[Vision2020] Plane Fare to Wisconsin, Ron?

[Nick Gier]

Hi Ron,

If you think Luke's method of taxation is so great, will you pay my plane 
fare to Madison, Wisconsin, so that I might visit the county tax office so 
that I might offer to pay property taxes on a farm that the Gier family no 
longer owns??

Come on, Ron, fess up.  There is no historical evidence for such a 
fantastic system of taxation.   And back to my very first point: Mary did 
not have to go even if it were the case.  I'm very happy that she stayed 
home in Nazareth and gave birth to a son who gave us such a profound 
message of love, compassion, and peace.  She surely would have miscarried 
on that donkey!

Luke states that one must return to his own city (idios) and whenever Jesus 
refers to the "idios of his father" it is always Nazareth in Galilee.  (See 
Jn. 4:44; Matt. 13:57; Mk. 6:4)  Jesus never mentions his alleged birth in 
Bethlehem.  That would have been a very important fact if he really claimed 
to be the Messiah.

The Jews had very good reasons to reject Jesus as Messiah, the primarily 
one being that he did not coming as conquering king defeating the enemies 
of Israel.  The Suffering Servant of Isaiah was never identified as the 
Messiah except in one very late commentary.  See the section on "Jesus as 
Suffering Servant" at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre8.htm. The opening 
passage from Isaiah in Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is therefore not 
a messanic prophecy.

Thanks also to Ron for reminding us that his religion, agreeing with Roman 
patriarchy, would completely disenfranchise all women of their  rights.

I leave you with a quotation from French Bible Scholar Charles Guignebert: 
"It is all outside the plane of reality....It is incredible that such an 
unusual and disturbing proceeding, as the census spoken of by Luke must 
necessarily have been, should have escaped all notice in Josephus. We will 
not unduly stress the peculiarity of the mode of census taking implied in 
our text, but it is to be noted that it is a very strange proceeding. The 
moving about of men and families which this reckless decree must have 
caused throughout the whole of the Empire is almost beyond imagination, and 
one cannot help wondering what advantage there could be for the Roman state 
in this return, for a single day, of so many scattered individuals, not to 
the places of their birth, but to the original homes of their ancestors. 
For it is to be remembered that those of royal descent were not the only 
ones affected by this fantastic ordinance, and many a poor man must have 
been hard put to it to discover the cradle of his race. The suspicion, or 
rather, the conviction, is borne in upon us at first sight that the editor 
of Luke has simply been looking for some means of bringing Joseph and Mary 
to Bethlehem, in order to have Jesus born there. A hagiographer of his type 
never bothers much about common sense in inventing the circumstances he 
requires."

Nick Gier
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