spin

I don't think the "fictive" argument is pursuasive. Traditions don't fit well into the notion of fictiveness. We have many examples however of traditions that evolve around various figures that amply relieve the Lucan writer from any attack on his manipulation or fraudulent presentation of information. This in no way make the information in Luke correct. That must be judged on the evidence, which points to a date, whether the writer knew it or not, of the Quirinius census of 6 CE.

Your persistent use of that misguided form underlines your inability to comment.
On prwtos (), look here at B. III. 3 for the adverbial form. L&S are hard to argue with.

It's not surprising that in all 20 usages of the form prwth it is translated as "first".

Why? The (second) Augustan census had nothing to do with the kingdom of Judea.

When you accept the notion that Judea was a client state then you have to justify why you believe that Augustus would intervene in the client state (especially when client states saved Rome the work of worrying about the raising of taxation revenue by doing it themselves). What historical precedents do you have that lead you to believe in this elsewhere unrecorded census, a census which Augustus had no jurisdiction to conduct, having direct control only of imperial provinces (of which Judea, as a client kingdom, was not)? Yes, there were senatorial and imperial provinces. Augustus had his limits and he made it his habit to work within the institutions available, rather than going against them, as such a census would. Why are you bothering to move your lips regarding something that you so obviously don't know about?

Why work on the assumption that the Lucan writer is the source of the tradition? Traditions often have long and tortuous lives. Your argument regarding the ornateness of the tradition is simply irrelevant in its lack of familiarity of such traditions.


spin

Diogenes the Cynic

Hi, Richbee. When was Galilee annexed as a Roman province? Who was the ruling authority in Galilee at the time of Jesus (hint: you can find the answer in your Bible)?

Gamera

I meant "first", Joe. Just a typo.

Gamera

The problem with this analysis is that the genre of historical romance didn't come into existence until about 1200 years later. So you're attributing to Luke a genre that didn't exist.

I think you mean not historical romance, but Saints Lifes, that took shape after about the 3rd century. Again, Luke couldn't write in a genre that didn't exist and which he arguable invented with Acts.

Crossan's argument, which makes more sense than yours historically, is that Luke is writing a religious text that is meant to be fictive, mythological, exemplary, whatever word you want to use for it, and not factual. Again, if Crossan is right, how come nobody noticed until him! It's a remarkable event in literary history.

Your examples of naive people taking characters to be real people in modern times isn't on point. Almost everybody can read now, even really naive people. In a time of limited literacy, the ability to read involved a level of education that suggests an ability to discern fictive genres from historical genres. Again, it's telling, given the level of hostility Christianity engendered, that not one of its critics said, guys, Luke is just a work of fiction, intended to be fiction, misinterpreted by naive people. I'm unaware of such a criticism, so here's your chance to cite some.

Gamera

[QUOTE=spin]Just a typo, man. I meant first, as the context in which I said it shows.

Luke says it did. That begs the question, did it, but was it not recorded elsewhere in writing or were those writing destroyed (perhaps due to a little event in 70 ad?)


Ah, personal invective -- sounds like somebody is losing an argument.

Not my assumption. Just the opposite. I assume Luke actually talked to witnesses and in those interviews some garbled storied about the Augustan census emerged as it related to Judea. Perhaps, the client state copied the great Augustus. Perhaps he demanded something from them requiring a parallel census. Whatever it, was it's lost in history except for what appears to be a reference to it in Luke 2.

Vorkosigan

The problem with this response is that the genre of historical romance came into being about a century or two prior to Luke. Take a gander at works like Xenophon's The Ephesian Tale, Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe, and Achilles Tatius' Luekippe and Kleitophon. The influence of ancient Greek fiction on the NT texts is now under exploration by many different researchers.

Not when the writing is intended as fake history using the conventions of fiction, which were borrow from historical writing in the first place.

Vorkosigan

spin

OK.

You have some assumption as to when this gospel was written and that was apparently prior to 70 CE. On what tangible grounds? I know lots of pundits want to place these writing as early as possible because of their otherwise lack of historical currency, but, if the text was finally written after Marcion, ie the commonly accused bowdlerizer of the text, though the accusation cannot be supported by later writers, how would our writer have obtained that which you later postulate, ie witness reports?

This is the art of cherrypicking. Avoid most of what is said, such as what is known about the early principate, in order for you not to deal with it. (You don't have to write on the topic if your not interested in it.)

What on earth makes you think that the writer was ever in Judea? What would ever make you think that the writer was around at the time to speak to witnesses? The text is overtly derivative of earlier texts and betrays through its choice of language more than one hand involved in the writing. Your assumption seems at best wishful thinking.

Why do you think Augustus carried out his (three) censuses? If you looked at the historical evidence, you'd learn when and why. You don't seem to have an idea based on the available history. You also seem earlier to have confused the sober administration of Augustus with the excesses of later Julio-Claudians.

If "the client state copied the great Augustus", why would your writer attribute the census to Augustus? He wouldn't. But then, he seems to be somewhat confused as well, for first he says that it was part of a world wide census and then in the same breath says that it was the census carried out at the time of Quirinius, ie when Judea was annexed into Syria.

Galilee of course was still under the administration of Herod Antipas and therefore was not annexed into Syria, so the people living there were under Herod's jurisdiction and were not subject to the apografh. This type of census involved the writing down of property that belonged to the people recorded and Joseph lived in Galilee, so his property was there. The trip to Bethlehem was irrelevant to such a census. But the Lucan writer doesn't know this. He only has very basic knowledge of the sort of thing.

Convenient. When all indications in the Lucan text show that the writer didn't know anything about Augustan censuses, you accept its veracity anyway.

As you've apparently got nothing to contribute here, let's hear the next apologist.


spin

mens_sana

What isn't true? What idea needs support?

Quite true that if they lived in Nazareth (Galilee), they would not have been part of Quirinius' census of Judea — and on top of that, having relocated to a different "district," they would have been included in any tax census that took place in the new district, not their district of origin.

So what does Luke's inclusion of the census do for the story? It gets the newborn, who is supposed to be of the House of David, into Bethlehem, David's hometown. Matthew did it the easy way, referring only to Herod, not to Herod and Quirinius. Luke tried for more verisimilitude — giving us interminable threads on the subject and allowing the conservatives to b-b-q themselves in the clotting juices of their own literalism.

Amaleq13

FYI, that individual was merely the reincarnation of a previously banned member and, as such, has been banned as well. It is unlikely, however, that the reincarnation would have been any more capable of providing a rational, evidence-based defense of such assertions than the original.

Gamera

The only problem with this is that the Graeco-Roman novels are dated either as contermporary with Luke, or later. Their heyday being in the 3rd and 4th century. More to the point, though it's been a long time since I've read them (and there is little reason to except for scholarly purposes as they are execrable literature), nobody, I mean nobody, would mistake the tone and substance of a GR novel with Luke or the gospel literature (though as I pointed out Saints Lifes were greatly influenced by them, and Saints Life could not be more different than the literature of the NT).

Basically, as I recall, GR novels (and they weren't called romances at the time for obvious reasons) usually involved a beautiful couple (or two) facing hardship and adventure in some travels, often filled with violence and exotic locals, with a few pirates thrown in, until the gods set things straight and they live happily ever after.

The GR novel is poorly represented, if at all, before Luke, with the vast majority being 3rd and 4th century.

Finally, the audience of a GR novel would never take the fabulist content for history. So you're back to the start. Indeed, your reliance on this claim of influence works against your case -- if Luke was in the GR novel tradition, nobody but nobody would have mistaken his work for history.