On Quirinius' Census

Darrell Bock - "On Quirinius' Census"

http://ehrmanproject.com

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Education

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• Darrell Bock
• Ehrman Project
• Bart Ehrman
• Corenius
• census
• religion
• educational
• conspiracy
• spirituality
• Misquoting Jesus

[AllOtherNamesUsed]

Tertullian mentioned Roman records of censuses during the time of Christ's birth when Saturninus was governor of Syria. Does this conflict with Luke's record? No. Josephus mentioned that there were governors (plural) in Syria during the rule of Saturninus, naming at least 2. It would seem from his background that Quirinius was a special type of governor at this time, or as Justin Martyr referred to him, a procurator, a special delegate for census taking.

More info: askelm*com/star/star014.htm

[j919or]

@bretzagar Quirinius was co-procurator with Quintilius in Syria in 4 bc., for the purpose of taking the census in Israel. So the first census of Q was in 4-5bc and Luke got it right.

[bretzagar]

@kcdad2806 People always impose on the ancients standards of their day that those in antiquity weren't even under.

[kcdad2806]

It takes ten years to do a census? That doesn't seem like a very useful set of data...

[MegaVldmr]

For me the whole idea of such census seems implausible. Census when everybody have to do to their ancestor's cities??? Imagine the mass migration. But no historical record mentions it. Looks like an attempt to explain why Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And it is the strongest argument for existence of Jesus. Why invent a story that he came from Bethlehem? Because everybody knew he was from Nazareth! He was an actual quite famous person known as Jesus of Nazareth.

[jimmo42]

@AllOtherNamesUsed "What a JOKE!" Your're right! Your posts ARE a joke. All you have done is read a single web site, obviously with confirmation bias and not bothered to look up the facts yourself. As I already pointed out, even Raymon Brown, a catholic priest and New Testament scholar, in his book "The Birth of the Messiah" says you and Luke got it wrong.

[jimmo42]

@AllOtherNamesUsed "won't let new research and findings get in the way"

...facepalm... If you actually bothered to read that web site, you can clearly see that the explanation of how Quirinus would become involved in such a census are purely speculation. There is no real evidence for it! Further, there claims are neither "new" nor "findings", they have been addressed since at least the end of the 18th century what the inscription was found.

[jimmo42]

@jimmo42 Again the question, Do YOU Have any legitmate references? No. The claim on that fundie website "The Oath Was a Census", for example, is simply a desperate attempt to force something into the text that is not there. In the original Greek, Luke did not use "oath", but απογραπηο, which means "to enter in public records the names of men, their property and income". It was a tax census. That's why there is a major problem with Luke!

[jimmo42]

@AllOtherNamesUsed 1) They are are "sweeping assertions" because they address very specific issues. 2) It is not strawman argument, because I am not mispresenting it as arguments from others and then countering that arguement. You can easy confirm yourself that Galilee was under Roman control and Bethlehem was not. You will also find that one of the reasons for the census in 6CE mentioned by Josephues was that Judea had become a Roman province, no longer under a client king.