What this indicates to me is that given 2000 years, and enough otherwise intelligent Christians, you can make the Bible say anything you want it to. That there are so many articles being written even today that claim to have finally solved the contradiction is a pretty good indication that it’s a real contradiction, but it’s not important enough to me to argue further, since I don’t believe many IMO much more important details about the crucifixion story (e.g., the ridiculous idea that Pilate would let the rabble tell him whom to kill and whom to free).
Tony Sinclair, we’ve been over this census business fairly recently, so I’ll try and recap quickly.
Luke does not actually say that the census took place at the time of Jesus’ birth, or that Quirinius was governor then, or that Quirinius ordered the census, or even that everyone was required to go to their ancestral home. He says this, in the King James Version:
“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.”
Couple points here:
The word for ‘taxed’ here is apographe, which can mean either a registration for the purpose of taxation, or the taxing itself.
The word translated ‘first’ here can mean either ‘first’ or ‘before’, at least when followed by the genitive case, as it is here.
The word translated ‘this’ could also have read (in the capital letters of the original texts) ‘itself’, so it’s possible that subsequent copyists chose the wrong sense of the word.
So an alternate reading of the passage is either this:
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. (And the taxing itself was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.”
Or this:
“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 the taxing itself was made before Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.”
We know that Luke was perfectly aware or the census under Quirnius (he makes reference to it in Acts 5), so it seems to me either of these two alternate readings makes sense. It’s plausible (on the first reading) that the registration was carried out around 5-6 BC or so, but the actual taxation was aborted and not picked up again until 12 years later when Quirinius was governor of Syria. It’s also plausible (on the second reading) that there was a census/taxing in 6 BC or so and then a separate one 12 years later under Quirinius, and Luke is making the specific point that he is referring to the earlier census before Quirinius.
Luke also does not say that Quirinius ordered the census, he says that augustus
ordered it. Again, no problem here, particularly since Herod’s client status had temporarily soured at the time of the census.
As for ‘no one but Matthew mentioning the massacre of the children’, this kind of argument from silence is really, really weak. First, we don’t have a lot of other first century sources describing the history of Palestine: we have Josephus, maybe a couple of other secular sources, and then we have the religious sources, at least two of which (Matthew and the apocryphal Ascension of Isaiah) mention the massacre. It’s not at all implausible to me that Josephus and Luke simply failed to mention the massacre Herod’s slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. Contemporary historians fail to mention things all the time. Marco Polo didn’t mention the great wall of China, or printed books, or tea. Herodotus doesn’t mention the founding of Rome, nor does Thucydides. At least one contemporary historian of England (I’m forgetting the name) fails to mention the Magna Carta. The archives of Barcelona don’t mention the triumphal return of Columbus. Historians fail to mention contemporary events all the time, including Josephus. There’s no particular reason to think he would have mentioned this one. Unlike the Civil War, and unlike the murders within the Herodian courts, it was not of serious political significance.
Although your statement made no effort to distinguish reality based wonder, leaving the strong impression that you were challenging wonder, itself, as a good quality.
I never told my kids that Santa was real. They absorbed that from the culture and I let them discover the truth on their own.
To what part of our culture does Hogwarts belong? As far as I know, it, unlike Santa, is strictly in the realm of pure fiction. Santa is legendary and has been adopted into the culture. See Bettelheim, Erikson, and Piaget regarding the ways in which legendary cultural characters play a role in the development of children’s psychology and maturity.
Equinox celebrations are common. Neither Passover nor Easter are tied to the equinox. Sharm el nessim is tied to Spring, but it has been directly tied to the Christian calendar so long that I have never seen any indication of when it might have been celebrated in Ancient Egypt.
Hopping back and forth between Spring celebrations and Equinox celebrations does not appear to be making your point.
Both are tied to the equinox. The official calculation is arcane, but roughly, Passover begins either the first or second full moon after the vernal equinox, and Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox. The reason the date varies is because the equinox varies over a small range of dates, and the full moon varies over a large range of dates.
It’s not hard to find; just google it. Virtually every credible source says it’s been celebrated for some 4500 years.
I have no idea what you mean. The vernal equinox is the beginning of spring (in the northern hemisphere, which includes the Near East).
This is silly. The equinox may be used to determine which dates will be used in a given year, but that does not mean that they are equinox celebrations and it does not mean that they celebrate Spring, specifically.
Are you avoiding the point on purpose? I never denied that the celebration was that old. I noted that since it is now tied to the Christian calendar, there is rather little evidence remaining for its date before the adoption of the Christian calendar.
Not knowing what I mean is rather the point. Spring–as the planting season after winter–begins earlier to the South and later to the North. The equinox is a separate celestial event. However, because the Egyptian growing season was tied to the flooding of the Nile, Sham el nessim, that occurred sometime between March and May, although with an unclear date before the Christian era, is actually a harvest festival, not a Spring/planting festival. Similarly, Pesach/Passover is related to a harvest festival, (hence the cleaning out of the old grains at the beginning of the feast). That has no bearing on the Easter traditions that have arisen in Northern Europe that are celebrated near the time of the Spring/new planting, even though Easter’s date was originally tied to Passover.
Who claimed that he did? Luke says Augustus ordered it, and that’s what I said. As governor, Quirinius would have administrated it in his province. Which did not include Galilee, where Joseph lived.
Technically correct, it doesn’t say it explicitly. But it says Joseph went to Bethlehem because he was of the house of David. If it wasn’t required, then why would he do it, taking a nine-months-pregnant wife with him, and knowing that so many other people were doing it that he might not be able to find a place for them to stay?
Swell. Link to a published Bible by reputable scholars (i.e., not a dumbed-down “Good News” kiddie Bible) who translate it that way, and I’ll read it. But I get tired of people who couldn’t read a page of Luke in Greek if their life depended on it, expounding on how the scholars who have devoted their lives to studying ancient Biblical languages got it so wrong.
No, it isn’t. It’s ridiculous to think they would send people scurrying all over the world to register, and then after all that upheaval, not do anything with it for 12 years, by which time it would be hopelessly out of date anyway, with probably half the enrollees dead.
What is plausible is that Luke knew of a census that occurred nearly 100 years before he was writing, and that Herod was still ruling around 100 years before he was writing, but he was hazy about the exact date of both (not having Google available to check), and he decided to use the census as motivation for Joseph to go to Bethlehem, so he could explain why Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t born in Nazareth.
Luke is making it crystal clear that the census occurred when Quirinius was governor, according to every professional translation I’ve ever seen. Including the one you cited.
Who said he didn’t? But the fact that Augustus allegedly ordered it hurts your case, because we have a record of censuses ordered by Augustus, and there is nothing in it resembling Luke’s.
Yes, it’s a problem, because Rome didn’t directly tax non-provinces; they let their client kings handle it. Judea wasn’t part of a province until 6CE, when Quirinius became governor, ten years after Herod died.
Why would I try again? You haven’t refuted anything important that I asserted. You’ve refuted those stupid scholars of ancient Greek who have translated virtually every published Bible of the last 500 years, but who don’t understand the nuances and idioms as well as you do, and you’ve refuted something that nobody asserted (that Quirinius ordered the census). And you agreed with me that it’s possible that nobody but Matthew noticed the soldiers slaughtering babies (I concede I think it’s much less possible than you seem to). Matthew seems to be the most fortunate of historians — he’s also the only gospel writer, let alone historian, who noticed all the zombies coming out of their tombs and walking around Jerusalem after the crucifixion.
However, you ignored two thirds of my post – that nothing in nature explains the magic Star, and nothing in reason explains why it had to stop and ask which town Jesus was in, when it later knew the exact house Jesus was in. All that detour accomplished was making sure that Herod would slaughter the babies of Bethlehem. God told the magi to avoid Herod on their way home — why didn’t he tell them to avoid Herod on their way to Jesus?
For that matter, how could they know so much about Jewish prophecy that they could predict the exact year Jesus was born, with such certainty that they were willing to make a long journey bearing expensive gifts, and yet not know about the City of David?
And why does Matthew say it required rounding up all the scholars to answer them? Even in the dismally ignorant US, a first-grader who goes to Sunday School likely knows that the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, and in an ancient Jerusalem with people eagerly hoping for the Messiah, any first-grader there would probably have known as well.
You ignored the glaring contradiction between Matthew having Joseph cowering in Egypt or Nazareth, afraid to set foot in Judea, while Luke has him freely going to Jerusalem any time he wants, with people publicly proclaiming his son to be the Messiah. That alone discredits both stories. I also haven’t mentioned the conflicting genealogies, because I know what apologists say about them. Nevertheless, they are clearly contradictory.
I see no profit for anyone in continuing this. The quality of your writing shows that you are intelligent, so you have obviously allowed your faith to short-circuit your logic and reason, which means I am powerless against you. Whatever I say, you will find a web page that contains the kind of “reasoning” already exhibited, like all the Bibles are translated incorrectly, or of course a biographer of Jesus might choose to omit minor incidents like running for his life from soldiers trying to kill him.
As I said in an earlier post, 2000 years of effort has produced a body of apologetics that can prove anything to a mind properly receptive. My mind is not receptive to such arguments, yours seems to be, and we will continue to talk past each other. Thank you for your civility in defending a position so close to your heart.
It means they are tied to the equinox, which is what you denied. And I didn’t say that Easter celebrated anything but the resurrection.
As for the rest of your post, if you are using a different definition of spring than I am — and mine was very clear both from the context and from my explicit declaration in the post you’re responding to — then stop acting like an ass and pretending you don’t realize that. Instead of playing dumb and asking me if I’m trying to evade your point, try saying you were using a different definition.
Your definition of tying to the equinox is pretty strange if the events can be celebrated weeks away from the date.
Quartz claimed that Easter was a “hijack” of the equinox celebration.
I noted that it was a movable feast that was not celebrated on the equinox and that it was hardly a “Spring” celebration in the Middle East.
You claimed that Spring celebrations were were common in the Middle East, then tied such celebrations to the vernal equinox using as an example a feast that is not celebrated at the equinox, now, and for which we do not have a celebration date prior to the Christian calendar.
I noted that they were not tied to the equinox because, as I had previously noted, they were not celebrated at the equinox.
Now you are complaining that I was using a “different definition” after you are the one who changed the meanings of the discussion.
I thought Passover was tied to the escape of the Hebrews from Egypt … which coincidentally happened in late Spring …
Also … TonySinclair … if you could, would you please include quotes from the actual text from the Bible … when you say something is in the Bible, but don’t include the text, it’s pretty easy to completely dismiss your argument if it’s so unworthy in your mind to not take the time … it’s like you want us to take on faith your argument to never take things on faith … just saying …
Saturnalia and Sol Invitus were long dead before Christmas became a big holiday. It was barely on the calendars until 400 AD or so.
And the choice had nothing to do with any other holiday. (Yes, added trappings, certainly)
"Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d
This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11 Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.
Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”12"
Not to mention, Historians figure it was such a small village, it would have been maybe a dozen kids. And Herod was known to be a right bastard in things like this.
Regarding the Massacre of the Innocents, although Herod was guilty of many brutal acts including the killing of his wife and two of his sons, no other contemporary source refers to the massacre.[38] One reason that has been put forward for the lack of other sources for the alleged massacre is that Bethlehem was a small village, and thus the number of male children under the age of two might not have exceeded 20.[39] Of recent biographers of Herod, most doubt the event took place,[40] with one exception, Stewart Perowne, who deems the killing “wholly in keeping with all that we know of him.”[41] Other scholars such as Jack Finegan,[42] A. Schalit,[43] and Richard T. France[44] support the historicity of the event, or at least state there is nothing impossible about this command from Herod.[45]
*
It’s even documented outside Christian sources.
*The first non-Christian reference to the massacre is recorded four centuries later by Macrobius (c. 395-423), who writes in his Saturnalia:
“When he [emperor Augustus] heard that among the boys in Syria under two years old whom Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered killed, his own son was also killed, he said: it is better to be Herod’s pig, than his son.”[19]*
*Josh McDowell is not the first to assert that archaeology has verified Luke’s version of the Roman census. He makes three points. “First of all,archaeological discoveries show that the Romans had a regular enrollment of taxpayers and also held censuses every 14 years.” Luke’s would have corresponded to that of 9-8 B.C.
“Second, we find evidence that Quirinius was governor of Syria around 7 B.C. This assumption is based on an inscription found in Antioch ascribing to Quirinius this post. As a result of this finding, it is now supposed that that he was governor twice – once in 7 B.C.” and in 6 CE.
"Last, in regard to the practices of enrollment, a papyrus found in Egypt gives directions for the conduct of a census.
“It reads: ‘Because of the approaching census it is necessary that all those residing for any cause away from their homes should at once prepare to return to their own governments in order that they may complete the family registration of the enrollment and that the tilled lands may retain those belonging to them.’”*
Matthew 2 andLuke 2 are both easy to find and easy to read, and contain everything I have asserted about the contradictory infancy narratives, but are too long to quote in an already lengthy post. The links also have the advantage of allowing you to compare many different translations, if you want to search for one that agrees with Hector.
The cite gives a handful, not many, and says that most scholars support 4 BCE. But it’s not worth arguing about, because it’s still 7 years before Quirinius became governor.
Good heavens, did you read your cite? It demolishes McDowell’s assertions, and I’m not surprised, since his training is in aircraft maintenance and apologetics, not archaeology. Allow me to quote some parts of your cite that you inadvertently left out:
"McDowell refers to two sources.
(M1) John Elder._Prophets, Idols and Diggers: Scientific Proof of Bible History. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960. pp. 159-60.
This author has a major flaw as a source; he does not give footnotes, or otherwise document his assertions… There is absolutely no support to Luke’s implication of worldwide census or a empire-wide tax. In fact, it is quite contrary to well-documented practice… Since there are no footnotes, none of the assertions can be checked, and for the use of scholarship, Elder’s book is useless."
Even the part you quoted contradicts Luke. It says that people should return to their homes, not leave their homes and journey to wherever their ancestors lived a thousand years earlier (and in case anyone doesn’t realize it, that is not a figure of speech; King David ruled 1000 years before Jesus was born, according to Bible chronology). In any case, your cite says “These undocumented papyri give the practice for Egypt. Egypt, at the time of the incorporation into the Roman world, was made an imperial province, whose revenue went to the Emperors, and not to the Senate. Any practices in Egypt would not apply elsewhere.”
And best of all, also from your cite…
"The Answer: What was Luke Thinking?
Fitzmyer, in the Anchor Bible, surveys the wreckage of all the attempts to save the accuracy of Luke. All of the approaches are failures.
The answer seems to be that Luke, in seeking to connect his story of the coming of a new savior with the ruler of the known world, Augustus, remembered the upset at both the death of Herod (4 BCE), and the exile of Archelaus and the incorporation of Judaea into the empire (CE 6). Civil disturbances broke out at both times. Luke conflated the two eras, and supposed that Quirinius was governor near the death of Herod, erasing ten years."
I’m flattered. You found a cite from the Anchor Bible, one of the most respected scholarly works about the Bible ever published, that says almost exactly what I said. Thank you very much.
OK, if you can find somebody who said it’s not impossible, and an offhand reference to it 400 years later, after Christianity had become the state religion of Rome, then that’s good enough for me.
This claim is not substantiated in Luke ch 2 … best I have is:
This is true even today, if I work out-of-State I still have to file a State tax return.
You understand of course that in any set of claims if just one of them is completely bogus, well, human nature as it is, there will be doubt cast on all the claims. Thank you for the citations, but you’re on your own with Hector … I’m just holding the tail …