ISTM that the only way one would arrive at the smooshed-together nativity story told in Sunday School is by starting from a literalist assumption of how one must read the scriptures.
I don’t know about that. I’d agree that a literalist assumption requires a smooshed-together nativity story with no discrepancies or disagreement. But I’m not a literalist, and I have no problem at all with a smooshed-together nativity story that allows for some discrepancies as normal to human storytelling.
I see it happen all the time—two people will be telling the story of the same event, and one will say something like “It was in 1978. I remember because we watched it on TV in Ms. Smither’s freshman biology class, and I had her for biology in 1978.” Then the other will say “No, it was 1981, because I was traveling in the Ozarks when it happened.” And then you check and it actually happened in 1979.
Some discrepancies in detail are to be expected in stories that get told over and over and passed from one person to another. But that doesn’t mean the whole story needs to be chucked out, and for me, at least, those discrepancies don’t get in the way of the bigger story at all.
Of course, I grew up hearing stories from my grandmother, who would say with a wink, “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
ISTM that the only way one would arrive at the smooshed-together nativity story told in Sunday School is by starting from a literalist assumption of how one must read the scriptures. Each story, by itself, is clear and cogent. However, when forced to tell the same story, they become neither -- at least to me.
And what I don't get is why people insist that a person's life story ought to be clear and cogent. Mine certainly isn't!
To be clear, it's not bad to look at the Gospels as a literary genre, or to expect each of them, as a literary composition, to be clear and cogent. All I am saying is that people exist who are more interested in the life events than in the literary retelling of them. And that's a perfectly valid point of view. Not everybody has to be literary.
And what I don't get is why people insist that a person's life story ought to be clear and cogent.
I can think of one reason:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:30-31
I said I don't get why you think the life ought to be clear and cogent. Not the recounting of it in Gospel form, which is obviously done to interpret it. The life itself.
I assume that in God's eyes it is--that it forms a thread in the whole space/time/Creation thing and makes sense to him if to no one else. But to demand that a real person's whole life makes clear and cogent sense to another ordinary person--well, damn.
Is your own life clear and cogent? Are there no mysterious episodes where you ask, "Well, what was the point of that?" Do you not have random interests/anecdotes/even motifs which may make a good story over beer but as far as you can tell promote no particular conclusion? Are there not even whole motifs that make you ask WTF?
Because in mine there are--and in the lives of everyone I know.
Are you trying to say that Luke's account cannot be 'orderly' because it is not comprehensive?
I'm sure a Greek scholar Shipmate can confirm the actual word here but I know a little about Biblical translation and I suspect they use the word 'orderly' very deliberately.
This is such a poor argument. The logic failure creates a contradiction where none exists.
Of course, it's reasonable to infer from Matthew that Mary and Joseph were residing in Bethlehem and had never been to Nazareth before. However, that is your inference (in absolutely the correct usage of that word). Matthew is completely silent on this point. It is entirely reasonable to make several different assumptions. None of which can be weighed against the other in the absence of other information.
Oh, I think some assumptions can be weighed as more credible than others. For example, one could assume that the flight to Egypt was a fake-out and that the Holy Family really fled to Bermuda. A sense of logic and history and that none of the early sources mention it makes us conclude that this is far less likely than either the flight to Egypt or a trip to the Jerusalem Temple.
I see it happen all the time—two people will be telling the story of the same event, and one will say something like “It was in 1978. I remember because we watched it on TV in Ms. Smither’s freshman biology class, and I had her for biology in 1978.” Then the other will say “No, it was 1981, because I was traveling in the Ozarks when it happened.” And then you check and it actually happened in 1979.
Kind of like the way Arnold Schwarzenegger claims the pivotal moment for his involvement in American politics was a presidential debate that never happened. Given the format I think we have to at least entertain the possibility that Schwarzenegger simply made up the story to illustrate a political point (or because it was politically useful for him).
The ability to find conflict where none exists is incredibly strange to me.
The only actual conflict that exists between the two narratives is that Matthew dates it to Herod's reign and Luke to Quirinius' governship and there is evidence that these two terms did not overlap.
It is entirely reasonable to suppose that the differing features of the narratives may reflect issues of fact. However it is entirely unreasonable (in the literal sense) to assert that these differences prove that one or both of the narratives is therefore factually wrong.
Thus far, the only conflict that has been argued on this thread (apart from the dating issues) is that Luke phraseology excludes the possibility of the Holy Family going back to Bethlehem from Jerusalem and thus there is no possibility of a Magi visit as described by Matthew. I just don't buy that on either a human level or a geographical level. Of course that doesn't make either Luke or Matthew correct about anything at all. However, no one has really shown any reason to doubt either Gospel writers apart from the dating issue. I restate my challenge; why should I believe other sources over Luke? In terms of how a census was conducted and when Quirinius governship occurred...?
Nowhere does Matthew say that M&J had been in Bethlehem for years and has never heard of Nazareth... nowhere does Matthew say that a Roman census didn't happen... Nowhere does Luke say "Mary found the visit of the Shepherds strange but no-one else came to see her son..."
Show me the evidence! Arguments from silence are generally as compelling as literal ones from the other side. I.e. not very.
Are you trying to say that Luke's account cannot be 'orderly' because it is not comprehensive?
I'm sure a Greek scholar Shipmate can confirm the actual word here but I know a little about Biblical translation and I suspect they use the word 'orderly' very deliberately.
This is such a poor argument. The logic failure creates a contradiction where none exists.
Of course, it's reasonable to infer from Matthew that Mary and Joseph were residing in Bethlehem and had never been to Nazareth before. However, that is your inference (in absolutely the correct usage of that word). Matthew is completely silent on this point. It is entirely reasonable to make several different assumptions. None of which can be weighed against the other in the absence of other information.
Oh, I think some assumptions can be weighed as more credible than others. For example, one could assume that the flight to Egypt was a fake-out and that the Holy Family really fled to Bermuda. A sense of logic and history and that none of the early sources mention it makes us conclude that this is far less likely than either the flight to Egypt or a trip to the Jerusalem Temple.
I see it happen all the time—two people will be telling the story of the same event, and one will say something like “It was in 1978. I remember because we watched it on TV in Ms. Smither’s freshman biology class, and I had her for biology in 1978.” Then the other will say “No, it was 1981, because I was traveling in the Ozarks when it happened.” And then you check and it actually happened in 1979.
Kind of like the way Arnold Schwarzenegger claims the pivotal moment for his involvement in American politics was a presidential debate that never happened. Given the format I think we have to at least entertain the possibility that Schwarzenegger simply made up the story to illustrate a political point (or because it was politically useful for him).
I would buy chronological but that's not comprehensive. Thus one should be careful in drawing a strong conclusion from the absence of a particular episode.
If Luke claimed to have written a complete biography then such absences would inevitably create a conflict: either Luke was lying or wrong about being complete or the episodes recorded elsewhere but not in Luke never happened. I have no problem with that concept. But Luke does not make such a claim. At all.
I like your Bermuda idea but it doesn't get us much further forward. Matthew only states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Why should I assume he means that J&M had been in Bethlehem for years? He certainly could do. In the absence of Luke, I would probably draw the same inference but it's hardly a solid fact is it? An non-prejudged assessment of Matthew would be that he is silent on both parents' location prior to the birth. That's all. He does not corroborate Luke on this point but neither does he contradict him. Saying he does is overreach.
Thus far, the only conflict that has been argued on this thread (apart from the dating issues) is that Luke phraseology excludes the possibility of the Holy Family going back to Bethlehem from Jerusalem and thus there is no possibility of a Magi visit as described by Matthew. I just don't buy that on either a human level or a geographical level. Of course that doesn't make either Luke or Matthew correct about anything at all. However, no one has really shown any reason to doubt either Gospel writers apart from the dating issue. I restate my challenge; why should I believe other sources over Luke?
I don't know, but apparently you don't believe Luke. Luke states that when the Holy family was done at the Temple in Jerusalem they went to Nazareth. You claim Luke is wrong about this without indicating why, other than a desire to harmonize with Matthew.
In terms of how a census was conducted and when Quirinius governship occurred...?
Not sure why you'd pay any more attention than you did last time around, but Rome would not have conducted a census of Judea while it was a client state. That's the whole point of having a client state; those kinds of administrative details would have been handled internally by the client rulers. In other words, there would be no Roman census in Judea while Herod (or his son Archelaus) was ruling. Only once Archelaus got the boot and Rome took over direct administration of the province would they have the desire (and necessity) of conducting a census. And yes, we know from other sources that Quirinius was legatus of Syria when Archelaus was deposed, so that bit matches up.
I see it happen all the time—two people will be telling the story of the same event, and one will say something like “It was in 1978. I remember because we watched it on TV in Ms. Smither’s freshman biology class, and I had her for biology in 1978.” Then the other will say “No, it was 1981, because I was traveling in the Ozarks when it happened.” And then you check and it actually happened in 1979.
Yes, or kind of like accounts that differ on some details from two witnesses to an event that did happen. It happens all the time.
Given the format I think we have to at least entertain the possibility that Schwarzenegger simply made up the story to illustrate a political point (or because it was politically useful for him).
I never said the possibility that some details in the nativity accounts are embellishments intended to make a point shouldn’t be entertained. I said I disagreed with the assertion that “the only way one would arrive at the smooshed-together nativity story told in Sunday School is by starting from a literalist assumption of how one must read the scriptures.” (Emphasis added.)
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
Now I suppose it's possible that the shepherds didn't say “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about” right after the angels had left, instead taking a months long trip to Egypt and then suddenly remembering what happened and then exclaiming . . . , but it seems an extremely strained way of reading that passage for no good reason.
I am totally open to the possibility that a Roman census could not have been conducted as Luke describes.
However, what is the source for that assertion? Why should we give more weight to said source than Luke?
For starters, go back to my last post and re-read what I said about client states. Then couple that with the fact that Nazareth was in Galilee and was ruled by Herod Antipas until 39 CE (i.e. after any reasonable date for the Crucifixion). In other words Joseph and Mary were (according to Luke) not living anywhere the Romans would take a census of at the time of the birth of Jesus.
Yes, or kind of like accounts that differ on some details from two witnesses to an event that did happen. It happens all the time.
About the only details that don't differ in the two accounts are that Mary and Joseph had a son in Bethlehem. The argument that "witness accounts differ," often with the rhetorical flourish added, "it would be suspicious if they did not" seem to me to be apologetic nonsense when applied to stories this divergent. One can take it as an article of faith that they are both doing (bizarrely distinct) reporting of the event, but it seems to be putting up a needless stumbling block at the entrance of the Gospels -- given that there are straightforward exegetical alternatives available. Obviously, YMMV.
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
Now I suppose it's possible that the shepherds didn't say “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about” right after the angels had left, instead taking a months long trip to Egypt and then suddenly remembering what happened and then exclaiming . . . , but it seems an extremely strained way of reading that passage for no good reason.
This is sound but not as compelling as you seem to think it is. Of course a fundamental of accurate translation is to see how the same word is used elsewhere. But it's still a jump to insist that it can only mean 'immediately after.' For one thing, Biblical translators could have rendered it as such and didn't.
Absent Matthew, it is still reasonable to read Luke in more than one way. Bethlehem to Jerusalem is a short trip (relatively speaking). It would be human to go to Jerusalem and back separately from the return trip to Nazareth and Luke's choice of phrase does not exclude this. Travelling with a small baby at any point in history is not a simple undertaking as every parent knows. So there are good reasons to think that the trip was not simply Bethlehem to Nazareth with a quick stop on the way at the Temple. Bethlehem to Jerusalem - 6 miles. A day trip on foot (there and back). Bethlehem to Nazareth - 90 miles.
I also think you're placing too much emphasis on Luke's choice of joining word. It could be argued that Luke's focus and emphasis is very much on the other part of the sentence - that Joseph and Mary followed the Jewish law.
Of course - as I have said many times now - Luke could mean immediately after the Temple they went back to Nazareth but in English 'after' can have quite an open time frame. Why not the Greek word also?
For starters, go back to my last post and re-read what I said about client states. Then couple that with the fact that Nazareth was in Galilee and was ruled by Herod Antipas until 39 CE (i.e. after any reasonable date for the Crucifixion). In other words Joseph and Mary were (according to Luke) not living anywhere the Romans would take a census of at the time of the birth of Jesus.
I know exactly what your last post said. It's the same as what you said a few pages back. How do you know that a client state would have acted in the role you state? How do you know the description of a census given by Luke is wrong?
I'm not here claiming Luke was right, nor am I claiming any special status for the Gospel text. In fact I am doing the opposite. I want to lay one source along side another and weigh them against each other. You have not given the source. In effect you are doing the sceptics mirror of the fundamentalist. The fundamentalist says it doesn't matter what any other sources say, I KNOW the Bible is correct (despite the logic problems this creates). You are saying that the only resolution to any potential conflict with other sources is that Luke is wrong. I suspect that is not your intention at all. Which is why I keep asking. What is the reason to think Luke got it wrong? Why is a census of the entire Roman Empire impossible?
Luke is making a big claim here, of course he is. But if Luke was indeed written between 50 and 60 AD then it's 1 to 2 decades closer to the events than Josephus' writing. Of course that doesn't hold if Luke was written later.
All I'm asking for is the bonefides of certain things you are confident of and why you think they are compelling when Luke isn't?
I am trying to understand the evidence. You are stating the conclusion. If I knew that evidence, I may very well agree with you...
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
Now I suppose it's possible that the shepherds didn't say “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about” right after the angels had left, instead taking a months long trip to Egypt and then suddenly remembering what happened and then exclaiming . . . , but it seems an extremely strained way of reading that passage for no good reason.
This is sound but not as compelling as you seem to think it is. Of course a fundamental of accurate translation is to see how the same word is used elsewhere. But it's still a jump to insist that it can only mean 'immediately after.' For one thing, Biblical translators could have rendered it as such and didn't.
Absent Matthew, it is still reasonable to read Luke in more than one way. Bethlehem to Jerusalem is a short trip (relatively speaking). It would be human to go to Jerusalem and back separately from the return trip to Nazareth and Luke's choice of phrase does not exclude this. Travelling with a small baby at any point in history is not a simple undertaking as every parent knows. So there are good reasons to think that the trip was not simply Bethlehem to Nazareth with a quick stop on the way at the Temple. Bethlehem to Jerusalem - 6 miles. A day trip on foot (there and back). Bethlehem to Nazareth - 90 miles.
That scenario of returning the Bethlehem to ease the difficulties of travelling with a small child doesn't really work with the geography. Bethlehem - Jerusalem - Bethlehem - Nazareth doesn't make a lot of sense when Bethlehem to Nazareth requires passing through (or, at least, very near) Jerusalem. Which then requires a longer time in Bethlehem until more favourable conditions to make the trip (ie the child is much older, possibly when friends and relatives from Nazareth are in Jerusalem for a festival and the family could join them to return together). I suppose you could get away with a few weeks or even months for that. But it does seem to be pushing the text a wee bit.
The presentation at the Temple was when Jesus was 40 days old.
Luke's text could imply that the Holy Family always intended to return to Nazareth but it doesn't actually say that. What I'm reaching for here is that having arrived in Bethlehem after a 90 mile journey, the Baby arrives. We know Joseph has kinfolk in town and a trade that means he can earn a living anywhere. He is not a farmer, for example, who needs to get back to his own land. Why would they not stay in Bethlehem?
Just from Luke, there doesn't appear to be any reason to leave Bethlehem. Luke simply says that Nazareth was the home town of Joseph and Mary. Is there a limit on the time that distant relations would accommodate someone, even if they had a trade to allow them to earn their keep?
Yes, or kind of like accounts that differ on some details from two witnesses to an event that did happen. It happens all the time.
About the only details that don't differ in the two accounts are that Mary and Joseph had a son in Bethlehem. The argument that "witness accounts differ," often with the rhetorical flourish added, "it would be suspicious if they did not" seem to me to be apologetic nonsense when applied to stories this divergent. One can take it as an article of faith that they are both doing (bizarrely distinct) reporting of the event, but it seems to be putting up a needless stumbling block at the entrance of the Gospels -- given that there are straightforward exegetical alternatives available. Obviously, YMMV.
I get your point, but I think the needless stumbling blocks can work both ways. Dogmatically insisting that the stories are so divergent that both must be fictional constructs and neither can possibly be true in any respect (other than perhaps birth in Bethlehem) is problematic in its own right, it seems to me.
I’m not a literalist, nor am I particularly a fan of Borg and Crossan. But I’ve got no problem with taking the accounts at face value, with accepting that Matthew and Luke both took from the tradition(s) known to them the parts that fit their overall narrative and purpose and audience, and with considering that where the divergences actually create apparent contradictions, there might be reasons short of making things up that explain why, including faulty memories in the transmission chain. Based on my experience, that would make Matthew’s and Luke’s account very normal.
To me, the differences are something to acknowledge, but are not things that have to be explained in order for me to go with the story. I’m perfectly content to say that there could be any number of reasons for the differences in the stories and move on.
I also think you're placing too much emphasis on Luke's choice of joining word. It could be argued that Luke's focus and emphasis is very much on the other part of the sentence - that Joseph and Mary followed the Jewish law.
Of course - as I have said many times now - Luke could mean immediately after the Temple they went back to Nazareth but in English 'after' can have quite an open time frame. Why not the Greek word also?
Any particular reason why you're translating the word ὡς as "after" when most translators (including the ones I've cited) translate it as "when"? That seems like trying to substitute a much more ambiguous term for reasons other than textual accuracy. As previously mentioned it can also be used to mean "as" or "like", meaning it's used in cases where there's a direct connection between things, either as cause and effect or metaphorically.
For starters, go back to my last post and re-read what I said about client states. Then couple that with the fact that Nazareth was in Galilee and was ruled by Herod Antipas until 39 CE (i.e. after any reasonable date for the Crucifixion). In other words Joseph and Mary were (according to Luke) not living anywhere the Romans would take a census of at the time of the birth of Jesus.
I know exactly what your last post said. It's the same as what you said a few pages back. How do you know that a client state would have acted in the role you state? How do you know the description of a census given by Luke is wrong?
Because in modern terms what Luke is describing is akin to the U.S. doing a census of Canada and making some Canadians come to Buffalo, NY to do so. Here's a footnoted academic paper [PDF]. Earlier Republican-era censuses are described in Polybius, and Cassius Dio makes mention (without too much detail) of an Imperial-era census. You'll note in the days of the Republic the census was primarily a tool for measuring and organizing military manpower, with people divided in to categories of men of military age, children, women, old men, and slaves, hence its inclusion in Polybius' description of the Republican-era military. It also meant the Republican-era census wanted to know where these military age men were, not where their ancestors might have once lived.
Just from Luke, there doesn't appear to be any reason to leave Bethlehem. Luke simply says that Nazareth was the home town of Joseph and Mary. Is there a limit on the time that distant relations would accommodate someone, even if they had a trade to allow them to earn their keep?
Even if there were, I suppose one could get a house. Would, in fact, get a house, if at all possible, because living long term with one's in-laws when newly married and newly parents is not a comfortable scheme for anyone.
But as for the likelihood of going straight from the temple to Nazareth--
Mary is at this point not quite six weeks' postpartum. Even under the best of circumstances, she is new to nursing a baby, sleep deprived, and possibly still sore "down there." I would be surprised if she voluntarily undertook a long trip at this point.
There's also the fact that, when you go to the temple, bringing all your traveling gear is going to be a right pain--you will have to stow it somewhere safe while you visit the temple or else bring it with you, which is awkward. It can be done, yes. But I'm just not seeing it, from the point of view of new parents six weeks after birth.
And if you could, you'd want to attach yourself to some larger traveling group for safety. And maybe they'd be leaving Jerusalem for Nazareth on the exact day you need to be at the temple for ritual purposes. But I think it unlikely.
Matthew places the birth in the reign of Herod the Great - d. 4-1 BCE
Luke mentions a census at the time of the birth of which we have no other record, which he credits to Augustus and connects to Quirinius’s governorship beginning, as far as we know, in AD 6 - after the death of Herod the Great
Luke has Mary and Joseph taking the six-week-old Jesus to the Temple, apparently from Bethlehem, and then from there to Nazareth
Matthew has magi visit the child in Bethlehem, and the flight to Egypt before going to Nazareth
It is asserted that no censuses were conducted in client states on Augustus’s authority (although the pdf document Crœsos linked to shows he was keen on them). I’ve seen no evidence for that assertion. The pdf mentions how thin the evidence is for censuses in Egypt, and notes that there is only papyrological evidence for one census outside Egypt (in 106CE).
If Luke dates the census during the time of Quirinius that appears to be irreconcilable with a birth in the time of Herod. It is possible, however, that Luke should be read as referring to a census before Quirinius was governor of Syria. We don’t know of one, but as noted above our evidence on censuses is slender.
The second issue revolves around Luke 2.39
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
Καὶ ὡς ἐτέλεσαν πάντα τὰ κατὰ τὸν νόμον κυρίου, ἐπέστρεψαν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν εἰς πόλιν ἑαυτῶν Ναζαρέθ.
Does Luke’s phrasing imply that nothing else happened between the Temple visit and returning to Nazareth. If it does, do we prefer Luke’s account to Matthew’s, and why?
Even if there is grammatical/semantic space to fit in the magi and the slaughter of the innocents between Luke 2.38 and 2.39, is it credible that if it happened Luke didn’t know about it, or if he did know about it that he simply chose to omit it?
Even if there is grammatical/semantic space to fit in the magi and the slaughter of the innocents between Luke 2.38 and 2.39, is it credible that if it happened Luke didn’t know about it, or if he did know about it that he simply chose to omit it?
Luke mentions a census at the time of the birth of which we have no other record, which he credits to Augustus and connects to Quirinius’s governorship beginning, as far as we know, in AD 6 - after the death of Herod the Great ...
...
Josephus mentions a property registration/census after the annexation of Archelaus' territory (which included Jerusalem and Bethlehem but not Galilee) in chapter 18 of Antiquities and in chapter 2 of War. This resulted in some rather serious violence including an uprising led by Judas (a Gaulanite from Gamala according to Antiquities or a Galilean according to War).
Acts 5:37 has "After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered."
This certainly seems to imply that the writer of Luke/Acts is referring in the nativity sequence to the post-Archelaus' census.
Far less glaring, we've also got Luke having Joseph's family going up to Jerusalem for every Passover while Matthew has Joseph's family avoiding Jerusalem/Bethlehem after returning from Egypt because of fear of Archelaus and settling in Nazareth. So did they visit Jerusalem while in Egypt [or was their stay there very short]? Did they visit Jerusalem while Archelaus ruled (about 9 years)?
I also think you're placing too much emphasis on Luke's choice of joining word. It could be argued that Luke's focus and emphasis is very much on the other part of the sentence - that Joseph and Mary followed the Jewish law.
Of course - as I have said many times now - Luke could mean immediately after the Temple they went back to Nazareth but in English 'after' can have quite an open time frame. Why not the Greek word also?
Any particular reason why you're translating the word ὡς as "after" when most translators (including the ones I've cited) translate it as "when"? That seems like trying to substitute a much more ambiguous term for reasons other than textual accuracy. As previously mentioned it can also be used to mean "as" or "like", meaning it's used in cases where there's a direct connection between things, either as cause and effect or metaphorically.
My apologies, that was sloppy of me. As you say most translations go with 'when.' I've been flicking through a few and only one used 'after' as I did above. I think it was partly my conflating of 'when' and 'as' in my own head.
Not helpful here. My bad.
I have no problem with reading Luke as implying Jerusalem to Nazareth after the Temple as the most obvious understanding of what Luke is saying. In the absence of other information, I think there's a strong argument for reading it that way. But we do have other information. @Lamb Chopped summed it up really well. Jerusalem to Nazareth doesn't make a lot of sense. Moreover Luke's account begs a question. Matthew's account begs the question why Nazareth specifically (as he makes no mention of a prior connection). Luke begs a different question: why leave Bethlehem? (Potentially with a 6 week old).
As we know, Luke tells us that Joseph had kinfolk in Bethlehem. Luke also tells they stayed in Bethlehem at least 6 weeks. As I'm sure most Shipmates know, Luke's reference to a manger does not imply stable and "Inn" is probably wrong - the latest NIV for example uses "guest room." So what is implied here is the downstairs room of a two story dwelling. The family would normally sleep upstairs and the animals downstairs, hence the manger. I presume the animals were made to spend this particular night outside. Anyway, J&M were never in a stable but where were they 39 days later with a Temple trip to organise? We know from Luke also, that they were poor. This matters as therefore they (outside of the Tory Bible*) could not survive 6 weeks without any income. This all points towards at least a temporary settling in Bethlehem. Joseph had kin and could no doubt find work. (Although I've just double checked, it's from Matthew and Mark that we learn Joseph was a carpenter, not Luke).
So, even without Matthew, the return to Nazareth at this point is a bit odd. The reason for my focus here is that, whilst I wonder about this a lot, I think it wrong to think that Luke can only mean an immediate return from Jerusalem directly to Nazareth. As I said, for human and geographical reasons - expanded on by LC - it makes a lot more sense to have the return to Nazareth on an entirely different day. And I don't buy that Luke's text excludes this understanding.
Thanks for the PDF, I have only skimmed so far but am looking forward to reading it properly. One thought though is that there is only limited evidence on how the Romans might have conducted a census so I am cautious of a definite conclusion that what Luke describes is 'wrong.' I will read more....
If there was a census before the time of Quirinius, as well as the one at the time of Quirinius which led to the uprising by Judas the Galilean how would that make Acts 5.37 look different?
As far as going up to Jerusalem for the annual Passover festival is concerned, there’s a big difference between settling in a territory, and simply visiting it among the Passover crowds, and also once settled in Galilee they may have realised that Archelaus was not in fact a threat.
Matthew doesn’t give any time frame for the death of Herod the Great - just noting that it was the trigger for their return.
Finally, Luke’s κατ̓ ἔτος which is translated ‘every year’ may simply mean ‘annually’. And if asked whether it really was every year, might have replied “well not the year Joseph had broken his leg and couldn’t walk, nor the year when Jesus’ sister was born two weeks before Passover”
Just from Luke, there doesn't appear to be any reason to leave Bethlehem. Luke simply says that Nazareth was the home town of Joseph and Mary.
Luke actually refers to both Bethlehem and Nazareth as Joseph and Mary's home town (ἑαυτοῦ πόλιν / πόλιν ἑαυτῶν); literally "the town of them". In the first instance he clarifies that Bethlehem is Joseph's home town due to an ancestral connection, not in the normal sense one would use the term. In the case of Nazareth no such clarification is given, implying that the term is used in its typical everyday usage.
But as for the likelihood of going straight from the temple to Nazareth--
Mary is at this point not quite six weeks' postpartum. Even under the best of circumstances, she is new to nursing a baby, sleep deprived, and possibly still sore "down there." I would be surprised if she voluntarily undertook a long trip at this point.
There's also the fact that, when you go to the temple, bringing all your traveling gear is going to be a right pain--you will have to stow it somewhere safe while you visit the temple or else bring it with you, which is awkward. It can be done, yes. But I'm just not seeing it, from the point of view of new parents six weeks after birth.
Yes, there are some logistical challenges involved, but they're not insurmountable. Remember that what's being described is not something unusual, it's something that's expected of every Jewish mother under the law of Moses. Your inability to imagine the logistics and social support system involved stands in contrast to the understanding and expectations of Jews of the Second Temple period.
It is asserted that no censuses were conducted in client states on Augustus’s authority (although the pdf document Crœsos linked to shows he was keen on them).
No, Augustus was very keen on censuses of Roman provinces. Client states (ostenstibly self-governing political units that were [ allied with / tributaries of ] the Roman Empire) were another matter. This is a distinction that's often lost on readers who live in nation states and not empires.
Luke begs a different question: why leave Bethlehem? (Potentially with a 6 week old).
Luke doesn't beg that question, he answers it. The reason to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is to meet the requirements of the Law of Moses. Luke is not describing something unusual, at least in this regard. (Presumably not every newborn gets ecstatic prophecies at the Temple, but just going to the Temple after birth is an expected thing, not something out of the ordinary.)
As we know, Luke tells us that Joseph had kinfolk in Bethlehem. Luke also tells they stayed in Bethlehem at least 6 weeks.
We don't know that. All we know from Luke is that Joseph has an ancestral connection to Bethlehem. We're simply told that Bethlehem is the town/city of David and that Joseph is of the line of David. If there are other Davidians in Bethlehem who are close enough kin that Joseph can call upon for aid/hospitality Luke makes no mention of them.
As I said, for human and geographical reasons - expanded on by LC - it makes a lot more sense to have the return to Nazareth on an entirely different day. And I don't buy that Luke's text excludes this understanding.
Not really. If you're positing an unmentioned-by-Luke return trip to Bethlehem after the trip to Jerusalem you have to remember that every step towards Bethlehem (south of Jerusalem) is a step you're going to have to retrace on your trip back home to Nazareth (north of Jerusalem).
It is asserted that no censuses were conducted in client states on Augustus’s authority (although the pdf document Crœsos linked to shows he was keen on them).
No, Augustus was very keen on censuses of Roman provinces. Client states (ostenstibly self-governing political units that were [ allied with / tributaries of ] the Roman Empire) were another matter. This is a distinction that's often lost on readers who live in nation states and not empires.
I do recognise the difference between client states and provinces. You seem to be suggesting that Augustus would not have been keen on censuses there - if he could get them.
I have seen it asserted that censuses weren’t conducted in client states at his instigation/behest. What is the evidence for that?
I do recognise the difference between client states and provinces. You seem to be suggesting that Augustus would not have been keen on censuses there - if he could get them.
I have seen it asserted that censuses weren’t conducted in client states at his instigation/behest. What is the evidence for that?
The basic nature of client states. The whole point of client states is to exert influence while keeping administrative functions (like censuses and tax collection) in local hands as much as possible.
What I remember reading in older history books is that the tributum collected from the colonies was the largest single source of revenue for the imperial treasury, and it seems to have been collected from all colonies indiscriminately, whether they were under direct or indirect rule. The legate or prefect or procurator in charge of a colony under direct rule would have been told how many tons of silver he was required to ship to Rome each year, and so would the king or ethnarch or tetrarch of a client state. In either case, the purpose of the census was to assess the property owned by each taxpayer.
It’s possible that more recent historians may have unearthed new facts that change this older picture, but I haven’t been keeping up. An important recent work, I believe, is Money and Government in the Roman Empire, by Richard Duncan-Jones:
I do recognise the difference between client states and provinces. You seem to be suggesting that Augustus would not have been keen on censuses there - if he could get them.
I have seen it asserted that censuses weren’t conducted in client states at his instigation/behest. What is the evidence for that?
The basic nature of client states. The whole point of client states is to exert influence while keeping administrative functions (like censuses and tax collection) in local hands as much as possible.
Indeed. So a strong hint from the emperor might lead the state to have a census.
My question remains: What is the evidence that censuses weren’t held in client states?
I do recognise the difference between client states and provinces. You seem to be suggesting that Augustus would not have been keen on censuses there - if he could get them.
I have seen it asserted that censuses weren’t conducted in client states at his instigation/behest. What is the evidence for that?
The basic nature of client states. The whole point of client states is to exert influence while keeping administrative functions (like censuses and tax collection) in local hands as much as possible.
Indeed. So a strong hint from the emperor might lead the state to have a census.
Unlikely. Even in the cases of tributary states the Romans just cared about getting their tribute. They didn't care about the exact administrative mechanisms used to extract it. Again, I'm not sure you're getting the whole point of a client state. It's to exert influence without having to deploy your own administrative bureaucracy to do so. In other words, having to deploy a huge number of literate censitores and censuales is exactly the situation you try to avoid by having a client state.
Even if there were such an imperial hint the actual decree would be issued by the client ruler, exactly contrary to Luke's assertion that this was an empire-wide decree by Augustus Cæsar. Luke gives us a look at a related issue of jurisdiction and sovereignty and interactions between a Roman governor and a neighboring client tetrarch during his description of the trial of Jesus.
You still haven’t offered anything to support the assertion that censuses weren’t held in client states. Nor any evidence or argument for your ‘Unlikely’ above.
Rome was quite happy to put its fingers into client kingdom pies. There was Roman fiscal interference in Nabatea and Apamea and Herod’s administration was permitted to mint only copper coinage. Josephus evidences an oath of loyalty to Caesar and to Herod’s government which the Jewish people were called upon to swear in the latter part of Herod’s reign.
Luke’s ‘assertion’ may intend no more than to express simply the fact that the census in Palestine took place as part of a coordinated empire-wide policy of Augustus. Reference to such a general policy may well have formed part of the edict cf. the loyalty oath above.
Being a client kingdom will have meant that whatever registration did not, as you point out, use Roman officials and practices, but would have been conducted by local officials according to local practices and customs - so departures from what we know about imperial provincial censuses are unsurprising.
The interaction between Pilate and Herod Antipas is interesting indeed, but a bit of buck-passing between an insecure procurator and a local ruler (whose description as tetrarch says much) is not necessarily a good analogue for relations between emperor and client king.
There's no strong reason for arguing that Luke-Acts is not written by a Pauline companion, and the introduction to Luke invites us to see it as a work written because the author had 'carefully investigated everything from the beginning'. Not that he had investigated everything in order to write the work. Thus his investigation of the infancy stories could easily significantly pre-date the production of the gospel. This would suggest an earlier date than the suggested 85-90 range. There is no compelling reason for a date as late as 90, or even 80. It's a fair enough possibility that he is writing in the late 60s or early 70s, and drawing on investigations made over an extended period before that.
Rationally Luke got the post hoc 'prophecy' of the destruction of Jerusalem from Mark written after 70.
It's certainly the case that Matthew goes out of his way to present Jesus as a New Moses - saved from a slaughter of innocents, being in Egypt then getting called out back to the Promised Land, later on delivering a fresh perspective on the Law from a mountain. So, I can see why a pious fiction could have crept into his nativity account to allow him to cast Herod in the role of evil ruler ordering the slaughter of children in parallel to Pharaoh. Though the star and Magi don't seem necessary for that particular bit of pious fiction (which looks more like an attempt to liken the birth of Jesus to Greek and Roman myths). That would be sufficient to cast the chronology there into doubt, and so I agree that giving the chronology in Luke more weight makes sense.
Matthew works so hard to show the fulfillment of prophecy that he even makes prophecies up just to fulfill them.
I hesitate to think that we, at our millennia-removed distance, are more likely to be correct than someone writing about events within living memory. Even if that living memory is 70 years ago. The documents that survive two millennia tend to be fragmented and somewhat random, and we fill in the gaps almost without realizing it. And then someone decides to build a hotel and the resulting dig changes history once again...
But as for the distance between Nazareth and Bethlehem, that's easy. Assume that Joseph is the son or grandson of a Bethlehemite. He comes to Nazareth, possibly to work in nearby Sepphoris, a place that needed builders and was important enough to absorb a lot of them (this would be rather like my grandfather moving to Detroit to work in the auto industry--where he met my grandmother). Problem solved.
It would also account for why he took a heavily pregnant woman on the road with him--if he thought to rely on the kindness of relatives, this wasn't completely mad--and if we take καταλύματι to refer to a guest room rather than an inn, which it can be, linguistically, I understand, it suggests they tried the relatives first, with less than ideal results.
Luke's memory would not have been of fiscal events in 4 BC that he was writing about in the 70s. As for the guest room - kataluma/ti, full for Sukkoth, not the pandocheion pub - for the economic migration to Sepphoris, it was their relatives', as was the stable, all in one building: We can make anything work with enough interpolation.
There's no strong reason for arguing that Luke-Acts is not written by a Pauline companion, and the introduction to Luke invites us to see it as a work written because the author had 'carefully investigated everything from the beginning'. Not that he had investigated everything in order to write the work. Thus his investigation of the infancy stories could easily significantly pre-date the production of the gospel. This would suggest an earlier date than the suggested 85-90 range. There is no compelling reason for a date as late as 90, or even 80. It's a fair enough possibility that he is writing in the late 60s or early 70s, and drawing on investigations made over an extended period before that.
Rationally Luke got the post hoc 'prophecy' of the destruction of Jerusalem from Mark written after 70.
Rationally one shouldn’t assume that the material did not ecc CG it’s before it first appeared in Mark. Mark and Luke could simply be drawing on the same source.
@Martin54 - Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary - it's a novel - suggests that Luke and possibly Matthew, definitely another Gospel writer, interviewed Mary extensively, which is how they had the earlier nativity stories. Toibin posits that Mary lived into old age and was available for some years after the death of Jesus for those Gospel writers to question.
From the dates, she was probably in her late 40s, maybe 50 when Jesus died, so if she lived until she was in her 80s, she was still alive in AD60 odd when some of the Gospels were being written.
When we read it as a Ship book, lots of people hated the book and didn't think Mary could possibly be the character portrayed.
I don't of course @brojames. Although it wasn't Quelle there may have been an Ur-Mark.
I've always assumed that suggestion @Curiosity killed, the baton had to be passed. I'd have thought Mary would have dined out on the story from 31 onwards for thirty years, hence, in part, her immense stature. Must read Toibin, he's a lovely man.
I do recognise the difference between client states and provinces. You seem to be suggesting that Augustus would not have been keen on censuses there - if he could get them.
I have seen it asserted that censuses weren’t conducted in client states at his instigation/behest. What is the evidence for that?
The basic nature of client states. The whole point of client states is to exert influence while keeping administrative functions (like censuses and tax collection) in local hands as much as possible.
Indeed. So a strong hint from the emperor might lead the state to have a census.
Unlikely. Even in the cases of tributary states the Romans just cared about getting their tribute. They didn't care about the exact administrative mechanisms used to extract it. Again, I'm not sure you're getting the whole point of a client state. It's to exert influence without having to deploy your own administrative bureaucracy to do so. In other words, having to deploy a huge number of literate censitores and censuales is exactly the situation you try to avoid by having a client state.
Even if there were such an imperial hint the actual decree would be issued by the client ruler, exactly contrary to Luke's assertion that this was an empire-wide decree by Augustus Cæsar. Luke gives us a look at a related issue of jurisdiction and sovereignty and interactions between a Roman governor and a neighboring client tetrarch during his description of the trial of Jesus.
So I clicked on the second link and the terrible beauty of it unmanned me by surprise. Fancy that! I miss Him so, and there He is.
@Martin54 - Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary - it's a novel - suggests that Luke and possibly Matthew, definitely another Gospel writer, interviewed Mary extensively, which is how they had the earlier nativity stories. Toibin posits that Mary lived into old age and was available for some years after the death of Jesus for those Gospel writers to question.
Interesting supposition, but it's essentially an argument from silence. The last mention of Mary is in the first chapter of Acts, after which she disappears completely from the narrative available to us. This complete silence suggests, but does not prove, that whatever Mary was doing it wasn't being particularly active in the early church. This seems at odds with a Mary who was busy dictating her son's biography to a couple of eager church scribes.
@Crœsos, as I said, it's a novel. @Martin54's comments and questions reminded me of this novel.
Whether Mary was alive to be questioned or not, there would have been elders in the community with memories of past events. And like all memories, as portrayed by Toibin, their versions will be partial, personal to them and their experiences.
@Martin54 - Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary - it's a novel - suggests that Luke and possibly Matthew, definitely another Gospel writer, interviewed Mary extensively, which is how they had the earlier nativity stories. Toibin posits that Mary lived into old age and was available for some years after the death of Jesus for those Gospel writers to question.
Interesting supposition, but it's essentially an argument from silence. The last mention of Mary is in the first chapter of Acts, after which she disappears completely from the narrative available to us. This complete silence suggests, but does not prove, that whatever Mary was doing it wasn't being particularly active in the early church. This seems at odds with a Mary who was busy dictating her son's biography to a couple of eager church scribes.
The fact that Mary disappears from the narrative of Acts of the Apostles is not all that surprising. Almost every character in the book of Acts suddenly appears and disappears in the narrative. Yes, there is Stephen who dies for the cause. The point of Acts is not the persons as much as the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth--which in the case of Acts would have been from Jerusalem to Spain.
Myself, I happen to think there is a Mary source, not like Toibin's Testament of Mary. Oftentimes, the Gospel writers will mention Mary as the source.
Comments
I see it happen all the time—two people will be telling the story of the same event, and one will say something like “It was in 1978. I remember because we watched it on TV in Ms. Smither’s freshman biology class, and I had her for biology in 1978.” Then the other will say “No, it was 1981, because I was traveling in the Ozarks when it happened.” And then you check and it actually happened in 1979.
Some discrepancies in detail are to be expected in stories that get told over and over and passed from one person to another. But that doesn’t mean the whole story needs to be chucked out, and for me, at least, those discrepancies don’t get in the way of the bigger story at all.
Of course, I grew up hearing stories from my grandmother, who would say with a wink, “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
And what I don't get is why people insist that a person's life story ought to be clear and cogent. Mine certainly isn't!
To be clear, it's not bad to look at the Gospels as a literary genre, or to expect each of them, as a literary composition, to be clear and cogent. All I am saying is that people exist who are more interested in the life events than in the literary retelling of them. And that's a perfectly valid point of view. Not everybody has to be literary.
I can think of one reason:
I said I don't get why you think the life ought to be clear and cogent. Not the recounting of it in Gospel form, which is obviously done to interpret it. The life itself.
I assume that in God's eyes it is--that it forms a thread in the whole space/time/Creation thing and makes sense to him if to no one else. But to demand that a real person's whole life makes clear and cogent sense to another ordinary person--well, damn.
Is your own life clear and cogent? Are there no mysterious episodes where you ask, "Well, what was the point of that?" Do you not have random interests/anecdotes/even motifs which may make a good story over beer but as far as you can tell promote no particular conclusion? Are there not even whole motifs that make you ask WTF?
Because in mine there are--and in the lives of everyone I know.
One of us certainly didn't read what you wrote. You said that you don't get why I think that the life story etc.
I'm not a Greek scholar, but I believe the term used is καθεξῆς and is usually translated as meaning "in sequential and/or chronological order". It can also mean "immediately after" if used in a different context. For example, "After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God."
In modern psychology it means something else.
Oh, I think some assumptions can be weighed as more credible than others. For example, one could assume that the flight to Egypt was a fake-out and that the Holy Family really fled to Bermuda. A sense of logic and history and that none of the early sources mention it makes us conclude that this is far less likely than either the flight to Egypt or a trip to the Jerusalem Temple.
Kind of like the way Arnold Schwarzenegger claims the pivotal moment for his involvement in American politics was a presidential debate that never happened. Given the format I think we have to at least entertain the possibility that Schwarzenegger simply made up the story to illustrate a political point (or because it was politically useful for him).
The only actual conflict that exists between the two narratives is that Matthew dates it to Herod's reign and Luke to Quirinius' governship and there is evidence that these two terms did not overlap.
It is entirely reasonable to suppose that the differing features of the narratives may reflect issues of fact. However it is entirely unreasonable (in the literal sense) to assert that these differences prove that one or both of the narratives is therefore factually wrong.
Thus far, the only conflict that has been argued on this thread (apart from the dating issues) is that Luke phraseology excludes the possibility of the Holy Family going back to Bethlehem from Jerusalem and thus there is no possibility of a Magi visit as described by Matthew. I just don't buy that on either a human level or a geographical level. Of course that doesn't make either Luke or Matthew correct about anything at all. However, no one has really shown any reason to doubt either Gospel writers apart from the dating issue. I restate my challenge; why should I believe other sources over Luke? In terms of how a census was conducted and when Quirinius governship occurred...?
Nowhere does Matthew say that M&J had been in Bethlehem for years and has never heard of Nazareth... nowhere does Matthew say that a Roman census didn't happen... Nowhere does Luke say "Mary found the visit of the Shepherds strange but no-one else came to see her son..."
Show me the evidence! Arguments from silence are generally as compelling as literal ones from the other side. I.e. not very.
AFZ
I would buy chronological but that's not comprehensive. Thus one should be careful in drawing a strong conclusion from the absence of a particular episode.
If Luke claimed to have written a complete biography then such absences would inevitably create a conflict: either Luke was lying or wrong about being complete or the episodes recorded elsewhere but not in Luke never happened. I have no problem with that concept. But Luke does not make such a claim. At all.
I like your Bermuda idea but it doesn't get us much further forward. Matthew only states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Why should I assume he means that J&M had been in Bethlehem for years? He certainly could do. In the absence of Luke, I would probably draw the same inference but it's hardly a solid fact is it? An non-prejudged assessment of Matthew would be that he is silent on both parents' location prior to the birth. That's all. He does not corroborate Luke on this point but neither does he contradict him. Saying he does is overreach.
AFZ
I don't know, but apparently you don't believe Luke. Luke states that when the Holy family was done at the Temple in Jerusalem they went to Nazareth. You claim Luke is wrong about this without indicating why, other than a desire to harmonize with Matthew.
Not sure why you'd pay any more attention than you did last time around, but Rome would not have conducted a census of Judea while it was a client state. That's the whole point of having a client state; those kinds of administrative details would have been handled internally by the client rulers. In other words, there would be no Roman census in Judea while Herod (or his son Archelaus) was ruling. Only once Archelaus got the boot and Rome took over direct administration of the province would they have the desire (and necessity) of conducting a census. And yes, we know from other sources that Quirinius was legatus of Syria when Archelaus was deposed, so that bit matches up.
I never said the possibility that some details in the nativity accounts are embellishments intended to make a point shouldn’t be entertained. I said I disagreed with the assertion that “the only way one would arrive at the smooshed-together nativity story told in Sunday School is by starting from a literalist assumption of how one must read the scriptures.” (Emphasis added.)
Ok. I'll bite. I read every word you wrote and paid careful attention to it.
Luke says they went to Nazareth after the Temple. You have yet to convince me it MUST mean immediately.
I am totally open to the possibility that a Roman census could not have been conducted as Luke describes.
However, what is the source for that assertion? Why should we give more weight to said source than Luke?
I am just unwilling to adopt certain assumptions unless and until you give me a reason to do so.
Can you be more specific about what fault you find in my previous reasoning? Luke's use of ὡς ties together the end of one thing as the reason for something else happening. As an example from the same chapter:
Now I suppose it's possible that the shepherds didn't say “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about” right after the angels had left, instead taking a months long trip to Egypt and then suddenly remembering what happened and then exclaiming . . . , but it seems an extremely strained way of reading that passage for no good reason.
For starters, go back to my last post and re-read what I said about client states. Then couple that with the fact that Nazareth was in Galilee and was ruled by Herod Antipas until 39 CE (i.e. after any reasonable date for the Crucifixion). In other words Joseph and Mary were (according to Luke) not living anywhere the Romans would take a census of at the time of the birth of Jesus.
About the only details that don't differ in the two accounts are that Mary and Joseph had a son in Bethlehem. The argument that "witness accounts differ," often with the rhetorical flourish added, "it would be suspicious if they did not" seem to me to be apologetic nonsense when applied to stories this divergent. One can take it as an article of faith that they are both doing (bizarrely distinct) reporting of the event, but it seems to be putting up a needless stumbling block at the entrance of the Gospels -- given that there are straightforward exegetical alternatives available. Obviously, YMMV.
This is sound but not as compelling as you seem to think it is. Of course a fundamental of accurate translation is to see how the same word is used elsewhere. But it's still a jump to insist that it can only mean 'immediately after.' For one thing, Biblical translators could have rendered it as such and didn't.
Absent Matthew, it is still reasonable to read Luke in more than one way. Bethlehem to Jerusalem is a short trip (relatively speaking). It would be human to go to Jerusalem and back separately from the return trip to Nazareth and Luke's choice of phrase does not exclude this. Travelling with a small baby at any point in history is not a simple undertaking as every parent knows. So there are good reasons to think that the trip was not simply Bethlehem to Nazareth with a quick stop on the way at the Temple. Bethlehem to Jerusalem - 6 miles. A day trip on foot (there and back). Bethlehem to Nazareth - 90 miles.
I also think you're placing too much emphasis on Luke's choice of joining word. It could be argued that Luke's focus and emphasis is very much on the other part of the sentence - that Joseph and Mary followed the Jewish law.
Of course - as I have said many times now - Luke could mean immediately after the Temple they went back to Nazareth but in English 'after' can have quite an open time frame. Why not the Greek word also?
I know exactly what your last post said. It's the same as what you said a few pages back. How do you know that a client state would have acted in the role you state? How do you know the description of a census given by Luke is wrong?
I'm not here claiming Luke was right, nor am I claiming any special status for the Gospel text. In fact I am doing the opposite. I want to lay one source along side another and weigh them against each other. You have not given the source. In effect you are doing the sceptics mirror of the fundamentalist. The fundamentalist says it doesn't matter what any other sources say, I KNOW the Bible is correct (despite the logic problems this creates). You are saying that the only resolution to any potential conflict with other sources is that Luke is wrong. I suspect that is not your intention at all. Which is why I keep asking. What is the reason to think Luke got it wrong? Why is a census of the entire Roman Empire impossible?
Luke is making a big claim here, of course he is. But if Luke was indeed written between 50 and 60 AD then it's 1 to 2 decades closer to the events than Josephus' writing. Of course that doesn't hold if Luke was written later.
All I'm asking for is the bonefides of certain things you are confident of and why you think they are compelling when Luke isn't?
I am trying to understand the evidence. You are stating the conclusion. If I knew that evidence, I may very well agree with you...
AFZ
The presentation at the Temple was when Jesus was 40 days old.
Luke's text could imply that the Holy Family always intended to return to Nazareth but it doesn't actually say that. What I'm reaching for here is that having arrived in Bethlehem after a 90 mile journey, the Baby arrives. We know Joseph has kinfolk in town and a trade that means he can earn a living anywhere. He is not a farmer, for example, who needs to get back to his own land. Why would they not stay in Bethlehem?
AFZ
I’m not a literalist, nor am I particularly a fan of Borg and Crossan. But I’ve got no problem with taking the accounts at face value, with accepting that Matthew and Luke both took from the tradition(s) known to them the parts that fit their overall narrative and purpose and audience, and with considering that where the divergences actually create apparent contradictions, there might be reasons short of making things up that explain why, including faulty memories in the transmission chain. Based on my experience, that would make Matthew’s and Luke’s account very normal.
To me, the differences are something to acknowledge, but are not things that have to be explained in order for me to go with the story. I’m perfectly content to say that there could be any number of reasons for the differences in the stories and move on.
Any particular reason why you're translating the word ὡς as "after" when most translators (including the ones I've cited) translate it as "when"? That seems like trying to substitute a much more ambiguous term for reasons other than textual accuracy. As previously mentioned it can also be used to mean "as" or "like", meaning it's used in cases where there's a direct connection between things, either as cause and effect or metaphorically.
Because in modern terms what Luke is describing is akin to the U.S. doing a census of Canada and making some Canadians come to Buffalo, NY to do so. Here's a footnoted academic paper [PDF]. Earlier Republican-era censuses are described in Polybius, and Cassius Dio makes mention (without too much detail) of an Imperial-era census. You'll note in the days of the Republic the census was primarily a tool for measuring and organizing military manpower, with people divided in to categories of men of military age, children, women, old men, and slaves, hence its inclusion in Polybius' description of the Republican-era military. It also meant the Republican-era census wanted to know where these military age men were, not where their ancestors might have once lived.
Even if there were, I suppose one could get a house. Would, in fact, get a house, if at all possible, because living long term with one's in-laws when newly married and newly parents is not a comfortable scheme for anyone.
But as for the likelihood of going straight from the temple to Nazareth--
Mary is at this point not quite six weeks' postpartum. Even under the best of circumstances, she is new to nursing a baby, sleep deprived, and possibly still sore "down there." I would be surprised if she voluntarily undertook a long trip at this point.
There's also the fact that, when you go to the temple, bringing all your traveling gear is going to be a right pain--you will have to stow it somewhere safe while you visit the temple or else bring it with you, which is awkward. It can be done, yes. But I'm just not seeing it, from the point of view of new parents six weeks after birth.
And if you could, you'd want to attach yourself to some larger traveling group for safety. And maybe they'd be leaving Jerusalem for Nazareth on the exact day you need to be at the temple for ritual purposes. But I think it unlikely.
It is asserted that no censuses were conducted in client states on Augustus’s authority (although the pdf document Crœsos linked to shows he was keen on them). I’ve seen no evidence for that assertion. The pdf mentions how thin the evidence is for censuses in Egypt, and notes that there is only papyrological evidence for one census outside Egypt (in 106CE).
If Luke dates the census during the time of Quirinius that appears to be irreconcilable with a birth in the time of Herod. It is possible, however, that Luke should be read as referring to a census before Quirinius was governor of Syria. We don’t know of one, but as noted above our evidence on censuses is slender.
The second issue revolves around Luke 2.39 Does Luke’s phrasing imply that nothing else happened between the Temple visit and returning to Nazareth. If it does, do we prefer Luke’s account to Matthew’s, and why?
Even if there is grammatical/semantic space to fit in the magi and the slaughter of the innocents between Luke 2.38 and 2.39, is it credible that if it happened Luke didn’t know about it, or if he did know about it that he simply chose to omit it?
Josephus mentions a property registration/census after the annexation of Archelaus' territory (which included Jerusalem and Bethlehem but not Galilee) in chapter 18 of Antiquities and in chapter 2 of War. This resulted in some rather serious violence including an uprising led by Judas (a Gaulanite from Gamala according to Antiquities or a Galilean according to War).
Acts 5:37 has "After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered."
This certainly seems to imply that the writer of Luke/Acts is referring in the nativity sequence to the post-Archelaus' census.
Far less glaring, we've also got Luke having Joseph's family going up to Jerusalem for every Passover while Matthew has Joseph's family avoiding Jerusalem/Bethlehem after returning from Egypt because of fear of Archelaus and settling in Nazareth. So did they visit Jerusalem while in Egypt [or was their stay there very short]? Did they visit Jerusalem while Archelaus ruled (about 9 years)?
My apologies, that was sloppy of me. As you say most translations go with 'when.' I've been flicking through a few and only one used 'after' as I did above. I think it was partly my conflating of 'when' and 'as' in my own head.
Not helpful here. My bad.
I have no problem with reading Luke as implying Jerusalem to Nazareth after the Temple as the most obvious understanding of what Luke is saying. In the absence of other information, I think there's a strong argument for reading it that way. But we do have other information. @Lamb Chopped summed it up really well. Jerusalem to Nazareth doesn't make a lot of sense. Moreover Luke's account begs a question. Matthew's account begs the question why Nazareth specifically (as he makes no mention of a prior connection). Luke begs a different question: why leave Bethlehem? (Potentially with a 6 week old).
As we know, Luke tells us that Joseph had kinfolk in Bethlehem. Luke also tells they stayed in Bethlehem at least 6 weeks. As I'm sure most Shipmates know, Luke's reference to a manger does not imply stable and "Inn" is probably wrong - the latest NIV for example uses "guest room." So what is implied here is the downstairs room of a two story dwelling. The family would normally sleep upstairs and the animals downstairs, hence the manger. I presume the animals were made to spend this particular night outside. Anyway, J&M were never in a stable but where were they 39 days later with a Temple trip to organise? We know from Luke also, that they were poor. This matters as therefore they (outside of the Tory Bible*) could not survive 6 weeks without any income. This all points towards at least a temporary settling in Bethlehem. Joseph had kin and could no doubt find work. (Although I've just double checked, it's from Matthew and Mark that we learn Joseph was a carpenter, not Luke).
So, even without Matthew, the return to Nazareth at this point is a bit odd. The reason for my focus here is that, whilst I wonder about this a lot, I think it wrong to think that Luke can only mean an immediate return from Jerusalem directly to Nazareth. As I said, for human and geographical reasons - expanded on by LC - it makes a lot more sense to have the return to Nazareth on an entirely different day. And I don't buy that Luke's text excludes this understanding.
Thanks for the PDF, I have only skimmed so far but am looking forward to reading it properly. One thought though is that there is only limited evidence on how the Romans might have conducted a census so I am cautious of a definite conclusion that what Luke describes is 'wrong.' I will read more....
AFZ
*just a bit of political satire. Just ignore me.
As far as going up to Jerusalem for the annual Passover festival is concerned, there’s a big difference between settling in a territory, and simply visiting it among the Passover crowds, and also once settled in Galilee they may have realised that Archelaus was not in fact a threat.
Matthew doesn’t give any time frame for the death of Herod the Great - just noting that it was the trigger for their return.
Finally, Luke’s κατ̓ ἔτος which is translated ‘every year’ may simply mean ‘annually’. And if asked whether it really was every year, might have replied “well not the year Joseph had broken his leg and couldn’t walk, nor the year when Jesus’ sister was born two weeks before Passover”
Luke actually refers to both Bethlehem and Nazareth as Joseph and Mary's home town (ἑαυτοῦ πόλιν / πόλιν ἑαυτῶν); literally "the town of them". In the first instance he clarifies that Bethlehem is Joseph's home town due to an ancestral connection, not in the normal sense one would use the term. In the case of Nazareth no such clarification is given, implying that the term is used in its typical everyday usage.
Yes, there are some logistical challenges involved, but they're not insurmountable. Remember that what's being described is not something unusual, it's something that's expected of every Jewish mother under the law of Moses. Your inability to imagine the logistics and social support system involved stands in contrast to the understanding and expectations of Jews of the Second Temple period.
No, Augustus was very keen on censuses of Roman provinces. Client states (ostenstibly self-governing political units that were [ allied with / tributaries of ] the Roman Empire) were another matter. This is a distinction that's often lost on readers who live in nation states and not empires.
Luke doesn't beg that question, he answers it. The reason to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is to meet the requirements of the Law of Moses. Luke is not describing something unusual, at least in this regard. (Presumably not every newborn gets ecstatic prophecies at the Temple, but just going to the Temple after birth is an expected thing, not something out of the ordinary.)
We don't know that. All we know from Luke is that Joseph has an ancestral connection to Bethlehem. We're simply told that Bethlehem is the town/city of David and that Joseph is of the line of David. If there are other Davidians in Bethlehem who are close enough kin that Joseph can call upon for aid/hospitality Luke makes no mention of them.
Why is it odd to return to your home town?
Not really. If you're positing an unmentioned-by-Luke return trip to Bethlehem after the trip to Jerusalem you have to remember that every step towards Bethlehem (south of Jerusalem) is a step you're going to have to retrace on your trip back home to Nazareth (north of Jerusalem).
I have seen it asserted that censuses weren’t conducted in client states at his instigation/behest. What is the evidence for that?
The basic nature of client states. The whole point of client states is to exert influence while keeping administrative functions (like censuses and tax collection) in local hands as much as possible.
It’s possible that more recent historians may have unearthed new facts that change this older picture, but I haven’t been keeping up. An important recent work, I believe, is Money and Government in the Roman Empire, by Richard Duncan-Jones:
https://www.amazon.com/Money-Government-Empire-Richard-Duncan-Jones/dp/0521648297/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=18&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=11&dchild=1&qid=1615134762&refinements=p_27:duncan-jones,p_28:money+and+government&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1
My question remains: What is the evidence that censuses weren’t held in client states?
Unlikely. Even in the cases of tributary states the Romans just cared about getting their tribute. They didn't care about the exact administrative mechanisms used to extract it. Again, I'm not sure you're getting the whole point of a client state. It's to exert influence without having to deploy your own administrative bureaucracy to do so. In other words, having to deploy a huge number of literate censitores and censuales is exactly the situation you try to avoid by having a client state.
Even if there were such an imperial hint the actual decree would be issued by the client ruler, exactly contrary to Luke's assertion that this was an empire-wide decree by Augustus Cæsar. Luke gives us a look at a related issue of jurisdiction and sovereignty and interactions between a Roman governor and a neighboring client tetrarch during his description of the trial of Jesus.
Rome was quite happy to put its fingers into client kingdom pies. There was Roman fiscal interference in Nabatea and Apamea and Herod’s administration was permitted to mint only copper coinage. Josephus evidences an oath of loyalty to Caesar and to Herod’s government which the Jewish people were called upon to swear in the latter part of Herod’s reign.
Luke’s ‘assertion’ may intend no more than to express simply the fact that the census in Palestine took place as part of a coordinated empire-wide policy of Augustus. Reference to such a general policy may well have formed part of the edict cf. the loyalty oath above.
Being a client kingdom will have meant that whatever registration did not, as you point out, use Roman officials and practices, but would have been conducted by local officials according to local practices and customs - so departures from what we know about imperial provincial censuses are unsurprising.
The interaction between Pilate and Herod Antipas is interesting indeed, but a bit of buck-passing between an insecure procurator and a local ruler (whose description as tetrarch says much) is not necessarily a good analogue for relations between emperor and client king.
Rationally Luke got the post hoc 'prophecy' of the destruction of Jerusalem from Mark written after 70.
Matt. 2:23
Luke's memory would not have been of fiscal events in 4 BC that he was writing about in the 70s. As for the guest room - kataluma/ti, full for Sukkoth, not the pandocheion pub - for the economic migration to Sepphoris, it was their relatives', as was the stable, all in one building: We can make anything work with enough interpolation.
From the dates, she was probably in her late 40s, maybe 50 when Jesus died, so if she lived until she was in her 80s, she was still alive in AD60 odd when some of the Gospels were being written.
When we read it as a Ship book, lots of people hated the book and didn't think Mary could possibly be the character portrayed.
I've always assumed that suggestion @Curiosity killed, the baton had to be passed. I'd have thought Mary would have dined out on the story from 31 onwards for thirty years, hence, in part, her immense stature. Must read Toibin, he's a lovely man.
So I clicked on the second link and the terrible beauty of it unmanned me by surprise. Fancy that! I miss Him so, and there He is.
Interesting supposition, but it's essentially an argument from silence. The last mention of Mary is in the first chapter of Acts, after which she disappears completely from the narrative available to us. This complete silence suggests, but does not prove, that whatever Mary was doing it wasn't being particularly active in the early church. This seems at odds with a Mary who was busy dictating her son's biography to a couple of eager church scribes.
Whether Mary was alive to be questioned or not, there would have been elders in the community with memories of past events. And like all memories, as portrayed by Toibin, their versions will be partial, personal to them and their experiences.
The fact that Mary disappears from the narrative of Acts of the Apostles is not all that surprising. Almost every character in the book of Acts suddenly appears and disappears in the narrative. Yes, there is Stephen who dies for the cause. The point of Acts is not the persons as much as the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth--which in the case of Acts would have been from Jerusalem to Spain.
Myself, I happen to think there is a Mary source, not like Toibin's Testament of Mary. Oftentimes, the Gospel writers will mention Mary as the source.