Luke 2:1-7
"This passage has been the target for skeptics on several grounds, including the reality and timing of the census, and the need for a journey to Bethlehem.
Some mock Luke’s phrasing in Luke 2:1: “All the world? Surely Aborigines weren’t included!” This, even in the English translation, is a ridiculously wooden way of reading the text. But the word “world” in this Luke passage is non-universal. As I wrote in Refuting Compromise:
The Greek in this verse is πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην (pasan tēn oikoumenēn), and it’s the Greek that counts. The basic word translated ‘world’ is οἰκουμένη (oikoumenē), from which we derive the word ‘ecumenical’. Greek scholars recognize that in the New Testament as well as secular Greek literature at the time, oikoumenē was often used to refer to the ‘Roman empire’ only. So Caesar Augustus really did initiate a census of all the oikoumenē, i.e., all the Roman Empire (p. 249).A well regarded commentator on Luke, I. Howard Marshall (1934– ), Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland explains:
ὀικουμένη is ‘the inhabited (world)’, from ὀικέω, ‘to dwell’. It was used of the Roman Empire which was exaggeratedly regarded as equal to the whole world.So the NIV is right to render this phrase, “the entire Roman world”.
Skeptics have argued that Luke got the timing wrong as well. They claim that Quirinius did not become governor until c. 7 AD according to Josephus. Yet according to Matthew’s Gospel, Christ was born before Herod the Great’s death, which occurred in 4 BC. Supposedly, Luke was misled by a great census performed under Quirinius that was very well known.
But this is an absurd charge: even on the face of it, it is not likely that Luke was simply confused, because he showed that he was well aware of this in Acts 5:37: “Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.” Here, Luke didn’t even need to say which census was being referred to; his original readers would know perfectly well what “the census” referred to. He also used the same word in Greek for census, ἀπογραφὴ (apographē) as in Luke 2.
1. This was not the main census of Quirinius, but a first census, which implies at least one more, e.g. great one referred to in Acts. This implies that he twice governed Syria, once around 7 BC and again around AD 7. Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939), the archaeologist and professor from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, argued that Quirinius was twice ruling in Syria on two occasions. This was partly based on the Latin Tiburtine Inscription, discovered in 1746, which referred to someone ruling Syria twice, and Ramsay argued that Quirinius fitted that description.
Thus biblical scholar Gleason Archer (1916–2004) suggests:
In order to secure efficiency and dispatch, it may well have been that Augustus put Quirinius in charge of the census-enrollment in Syria between the close of Saturninus’s administration and the beginning of Varus’s term of service in 7 BC. It was doubtless because of his competent handling of the 7 BC census that Augustus later put him in charge of the 7 AD census.2. This was not Quirinius’ census at all, but a census before Quirinius’, aka “the census”. The New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues that πρῶτος (prōtos) not only means ‘first’, but when followed by the genitive can mean ‘before’ (cf. John 1:15, 15:18). Wright’s view also has quite a lot of scholarly support, although not universal.
For example, F.F. Bruce (1910–1990), Ryland professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Manchester, suggested that the passage should be translated, “This enrollment (census) was before that made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” Harold Hoehner (1935–2009), Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, suggested that the passage should read, “This census was before that [census] when Quirinius was governor of Syria” Therefore the census around the time of Christ’s birth was one which took place before Quirinius was governing Syria, of which Luke was well aware, as shown above.
Some have questioned the account because they believe that it’s implausible that a heavily pregnant woman would be forced to travel so far. First of all, distances in Israel are tiny; before 1967, the modern state was only 9 miles wide, or half the width of the Washington Beltway. It is quite a bit longer, but still, the distance that Jesus’ mother and adoptive father travelled was only about 70 miles. Also, Mary might not have been so heavy; the text just says, “while they were there”, Jesus was born, nothing about being born the night they arrived.
But Luke explained why: the rule was that people had to go to their own place. And as usual, archaeological discoveries have vindicated Luke.
Early in the twentieth century, a papyrus was discovered dating from about AD 104. This contained an edict by Gauis Vibius Maximus, the Roman governor of Egypt, stating:
Since the enrollment by households is approaching, it is necessary to command all who for any reason are out of their own district to return to their own home, in order to perform the usual business of the taxation …This even used the same word, apographē, translated above as “enrollment”, as Luke used for “census”.
And like a good historian, Luke gives us details that allow us to place the Incarnation at a specific point in history. For him, the theological and the historical were inseparably connected, which is a good reason for us to take both seriously." CMI/John Safarti
