Is this thread a perpetual motion machine or what?
No, it stops for important new information every so often like the new information below posted 2 pages ago that shows how Judea was not so independant after all, and thus a Rome ordered or requested census was certainlly possible.
...As stated it doesn't make sense for the alleged great historian Luke to make up something like this when there are so many other easier ways he could have made up a story that could not be contested. And the whole political climate of that time was very complex as shown by the fact that Herod the Great had to go to Rome to get elected king of Judea (he was elected king of Judea in Rome) and the Roman army put him in power.
Here are other facts that show the influence of Rome on Judea. A census is certainly possible given the climate of that time:
From the article "Luke the HIstorian" Catholic Encyclopedia
"King Herod was not as independent as he is described for controversial purposes.
A few years before Herod's death Augustus wrote to him. Josephus, "Ant.", XVI, ix., 3, has: "Cæsar [Augustus] . . . grew very angry, and wrote to Herod sharply. The sum of his epistle was this, that whereas of old he used him as a friend, he should now use him as his subject." It was after this that Herod was asked to number his people. That some such enrolling took place we gather from a passing remark of Josephus, "Ant.", XVII, ii, 4, "Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good will to Cæsar [Augustus], and to the king's [Herod's] government, these very men [the Pharisees] did not swear, being above six thousand." The best scholars think they were asked to swear allegiance to Augustus. (4) It is said there was no room for Quirinius, in Syria, before the death of Herod in 4 B.C. C. Sentius Saturninus was governor there from 9-6 B.C.; and Quintilius Varus, from 6 B.C. till after the death of Herod. But in turbulent provinces there were sometimes times two Roman officials of equal standing. In the time of Caligula the administration of Africa was divided in such a way that the military power, with the foreign policy, was under the control of the lieutenant of the emperor, who could be called a hegemon (as in St. Luke), while the internal affairs were under the ordinary proconsul."
http://www.doxa.ws/Bible/Luke.html
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