and it various products all the way from simple furniture to the construction of major portions of an entire home.  This meant that his skills would always provide him the means of caring for the needs of our most modest family.  When he and my mother departed for Egypt, they had taken with them actually more of my father’s tools of his craft than even many of the household items that my mother needed to care for the family; my father had no idea what to have expected in Egypt, and at the same time was confident that his skills along with his cherished tools would likely meet any of the family’s basic needs.  He was, of course, correct in his estimation and the family did quite well considering that Egypt was not their homeland.  It was there that both my brother, James and I had learned most all that our father knew of his trade and I guess that it was expected that both of us would naturally follow in our father’s footsteps.  You see, no one in our family had any idea that I was to become sort of a spiritual teacher, but the very foundations for this unexpected future was most certainly given birth right in the land of Egypt, and from the most unexpected of circumstances.