[Vision2020] Moffet's First Axiom and some Roman history

[Melynda Huskey]

So, after avoiding this whole Joan Opyr/Ron Smith/Nick Gier conversation for a while, now I'm going to jump in, thereby proving what I think of as [Ted] Moffet's First Axiom:  all unmoderated online discussions tend, soon or later, to become theological melees between participants with incommensurable world views.

Here's some basic classical history which may shed some light on the Roman census question as covered in Matthew 2:1-5.  In my New English Bible, Luke 2:1-5 reads:

"In those days, a decree was issued by the Emperor Augustus for a registration to be made throughout the Roman world.  This was the first registration of its kind; it took place when Quirinus was governor of Syria.  For this purpose everyone made his way to his own town; and so Joseph went up to Judaea from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, to register at the city of David, called Bethlehem, because he was of the house of David by descent. . . "

Herod Antipas ruled Judaea as King from 37 to 4 BCE.  Judaea was a Roman client state at that time, which means that Herod paid dues to Augustus, and had the right to levy all the taxes he wanted from Judaea for himself  No taxes were paid directly from Judaea to Rome.  Consequently, there was no census for Imperial tax purposes during Herod Antipas' reign.  Since Herod is mentioned specifically in Luke 1:5 as being King at the time of John the Baptist's (and consequently Jesus's) conception, a degree of historical confusion immediately enters the picture.

When Herod Antipas died in 4 BCE, Herod Archelaus took over.  He did such a spectacularly bad job that he was rapidly deposed, and Rome took over Judaea as a province and assigned it to a regional administrator.  Quirinus was legate (governor) from 6-12 C.E.  In 6 CE, he *did* institute a local census for tax purposes, and it provoked a revolt among the Jews, who objected strongly to any "numbering of the people" as unscriptural.  This census and the subsequent revolt is attested by Josephus and by independent Roman historical documents--none of the sources describe it as anything other than a local census, however.  Once again, Luke's account is unsupported by historical evidence.

Just what this demonstrates, though, is another question.  Any school girl with paper and pencil and time on her hands can find internal inconsistencies and contradictions among and within the Gospels; any moderately well-read person can discover historical inaccuracy in them.  What one does with that information depends, I suppose, on one's bent of mind.  One kind of literalist will reject all of Luke as unreliable because he is not historically accurate on this point.  Another kind will evolve ever more complex justifications to camouflage the inaccuracies.  Symbolically-minded readers will see a literary context in which Luke's historical accuracy is ultimately less important than the narrative's meaning.  (Mary probably didn't compose the Magnificat, either, but it's still a great poem).  Cultural historians will find the ways in which Luke reflects his own time and place, which includes a different understanding of fact and of history than our own.

In short, what we bring to the text shapes what we find there, and what we take from it.

Melynda HuskeyGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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