Luke 2.1-7.
Luke 2.1-3 KWL - 1 This happened in those days:
- A ruling went out from Caesar Augustus
- to survey the whole Empire.
- 2 This first survey happened
- during Quirinius’s leadership of Syria,
- 3 and each and every one was traveling
- to their hometowns to be surveyed.
Some bibles refer to this apo-gráfesthai/“write-up,” as a census. But it wasn’t just a head count. The United States takes censuses every decade to figure out how many representatives each state should get, but the Romans and other empires took censuses to figure out exactly how much tax money they should expect from their territories.
Historians were a little confused because for a long time they couldn’t find records of a specific Roman survey round the time of Jesus’s birth (roughly 7
Now for the date. Luke tries to pin it down by mentioning the Roman emperor, Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Gaius Octavius’s official name by that point); and a certain Syrian leader, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius. Here’s the problem: In 7
Here are the popular solutions to the problem. Pick your favorite.
- SKEPTICS: Doesn’t matter. It’s all mythology anyway.
INERRANTISTS: The Roman and Jewish historians, and every historian since, have the dates wrong. Luke doesn’t. Quirinius was totally governor at the time. The bible rules.- THOSE WITH REALLY OUT-OF-DATE REFERENCE BOOKS (’cause they don’t trust present-day scholars): Maybe Quirinius served two terms, with a first term before Saturninus? [A theory pitched back when there were a few gaps in Roman Syrian history. Archaeologists have filled them since.]
- THOSE SEEKING GRAMMATICAL LOOPHOLES: Granted, Quirinius wasn’t praetor till 6
CE . But back in 7BC he was a legatus/“officer”—a military leader in charge of Syria’s defense and foreign policy, if not the proper governor. He held a position of igemonĂ©fontos/“leadership,”Lk 2.2 right? He could’ve supervised the Roman survey, right? Close enough, right? - INERRANTISTS (who by “inerrancy” only mean the original texts were inerrant, not our current copies): The original text of Luke must have “Saturninus,” or “before Quirinius’s leadership of Syria.” Either way, some copyist slipped up and wrote “Quirinius,” so now we have a boo-boo in the bible.
- NON-INERRANTISTS: Luke mixed up the governors.
Got one chosen? Goody. Now on with the commentary.