Amaleq13

Has this follow-up to the follow-up been posted?

jjramsey

The SkepticWiki article on the birth narratives covers the usual ground, but also deals with F.F. Bruce's claims.

Gamera

The claim that Luke's use of the word proti is unambiguous is simply wrong, as all the scholarship shows. While the translation posited here may not be the right one, it is certainly one of a host of possible translations, all depending on the ambiguities resident in proti, which even Luke's detractor's discern.

I think it significant that an ambiguous modifier or an modifier used ambiguously by Luke, opens up the possibility at least that Luke was refering to an earlier census that in fact appears to have taken place around Jesus' birth. It's a startling coincidence that his ambiguous language can accord with a known historical event. You would expect that semantic ambiguity in a text not to be supported by an actual event unless in fact the text really did refer to the event. Either that or Luke was plain lucky in what he didn't make clear.

Ben C Smith

I do not know what his stance on the plausibility of the census itself is, but I for one certainly agree with you that, even if he has resolved one issue, there are plenty of others waiting in the wings on this thorny issue.

Agreed.

Ben.

Phlox Pyros

Census Edict for Roman Egypt:
http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/greek/census.html

Overkill

I think its pretty odd how somebody that is so lauded by Christians as an amazingly accurate historian could commit a booboo as large as the census tale in the very second chapter. What is it that the Bible always says? Oh yeah, "Whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."

Julian

There is a big difference between making sure that people are at home in their house for a census as compared to the entire population of an entire country to be uprooted and everybody trace their ancestry and return to some village to which they no connection that would matter to a tax collector.

Julian

Diogenes the Cynic

This is oft-cited by apologists but it's utterly specious. The edict requires people to return their current places of residence, not to their ancestral homes or places of birth.

Diogenes the Cynic

There may be other possibilities (as SCC has shown) but "before Qurinius was governor" is not one of them. It's not within the range of either the vocabulary or the grammar. Prote (not "proti") means "first." its semantic range includes nuances like "foremost," "most preeminent" or "most important," but does not include chronologically "before" in the sense that you're suggesting. It's an adjective, not a preposition. In Luke 2:2, it modifies "census," it is not part of a prepositional clause related to "Quirinius was governor." The grammar of the verse indicates that the census "was prote [when, at the time that] Quirinius was governor. Whether prote should be read as "first," or as Carlson suggests. "most important," the grammar still indicates that it occurred AT THE SAME TIME that Quirinius was governor.

S.C.Carlson

Yes, here: http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2...n-context.html