In Luke's Bethlehem birth story, he decided
to have Joseph travel from Nazareth with a very pregnant Mary to the
town of Bethlehem, ninety miles of way, where she would give birth in a
manger. The reason given for the trip is extremely implausible,
as the reader will see. But, first, let's look at Luke's story:
And it came to pass in those days, that
there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should
be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor
of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And
Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into
Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he
was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his
espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they
were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
(Luke
2:1-6)
There are two things wrong with this story.
 There
Was No Universal Census at the Time of Jesus' Birth
Jesus was not greater than two years old
when when King Herod made his death decree for all of Bethlehem's
children under two years of age. Since Herod died in 4 B.C., the
earliest year of Jesus' birth would have been about 6 B.C. As pointed
out by historians, the only census by Quirinius when he was governor in
Syria was conducted in A.D. 6-7 [2-3], which was twelve
or more years after the birth of Jesus.
Chaos
Would Have Resulted
Caesar Augustus, according to Luke, decided
that everybody in his empire should have to return for a tax census to
the town of the house from which they descended . Thus, Joseph had
to return to Bethlehem "because he was of the house and lineage
of David". As Randel Helms remarks,
Luke has been forced to contrive a universal
dislocation for a simple tax registration: who could imagine the
efficient Romans requiring millions in the empire to journey scores or
hundreds of miles to the villages of millennium-old ancestors merely
to sign a tax form! Needless to say, no such event happened in the
history of the Roman empire. [2]
[1] The Birth of the Messiah, Raymond E. Brown (New York:
Doubleday, 1977), p. 413, quoted in Gospels Fictions, Randal
Helms, Prometheus Books, page 59.
[2] Gospels Fictions, Randal Helms, Prometheus Books, page 59.
[3] The following is unedited
correspondence between members of the errancy@infidels.org list,
December 10, 1998, and revised by D. R. Edwards on December 21,
1998:
The census is documented in
Josephus. The census made while Quirinius was legate of Syria occurred
in 6 CE when Augustus deposed Archelaeus, a full 10 years
after Herod the Great's death. The contradiction between Matthew and
Luke is then obvious: Jesus couldn't have been born during the
census of Quirinius and during the reign of Herod the Great, because the
events are separated by at least 10 years.
One explanation that apologists have
devised is to hypothesize that the census was ordered by
Augustus during the reign of Herod, but it took some time
to be implemented and was finally implemented during the hypothetical
first governorship of Quirinius. This explanation, however,
deserves little consideration, because one is asked to
accept that it took 10 years for the census to be
implemented. In other words, there is a 10-year lapse between the
"in those days" of Luke 2:1 when Augustus decreed the census
and the governorship of Quirinius referenced in the
immediately following verse. The required time dilation
between Luke 2:1 and 2:2-3 makes such an explanation
quite difficult to swallow, which is probably why it is not the preferred
explanation. Note also that this explanation requires that a census
decree be issued in 4 BCE, a difficulty to be taken up later.
The more common explanation is to
hypothesize a second governorship for Quirinius. Their
support for this claim is an inscription found on a stone (the
Lapis Tiburtinus), which refers to someone who was a governor, again,
of Syria. The apologists claim that this inscription can refer to
none other than Quirinius; hence, Quirinius was governor
of Syria twice, and his hitherto unknown second
governorship is shoehorned into as convenient a timeframe
as possible (beginning around 2 BCE), during which he is considered
to have executed the (undocumented) census decreed in 4 BCE. There
are numerous difficulties with this explanation. First, the stone
does not say that the unnamed person was governor of Syria twice,
only that the person was a governor twice. It would have
been quite rare for one individual to govern the same
province twice. Second, the stone could be referring to
M. Calpurnius Piso just as easily as to Quirinius. Third, in spelling
out Quirinius' qualifications and assignments, Josephus would have had
an excellent opportunity to mention any additional governorships for
him. Needless to say, he didn't. Fourth, even if the stone refers
to Quirinius, we know that Varus - not Quirinius - was
governor of Syria during Herod's death. Josephus is quite
clear about this. The road thus appears to culminate in a
dead end.
There are two approaches to this new
difficulty. The first is to hypothesize that Quirinius
was in charge of the military affairs of Syria during
Varus' governorship and was the one actually responsible
for the nuts-and-bolts of the census. However, this suggestion trades
one problem for another, because we know that Varus' principal military
agent in 4 BCE Judea was not Quirinius, but Sabinus. An
alternate approach is to suggest that (and here's where
it gets complicated) 1. Caesar decreed a 4 BCE census
that included Judea, 2. the Lapis Tiburtinus referred to Quirinius,
3. Quirnius was governor immediately following Varus, and therefore
4. Quirinius implemented the census after the conclusion of Varus'
governorship. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? However, premises 2
and 3 are far from proven. In addition, we have the first
premise that requires investigation: that Caesar decreed
in 4 BCE a census of Judea. This is quite unlikely, as
will be addressed later. And even if premises 1-3 were found
true, we would have the new difficulty that, if there was a 4 BCE
census, then the census that Luke refers to wouldn't have been
the first, as he specifies in Luke 2:2.
Still another approach to the
problem is to interpret Luke 2:2 as meaning that the
census was *before* Quirinius was governor of Syria. This approach
has the added attraction of eliminating the additional difficulty
in the above solutions that arises from Luke 2:2 (if
there was a 4 BCE census, then the 6 CE census would not
have been the first). The first difficulty with this
approach is that it assumes a 4 BCE census decree occurred. This
solution also requires Luke 2:2 (NIV: This was the first census
that took place while Quirnius was governor of Syria) to
be read in a way that is at variance with nearly every
English translation, and it requires the key Greek word (PRWTH)
to be used in a way in which Luke never uses it elsewhere.
Now - what about this 4 BCE census?
Note that each of the above "solutions" requires
Augustus to have decreed in 4 BCE a census that included the territories
under Herod's kingship. The arguments stand or fall on the hypothetical
4 BCE census taking place in Judea and surrounding environs. The
apologists' problem is, there is no evidence that such a census ever
occurred, while there is evidence to the contrary. The widespread
conclusion is that Judea and Galilee, as part of Herod's client
kingdom, would not have had to participate in a
Roman-administered census such as Luke describes, even if
it had been decreed in 4 BCE. Rather, Herod would have
handled issues like that himself, most likely without need for a
"census", per se. One must also consider that Josephus
duly noted the 6 CE census - it caused great unrest and
contributed to an uprising led by Judas the Galilean. A
Roman-administered 4 BCE census, however, seems to have escaped
Josephus' mention. Given Josephus' attention to such matters and
the demonstrated potential for an uprising to have occurred, it
seems incredible that Josephus would have omitted a 4 BCE
census if it had occurred. However - if Luke is
considered to have been referring to the 6 CE census
rather than some undocumented 4 BCE census, at which time this geographic
area was a province of the second class, governed by a prefect answerable
to the legate of Syria (as was the situation when Coponius became
prefect following Archalaeus' dismissal), then
everything falls neatly into place.
The bottom line here is that the
apologists' resolution to this issue ultimately relies on
a lot of instances of, "It could have happened this way"
with little if any supporting evidence and in the face of considerable
evidence to the contrary.
D. R. Edwards
|