Dryhad

It's always been my understanding that the census under who's circumstances Jesus was allegedly born was a somewhat ham handed fabrication of Luke's for the purposes of shoehorning Jesus into the relevant prophecies. Even if you set aside the fact that it doesn't appear in any records, the process is absolutely ludicrous. Joseph is asked to go to a city because a distant and irrelevant (as far as the Romans are concerned) ancestor lived there? However, I was recently left without an answer when a Christian told me there were records of similar practices, particularly one in Egypt in the second century. I was unable to press for more information, but has anyone here heard of this? Did such a census ever take place, anywhere?

S.C.Carlson

The usual reference is to an edict by C. Vibius Maximus in 104 CE. KC Hanson has the text and translation.

Stephen

GakuseiDon

If the process of returning to a home town of an ancestor to register is ludicrous, I have to wonder why someone would put such such a ludicrous practice into a Greek novel intended for a (I assume) contemporary Roman Empire audience? (This is not a rhetorical question)

Magic and miracles I can understand. Are there any other similarly incongruous Roman practices in the NT? (Pilate's freeing someone during the Passover comes to mind, but that is supposedly peculiar to himself and not a widespread Roman practice.)

aa5874

But when was this story about the census with Joseph and Mary really circulated? And was it circulated secretly. And was the story of the census with Joseph and Mary freely distributed or only certain certain persons knew of the story?

And who were allowed to make copies of the story of the census with Joseph and Mary?

There is no credible information to assume that the census story was contemporary or read and circulated when it was written.

DCHindley

He is almost without doubt referring to the fragment of a copy of an edict of G. Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt, dated to the year 103/4 CE, that is available for review in the English translation of the 1922 4th German edition of Adolf Deissmann's Licht vom Osten (Light from the Ancient East, 1927), pp 270-272, with p. 271 being a plate of the fragment:

Gaius Vibius Maximus, Praefect of Egypt, saith: The enrollment by household being at hand, it is necessary to notify all who for any cause soever are outside their nomes to return to their domestic hearths, that they may also accomplish the customary dispensation of enrollment and continue steadfastly in the husbandry that belongeth to them.

Deissmann noted that the Greek wording of this edict and that of Luke are not identical, but similar, and states in a footnote that he believes that W. M. Ramsay was on the right track when in Was Christ born in Bethlehem? (1898) Ramsay tried to link Luke's enrollment with one of the 14 year poll-tax enrollments attested to in several Egytian papyri. He does note that this concept was contested by E. Schuerer in an article in Theol. Lit.-Ztg. 24 [1899].

In the revised edition of Emil Schuerer's History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, vol. 1, pp.399-427 (T&T Clark, 1973, based on the "3rd/4th" German edition of 1901), his "Excursus I" on the Census of Quirinius (essentially the product of reviser Paul Winter), it is stated:

It is precisely the Prefectorial edict most quoted in this context, that of C. Vibius Maximus in A.D. 103/4, that indicates how dubious is the support [to the assertion that "Egyptian evidence shows that there every person was invariably required to return to his IDIA for the census, and hence offers confirmation for Luke's narrative"] given by this evidence. For the relevant part runs: 'The house to house census having started, it is essential that all persons who for any reason whatever are absent from their nomes be summoned to return to their own hearths, in order that they may perform the customary business of registration and apply themselves to the cultivation which concerns them.' The intention was for people to return to their normal places of residence and work. (pp. 412-413)

The objection is that this edict refers to conditions in Egypt, casting doubt that the model can be applied generally to Judea, and that the person responsible for filing the return on each house(hold) was to file personally but did not require anyone else to present him/herself. "In short, the papyri do not disprove, but do nothing to prove, the historicity of the narrative of Luke."

DCH

Dryhad

As aa5874 said, we don't know for sure when the Gospel of Luke was written, or even how close the original was to the modern version. As far as audience goes, it seems to be aimed at common people, not officials or others with extensive knowledge of imperial practices. You might think of it as the equivalent to Hollywood portrayals today. Due to a lack of research into the field, or a need to drive the plot, politics, law, science and so forth are often misrepresented. In the days of the Roman Empire, without modern conveniences of communication, this can only have been more rampant and harder to spot.

The NT, I think, makes it clear that Pilate was taking a Roman custom (which I believe is documented, though I encourage anyone to prove me wrong) and applying it to a Jewish holiday and, what's more, it was mostly because he didn't want to go through with the execution (so he'd probably have picked a Celtic holiday or something if a Jewish one wasn't available). So as you say, it's not really something that could be corroborated with evidence as in this case the writer does cover his tracks.

Thanks to those who posted. It seems as though the Egyptian example simply sends people to their own homes rather than ancestral homes. The NT doesn't give any indication that Joseph ever lived in Bethlehem, before or after the birth of Jesus. Sounds pretty clear cut to me.

Chili

The census is account, like a confession wherein he empied himself (if that is proper longo) right to the state of mind he was at birth. IOW his entire life as human was repented, could I say? and then he was reborn from above.

Transient

Or, more correctly, he was transfigured into a form emptied spiritually from a previous transformation of that which came from above forming a previously unseen manifestation of a higher being, momentarily at his birth which because of this had to be in Bethlehem.

I think I am beginning to understand Chilli now.

Dryhad

Do you ever get bored of posting word salads that even by the furthest reaches of the imagination couldn't possibly have anything to do with the topic?

A sure sign of madness.

yalla

Gidday Dryhad,
Would you consider it possible that the author of g'Luke' may have been aware of this Egyptian census, utilised it loosely for his purposes and thus it provides a possible chronology for the writing of that gospel?
I think I read somewhere that the particular political circumstances of the context of that Egyptian census involved a perceived need for the romans to get people back to their home areas to hopefully prevent civil unrest, are you able to comment on this?
cheers
yalla