Critics of the Bible often point out that Jesus's trip to Egypt, along with the wise men's visit, are not mentioned in Luke's account of Christ's birth.

This is a general rule for almost every single "contradiction" raised in the Gospels - one will often give details that the other doesn't.

For some reason, critics of the Bible cannot understand that omitting something from an account is not the same thing as stating it didn't happen. This should be common sense, but then again, we are dealing with people who believe that the human body could arise via natural processes, so we can't assume common sense.

Jesus's Birth Events

I've arranged the events in the order that they happened chronologically taken from the accounts in Matthew and Luke chapter 2:

• Jesus is born (Luke 2:16)
• The family stays in Bethlehem for 40 days to complete Mary's purification (Luke 2:22)
• They travel to the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:22), to fulfill the mandate in Exodus 13:2
• They return to Bethlehem to live for awhile (Matthew 2:1)
• Wise men visit (Matthew 2:11)
• Family flees to Egypt to escape Herod (Matthew 2:14) for potentially 3.5 years (Revelation 12:1-6). Herod tries to kill Jesus about 2 years later (Matthew 2:16)
• Herod dies (Matthew 2:19), and an angel tells them to return to Israel (Matthew 2:20-22)
• The family settles in their hometown of Nazareth (Matthew 2:23, Luke 2:39)

We use the common event of the family's return to Nazareth to sync the two accounts. Nothing contradicts, they simply both give details that the other doesn't. That's why we have 4 Gospels.