Sauron

To follow up on Layman's problematic dating for the nativity:

Meier first admits that no such Lucan census took place. Then he goes on to contradict Layman's claim for the date:

Luke's solution is a world-wide census decreed by Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria (2:1) -- unfortunately, such a census (which would have to occur ca. 5 BC) cannot be documented in any other ancient source. According to ancient records, Quirinius, who became governor of Syria in AD 6, conducted a census of Judea, but not of Galilee, in AD 6-7. Attempts to reconcile Luke 2:1 with the facts of ancient history are hopelessly contrived. Moreover, Mary would not have had to accompany Joseph to register, and her advanced pregnancy would have positively argued against accompanying him when there was no obligation to do so.

Meier, p 213.

Vinnie

A question to those who think Luke fumbled on the census. So what? What does it prove or demonstrate?

E.P. Sanders and Margaret Davies commented on this:

Emphasis not in original: Studying the Synoptics, Sanders,Davies, p.41

Layman

I think you are a little cloudy on what has been asserted and rejected.

I believe (I'll have to check) that Meier and I agree -- and therefore disagree with Carrier on this issue -- on the probable date of Jesus' birth (between 4-7 BCE). I never meant to imply that most scholars agreed that Luke was correct for placing a census in that time period. The strong majority of scholars think he was mistaken. But they also agree that Luke places a census during that time.

Benjamin Franklin

Hi Layman

Would you be still interested in discussing the 74 census ?



BF

Vinnie

Meier leans towards the end of Herod's reign for Jesus' birth. Most likely, it occured slightly before Herod died. See Marginal, V1 pp. 375-377

Vinnie

bagong

Well, for Luke the importance of the census was not to date the nativity, but to find an excuse to get Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem so as to fulfill Micah 5:2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

If the census took place after Jesus's birth, there would be even less reason for Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem. I say even less, because a Roman census was primarily an evaluation of property for tax purposes, and thus required people to register where they owned property, not where their ancestors were from.

I see this as quite convincing evidence that Jesus the Nazarene was born in Nazareth, and that the gospels simply added the Bethlehem story to "miraculously" fulfill OT prophecies.

Vinnie

And I would agree that birth in Bethlehem is unlikely for Jesus. Most mainline scholars accept Nazareth as Jesus' hometown and they do so for good reasons.

Vinnie

Sauron

It demonstrates that:

1. the inerrantists are wrong (for those who still hold to inerrancy);

2. that those who do go to great pains to reconcile such a census (by tricks such as having Quirinius be governor twice, or those like Witherington who postulate a Herodian census) are both biased as well as misled;

* that such a many-pronged heroic attempt to reconcile such differences is itself contrary to the spirit of historical research and criticism; no one is mounting such herculean efforts to preserve selected fantastic passages from Herodotus, for example - when the source is wrong, they're simply wrong - people accept it and move on;



Of course modern historians do not claim to be inspired by God when writing their histories, either. And of course, modern historians actually do consult these archives you mention, as oppose to simply digging through their own memories or those of their immediate circle of friends.

In any event, Sanders and Davies have made a fascinating observation. I'd be interested in seeing three such similar errors by modern historians, where such errors are of the same scope and magnitude. Do you (or these authors) provide such examples?

Vinnie

and?

and you have no bias? there is no problem seeking an appropriate resolution to an apparent error in a text. the problem comes into play when you engage in special pleading or interpret the text or modify history to fit your faith stance on the Bible.

As far as I know, Herodotus does not mediate grace or transform sinners like the Gospels. Though I agree that conservative exegetes go to far and engage in special pleading. Any text in the world could be defened as inerrant using the standard some apologists do to defend the Bible.

Luke was not writing a strict history by any means but can you demonstrate where GLuke claims to be writing something inspired by God? Can you furthe demonstrate that if Luke was inspired by Godd it would be inerrant in regards to historical details? See my qualitative inspiration page:
http://www.acfaith.com/qualitative.html

The point is that Luke probably did not have any such archives and his conflating of those two reports is only a minor error. The only thing it would tell us is that Luke is not inerrant in all details.

Actually, as argued, Luke's error is only a minor one. To me it does not seem unlikely at all that historians could make more substantial errors than this. Given that Sanders is highly credentialed in the aree he is speaking of and he has no "apologetical concerns" of defending the infancy narratives as is demonstrated clearly in his writings I do not see any reason to dispute this. With that being said, no they did not provide any specific examples.

I found Sander's email addy online and threw him a quick email on this question. I'm not sure if he will respond or even read it. If he does I'll let you know what he says.

But given that the scope and magnitude of Luke's error is minor to begin with I do not see much reason to dispute this.

Sauron

Well, there are a few left.

No. I follow where the evidence leads. Whether this census occurred as GLuke says, or whether it did not, is not pivotal to the discussion of a historical Christ. It's an interesting detail, but no point of historicity is going to rise or fall on the outcome of this debate.

I see you understand exactly the behavior I'm describing.


No, but he does mention winged serpents. Would you like a quote?

Whether Herodotus mentions transforming sinners isn't really the question. When examining a historical text that presents us with an extraordinary claim, what should our response be? That's the question that matters here.

1. Agreed.

2. It isn't just the inerrantists, however. There are those who claim to be merely arguing for a historical core, that exhibit the same special pleading and tortured reasoning. Which is even less defensible, since they've already abandoned inerrancy.

TI2 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

"All scripture is inspired of God" - that is the standard statement and includes the gospels as well. Are you disagreeing that GLuke is included in that statement? Can you show where any group extracts GLuke out of the body of "all scripture", and treats it as non-inspired while treating the rest as inspired?

Please provide a working framework for "divinely inspired" that admits the possibility of error, without engaging in special pleading to contain and restrict that error to historical events only, as opposed to also including errors in theology.


Then inviting a comparison with historians who do possess such archives was a mistake.

Disagree. A worldwide census would have been a memorable event. Not likely confused or forgotten. See Carrier's article on the Lucan census for a description.

Having realized that such a census is unlikely to have been forgotten or misplaced in history, the next question is "why include it at all? If it didn't happen as GLuke says, then what was the reason for including it in the text in the first place"? The answer is to try and anchor the alleged nativity events to a given timeframe.

Again, disagree. To mistake the time, scope, and nature of such a census is fairly major.

Yes, but I'm interested in examples.

If he's that highly credentialed, then examples should be no problem.

I'm zeroing in on the "examples" claim, because this strikes me as one of those flippant observations that, once put under the microscope, is far more difficult to substantiate than the claimant realizes. This exercise is intended to show that point.