Well I've mentioned 2 or 3 explanations for the census (taxing) issue.
Here is another interesting point from Wiki on the Census.
"Augustus is known to have taken a census of Roman citizens at least three times, in 28 BC, 8 BC, and 14.[13]
(highlighting mine). Joseph was not a Roman citizen. And those censuses were not for tax purposes.
There is also evidence that censuses were taken at regular intervals during his reign in the provinces of Egypt and Sicily, important because of their wealthy estates and supply of grain.[14] In the provinces, the main goals of a census of non-citizens were taxation and military service.[15] The earliest such provincial census was taken in Gaul in 27 BC; during the reign of Augustus, the imposition of the census provoked disturbances and resistance.[16]
And those tax censuses were conducted by the governors of those provinces, and each province/governor decided at its/his own discretion when to conduct them. Some indeed conducted them at regular intervals, others not. Given that at Augustus' times, about half of the provinces were under control of the Emperor and half under control of the Senate, I very much doubt even that Augustus would have had the authority to order an Empire-wide tax census.
Notice how it says all the world and not all of our provinces. It makes sense that since Rome elected Herod king of Judea in Rome and Roman troops put Herod the Great in power that Judea owed Rome some compensation or at least conduct a census if asked.
Herod was a vassal of Rome. Rome imposed a fixed levy on him. How he got the money was his business. Rome had no business to impose on him to conduct a census - and Herod was far too smart to conduct a census, knowing his people were not quite enamoured of the idea. And lastly, Luke says Augustus ordered the census, not that Augustus asked Herod to order it.
This is similiar to the situation currently in Afghanistan where American troops put their current leader in power. Do you really think if the US asked for some kind of census to get some idea of the number of people in various areas of that country that the leader of Afghanistan wouldn't do it.
I thought Karzai was elected? You can cite all kinds of problems with the elections, but there was a definite effort in place to have the will of the Afghan people decide on their leader(s).
Given the several points I've made about the census, it is really not much of an issue for me. A person who has been called a great historinan as Luke has should be given the benefit of any doubt when there are a couple explanations for why he could have been right. If some other people sincerely have a problem with the issue so be it.
What? When it's not much of an issue for you, why don't you just say: Luke may have made a mistake there? Why do you keep struggling to seek for convoluted explanations instead of just saying that?
Joobz, 2000 year old history is not as cut and dry as you often make it out to be. Here is what Norman Geisler says about this issue:
Ah, another of your favourite apologists.
"There are reasonable solutions to this difficulty. First, Quintilius Varus was governor of Syria from about 7 B.C. to about 4 B.C. Varus was not a trustworthy leader, a fact that was disastrously demonstrated in A.D. 9 when he lost three legions of soldiers in the Teutoburger forest in Germany.
Not trustworthy? What the hell does he mean with that? Varus was highly trusted by Augustus, that's why he got the German command. You don't give the command to 15,000+ troops to someone you don't trust.
To the contrary, Quirinius was a notable military leader who was responsible for squelching the rebellion of the Homonadensians in Asia Minor. When it came time to begin the census, in about 8 or 7 B.C., Augustus entrusted Quirinius with the delicate problem in the volatile area of Palestine, effectively superseding the authority and governorship of Varus by appointing Quirinius to a place of special authority in this matter.
And Varus was not? After Herod's death, he crushed a Jewish revolt and crucified 2,000 Jews in the process. Sounds very able to me.
But what Geisler tries to do here is to make Quirinius a sort of co-governor besides Varus. Why did no-one report that then - neither Josephus, nor Tacitus, nor Suetonius, etc. etc.? There is no other example of this in Roman history AFAIK, so that would have been noteworthy, wouldn't it? The text in Luke still says "ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου", i.e., while Quirinius ruled Syria. That precludes that Quirinius would only have been assigned the job of census-taker. Oh, and Herod was still in charge of Judaea, so why take a census in the first place?
It has also been proposed that Quirinius was governor of Syria on two separate occasions, once while prosecuting the military action against the Homonadensians between 12 and 2 B.C., and later beginning about A.D. 6. A Latin inscription discovered in 1764 has been interpreted to refer to Quirinius as having served as governor of Syria on two occasions.
Ah, again lying for Jesus. The inscription reads that Quirinius had been appointed again as governor, not for the second time as governor
of Syria. And the same person twice as governor of the same province would also be unprecedented.
It is possible that Luke 2:2 reads, "This census took place before Quirinius was governing Syria." In this case, the Greek word translated "first" (prwtos) is translated as a comparative, "before." Because of the awkward construction of the sentence, this is not an unlikely reading. Regardless of which solution is accepted, it is not necessary to conclude that Luke had made an error in recording the historical events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Luke has proven himself to be a reliable historian even in the details. Sir William Ramsay has shown that in making reference to 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 islands he {Luke} made no mistakes!"
Oh great, Luke could mention about 100 geographical terms, so he is trustworthy?
Well, DOC, ddt made a rather educated analysis of this claim and you have yet to refute it.
DOC, where is ddt's reasoning incorrect?
I'd like to know too. Could you try to give your own grammatical analysis of the sentence? What Geisler tries is to argue that first of all, Luke used the superlative πρωτος ("earliest") instead of the comparative προτερος ("earlier"). However, in Greek - as in English - you don't use the superlative for comparing
two things. After that, I'm confused what he tries to argue, so could you give his detailed analysis? Or rather your own and do some actual thinking of your own instead of copying and pasting stuff from Google?
After a comparative (which both Geisler and Heichelheim argue Luke really meant) follows either:
a) η ("than") plus the thing you compare it with in the same case;
b) the thing you compare it with in the genitive ("genitivus comparationis").
Heichelheim argued for a translation "before that under the prefectureship of Quirinius", which means that that "that" is missing - you'd expect an article or a personal or demonstrative pronoun for that (something like της or αυτης). Moreover, what then happens with the phrase "ἡγεμονεύοντος ... Κυρηνίου" which is definitely a genitive absolute?
Maybe you could actually cite the original analyses of Heichelheim resp. Geisler instead of citing secondary sources of what they claimed?
I forwarded my earlier post to the wife of a friend of mine. She studied Latin and Greek and has been teaching them for years, a.o. at the theology faculty of my Alma Mater (a nominally Catholic university). She pointed out one error in my previous translation: πρωτη is used as a predicate, not an attribute, so the translation should be: "This census was the first while ...". But she was adamant that "ἡγεμονεύοντος ... Κυρηνίου" is a genitive absolute and there's no way a second census is somehow involved in this sentence.
Finally, I don't understand what Geisler means when he says the sentence is "awkward". Read on its own, it's a perfectly fine, grammatically correct Greek sentence, IMHO. It seems to me only to be awkward when you read it with the predisposition that the text must agree with what the Matthew gospel claims, and then you must use mental gymnastics to argue that Luke really meant something else than what those 8 simple words say.
And a nice link that rounds up all those mental gymnastics:
http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Legends&rcid=41896.
