Transcription
Hey everyone, merry Christmas. I just wanted to jump on here and answer one of the most common objections that we hear about the birth stories of Jesus. And we especially hear it from the skeptics around this time of year. And it's that Luke absolutely just botched the census. I mean, he just fumbled the bag. It is bad. He makes all kinds of mistakes. And so, let's look at the list of complaints.
Number one, skeptics are going to say that there is a 10-year gap between Matthew and Luke's timelines, and that there actually was no census during the time of Jesus's birth. That's number two. Three, Corinius was not in charge of any earlier census. Four, Rome would have never ever ever ever conducted a census under a client king. Fifth, nobody would have traveled to their thousand-year ancestral home to register like Luke seems to say. and six, Luke was just making stuff up to have Jesus born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill the Micah 5:2 prophecy. So, let's take a look at these.
This is the most popular one that you hear is that there's a 10-year gap between Matthew and Luke's timelines. So, what is the apparent contradiction? Well, it's that Matthew places Jesus's birth during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. So, the birth must have happened before then. But Luke on the other hand, he mentions a census under Corinius who became a governor of Syria in AD6. That's the only recorded Roman census in the region and it happened about a decade later. So, both can't be true. Checkmate, silly Christians. Game over.
But is that what Luke actually says? No, that's not a careful reading at all. Before we answer, Luke actually begins his gospel by anchoring the narrative during the reign of Herod the Great. Luke 1:5 says, "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, that's when John the Baptist is conceived. And then shortly thereafter, Jesus um is uh conceived with with Mary, right?" And so from the very start, Luke puts Jesus's birth during Herod's reign. Furthermore, when we fast forward to Luke chapter 3, it says in the reign or excuse me, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Well, when is that? Well, we know from history that's AD 28. Then in Luke 3:23, we're told that Jesus began his ministry about 30 years of age. Well, let's just do a little bit of math here. That definitely can't be 6 AD, right? And so, that places his birth around 5 or 6 BC, which actually fits perfectly with the end of Herod's reign. Furthermore, Luke also references the AD6 census. He has knowledge about it. He talks about it in Acts 5:37, tying it to Judas, the Galilean's revolt years after Jesus's birth. So, Luke actually shows clear awareness of the AD6 census and keeps it completely separate from the Nativity timeline. Therefore, any explanation of Luke must be consistent with these facts.
Now, what explanations can we propose? Well, I think there's a couple of good options. The big problem passage that skeptics bring up is Luke 2:2 and this is the NIV and a lot of English translations read similar to this. "This was the first census that took place while Corinius was governor of Syria." But is this the best way to look at this passage? Let's take a look. So the first option that I think dissolves this objection is that there was actually two different senses uh censuses. Um this is uh noted by uh eminent scholars like N.T. Wright who reads the Bible straight out of the Greek and he notes that the Greek word proate can be taken comparatively isn't before. So Luke 2:2 could be translated, "This census took place before the one when Corinius was governor of Syria." And that reading actually fits known Greek idioms like we see in John 1:15 or in the Septuagint where um we see it in Jeremiah 29:2. So if that is right, Luke is saying that there was actually two registrations. One around the time of Jesus's birth during Herod's rule and later the more infamous census under Corinius in AD6.
Now another option is that um this has been proposed by scholars like God and these aren't Christian apologists. These are scholars who note that Luke's wording could mean registration uh that the registration began earlier but was actually finished under Corinius. So there was like this earlier registration and then it was later uh completed by Corinius. The Greek term for census apograph can mean two different things. It could mean a registration or a census list or a taxation process based upon that registration. Therefore it is very possible that the registration began in 6 BC and there was actually a oil uh a loyalty a oath of loyalty to Caesar uh during this time. Josephus notes this in Antiquities, right? And so then Corinius carried out the taxation at around AD6. Whichever option is right, Luke's account makes perfect sense. He refers to a registration in Herod's time, which Josephus indirectly also mentions the loyalty oath and then he also separately knows about the later Corinius taxation. So the supposed 10-year blunder uh just completely evaporates. It disappears, right? And so it's just two connected but distinct events. Luke isn't wrong. Critics are just assuming there was only one census. Now, you'll see which option I favor as we go along right now.
Two, this is the second objection. Bart Ehrman says that there is not a single reference to any such census in any ancient source apart from Luke. And so, there was no census at the time of Jesus's birth. Luke is just making this up. Well, this is just an argument from silence and throwing out a perfectly good source, which is Luke's gospel. Luke is a very meticulous historian as we see throughout uh Acts 13-28. The scholar Colin Hammer, a historian, a classical historian, notes that Luke gets 84 details of tiny incidental facts correct about things like overland routes, city names, landmarks, provincial boundaries, sea travel, local religious customs, titles of local officials, legal procedures, uh local dialects, languages, and even slang. And this is all without the help of Google, ChatGPT, or Wikipedia. These aren't the kind of details that you just make up at a distance. Not only that, but Luke gets tons of facts right in his gospel. And so I've talked about this in other videos. And so take a look at those, but this is just throwing out Luke as a bad source for no good reason. Second of all, the claim is wrong. And this is where my view comes into focus here. The Deeds of Divine Augustus do mention that he did conduct a census which included 4 million Roman citizens and he talks about it. He says that there was three censuses alone that he conducted. One of those began or the first of those I should say is um something that started in 8 BC. These were primarily for Roman citizens, but it does show that empire-wide census activity was in fact already happening at the time Luke describes and the roll-out would have been staggered and hit different regions at different times.
Now, this is actually confirmed in the epitaph of Secundus. We have some archaeological evidence which documents a census in Syria conducted under Corinius. So, there you go. Around 9 to 6 BC, the right timeframe for Jesus's birth. The text actually calls him a legate of Caesar in Syria and links him to the military census in the region of Apamea which is about 117,000 citizens. But the complaint, the pushback to that is, well, Corinius wasn't governor at that time. So Luke made a mistake. Okay. Well, Luke's Greek actually fits that earlier role for Corinius. Luke uses the verb, and I'm not going to try and pronounce it here because I'm going to butcher it, and all you Greek-speaking scholars are going to correct me in the comments. It's a verb for hegeomai, which means ruling or governing. It's not actually the noun for governor. In Luke 3, he uses the same verb for Pilate, who also was not a governor, right? And so, the term does not require Corinius to be the official legate of Syria. And even the uh BDAG lexicon defines it as to function in a leadership capacity, govern, rule. It's used for both governors and other officials. Luke's wording actually fits Corinius just fine, who would have had administrative oversight before his final appointment. Plus, Josephus may have not listed him as a governor yet, but Tacitus in Annals 3.48, look it up, actually confirms Corinius served in Syria before 6 AD. We have further support from Justin Martyr. Justin writing around AD 150 mentions the census under Corinius and tells readers to check the Roman archives, a pretty gutsy move if no such uh census actually happened in his first apology. Moreover, Justin calls Quirinius a epitropos, a procurator, not governor, which is actually a lower-ranking official tasked with administrative duties, which fits uh fits Luke's use of the verb totally fine. Not only that, Tertullian basically says the same thing around AD 200. He writes and says that the census Joseph participated in took place under Governor Saturninus. This is in Against Marcion 4.19, suggesting that Corinius wasn't the governor, but likely a procurator or official carrying out the census. Corinius had administrative oversight under Saturninus, which explains why Luke names him. Luke identifies the man running the show, not the guy with the title. Okay, that's what's actually happening here.
Now, the pushback that I've got from this, because I've mentioned this in other videos, and I had a very uh famous Muslim apologist basically rake me over the coals and called me uh a goofball basically because his complaint was Judea wasn't a Roman province until AD6. Rome would have never ever ever ever ever have ordered a census under the client king like Herod, a client king like Herod. And so, basically, I'm stupid. I'm a goofus. But this argument just doesn't work. First of all, it's just doing history from your armchair, deciding in advance what Rome would or would not have done. But we don't have a manual of how to govern Roman client kingdoms. Right? And we don't we don't have anything saying, "Thou shalt not conduct a census under a client king." So critics are just arguing from silence here. Even if such a law did exist, it wouldn't prove that the census never actually happened because we all know that legal theory and historical reality don't actually always match up. The Soviet constitution, for example, promised religious freedom, but they still persecuted the fire out of Christians. Second of all, US uh has always the government has always protected assembly rights and yet what did they do during COVID? They banned gatherings and so critics are just being way overconfident. But besides just this being some specious a priori history, Rome did in fact intervene in client kingdoms. We have record of this in Tacitus Annals 6.41 which reports in AD 36 that Rome intervened to enforce a census in Salissia, a client kingdom, not a Roman province. So there you go. The local king initiated the census, but Rome pressed the clee, this was a tribe to conform to Roman usage and they rebelled. What happened when they rebelled? Rome sent in legions, which is strong evidence that the census served their interests. Dan McClellan, who you've probably seen on TikTok and YouTube, he claims that the census was not Rome's idea since Tacitus calls it in Roman fashion. But this doesn't at all rule out imperial pressure, which is exactly why they sent in legions to enforce uh the the census and when there was the revolt, right? That only makes sense if the census was advancing their interest.
Furthermore, and this is a really, really, really important point, and this is something that is just historical ignorance on the part of the critics, Herod's autonomy was greatly reduced near the end of his reign. In Josephus Antiquities, look it up for yourself, Augustus demoted him from friend Rex Socius to subject Rex Amicus. He wrote a strongly worded letter to him because basically Herod launched military action against the Nabataeans without their authorization making it look like he was acting as an independent king instead of a Roman client. So what would have happened there? He would have lost key powers including what ability to tax maybe. Josephus records that the Romans required citizens of Herod's realm to swear allegiance to Caesar, as I mentioned earlier, marking a step towards reducing uh Judea from a kingdom to a Roman province. So Herod was not just fully independent calling all the shots. Rome had lots of leverage over him and could absolutely order a census during this politically tense period. So the critics, they're just flat-out wrong here. Like this is all in Josephus. It's all spelled out. Josephus also records that the Romans required citizens of Herod's realm to swear allegiance, marking a step toward reducing Palestine from a kingdom or Judea. Uh for all you uh people out there that are like, "Hey, don't use that word Palestine." That's fine. It's just the way historians use it. I I agree with you. Calm down. Um from a kingdom to a Roman province there province. Therefore, Herod was not fully independent. Rome had leverage.
So five. Well, this is the other complaint. They would have never the the Jews in that region or anybody in this census would have never been ordered to return to their uh year ancestral homes, right? Their multiple year ancestral homes. Okay, but actually this again is just ignorant of the history. We see in Opian's Digest 4.5.12 that says, "He who has a field in another city is to register in where the city where the field is. For the land's tribute is to be levied in the city where the land is possessed." Meaning registration followed property, not just current residence. So Rome absolutely could order such a thing. If Joseph had land or legal ties in Bethlehem, Roman law would have required him to register there. Now, it should be noted Opian did write in the 3rd century after Jesus, but Roman legal traditions were pretty conservative and his digest reflects long-standing principles. Furthermore, in Papyrus London 904 written around 104, Roman prefect Gaius Vibius Maximus ordered people to return to their hometowns for census in Roman. Critics who say that this is just too late or it's just Egypt. That misses the point. Roman bureaucracies followed patterns and Egypt provides more of that documentation. New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce says that this kind of census travel need not have been confined only to Egypt, but testify they would have never returned to their thousand-year ancestral homes. Well, does Luke actually say that or are skeptics overreading? Luke 2:3 says, and this is the ESV, "And all went to be registered, each to his own town." Craig Blomberg in his book Historical Reliability of the New Testament points out that Luke 2:3 doesn't say that the Jews returned to tribal homelands from a thousand uh years ago. It says Joseph returned to his own city. Uh the Greek *polis* is *heautou* which refers to a place of birth or legal home or a residence. This phrase is used the um elsewhere throughout scripture. You just see the references there. And most Jews still lived near their ancestral towns. Bethlehem could have easily been on uh been Joseph's legal base. So Dan McClellan wants us to picture that all throughout Rome, everybody was doing this travel. They all stopped, picked up all at the same time and went and did this. But no, this would have been staggered. And again, he's way overreading what the text actually says. It doesn't actually say thousand-year ancestral homes at all. There's nothing implausible about Joseph having legal or property ties to Bethlehem. And under Levitical law, according to uh Leviticus 25, lands stayed in the family. Jewish families preserved tribal land identity. Furthermore, Josephus even says genealogies restored and referenced so they would have had access to their genealogy and where they are supposed to go.
Finally, this is the dumbest argument that is made is that Luke made up the census to get Jesus to Bethlehem so he could fulfill a prophecy. Oh my goodness. Think about this for just a second. How big of an overkill this theory is. If that was Luke's goal, why didn't he just say, I don't know, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Easy. Or he could have made up a cleaner reason like Joseph had property there. Instead, what does he do? According to the skeptics, he brings in Roman bureaucracy and political details and involves, you know, thousands of people involved in a census to complicate things. Stuff he could have easily been called out on by people in his time. So, this is basically like using a steamroller to crack a peanut. This is a huge literary uh plot device that is so clunky, so clumsy, so goofy, and that again, he could have easily been called out on. And then, this is the stupidest part about this theory. Luke, he's not shy about saying that Jesus fulfills messianic prophecy, but does he ever quote Micah 5:2? No, he doesn't. He never ties it directly. Only Matthew does that. Isaiah 35, 40, 53, 61, Psalm 2:10, Malachi 3 are all quoted by Luke or you know, Jesus is saying quoting these verses in Luke to say that he's fulfilling prophecy and yet we don't get Micah 5:2, the whole point for this heavy-handed plot device. This is pretty ridiculous. Not only that, now I don't want to make too much of an argument from silence here, but early critics like Celsus or Julian the Apostate, who was a Roman emperor, never actually mentioned this supposed blunder. Again, Julius or Julian, I should say, he was an emperor. He would have had some archives. You would think if it was obvious, it seems like Julian would have used it, but he never actually does.
And so, I hope this is a helpful resource. So, you're going to hear these objections around Christmas time. And so, don't let them throw you. There's a lot of historical details here. It does take homework and there's understanding of the Greek and referring to different scholars, but this is not just mere apologetics. This is just taking a look at the history and not just throwing Luke under the bus because he makes this apparent mistake and assuming that he's basically a So, don't let the skeptics ruin your Christmas. And again, thank you so much for watching.