Johann_Kaspar

And Yeshua is the son of Juda of Gamala, according to Massé. But of course ignoring French is no help.

judge

There seems to be two other quite clear indications that Luke could not be thinking of the census in 6CE but seems to have been thinking of the oath-taking registration in or around 3BCE .

One point is Luke's use of the word "first". The implication here is that Luke either thought there were two periods when Quirinius ruled Syria , or there were two enrollments of people in Syria.

From here

The second point is that shortly after the mention of the enrollment/census, in Luke 3:1 we are told that Jesus was about thirty years old in the fifteenth year of Tiberius's rule.

Apparently the rule of tiberius began in 13 CE (see here) which would make his 15th year of rule aroud 27 CE (inclusive).

In this year John goes baptising and Jesus comes to him is baptised and begins his ministry.
Thus if Jesus was thought to have been born in 3BCE he would have been about thirty in 27 CE. (Luke 3:23).

Richard carriers arguments against this seem particularly weak.

Not at all, all it means is Jesus might have began his ministry near his birthday, he might have been 29 or maybe 30. Yet Carrier can only consider one way to interpret this. Not very open minded for a free thinker.

***

If Luke was referring to the census of 6CE then this would mean Jesus would been only 21 years of age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, so why would Luke then tell us he was about thirty?

Luke must have thought the was an enrollment in 3BCE (which we know there was). Luke must have been thinking of this event.
Why he mentions Quirinius still remains unexplained, maybe he just made a mistake?

Steven Avery

Hi Judge and all,

Well, I finally read Richard Carrier's whole article (at least the main part, I skipped a response or two to arguments that I do not think are valid or significant).

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge There seems to be two other quite clear indications that Luke could not be thinking of the census in 6CE but seems to have been thinking of the oath-taking registration in or around 3BCE .One point is Luke's use of the word "first". The implication here is that Luke either thought there were two periods when Quirinius ruled Syria , or there were two enrollments of people in Syria.

Actually I do not think the word applies either way .

There actually is a small textual variant involved, and translators have approached the section differently. That helps explain why the historic Bible translation has an important difference from the modern versions. I will leave one of each from your group.

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NASB: This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KJB: (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are actually three (or four) significant differences.

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge The second point is that shortly after the mention of the enrollment/census, in Luke 3:1 we are told that Jesus was about thirty years old in the fifteenth year of Tiberius's rule....Richard carriers arguments against this seem particularly weak.

Richard does a lot of handwaving and stretching against the auxiliary evidences that Luke knows precisely what he is talking about. I especially noticed his strained attempts to try to have the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist far apart.

Worse is that Richard leaves out lots of very pertinent information. And speaks way above his own evidences. And misrepresents the Bible text. Perhaps in my next post I can give a couple of examples.

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge Luke must have thought the was an enrollment in 3BCE (which we know there was). Luke must have been thinking of this event.

Spot-on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge Why he mentions Quirinius still remains unexplained, maybe he just made a mistake?

Or maybe the explanation is fairly simple, having a couple of component aspects. To start, have you read up on the historical backdrop involving Herod and Augustus Caesar ? I do not think you will find much on that through Richard's paper.

Please keep in mind that the modern apologists are sometimes paradigmically blocked, including their usage of inferior versions rather than the pure Bible. Even Ramsey, sweet as is much of his writing, was stuck in the version-warp.

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Appreciated Doug (occasionally I get a smidgen of dissification and flak on this forum). Always interested in good discussions. I am not a big one on debates (but I wouldn't mind finishing the two with Farrell from back when). Good discussions seem to do fine. I really don't try to prove this and that to skeptics and atheists but if they can have a good iron-sharpening discussion that is fine.

On many issues I learn more when reading on this forum (and doing the side research .. necessity being a good mom for invention) than elsewhere.

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Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Pataphysician

No we are told in Luke 3:1 that John the Baptists starts his career in the 15th year of Tiberius, we have no idea how long he preached before he baptized Jesus, who at the very end of chapter 3 we are told starts his career around the age of thirty.

29 CE is the fifteenth year of Tiberius,

Josephus puts John the Baptists arrest and death at 36 CE. The story in Luke 3 implies that Jesus is baptized shortly before John the Baptist's arrest and death, which is clearly what Mathew states as well. This fits with Jesus starting his ministry at around 30 years old after being born in 6 CE.

judge

Unfortunately you clipped my quote a bit short, as i went on to explain...

I'll grant there is a lack of details but there seems no reason to assume there was a long period involved here.


Not if we have 13Ce as his first year. are you disputing 13CE?

Ok , do you have reference?

Really, can you explain and explin how long you think John was imprisoned?

Ok, can you show where matthew states this?

Not necessarily disagreeing but just waondering about the details here.

spin

As Richard Carrier's article wasn't the focus of the thread, but the date of the relationship with the registration for taxation carried out by Quirinius as mentioned in Luke 2:2, we should try to keep focused if we want to prolong the thread. <Critique of Carrier's article has been split to its own thread.>

We have seen that the stuff about oaths is unrelated to either Quririnius or his registration, besides which, we know this registration took place at the end of the reign of Archelaus, ie 6 CE, ten years after the death of Herod. Luke quite specifically tells us that the registration for taxation was that performed by Quirinius and Josephus quite clearly gives us the rest of the information, ie that the registration involved the snapshot of the state of Judea when it was absorbed into the imperial province of Syria, which was under the administration of Quirinius at the time.

No amount of trying to change Herod's date of death will change the fact that ten years later Quirinius carried out his census (= registration for taxation).


spin

Casper

Maybe one way to review this from a different angle would be to brainstorm what different material or knowledge the authors of Luke and Matthew had available which would lead them to different conclusions? Even assuming they were writing history as they knew it, it was still after the fact, and obviously in conflict.

From a POV of synoptic priority or synoptic harmony, what does this mean?

judge

There are some arguments you still haven't dealt with. Luke does not write about the registration, he writes about a registration. You have yet to explain the use of the word "first". It requires an explantion.
From the rest of his chronology it cannot be the 6CE taxing registration.
You have selectively used Josephus, ignoring the fact of the lunar eclipse. This eclipse is evidence Herod cannot have died when you suggest he did.

Steven Avery

Yep. And this I plan to discuss in some depth by moving into verse two of Luke. (Two posts on verse one above.)

Judge, do you think we should split off another thread ? Since there seems to be two different ways to discuss things here. You could stay on both threads but I could go down both the Luke text issue carefully and some other stuff on another thread - a thread that would be designed to use Carrier as it's base of correction.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Amaleq13

I hope judge was going to say "yes" because I've already created the new thread. It can be found here. If there are any posts that should be sent over or brought back, let me know.


Doug aka Amaleq13, BC&H moderator