2:1
Caesar Augustus reigned 31BC to 14 AD. “In those days” might indicate that Luke did not know the exact date of the decree. “All the world” clearly means the Roman world, not the whole earth. This is worth bearing in mind as when talking about Noah and the flood there is sometimes a heated debate over whether or not the flood was a regional flood or did actually cover the whole earth. It really would seem that it is not worth getting overly excited about the point, and those who think it was a regional flood are not necessarily doubting the word of God! Like all governments, the Romans wanted to know exactly what was going on so they could better control and tax the people. As empires increase in size they find it progressively harder to govern, and eventually lose control altogether.
2:2
Josephus says that Quirinius was governor of Syria AD 6-7, and conducted a census in 6 AD. Luke mentions this in Acts 5:37. Sceptics love to say that this proves Luke didn’t know what he was talking about but the Acts reference indicates that Luke most definitely did not mean AD 6 census. Moreover, the 6AD census occurred after the death of Herod. Various “solutions” have been proposed, including:
- Quirinius was the “governor” of the census, ie in charge of it, but not the governor of Syria at the time.
- The text could be translated “this was the registration before Quirinius was governor of Syria” (see footnote in NIV or ESV)
- Another proposal is that Quirinius had two periods of office, though there is no historical evidence to support this hypothesis.
Currently there isn’t a completely satisfactory answer, probably because we have incomplete knowledge. I suspect that eventually evidence will be found that there was indeed a census around 5 BC, but at present there is no such evidence. At the same time there is insufficient evidence to prove that Luke “got it wrong”. The correct approach to these sorts of things is simply to accept the current situation as it is.
A very useful discussion of the matter can be found here.
Here is a link to an extended treatment of the census and the Quirinius thing. http://christianthinktank.com/qr1.html
ReplyDeleteHere is my own contribution. The governor of Syria at the time was Varus. Who he? The same guy who lost three legions and Germany to Arminius. That is why we speak a dialect of German today instead of a dialect of Latin. I think Luke would not wish to link the birth of the Messiah with a loser like Varus, especially if, as some think, Luke's gospel and Acts are actually Paul's legal defence when on trial in Rome.