LittleTim

Hello everybody:

I am a newbie here and have some basic questions. Christians often claim that the Gospel of Luke is a 'first-rate historical account' of the life of Jesus Christ. I understand that there are three major criticisms of this of the birth account of Jesus in this gospel:

1. There never was a census
2. Quirinius (sp?) was never governor
3. Mary and Joseph would never have had to go back to Bethlehem

A minister at a well known church here in Toronto made the claim that archaelogy has proved that all these criticisms are false - of course he did not elaborate on what these archaeological facts are

Would anyone know what these supposed archaeological facts are as well as point me to some well-researched and established criticisms of this Gospel.


I never have any time....

Thanks!
Little Tim

fta

See Richard Carrier's article The Date of the Nativity in Luke.

Diogenes the Cynic

Of these three items, only number three is a (completely valid) criticism made by scholars. The other two points are not disputed per se. There is no doubt that Quirinius was governor and that he issued a census of Judea in 6 CE. The problem is that the census occured ten years after the death of Herod the Great, which raises a contradiction with Matthew. Herod died in 4 BCE. Jesus could not have been born BOTH during the census of Quirinius and during the reign of Herod.

For a more detailed explication of the issues, the apologist rebuttals (including the alleged archaeological evidence) and the rebuttals to the rebuttals, I recommend reading Richard Carrier's treatment of the question here. It's about as thorough as any I've seen.

jjramsey

Try here: http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/jesus/quirinius.htm

You might find this helpful as well, though it echoes a fair bit of what's in the above link: http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/inde...tives_of_Jesus (Full disclosure: I wrote most of what is there.)

Carrier's article mentioned above gets more into the archaology, though