"The census that called Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem never existed" - true?

[LemonAndLime]

I was watching “QI” a British program mainly about dispelling common facts and talking about “quite interesting” ones. One of them was that historians have been unable to find evidence of the census of the Roman world mentioned in Luke only which called Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, and commented on how it did not make sense that they had to go to their place of birth to register anyway. There is however evidence within Luke itself that he (Luke) was very keen to place Jesus with all the prophecies, so it was speculated on the show that the reason he wrote this was because it was important to place Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, even if it wasn’t actually there.

Is this an important fact? Is it an accusation others have heard of before and is there a Church response to it? I am going to do my own research on this, but want to know what people on here think.

 

[Barbkw]

Yes, I’ve read that in many, many theology/religion books…just what you said, that the gospel writers were trying to find a way to have Jesus born in Bethlehem to show he was the messiah from the first testament. And many biblical scholars talk about Luke’s historical errors/inaccuracies.

Here’s an excerpt from Bart Ehrman’s book that talks about this:

“The historical problems with Luke are even more pronounced. For one thing, we have relatively good records for the reign of Caesar Augustus,** and there is no mention anywhere in any of them of an empire-wide census for which everyone had to register by returning to their ancestral home.**
And how could such a thing even be imagined? Joesph returns to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there. But David lived a thousand years before Joseph.** Are we to imagine that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier? **
If we had a new worldwide census today and each of us had to return to the towns of our ancestors a thousand years back—where would you go?
Can you imagine the total disruption of human life that this kind of universal exodus would require?
And can you imagine that such a project would never be mentioned in any of the newspapers? There is not a single reference to any such census in any ancient source, apart from Luke.
Why then does Luke say there was such a census? The answer may seem obvious to you.
He wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, even though he knew he came from Nazareth … there is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these Gospel writer to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? They had to come up with a narrative that explained how he came from Nazareth, in Galilee, a little one-horse town that no one had ever heard of, but was born in Bethlehem, the home of King David, royal ancestor of the Messiah.”

― Bart D. Ehrman, *Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don’t Know About Them *

Good gaud, you’re quoting the agnostic Bart Ehrman? Ramblings of an idiot.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Good gaud, you’re quoting the agnostic Bart Ehrman? Ramblings of an idiot.

Has that got anything to do with whether or not what he’s saying hes true, or do you just not like him but feel the need to share it with us?

 

[Barbkw]

An idiot?

He’s a James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. He taught at Rutgers for years.
He got his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude.

Hardly the bio and smarts of an idiot.

No agnostic / atheist should be chair of a Dept. of Religous Studies.

He successfully talked himself out of belief in God.

He’s an idiot.

 

[RPRPsych]

There’s actually a fairly good explanation of this in the Ignatius Study Bible.

Essentially, it boils down to this:

1. There is indirect evidence that a census did take place around the time of Christ’s birth.
2. Though Quirinius did conduct a later census in 6 A.D. (which is documented in the writings of Josephus, and is what most critics like to refer to), he may have been governor of Syria earlier, around the time when the first census - the one at the time of the Nativity - was conducted.
3. The census in 6 A.D. was for taxation, but the earlier one was probably more of a “census” (“all the world should be enrolled”)

The following page, though not Catholic, also has a lot of helpful information:

christianthinktank.com/quirinius.html

In short, even from a “secular” historical perspective, there is no reason to assume that St. Luke got his facts wrong.

 

[LemonAndLime]

No agnostic / atheist should be chair of a Dept. of Religous Studies.

He successfully talked himself out of belief in God.

He’s an idiot.

Christian charity?

A friend of mine went to train as a Vicar, but as they studied religion at university they lost their belief in God. So apparently it’s pretty common.

 

[Barbkw]

Christian charity?

A friend of mine went to train as a Vicar, but as they studied religion at university they lost their belief in God. So apparently it’s pretty common.

Christian charity toward an agnostic / atheist professor of religious studies who writes slanted books about the Son of God?

No, the man has gone past stupid, he’s an idiot.

 

[SurlyMermaid]

Christian charity toward an agnostic / atheist professor of religious studies who writes slanted books about the Son of God?

No, the man has gone past stupid, he’s an idiot.

I used to be an atheist. Here I am. I’ve learned a lot from atheists and agnostics who, despite their spiritual leanings have studied Christian scriptures and history.

Sorry we can’t all be you.

 

[patg]

No agnostic / atheist should be chair of a Dept. of Religous Studies.

He successfully talked himself out of belief in God.

He’s an idiot.

Then I thank God for such idiots.

 

[Barbkw]

I used to be an atheist. Here I am. I’ve learned a lot from atheists and agnostics who, despite their spiritual leanings have studied Christian scriptures and history.

Sorry we can’t all be you.

Were you first a Christian, and a professor and a chairman of Religious Studies at a University who then became an atheist and who now discounts the Divinity of Jesus?

 

[BrianH]

I was watching “QI” a British program mainly about dispelling common facts and talking about “quite interesting” ones. One of them was that historians have been unable to find evidence of the census of the Roman world mentioned in Luke only which called Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, and commented on how it did not make sense that they had to go to their place of birth to register anyway. There is however evidence within Luke itself that he (Luke) was very keen to place Jesus with all the prophecies, so it was speculated on the show that the reason he wrote this was because it was important to place Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, even if it wasn’t actually there.

Is this an important fact? Is it an accusation others have heard of before and is there a Church response to it? I am going to do my own research on this, but want to know what people on here think.

It is important if you are a literalist or such. I have always thought that Matthew and Luke were the stuff of legends and more theology based than history based. However I understand that if you were not raised that way or if your church teaches you the opposite it would be pretty important to reconcile what Luke and history show.

 

[Bohm_Bawerk]

Good gaud, you’re quoting the agnostic Bart Ehrman? Ramblings of an idiot.

Has that got anything to do with whether or not what he’s saying hes true, or do you just not like him but feel the need to share it with us?

I wouldn’t call him an idiot, as that’s unfair, but Barbkw does have a point. I read a large part of one of his books on suffering, and his knowledge on free will and general Christian theology was very lacking! He didn’t seem very well-versed in the Bible; from what I ascertained, I think he’s just a bit upset, and he even admitted in the introduction that he left his faith “kicking and crying”. I recall making a prediction that I think he will return to his faith sometime in the distant future, so let’s see how that pans out.

 

[Nelka]

I was watching “QI” a British program mainly about dispelling common facts and talking about “quite interesting” ones. One of them was that historians have been unable to find evidence of the census of the Roman world mentioned in Luke only which called Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, and commented on how it did not make sense that they had to go to their place of birth to register anyway. There is however evidence within Luke itself that he (Luke) was very keen to place Jesus with all the prophecies, so it was speculated on the show that the reason he wrote this was because it was important to place Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, even if it wasn’t actually there.

Is this an important fact? Is it an accusation others have heard of before and is there a Church response to it? I am going to do my own research on this, but want to know what people on here think.

Be careful with QI.

I used to watch it and enjoyed it but they attack God and the church a lot.

I saw a religious program where Stephen Fry (QI host) was debating against God, the Bible and the commandments. He was like a demon in his attacks. I used to think he was a fun bloke on tv but after this I cannot look at him the same.

QI is also a product of the BBC which is also anti-God, anti-religion etc.

Your safest bet in life is don’t believe anything you see/hear on tv.

 

[Barbkw]

Religious studies are for people who want to learn about different religions in an unbiased, scholarly, factual way. He is not a Catholicism teacher, so he doesn’t need to believe the same thing you do.

You think he’s unbiased as an agnostic / atheist as he teaches religion?

He’s a blind teacher, leading the blind.

 

[kildare]

I’d be afraid of being led by him into relativism. Personally I’d feel much happier with a priest/nun/pastor who believed giving the course than with someone who didnt, simply because it would give ultimate meaning to the point of the course. I think this works for other courses as well. If you didnt believe in or like history/science/medicine how could you really instruct it? Just move on.

 

[L_piperatus]

Supposed that Luke wrote his Gospel around 65-70 A.D., that’s about 70 years after the supposed census that either did exist or it didn’t exist. What I’m getting at, is this: if Luke was wrong on this, there should have been a multitude of contemporaries available to correct him, e.g. the Jews who rejected Christianity. They would have said, “Look, he’s talking nonsense. What kind of census is he even talking about? None of us is aware of any such census, 70 years ago!”

So, now I wonder: do we have any contemporary refutations dating from the first century for Luke’s narrative, saying that Luke talks about total bogus/imaginary/non-existent census events? I don’t trust a 21st century TV show on saying this, unless they have some hardcore historical evidence from the 1st or 2nd century, claiming back then, soon after Luke wrote his Gospel, that Luke’s narrative was bogus.

 

[Lubomyr]

…if Luke was wrong on this, there should have been a multitude of contemporaries available to correct him…

Amen.

If Luke were either sloppy at best, or a liar at worst, look how he ridiculously stacks the deck against himself:

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…” (Luke 3:1-2, RSV).

A spiel like that literally begs the reader to consider that Luke is really talking about something that really happened in a real place at a real time that can be pinned down in public knowledge . People who fabricate myths simply don’t paint themselves into a corner like that.

 

[Nate13]

Exactly. How many people would have believed what Luke’s gospel said if right off the bat he has a blatant lie claiming a census occurred that everyone reading the gospel then would have known about if it did actually happen. Can they come up with even one single writing where someone called this into question within the first couple centuries?

 

[Lubomyr]

Exactly. How many people would have believed what Luke’s gospel said if right off the bat he has a blatant lie claiming a census occurred that everyone reading the gospel then would have known about if it did actually happen. Can they come up with even one single writing where someone called this into question within the first couple centuries?

You can’t get an entire generation of people to believe that a fictitious event happened which, if it did happen, would have become common knowledge.

Imagine if the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, or 9/11, or the Christmas Tsunami of 2004, never happened. There are people alive today who are too young to remember any of those events, but who nevertheless live among those who did. It is common knowledge in Mexico City, in New York, and on the shores of the Indian Ocean, that these incidents did in fact happen. In time, the physical evidence will all but disappear. But generations from now, do you think it would be possible to convince the people of Mexico City, of Manhattan, or of Phuket, that these *did *take place, long ago … if they never happened?

It would take superhuman persuasiveness to convince a whole future generation, not to mention colossal naivety on the part of that generation to be convinced. And you would be up against the fatal fact that the future generation never heard their own parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents mention any such thing, nor would they have read about anything resembling it in any history book, nor learned anything about it in school. Because, if they did happen, there is no way such events would have escaped the notice of the generation who lived through it, and there is no way, apart from a coordinated campaign of misinformation, or epidemic amnesia, that they could have been omitted from common knowledge.

So we are left with the idiotic assertions of Divinity school skeptics that nothing special happened on the way to the Promised Land, that resurrections are literary devices, and that birth certificates must be rewritten to serve an agenda. (Does that last one sound familiar?) Ehrman is so hopelessly a product of his time that his legacy will become an amusing curiosity for future historians-of-religion, alongside the discredited theses of his 19th-century forebears.

 

[steve53]

You have to assume that the “census” of A.D. 6 (-7) is what is referred to. Josephus documents it plainly, and puts it in context. The “kingdom” of Judea and Samaria that had been ruled by Herod the Great’s son Archelaus, was being turned into a province, and Archelaus himself was banished for unsited crimes. So the area had to be accounted for, as it would now be administered from Syria by Rome. Quirinius decided that a Prefect was in order, and so Coponius was appointed as the first prefect, under the President of Syria.
The exact mechanism of the census is unrecorded.
And earlier census would make little sense, as the east was controlled by Herod the Great and/or his sons, whose loyalty to the Caesars was unquestioned. Augustus ordering a census would have been a supreme insult to Herod family, and would not, and did not, occur.
Luke certainly embellished aspects of his Gospel, as other threads attest to. He admits he uses many sources.