Census of Quirinius III: An Earlier Census?

As stated in the first two posts on this topic (I, II),the information Luke provides in Luke 2 about the census of Quirinius lines up perfectly with other historical sources regarding the census of Quirinius the governor of Syria (except, of course, the necessity of Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Judea).  That is, this census took place after Archelaus was deposed as tetrarch over Judea in 6 C.E., some 10 years after Herod the Great had died in 4 B.C.E.  Nevertheless, since Luke tells us in Luke 1 that Mary is pregnant with Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great, his chronology doesn't work. This apparent discrepancy in Luke's timeline has led many Christian scholars and commentators to search for solutions to this problem.  One of the most common solutions is to propose an earlier census of Judea during the reign of Herod the Great.  Luke opens the door for this line of reasoning with his ambiguous phrase in Luke 2:2 as follows:

"This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria."

I think that this is a good translation (NIV) of the Greek, but the ambiguity comes from the Greek word prote meaning "first." Luke's use of "first" opens the door to the possibility that Quirinius had conducted a "first" census prior to the one in 6 C.E., thus reconciling Luke's timeline.  While it might be desirable to reconcile Luke's chronology, I do not think that an earlier census makes sense of the data.  Sure, Roman censuses had taken place before 6 C.E., and there is positive evidence of these censuses, none of them refer to a census of Judea during the reign of Herod the Great.  The most common appeal that I have seen is to a census in 8 B.C.E. Yet, this was a census in Egypt, not in Judea. The main line of reasoning that precludes a census in Judea during the reign of Herod the Great is the fact that a census for the purpose of taxation would not have been needed in Judea as long as Herod, who was a good administrator if nothing else, was collecting and submitting taxes to Rome. And there is no positive evidence that he was not.  In fact, if Herod were not doing his job, he would have been deposed, as was his son Archelaus 10 years after Herod's death.  So, it is historically implausible that Rome conducted a census in Judea during the reign of Herod the Great. I concur with the statement of the late Raymond Brown where he states:

"There is no serious reason to believe that there was a Roman census of Palestine under Quirinius during the reign of Herod the Great. (Indeed, as regards the non-biblical 'evidence,' it is doubtful that anyone would have even thought about an earlier census if he [sic] were not trying to defend Lucan accuracy.)"*

All of this reasoning leads to the conclusion that for whatever reason (and there could be many), Luke has not provided accurate historical information regarding the birth of Jesus.  Either Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (before 4 B.C.E), or during the census of Quirinius (6 C.E.), but it could not be during both.

* Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), 554.

Second Amendment Obsolete?

Full Disclosure: I am about to muse on a subject about which I AM NOT AN EXPERT in any sense of the word.  I am not a constitutional scholar.  I am not a lawyer.  I am not a historian of the Revolutionary era.  Thus, my thoughts bear no special weight in this discussion.

Nevertheless, I am an expert in ancient texts, specifically the texts of the New Testament.  Now, while the U.S. Constitution is by no means nearly as ancient as the texts of the NT, it is now quite old and the world has changed considerably.  Yet, with all texts, as they age, some parts lose the power they once held.  They can become obsolete in many ways.  We see this all the time with biblical texts. Take just the following example.

In Acts 15:19-20, James, the Brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem, makes the following proclamation concerning Gentile believers.  He says,

"Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood."

This is the famous Jerusalem council that was supposed to address the issues that had arisen between Jewish and Gentile Christians regarding how Gentiles might be accepted into the faith.  The big questions were about circumcision and food laws and led to open fights between Paul and Peter (see Galatians 2).  What I find interesting is that three of the four requirements for Gentile Christians, those about things (probably food) polluted by idols, things (food) strangled, and blood (probably food again), are not even afterthoughts among Christians today.  There is no section in my grocery store for food that is blood free, not strangled, and not sacrificed to idols.  Many Christians today eat bloody food and have no idea whether or not it was strangled.  More importantly, they don't care. And the issue of idols, talk about obsolete.  The only bit of Acts 15:19-20 that Christians still bother to pay attention to is the prohibition of fornication (however that may be defined).  Three of the four prohibitions, which were clearly hot button issues of the day, are no longer on our collective radar screens.

And now we get to the second amendment.  Is it possible that this portion of the constitution has become obsolete, meaning that it cannot really speak to our present situation with any real relevance? Here is the full text of the second amendment:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Many people cut off the first half of the amendment which speaks about militias, and skip right to the good part about the government not infringing the rights of the people to bear arms.  They then take this as an absolute right never to be infringed.  If the people want guns, they have the right to have guns.  But the key to this amendment, the context if you will, is found in the first part about militias. The purpose of bearing arms is for the formation of militias to make for a secure state.  Now, the question becomes, how does a militia make the state secure, and secure from whom?  Are the people supposed to use these guns to form militias for protection from foreign powers?  Perhaps, but think about when this amendment was written: right after the revolutionary war in which the colonies were fighting against their own government, the British.  Moreover, who was trying to take their guns and prevent them from revolting? Once again, their own government, the British.  So, what was the purpose of this amendment?  To protect the rights of the people against one's own government.  Fair enough, and a good and necessary amendment in that context.  The people need recourse against any government that grows too oppressive.

But, herein lies the problem. While a militia equipped with muskets might have been sufficient to repel the British in the late 1700s, a thousand militias today equipped with legal guns of all sorts would stand no chance against the United States' military (or any other developed countries' militaries) today.  The guns, which the second amendment seems to guaranty the peoples' right to, are "obsolete" in modern warfare.  Sure, the military still uses guns, and highly advanced ones at that, but they also use attack helicopters, tanks, stealth jets, drones, aircraft carriers, and, God forbid, nuclear weapons.  I see no one seriously arguing that the second amendment protects the right of private citizens to own any of these previously mentioned weapons.  Although, to fulfill the purpose of the second amendment, the right of citizens to protect themselves from either a foreign power or their own oppressive government would require private citizens to own such weapons.   The second amendment cannot function properly in our modern society of highly advanced weaponry.  Think of the destruction possible if some of the recent gun rampages had been performed by people with the right to own tanks, or attack helicopters, or the like.  Perhaps, just perhaps, this portion of the constitution has become obsolete and we need to rethink the original purpose of the second amendment and the best way forward in seeking the "security of a free state"?  I am not sure, given the ongoing gun violence in our country that the second amendment is still the best way to provide for the security of a free state.  What do you think?

Census of Quirinius II: Questions

In my previous post, I discussed the census of Quirinius referred to in Luke 2.  I drew the conclusion that this census occurred in 6 C.E. and really only makes sense at that time and not earlier.

That date, 6 C.E., as well as the way that Luke tells the story, raises some interesting questions. Scholarship always begins with questions. We must be willing to ask questions and follow the data to whatever answers we can find. In this case, the questions may not be easy and the answers may not be either.

Question 1: does Luke's story fit chronologically?  Here is the problem.  In 1:5 we are told that Herod was "King" of Judea when Zechariah was given the announcement of his son's birth.  His son, of course is John the Baptist. In 1:26 we are told that Elizabeth (the mother of John) was in her sixth month of pregnancy when the announcement of Jesus' birth is given to Mary.  In 1:39, Mary visits Elizabeth and John leaps in her womb in response to the presence of Jesus.  This firmly dates Mary's pregancy during or shortly after King Herod's reign.  Now the term King is important here, for only Herod the great could be called "King."  His sons, who also went by Herod, were also rulers, but they were not called "King."  Instead, Herod's sons (Antipas, Phillip, and Archelaus) were called "tetrarchs," rulers of a fourth of Herod's kingdom.  So, the Herod from 1:5 must be Herod the Great and not Antipas as some have argued.  The date of Herod the Great's death is firmly set in 4 B.C.E. So, Mary is pregnant during the reign of Herod the Great, but does not give birth until the census of Quirinius in 6 C.E.  See the problem?  Either Mary carried Jesus in the womb for 10 years before giving birth, or something in Luke's chronology is off.  Either Jesus was born in the waning moments of Herod the Great's reign in about 4 B.C.E.  (as in Luke 1 and also in Matthew 2), or he was born at the time of the census of Quirinius in 6 C.E.  It cannot be both.

Question 2: Does a trip from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea for a census make historical sense?  In Luke the reason Jesus is born in Bethlehem is because of this census.  But, does such a move even make sense?  Here is what I mean.  Last time I mentioned that Roman censuses were primarily for the purposes of taxation.  You would want to know how many people were living in an area from which you hoped to collect taxes.  But, Mary and Joseph don't live in Bethlehem, or even in Judea. They live in Galilee, which which would not even be covered in this census since Galilee at the time was under the rule of Herod Antipas who would be responsible for collecting and submitting taxes to Rome.  So, it makes no sense to send Mary and Joseph to Joseph's ancestral home (Bethlehem, the city of David, the ancestor of Joseph) to be counted for a census, the purpose of which is taxation, since Mary and Joseph will not be living there to be taxed.  And as expected, after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph return to Galilee.  We have no other example of a Roman practice of sending people to ancestral homes to be counted.  It would make no administrative sense.  The closest we have is that temporary dwellers would be sent back to their permanent residences during a census, not the other way around.*

So, in answer to these questions I would say 1), Luke's chronology is off and does not fit. And 2) Luke's story of Mary and Joseph does not make historical sense with regard to Roman practice.

These answers raise two other important questions which I hope to tackle at another time: 1) Was Luke's mistaken chronology a mistake? Or, did he knowingly include irreconcilable dates?  And 2) Was Luke aware of the implausibility of his narrative of moving Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus?  What do you think?

* See Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 549.

The Census of Quirinius

The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are fascinating and I have written concerning them previously (here, here, and here).  Today I want to take a look at the census of Quirinius* referred to in Luke 2:1-3 as follows:

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

This census is foundational for Luke's narrative.  The census is the driving force that moves Mary and Joseph from their home in Nazareth of Galilee (in the northern part of Palestine) to Bethlehem in Judea (in the southern part of Palestine).  It is the reason why Mary and Joseph are in Bethlehem, in a stable at the time of Jesus' birth.  Without the census, Jesus would have presumably been born at the home of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth.  No stable, no manger, no farm animals or shepherds (much like the birth of Jesus in Matthew 2). 

With the census being so central to the Luke's story, what can we know about it?  Josephus, a first century Jewish historian also mentions the census, and it is important to his narrative as well. In fact, the census of Quirinius sets off a mini-rebellion by Judas the Galilean, and is an important precursor to the Jewish war which is the primary focus of Josephus' Jewish War, and Antiquities. Luke also mentions Judas the Galilean in connection with the "census" in Acts 5, so he is well aware of the connection of the census with Judas. According to Josephus, this census takes place during the governorship of Quirinius, legate of Syria, in 6-7 C.E.

The timing of the Roman census in 6-7 C.E. makes perfect sense, as, before 6 C.E. and dating back well into the first century B.C.E., the region of Judea had been under the administration of Herod the Great and his sons.  Herod, and his sons after him had administrative control of most of Palestine and were responsible for the collection of taxes and general rule.  Before 6 C.E., there would be no reason for Rome to conduct a census.  Censuses existed in Rome primarily for the purposes of taxation.  As long as the Herods were collecting and submitting taxes to Rome, Rome would have no need for a census.  But, something changed in 6 C.E.  In 4 B.C.E., Herod the Ethnarch (King, Ruler of a people), who had ruled most of Palestine since 37 B.C.E. died.  He left his kingdom to his son Archelaeus.  Archelaus and Herod's other sons all traveled to Rome to argue for their father's kingdom before Emperor Augustus. In the end, Rome divided Herod's kingdom among his three sons.  Judea and Samaria went to Archelaus; Galilee and Perea went to Herod Antipas, and Batanea went to Phillip.

Archelaus the Tetrarch (ruler of a fourth), ruler over Judea and Samaria, was a vicious ruler hated by his people.  He slaughtered many of his own citizens on multiple occasions. When he went to Rome to have his kingdom ratified by the Roman Emperor, his own citizens sent a delegation after him to oppose his rule.  In the end, his administration was a disaster and Rome removed him from power in 6 C.E. and replaced his rule by bringing Judea and Samaria under their own governor in Syria.  At the time, 6 C.E., that governor was Quirinius.  And now that Judea was under Roman rule, they needed to know how many people lived there, thus, the census of Quirinius of 6 C.E.  A Roman census prior to this time makes no sense.

This is the basic historical background for the census of Quirinius.  Stay tuned for future posts on the census.

*For more info on the census, see Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), 547-556.

Argument for Traditional Gospel Authorship

In one of the comments to my Gospel Authorship series (Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII), in which laid out why scholars usually claim that the gospels are anonymous and that the titles were added later, a reader asked what the arguments for traditional authorship are.  So, I want to post one more time on gospel authorship and give what I see as the main argument for traditional authorship.

In short, the argument for traditional authorship are quite simple: 1) Our earliest traditions (i.e., Papias, Irenaeus) claim that the gospels were written by Matthew (a disciple of Jesus), Mark (an interpreter of Peter), Luke (a companion of Paul), and John (the beloved disciple of Jesus). 2) There is no evidence that definitively and conclusively contradicts this early tradition. 3) Therefore, the tradition is mostly likely correct.

Consider the following quotes from Donald Guthrie's New Testament Introduction.

"To sum up, it may be said that there is no conclusive reason for rejecting the strong external testimony regarding the authorship of Matthew, although some difficulties arise from source hypotheses."*

"So strong is the early Christian testimony that Mark was the author of this gospel that we need do little more than mention this attestation."** 

 "The Apostle John. This, as has been seen, is the traditional view, which has much support for it in the internal evidence.  Indeed, it may be said that there is no evidence which conclusively disproves it, in spite of much opposition to it."***

These three statements nicely illustrate the late Dr. Guthrie's argument for traditional authorship.  His position is that, without definitive and conclusive proof that early Christian testimony (read Papias, Irenaeus, et. al.) is incorrect, the traditional authors should hold.

A clarification is needed here.  Dr. Guthrie introduces the concepts of internal and external evidence.  Internal evidence refers to what we can determine from the text of the gospels themselves, and external evidence refers to what others (early Christians) have said about the text.  For Guthrie, external evidence is the trump card that squashes all opposition.  For Guthrie, external evidence is primary, and internal evidence is secondary.  Consider this quote from his discussion of the authorship of Luke:

"It is against the background of the strong external evidence that the witness of the books themselves [i.e. internal evidence] must be considered."****

This line of reasoning in my mind is faulty.  Now, if Papias and Irenaeus were first century authors and their statements about the gospels were clear and unambiguous, that would be another matter.  As it stands, Papias was writing 50-75 years after the gospels were written (not to mention the fact that the Papias quote is only preserved from Eusebius in the fourth century) and Irenaeus nearly 100 years after the writing of the gospels, I would actually reverse Guthrie's argument and claim that the internal evidence is primary, and the external evidence is only secondary. 

Now, I want to be fair to the late Dr. Guthrie.  He does deal at length with all of the evidence, and does so in a nuanced and fair manner.  But, at the end of the day for Guthrie, no internal evidence could trump the external witness of second century Christians unless it were absolutely conclusive. So there it is. Guthrie provides one of the best scholarly attempts to argue for traditional gospel authorship.  What do you think?

 

*Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, (Downer's Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1990), 53.
**Ibid, 81.
*** Ibid, 275.
**** Ibid, 115.

Do Not Defraud: Mark 10:19

In Mark 10:19, Jesus gives a list of commandments to the man who has approached him seeking eternal life:

"You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” 

It is a list that is probably very familiar, and comes from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy five, the famous "10 Commandments."  Now, as is often the case with lists, especially lists that we have heard often, we tend not to listen to the details because we think that we know the contents.  But, Mark has done something interesting here that I had never noticed until we discussed the passage at depth in a Sunday School class this past week.  Mark lists six commands.  From the 10 commandments, he has omitted numbers 1-4 (No other gods, no idols, name of the Lord in vain, and Sabbath), and number 10 (do not covet).  So, he has omitted five, but he has given six.  So, which one of those do not appear in the famous "10"?  That would be "You shall not defraud." So, why is it here in this list?  A quick perusal of the commentaries on my shelf yielded no "aha" moments.

Matthew and Luke have parallel stories, but neither include the command not to defraud.

The word for defraud is a rare word in the New Testament, only being used five other times in the new testament.  In three of those five usages it refers to financial transactions.  In James it is used to refer to an employer who withholds his workers wages (James 5:4).  In I Corinthians 6, the word is used in conjunction with lawsuits that believers are bringing against one another and defrauding one another (I Cor. 6:7-8).

One quick thought I had was that Mark has put this command there on purpose because it deals directly with the specific problem of this man.  Perhaps he is particularly prone to defraud others as a means of accumulating his wealth.  Perhaps he is using his wealth to defraud others.  Therefore Mark has placed this command not to defraud right alongside the more famous commands from the "10." Just a thought.  What do you think?  I would love any other thoughts about Mark's inclusion of this command.

Gospel Authorship VII: A Narrative Reconstruction

I could probably write on this topic for quite some time because I find it endlessly fascinating, but my wife has informed me that I have gone a bit off the rails at this point, so let me bring this series on gospel authorship (Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI) to a close with one final post in which I set forth a more or less mainstream scholarly narrative reconstruction of gospel authorship as I see it.

Jesus was crucified by the Romans around the year 30 C.E.  If any narrative of Jesus' life was written in the 30 or so years after his death, those writings have not survived.  Yet, the message about Jesus was passed orally from person to person, from group to group for many years.  Our earliest Christian writings are Paul's undisputed letters which were written mostly in the 50s C.E.  Yet these writings tell us little about Jesus' life.  Only with the writing of what we know as the Gospel of Mark do we have our first surviving writing of a narrative of the life of Jesus.  Most scholars will date Mark to the late 60s or early 70s C.E.  As noted before, the gospel attributed to Mark is formally anonymous. There is no place in the text of the gospel where the author provides a self-identification.  Presumably the first audience of the gospel knew who the author was and accepted his authority.

Skip several years into the future and our second gospel was written, the gospel attributed to Matthew, usually dated to the mid to late 70s C.E.  There is strong evidence that the gospel known as Matthew was copied in large part from the gospel attributed to Mark.  This gospel too is also formally anonymous with no author identification within the gospel itself.  Once again, the authority of the author was probably known by the original audience of the gospel.

Yet a few more years later comes a third gospel, that attributed to Luke and usually dated in the late 70s to the 80s CE.  Once again, Luke's gospel copied large portions of Mark, and also either copied other portions of Matthew, or Matthew and Luke had a common source that has not survived (called Q, or Quelle for "source").  Interestingly, there is some author self-identification in Luke, though no name is given.  In the gospel preface, the author claims to know of other accounts (gospels?), to have relied on eyewitnesses (though he himself is not one), and to have carefully investigated the matter. Though this gospel does not claim to be written by a disciple, it is claiming authority based upon the author's careful research. This might be seen as the first step toward needing to argue for the authority of a gospel, presumably because the amount of time that has transpired between the events described and the time of the writing.

Finally, the fourth gospel, that attributed to John, is written, probably in the 90s CE, and stands apart from the other three in its style and narrative.  John also has some self identification of the author in chapter 21, where the authors are a "we" who are dependent upon the testimony of one of Jesus' disciples, the "beloved disciple." Interestingly, the "beloved disciple" from this gospel is never identified by name.  Here again, we see a further step in claiming authority for a gospel, this time tracing the contents to the gospel to a disciple, but an unnamed one at that.

As we get into the second century, a couple of things happen.  First, new gospels are written, but these mostly come with claims of apostolic authorship like the Gospel of Thomas or the Protoevangelium of James (see post here).  In these gospels, the author self identifies as one of the apostles.  Yet, their second century date clearly precludes the possibility of apostolic authorship.  You could say that as time passes and we get into the second century, 100 years or more after Jesus' death, the claims for authority need to be stronger and stronger.  Coincidentally (or perhaps not) it is at this time that we have our first mention of gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Many scholars conclude at this point that, amidst competition among gospels for authority, it was necessary to attach authoritative names to the four gospels that would later be included in the canon.  Thus, the titles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were attempts by Christians in the second century to preserve the authority of those four gospels but do not represent the original authors.  This then explains scholars claims that 1) the gospel titles were added later than the composition of the gospels, and 2) the four canonical gospels are anonymous.

These four gospel titles were settled sometime in the second century, and by the third century our manuscripts demonstrate a consistent naming of the four canonical gospels as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Now, there is one serious objection to the above reasoning, and I think it is a valid one.  If second century Christians needed to attach authoritative names to the four anonymous gospels that would later be canonized, why did they choose the names they did?  Now, this objection does not confront the gospels of Matthew and John, since those men were disciples and eyewitnesses.  Yet, why choose Mark and Luke?  Neither of them were disciples nor eyewitnesses.  The best connection that can be made is that Mark was connected with Peter and Luke was connected with Paul.  Yet, if one were free to choose names, wouldn't one of the disciples be a better option?  For this reason, I think that there may be some validity to the traditions of the titles Mark and Luke, that is, that these gospels may have indeed been composed by men named "Mark" and "Luke.".  Yet, even saying that, there is no firm evidence that Mark = John Mark of Acts, or that Luke = Luke the Physician from Paul's letters.  Those identifications appear to me to be attempts to connect the common names Mark and Luke with anyone in the New Testament by those names who might preserve some "apostolic authority" for these gospels.

Here ends my discussion of gospel authorship for now.  We can continue in the comments section.