Talk:Census of Quirinius/Archive 3

Stubby article
Despite the B-class rating of the article, I notice this is essentially a very short stub with several problems.
 * The section about the census itself seems to be a very brief summary of historical information about the census. It fails to note which primary sources are used by modern historians to draw conclusions on the event and its relative importance. It also fails to offer historical background to the event, briefly mentions an entire "rebellion", and the apparent impact of the annexation and census in the formation of the Zealot political movement. This could use expansion and/or elaboration, because it does not seem to be a minor event.
 * The sole source connecting this census to the birth of Jesus is apparently the Gospel of Luke. Much could probably be said on the agenda or reliability of the author, its intended audience, and that the manuscript tradition of this work presents some key differences between versions even in the primary Greek language.
 * The text of the article deals with the "dating" error of Luke, but this only works when trying to harmonize the work with the Gospel of Matthew. There are simply contradictions between the two works, but it is rather unclear if Matthew is more accurate. It is Matthew which ties the birth of Jesus to the reign of Herod the Great (37-4 BC), since Herod himself is a major character of this Gospel. Herod orders the Massacre of the Innocents, and causes the Flight into Egypt. Herod is absent as a character in Luke and these events are not mentioned or alluded to. The two narratives of the Nativity of Jesus are essentially contradictory accounts, with the historicity of both having been questioned. The nativity of Jesus article includes modern sources which have drawn the conclusion that "both narratives [are] non-historical". Why should they be harmonized?
 * The primary Christian sources on the birth of Jesus and its location in Bethlehem are actually very limited, and the article fails to note that. The birth and related events are attested in Luke and Matthew only. The Gospel of Mark starts with an adult Jesus. No birth or childhood, no Bethlehem, no Herod or Quirinius, no parents or ancestors. The Gospel of John claims that Jesus is Logos incarnate but does not deal with information on his birth and childhood. Again, no Herod or Quirinius. So it is unclear that early Christian communities even had traditions on the birth of Jesus, or cared much about the details, much less that they argued about the dating.
 * "Raymond E. Brown notes that "most critical scholars acknowledge a confusion and misdating on Luke's part." " I'd question how Brown knows the statistics of these "critical scholars", but their numbers are largely irrelevant. The section fails to address why do they think so, and what are their arguments on the subject. For all we know these might be scholars who are convinced about the Biblical inerrancy or superiority of Matthew, rather than critically evaluating the work.
 * "arguing that the text in Luke can be read as "registration before Quirinius was governor of Syria" " This seems to be meaningless without mentioning which words of the primary text they are re-interpreting or translating.

I think this article should be re-rated. Dimadick (talk) 12:31, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Dimadick: I argued some time ago that this article should mainly focus on the role of this census in sparking a rebellion and other implications for Roman rule in Judea; but this is one of many articles that have long been dominated by editors who are only interested in debunking the Bible, in every single article they edit. Most of my time here is therefore spent responding to that issue, leaving no time left to add anything about Roman history.
 * The alleged contradictions between Matthew and Luke are very easily reconciled (and have been by many authors), far more easily than many other sets of accounts in history (take a look at combat accounts if you really want to get a headache trying to reconcile contradictions). I would like to add the opinions of general historians on these matters (rather than nothing but Biblical scholars), because I very much doubt that most general historians think these two accounts are contradictory, unless they take the same view on 99% of everything else. GBRV (talk) 23:32, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * What the editors subscribing to the historical-critical method have in common is a deep distrust that inerrantism reflects the objective reality of the Bible, in its relationship with history. We do not debunk the Bible for the sake of debunking it. Instead we render the consensus views of mainstream Bible scholarship because we subscribe to Wikipedia's purpose of rendering world class scholarship. A short introduction to this view are:, and . So, we are not a cabal plotting to overthrow the Bible, but we are committed to the highest standards of academical scholarship. E.g. if I write a PhD thesis full of mistakes, I do not have to blame the critics for noticing mistakes in my thesis, but I only have to blame myself; the same applies to the Bible and its critics. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:31, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * TGeorgescu: Inerrantism doesn't even factor into this. You didn't address my points, instead repeating your usual assurance that you're not part of a "cabal plotting to overthrow the Bible". If so, then maybe - just maybe - every single article doesn't need to repeat the same verbatim message debunking the Bible to the virtual exclusion of all historical issues related to that article's subject. The lede in this article doesn't even mention the impact of the census on Roman history - such as the rebellion it sparked - and yet the lede is quick to breathlessly allege that the Bible was wrong about the date of the census. The body text itself only mentions the rebellion in passing, but has paragraph after paragraph about the Bible's brief mention of a census under (or before) Quirinius, which may or may not even be the one which this article is supposed to be covering (the one mentioned by Josephus). Objectivity requires that we cover all the issues rather than just the one you personally are focused on. All attempts to clean up this stuff are always reverted on sight, or result in months of fruitless debate. This is supposed to be a general encyclopedia, not a set of personal essays debunking the Bible, much less the SAME text repeated verbatim in article after article. GBRV (talk) 08:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

GBRV, "alleged contradictions"? The two narratives feature different casts of characters (Luke lacks Herod the Great and the Magi, but includes shepherds, Simeon, and Anna the Prophetess), and largely different circumstances. Luke has Jesus' parents staying in Bethlehem for a while, then heading for Jerusalem, then returning to Nazareth with him. The narrative is a peaceful one and mentions no conflict or persecution. Matthew has Herod wanting to kill Jesus and going on to kill every child of similar age in the vicinity of Bethlehem, Jesus' parents fleeing to Egypt and staying there until the death of Herod, and then avoiding Judea entirely for fear of Herod Archelaus. They settle in Galilee (and Nazareth) precisely to avoid Archelaus. Matthew does not mention any visit in Jerusalem. The narrative is one of danger, persecution, and stresses the need of secrecy. Attempts to reconcile the two accounts have to ignore key differences between their authors.

Tgeorgescu, how exactly do you render the consensus view of scholarship without mentioning its methods, its arguments, its conclusions? The article and related articles should summarize the scholars' methodology, not only their conclusion. That is a difference between research and wild guesses.

As for Biblical inerrancy, that seems to be rather irrelevant in this case. While Biblical inerrancy is not a particularly logical position and there are cases where the Bible (an entire collection of disparate works) disagrees with established history, the Nativity of Jesus does not seem to be such a case. Here two books in the same canon simply do not match each other, it is not a case of "error". Basically these two accounts consist of our only sources on the event. Arguments about their historicity, or lack of it, do not exactly prove anything substantial about the event. Because even the scholars lack a better source. Dimadick (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Dimadick: The fact that one Gospel mentions the shepherds visiting Jesus almost immediately after birth does not "contradict" the Magi visiting up to two years later. Common sense would indicate that they are clearly describing two different events in the same sequence rather than providing contradictory versions of the same event, and much the same can be said about the other things you claimed were contradictory. These points have been dealt with repeatedly in the various discussions in related articles over the past few months, so I'm not going to tediously rehash all the rest of the issues. You need to realize that it is typical for MOST historical accounts to have the same "problem" that you think is a fatal contradiction in these Biblical passages, in fact it is the expected norm for one eyewitness account to mention one subset of events and people while another account mentions a different subset of events and people, sometimes with very little overlap. Historians view that as one of the hallmarks of genuine eyewitness accounts, because actual eyewitnesses only describe what they personally saw, or what they personally choose to emphasize. But the authors routinely cited in this article (and similar articles) claim that even the slightest difference between accounts would mean they are false, which is not what historians normally assume. There are plenty of RSs which reconcile these Biblical accounts using the standard methods used by historians, but we're never allowed to include them in these articles except as brief representatives of a "lunatic fringe" viewpoint. StAnselm has pointed out why they aren't lunatic fringe viewpoints. GBRV (talk) 08:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, I agree with most what you stated above. My point about inerrancy was a general one, since more or less the same editors had disputes about it in various articles. GBRV repeatedly stated that Bible scholars seek contradictions, while "real" historians harmonize reports. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:32, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * TGeorgescu: Well, historians DO actually try to reconcile accounts, otherwise literally 90% of history would need to be rejected. There has never been a single set of eyewitness accounts which state the same thing, in fact most of them seem to contradict until you realize that each one is describing a different piece of the same whole, like the classic "Five Blind Men and the Elephant" metaphor. This is basic stuff. GBRV (talk) 08:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * GBRV: I think there's general agreement that the article can't mention the Census without mentioning the way Luke uses it to date the birth of Jeus, and it can't do that without telling readers that the majority of scholars have concluded that Luke is wrong. Nor, if we mentioned the famous rebellion, could we avoid telling readers that the majority of scholars have concluded that Luke is wrong about that too. While I have some sympathy for your feelings, what you're doing here is based on emotion, not reason.PiCo (talk) 02:20, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Since the rebellion doesn't even factor into the subject that Luke mentions (the nativity), how the dickens is Luke "wrong about that, too"? He doesn't mention it one way or another because there's no need to mention it, just as he doesn't mention the battles that occurred in that era. That isn't a "contradiction", it's a matter of sticking to his subject. But our article DOES need to cover the rebellion because Wikipedia is supposed to be a general encyclopedia article, and yet you continue to dodge that issue: i.e., if the lede never mentions the rebellion and even the body text barely covers it, why is it so crucial that the lede covers your favorite topic?  THAT is unbalanced POV-pushing, especially since the same is true of virtually all these articles which deal with this type of topic. Don't accuse me of "going by emotion" if you can't address my points. The bottomline is that the current version of the article should have a neutral version of the text while we discuss things, rather than enshrining your version while we discuss the matter for weeks or months. The material you keep adding to the lede is disputed, hence it should be left out at least for now while we discuss it. Address that point rather than just sticking your version back in.  GBRV (talk) 08:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If you want to mention the rebellion, go ahead and add something.PiCo (talk) 08:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You again inserted your version into the lede while again refusing to address either of the reasons I gave for taking it out, indeed you made the ridiculous claim that I haven't given any reasons despite the patent fact that I repeated them again only an hour ago. Just to repeat myself yet again: covering the Biblical issue in the lede is excessive given that it's not the only - or even the primary - subject that the Census of Quirinius is supposed to deal with; and more importantly, since your version is disputed and we're supposed to be discussing that very same text, it's inappropriate to keep inserting your personal version. The article needs to have a neutral version while discussion takes place. Rather than discussing it, you gave a one-sentence response (ONE sentence) to my long comments today, again indicating that you just want to keep your version locked in place indefinitely while you claim that "discussion" is supposedly underway. Enough is enough.
 * StAnselm : what are your views on this? GBRV (talk) 09:30, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You haven't actually given any reasons, you've simply said "this doesn't need to be in the lede", followed by something about a rebellion (why? what does the date of Jesus' birth have to do with rebellions?) It's a lead, and leads summarise articles, and this point is in the body of the article, and, most of all, it needs to be in the lead because we need to inform readers that Luke's correlation of the census with Herod's death is useless when it comes to finding the year of the birth (which, in turn, is the only real reason this census has notability). As for leaving your version in place while the so-called "dispute" continues, that's laughable - you're simply using this as a delaying tactic. I'm going to report you for behavioural issues - I've assumed good faith with you until I can assume it no longer.PiCo (talk) 09:49, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You have absolutely no justification for reporting me since I've done nothing wrong (what rule did I violate?) Nor have you given any reason why we can't put in a neutral version while discussion takes place. That's normal practice, is it not?
 * As for your statement: "what does the date of Jesus' birth have to do with rebellions". Do I really need to point out that this article is supposed to be about the census itself, not just the "date of Jesus' birth"? The rebellion was an important event in Roman and Judean history - especially since it triggered the chain of events which eventually led to the First Jewish Revolt, the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and the Jewish Diaspora - and as such it needs to be covered far more than it is, rather than turning all these articles into a dissertation on the Bible. GBRV (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Folks, this article is not purely about the dating of Jesus’ birth – that is dealt with elsewhere. The gospel accounts are a serious component of the notability here, but the role the census played in the zealot revolt is also important and must be mentioned. Wdford (talk) 09:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The blatant contradictions between Matthew and Luke are not easily reconciled at all. The claim that they merely reflect two different views of the same event by two different eyewitnesses is ridiculous - neither Luke nor Matthew (or whomever wrote gospels in their names) was an eyewitness to Jesus' birth. The gospel authors could only have heard about these events 30 years later at the earliest, from Mary and Joseph, and there is no reason at all why the parents would have told the two authors two totally different stories. There is also no reason at all why the two authors would not have already heard the entire story from other oral accounts and traditions by the time they came to write their gospels down 70 years later - by which time both Joseph and Mary were surely already dead. This in indeed clutching at straws. Modern scholars hold that the nativity accounts are fiction. Only "conservative" authors try to prove otherwise, without much success. Wikipedia must give "due weight". Wdford (talk) 10:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * First of all, I never said that Matthew and Luke themselves were eyewitnesses to Jesus' birth, but they could have obtained information from eyewitnesses; secondly, I cannot fathom how you can claim that it's a contradiction for one of them to describe the shepherds arriving on the day of birth (or shortly after) while the other describes the much later arrival of the Magi up to two years later. To be contradictory, they would need to be giving contrary descriptions of the same event, not describing different events in different years. A description of two different events is not a "contradiction" if both events took place in sequence. Thirdly, my experience with combat accounts has taught me that it is literally routine, in probably 90% of cases, for historical accounts to give dramatically different descriptions even if they are definitely describing exactly the same event, such as the same battle. One soldier might talk about being attacked by the enemy in the early morning near a stream, while another says the first attack he experienced was in the late afternoon in a large dry field, while another says he saw no fighting that day. Does that mean these accounts "contradict" and the battle is "fictional"? No, because the standard assumption is that they are each describing different aspects of the battle in different locations and times of the day (or different days entirely), and some of the units may have been too far from the fighting to take part or even be aware that a battle was going on until they found out later. The alleged contradictions in the Bible are far easier to reconcile than most of the stuff I've been beating my head against all these years, so I guess I lose patience with the idea that it's impossible to reconcile them, or somehow improper to even suggest the idea that they should be reconciled.  GBRV (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The above is an WP:OR argument about what Bible scholars should do for a living, instead of merely citing WP:RS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:27, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * So, many full professors teaching at reputable universities and routinely published by prestigious academic presses should stop doing what they do, because, hey, it is GBRV from Wikipedia who says they need to better their ways. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:42, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I was just pointing out one of the basic principles they teach in classes for people working on a history degree : i.e., historians expect accounts to differ widely, because they almost always do. It's not merely my opinion, it's a basic rule taught in universities. And it was a response to Wdford's personal analysis of these Biblical passages. But his personal analysis isn't OR and mine is?
 * Do you realize that historians - secular ones - routinely use the Bible as a valid source? The textbooks I had in college - a secular university - cited it in quite a few chapters. But all of that is wrong because Bart Ehrman says so?  And you claim Ehrman is authoritative because he says so. So you're using Ehrman to justify using Ehrman as a definitive source. That's pretty much the definition of a circular way of defining the matter. As StAnselm (and others) have also pointed out over the last few months, there are plenty of RSs even in the field of Biblical scholarship itself - to say nothing of the history field - with views that disagree with Ehrman on this. But we can't include them except as fringe views, because Ehrman says so. That's ridiculous.  GBRV (talk) 00:43, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course we don't believe that Ehrman renders the consensus merely because Ehrman says so, but also because most Bible scholars teaching at reputable secular universities side with him, rather than with the literalists/inerrantists.

"I am certainly not insisting that authors of Western Civilization texts for university classes should agree with the suggestions made about ancient Israel in recent decades by scholars such as those whom I have cited. What I am saying is that it is bad scholarship, and bad pedagogy, simply to ignore an important body of recent work, offering adult students a literalist-leaning account that is by scholarly standards probably twenty years out of date. At the very least, textbook authors should include more critical scholars' works and some minimalist works in their recommended readings, so that students would have a chance to confront such arguments on their own. The Hebrew Bible is simply not a reliable source for the history of ancient Israel, and the authors of the textbooks surveyed seem largely unaware of this fact. Writers of textbooks for undergraduates need to ask themselves: If we are content to provide students with mythical, legendary, uncritical histories of ancient Israel, how can we have any legitimate grounds for complaint or criticism when others are willing to provide mythologized, fictionalized histories of other peoples and places?"

- Jack Cargill


 * Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

"But, since most of Ehrman’s textual arguments are essentially the well-established and long-accepted consensus views of just about every worthwhile critical biblical scholar not teaching at a Christian university, seminary, or school with the word “Evangelical” in the title (Ehrman admits as much beginning at the 7:50 mark in the video here), the site is essentially little more than an online video version of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, where conservative scholars attempt to refute the biblical scholarship that is taught in every major university save the aforementioned conservative Christian schools."

- Robert Raymond Cargill


 * Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Tgeorgescu: You had previously argued that Ehrman should be used as an authority because Ehrman said most scholars agree with him, and that's what I was referring to in my previous note. The first quote you posted in your recent note seems to be complaining that Western Civ textbooks need to start presenting the view of Ehrman and likeminded people rather than ignoring their view, which seems to admit that many history textbooks do ignore their view, in which case I would point out that there might be a reason for that. It's not because the authors of history textbooks are all benighted, hapless fellows who have remained mired in the dark age of ignorance Before Ehrman (B.E.); it may be because the methods used by Ehrman and crew are - as I've said - often inconsistent with the usual methods taught to history majors in universities. The third quote sounds like a polemic - enlightened objective scholars on the one hand versus backwards biased Evangelicals on the other hand. There is plenty of bias on both sides, and the lines are not as clear cut as the polemicists make it sound. GBRV (talk) 01:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I did not say that Evangelical and conservative Bible scholarship should be boycotted, but it is a minority view in Bible scholarship. Some Evangelical colleges only allow Bible scholarship as ancilla theologiae, e.g. professors who express public doubt about biblical infallibility are sacked on the spot (some are even required to take formal oaths that the Bible is inerrant). That does not imply that everybody else is bereft of biases, but it might imply that the biases of scholars from secular universities are diverse and tend to cancel each other out. Bible scholarship does not mean just historical-critical method, it means history and archaeology of the Levant, and every other form of scholarship concerned with the Bible or with the civilizations that wrote it. So, the claim that taking the Bible as face value is outdated scholarship is correct: people who hold that the Bible should be considered true until proven false now represent an extreme position. The Albright school and its ideology of proving the Bible true through archaeological research, which once dominated Levantine archaeology, lost control of the field and got marginalized. Minority views should not me misrepresented as dominant. See Talk:Omri for quotes to this extent. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The choice isn't just between either inerrantists on one hand or Ehrman and his buddies who claim most of the Bible is fictional on the other; because there is a middle ground in between. The history textbooks I had at a secular university were not written by inerrantists, but neither did they take the view that the Bible is all bunk, either. StAnselm has raised similar points, but we're always told that anyone who disagrees with Ehrman and company are "inerrantists". That's a false dichotomy. Nor have we been suggesting that "minority views should be described as dominant". You're not addressing the actual points. I would add that the "diversity" in many secular universities is not much more diverse than in an evangelical college, because surveys of the faculty have found that 98% identify as liberal (a dramatic change from a few decades ago when it was more balanced). That's about as homogeneous a group as you can get without completely purging the remaining 2% of moderates and conservatives. GBRV (talk) 01:12, 18 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Ehrman does not take the view that the Bible is all bunk. But it is a fact that the bulk of Bible scholarship could be construed as liberal or as supporting liberal Christianity. We have then no other choice but to express the mainstream view, and if it happens to side with liberal Christianity, that's what we have to render. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * But Wikipedia's NPOV principle says that all viewpoints need to be represented. Yes, most academics are liberal, but that doesn't mean that the moderates and conservatives (and liberals who take a different view than most liberals) should be completely left out. Besides, the same liberal academia has also produced enormous numbers of academic journal articles, books, and classes (in fact entire fields) arguing the Postmodernist view that science is allegedly nonsense, and in fact if you look at the sheer numbers it becomes clear that there are probably more academics taking that view than the number of scientists in academia; but that doesn't mean that Wikipedia should promote that view in its articles on the physical sciences. An academic fad is an academic fad, not the absolute truth. You've only cited a handful of authors (four or five) who take the view you claim is dominant. GBRV (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)


 * If by "Albright school" you mean the ideas of William F. Albright, who argued in favor of the historicity of the Book of Genesis, Book of Exodus, Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges, you are correct than modern archaeology has discredited his theories. But archaeology is in general more useful in shedding light on the actual situation of the ancient world and its material culture. The Old Testament preserves a whole lot of historical claims about the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, which can be verified or rejected when compared to the historical record. I doubt the same is true about the New Testament. This collection of books has more to do with itinerant preachers (John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, Paul) making their way across the Roman world. Even assuming that they all existed and were pretty much as the collection describes them, how much material evidence could a hand-full of rootless individuals have left behind? Dimadick (talk) 07:58, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Dimadick: The archaeological arguments that some academics have put forth are mostly just another variation of the 19th century claim that even the great civilizations in the Bible were "fictional". From what I've seen, the new arguments are almost as bad as the old ones, which is why there are plenty of archaeologists who reject those arguments. We're just not allowed to cite them except as "lunatic fringe" views. GBRV (talk) 01:12, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

"The strong consensus is that there is at best sparse indirect evidence for these biblical episodes, and for the conquest there is considerable evidence against it.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t more work to be done and people don’t need to keep an open mind. Who knows that the future will bring? But, my only point is this: at present to say that archaeology is a friend to the historical accuracy of the Bible may be true for some things, but not for the foundational story of Israel’s origins–slavery, exodus, and conquest. This has been and continues to be a big problem, and claiming otherwise just makes the matter worse."

- Peter Enns


 * Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Just a couple days ago, you quoted someone complaining that many textbooks weren't representing the views of Biblical-rejectionists. So how is there an overwhelming consensus in favor of that view? It depends on what you count.  GBRV (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * As shown in the quote below, it mostly depends upon when you count. In 30-40 years the mainstream view changed a lot. If authors of textbooks for undergraduates use outdated literature, they won't reflect such change, that's what the complaint was about: there was a sweeping change and some people lacking contact with present-day research still pretend that nothing has changed.

"The fact is that we are all minimalists -- at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. When I began my PhD studies more than three decades ago in the USA, the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs was widely accepted as was the unified conquest of the land. These days it is quite difficult to find anyone who takes this view. In fact, until recently I could find no 'maximalist' history of Israel since Wellhausen. ... In fact, though, 'maximalist' has been widely defined as someone who accepts the the biblical text unless it can be proven wrong. If so, very few are willing to operate like this, not even John Bright (1980) whose history is not a maximalist one according to the definition just given."

- Lester L. Grabbe


 * But, anyway, that's a helicopter view of the whole field, and, as pointed by Dimadick, it isn't immediately germane to the discussed article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If it comes down to how recent a work is rather than a difference between different groups or different fields, then why are the only authors quoted in all these articles always people in Biblical studies and none (or virtually none) from the history field? GBRV (talk) 01:32, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Again we see the straw-man argument about eyewitnesses. It is incredible that two authors writing 70 years later, somehow received such vastly different accounts of a momentous event. We are not talking here about "what color robe was Mary wearing at lunch that day", we are talking about foreign sages visiting from far-off lands, we are talking about homicidal kings carrying out massacres, we are talking about angels and divine visions, we are talking about a family fleeing into exile in a foreign country, and yet these momentous details all eluded Luke the Greatest Historian? Seriously? The suggestion that the two gospels record events that happened two years apart - and that neither gospel author was at all aware of the other event - also beggars belief. It would suggest that Joseph brought his pregnant wife from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for a census which didn't apply to them to begin with, then he took them home to Nazareth in an uneventful manner, then they all RETURNED to Bethlehem two years later for an unspecified reason, received adoring magi and were threatened by a king, then they ran away to EGYPT when they actually lived in Nazareth, and they stayed in Egypt for years before finally going home to Nazareth, all because of why? It is no surprise that scholars think Luke was making it all up. You have to really suspend disbelief to buy into such obviously-ridiculous "harmonization's". Wdford (talk) 08:22, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wdford: All the things you list as "contradictions" or as "ridiculous" can be easily explained if you look at what the text actually says. Firstly, you're assuming Joseph wouldn't have needed to register for a Roman census since you think Nazareth was his hometown because he happened to be there at one point, but the Bible says otherwise when it says "everyone went to their OWN TOWN to register", meaning that Bethlehem (not Nazareth) was Joseph's "own town". It says Joseph was merely IN Nazareth before that point, without ever implying that it was his hometown - it says Nazareth was MARY's hometown, not Joseph's, which would adequately explain why he was there : to visit her and/or arrange marriage by gaining permission from her family, as was common practice. Hence he was a native of Judea, not Galilee, and would in fact need to register for the census. Secondly, you say that Luke's version left out numerous momentous events despite being an overall summary of events, and you therefore claim his version is fictional. Do you realize that so many summaries and general chronologies leave out points that we would consider the most important?  Medieval chroniclers routinely do this, such as when the official Burgundian chronicler Jean Lefevre de Saint-Remi talks at length about people shattering their lances at the Battle of Montepilloy in 1429 while airily ignoring so many more important things that you might expect from a chronology. Other chroniclers describe a completely different set of incidents during that battle. That's routine, but when Luke does it you claim it proves his account is fictional?  Then be consistent and declare that a large percentage of events in history were fictional too.  The rest of your analysis was a deliberate attempt to make the two Gospels seem as far apart as possible, but it's actually easy to dovetail the accounts if you assume that - as with MOST historical accounts - the accounts are describing two subsets of events which are not mutually contradictory. Luke doesn't say when they returned to Nazareth or why; you're assuming it was immediately after the previous events he described (and would therefore create an impossible timeline), but the common practice in many ancient texts was to deliberately compress events that were actually spread out in time, in fact the ancient Roman author Lucian recommended this type of abbreviation when writing a history. Once you realize that, the "contradiction" disappears. Likewise, Matthew doesn't say when the Magi arrived (I said it would be UP TO two years later, but could have been only a few weeks; it doesn't say). You've tried to create a contradiction by assuming it was either a full two years after (in which case you'd claim it creates a difficult timeline) or the same day as the shepherds arrived (in which case you'd claim it contradicts the other description of that day), but you won't allow even the possibility that it was in between those two extremes.  But let's take a look at some examples from secular history and I want you to use the same analysis on these as you're using for the Bible.  One of the most important battles of the Hundred Years War, the Battle of Patay on 18 June 1429 during which half the English army was wiped out, is described in such a confusing manner that historians still can't agree on where it began or even what the general outline was. The most substantial source is a chronicle by the mercenary Jean de Wavrin, but even his account is muddled : he says the "English" (without specifying which of the scattered units) tried to reach a nearby woods (near where?) as the French cavalry approached from the south, but were unable to do so before the "English" (he apparently means the French cavalry) had reached the southernmost point of the English positions where Lord Talbot was trying to block the French advance. Then Fastolf's unit came hurrying up (from where?) to try to join up with the English "vanguard" (meaning what, since the English army was in reverse sequence by now), and so on. It becomes more confusing as you add other sources and try to reconcile them.  So that battle must be fictional, right?  Likewise, one of the most important treaties of that era, the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, was achieved when Henry V reached a deal with Queen Isabeau of France, who was described by one source as a short brunette, by another source as a tall blonde, and by a third source as bald (!). So I guess she must have been fictional, and the agreement she made with Henry V was therefore fictional, and the treaty based on that agreement was fictional, etc?  For that matter, the accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg are a hopeless mess and describe two supernatural events which they said played a profoundly crucial role in the Union victory but which you undoubtedly would view as fictional as well (unless you believe in supernatural events?). So Gettysburg must be fictional?  Answer these questions, because you need to analyze things in a consistent manner.  GBRV (talk) 00:43, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

GBRV, why do you assume that Luke's narrative is a summary of events? It seems to be rather detailed and covers an entire chapter of his work. The author depicts the birth of Jesus as a momentous event and has the newborn acknowledged as the Messiah.

As for Medieval chroniclers leaving out important events, this often has to do with the POV of the writers. Harold Harefoot died of a mysterious illness at the age of 24. One of our main sources on this illness is an Anglo-Saxon charter, which actually records a territorial dispute between two monasteries. "Harold is described as lying ill and in despair at Oxford. When monks came to him to settle the dispute over Sandwich, he "lay and grew black as they spoke". " The problem is that the source cares more about the dispute and covers it in detail, while devotes a few cryptic lines to the illness of the dying king.

Which is why I mentioned above that the agenda of the author has to be taken into account. The writers of the Gospels emphasize events that fit their distinctive theology and intended audience of the 1st century. Not what would later audiences and secular scholars want to find out. Dimadick (talk) 09:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Dimadick: I was responding to Wdford's statement that Luke was summarizing other sources rather than giving an eyewitness account, which is true enough. I then pointed out that other summaries or general chronologies also tend to leave out a lot of things while focusing on issues that seem minor.
 * Yes, the Gospels were undoubtedly written with a specific audience in mind and with details chosen for that audience, but that doesn't mean that they contradict. That has been my only point. GBRV (talk) 01:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Wdford, while I generally agree with your summation of the events described, I have to disagree with the "Luke was making it all up". The Magi, a homicidal Herod, fleeing to Egypt, etc. are all Matthew claims and Luke mentions nothing of the sort. Compared to Matthew, Luke gives a rather low–key narrative.

The nativity narrative in Luke covers Chapter 2 of the book. It starts with the Census of Quirinius. Using the text from Wikisource, based on the World English Bible: "Now it happened in those days, that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to enroll themselves, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David; to enroll himself with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him as wife, being pregnant."

The text continues with Mary giving birth to Jesus while staying in Bethlehem. An "angel of the Lord" alerts a number of (unnamed) shepherds of the Messiah's birth. The shepherds come to Bethlehem and visit newborn Jesus and his parents, then apparently publicize the birth.: "When they saw it, they publicized widely the saying which was spoken to them about this child. All who heard it wondered at the things which were spoken to them by the shepherds. ... The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it was told them."

The narrative continues with Jesus' circumcision. Then it mention staying in Bethlehem for a period of post-birth purification, before heading to Jerusalem to present him to the Temple and offer an animal sacrifice. In Jerusalem, they meet Simeon and Anna the Prophetess, who separately acknowledge the baby as the Messiah. The parents of Jesus then take him from Jerusalem to Nazareth: "they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. The child was growing, and was becoming strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. His parents went every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast..."

Which means that Luke skips about 12 years in the narrative, going from a baby Jesus to a 12-year-old Jesus. The implication seems to be that Jesus had an uneventful childhood, or that the author did not care about these years. Compare this to Matthew's melodramatic narrative of Jesus having to be hidden from the grasp of the Herodian dynasty.

But back to the actual topic, the census. Luke ties the birth of Jesus to a Roman census, not one taken in the Herodian kingdom. Matthew's Herod-related narrative is largely irrelevant here, unless one or more sources brings up the contradiction. Our personal beliefs matter little when it comes to writing an article. Dimadick (talk) 19:55, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The "contradictions" CANNOT be easily explained. Luke 2:39 says "When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth." Nazareth was thus their "own town", not Bethlehem. They would only register (and pay taxes) where they lived, so Joseph would not register in Bethlehem and then immediately emigrate to a foreign country.


 * Luke DOES say exactly when they returned to Nazareth and why – Luke 2:39 says "When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth." "Everything required by the Law" is referring to the purification rituals and the consecration of the firstborn male child (Luke 2:22). Per Jewish Law this happens after 40 days (Leviticus 12). The timing is perfectly clear – they returned to Nazareth 41-42 days after the birth. Nobody is compressing anything. Why did they return to Nazareth? Because it was "their own town". QED. Matthew on the other hand has Magi and massacres and flights to Egypt – all while they are still living in Bethlehem - but Luke somehow never knew about any of that stuff. The Magi quiet possibly arrived in Bethlehem up to 2 years later – I have no issue with that – but according to Luke the family was long gone by then, so the Magi would not have found anybody there to adore. And in Luke’s understanding of their history they went straight home – they did not spend a few years in Egypt on the way.


 * Matthew also says they lived in Egypt until Herod died, and then avoided Judea and went to Nazareth for fear of his son Archelaus (Matthew 2:21). Luke says they returned to Jerusalem "every year" at the Passover – with no apparent fear of Herod or Archelaus (Luke 2:41).


 * As for your strawman examples re Gettysburg etc – there is lots of actual evidence of the battle (not just one account by an anonymous source which contradicts known history), so no the battle was not fiction. However as to the related "supernatural events" – yes they were probably fiction, and were seemingly the perception of some individuals only. Battle stress does that, in the heat of the moment - particularly to religious men in fear of death. I have no problem with individual eyewitnesses reporting things as they saw them, however incomplete, but where accounts differ, we must accept that THOSE ASPECTS are uncertain and thus unreliable – we do not fake a "harmonization". This is common in how history is compiled – if the available accounts all differ on certain details then the reliability of those details is questioned. I don’t doubt that Jesus was born or that his mother was named Mary, as I don’t doubt the existence of Queen Isabeau. However due to the apparent contradictions re her appearance, we cannot really know what Isabeau looked like, so I discount any details in that regard. But we don’t need to write her out of existence completely. Simple enough?


 * However Luke was not an eyewitness with a single personal heat-of-the-moment perspective, he claimed to be carefully chronicling events as described by other well-informed people. At Luke 1:3-4 he states that "since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." If he is telling the truth here, he did NOT just jot down a single confused perspective, and a "careful investigation" would have turned up a mention of Magi and massacres and sojourns abroad. All this info could only have come originally from the parents, who would obviously have known the entire story – Mary would not have failed to notice fleeing to Egypt for a few years, no matter how stressful the first few weeks might have been for her.


 * PS: I am aware of what Matthew wrote vs what Luke wrote – I was referring to what Luke wrote about the Census as being Luke’s fiction. Wdford (talk) 20:09, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wdford: On the issue of Joseph's hometown: the clearest statement (and hence the most reliable) is in Luke 2:3 which says people returned to their own town to register, hence Bethlehem was Joseph's hometown. The later description of Mary and Joseph going to "their own town of Nazareth" may be referring to the fact that they lived there after their marriage (as Matthew also says), in which case it doesn't contradict Luke 2:3. If you interpret it otherwise, then the matter hinges on the use of the word "their", and I don't know what the original language was: is it just alluding to the fact that Nazareth was Mary's hometown but uses the equivalent of "their" only because the sentence as a whole refers to both of them? The fact that it's ambiguous means that: 1) it can't be used to trump the clear statement in Luke 2:3 that Joseph's hometown was Bethlehem; and 2) all of this is semantic nit-picking designed to cherry-pick only a few quotes which allow you to claim a contradiction while ignoring the ones that would create a consistent framework that makes sense. Again, if historians did that for other accounts, almost any set of events could be declared fictional because so many accounts have at least a few ambiguous phrases or confusing wording.
 * As for Luke 2:39: you claim it isn't condensing anything and you interpret the transitional phrase (the one stating that they left for Nazareth after doing everything required by the law) as a literal description rather than just a way of smoothly joining two statements; but even if both of those assumptions are true, there is at least one plausible way to dovetail Luke and Matthew. Since Matthew's account doesn't describe the birth itself or subsequent events but he does say that Jesus was a "young child" rather than a baby by the time the Magi visited, and they were in a "house" rather than a manger; it's therefore possible that they first went back to Nazareth shortly after the birth to wrap things up regarding wedding arrangements with Mary's family, and then went back to Bethlehem either because it was Joseph's home (the bride would usually move into the husband's house) or because they wanted to visit the Temple again (Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem, in which case they would likely stay with Joseph's family in Bethlehem), or to visit Mary's cousin Elizabeth, who lived in Judea; and the Magi met them while they were in Bethlehem at that time, likely several months or a year or more after the birth. That's a perfectly feasible timeline which doesn't create any contradictions. It does require a lot of travel, but it wouldn't be much more than what many people did when traveling to and from a distant town for a wedding or similar occasion, and there would have been plenty of time in between each journey.
 * Re: Luke's statement about their travels to Jerusalem for Passover: you insist on seeing Luke's statement as an absolute ("every year") which wouldn't leave any possibility for avoiding Judea even for a couple years, when in fact he's using a common expression to describe a recurring habit which isn't necessarily meant as an absolute or literal expression - e.g., when I say that when I was a child I used to go to my family's cabin "every year", that's an expression rather than a literal, absolute statement (I didn't go until I was maybe five or six, and I'm not sure we went every single year after that). Again, you're engaging in semantic nitpicking and deliberately interpreting things in the one way that would allow you to claim a contradiction.
 * You again brought up the issue of Luke compiling a history rather than writing his own eyewitness account; but as I pointed out yesterday, it's also common for compiled chronologies to gloss over many important events while fixating on trivial ones, such as the example I gave of Jean Lefevre de Saint-Remi's chronicle of campaigns during the Hundred Years War (in which he focuses on seemingly trivial things like nobles shattering their lances at Montepilloy while leaving out plenty of more important things). What Luke is doing is no different than that. Again, you need to use a standard method of analyzing these things.
 * Re: your comments about my Gettysburg analogy: firstly, a large number of soldiers from the 20th Maine regiment (including its commander, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain), and some of the Confederates who attacked them at Little Round Top hill, said they all saw the same supernatural figure; in fact the Confederates said they fired at the figure repeatedly at close range but the bullets had no effect. So I guess you're arguing that they all hallucinated the same thing at the same time, and some of them did it on two different occasions (once just before the battle and once on the second day at Little Round Top)? More to the point, if you're going to claim that a few ambiguous statements in the Bible would prove a large chunk of it is fictional, then presumably the much larger number of ambiguous statements in so many combat accounts would have to make them fictional, too. You claimed we should view differing accounts as unreliable rather than forcing harmonization; but if we did that, we'd have to view a significant portion of most battles as unreliable because so many of the accounts differ, and not just on a few details. Historians do in fact try to force harmonization if it's possible to do so, since otherwise there'd be no way to resolve anything - in fact, finding a method of harmonizing the accounts is the only way you can be reasonably certain you've found the right interpretation, just like getting the pieces to fit in a jigsaw puzzle proves you've found the right solution. I'm analyzing Luke the same way I analyze combat accounts, and it's far easier to do it for Luke. It mostly comes down to how you interpret a mere handful of ambiguous phrases.  The fact that they are ambiguous is itself the chief reason you can't make a definite statement either way, much less declare them definitely contradictory. GBRV (talk) 01:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, that's all WP:OR. Stick to the WP:SOURCES. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is typical of what we've been putting up with from GBRV - refusal to accept reliable sources as definitive, refusal to advance any alternatives, continual appeal instead to his own ideas on how history should be written. I don't accuse him of bad faith, but this is obstructionism of a serious order. PiCo (talk) 06:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The role of Nazareth is not that clear. The town receives relatively few mentions in the New Testament, none of which flesh out Jesus family's connection to it. Per our article on the town: " "Nazaréth" is named twelve times in surviving Greek manuscript versions of the New Testament, 10 times as Nazaréth or Nazarét, and twice as Nazará. "Dimadick (talk) 08:23, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Well I too think that the two accounts of Luke and Matthew are easily compatible with each other: for instance, it's possible Luke simply didn't find (or for some reason didn't choose to include) one of the sources/traditions/material about the magi, etc. that Matthew included. I don't get why is it discussed here, though... The article should be about the census and, in case, its citation in Lukes' Gospel. Bardoligneo (talk) 10:43, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * PiCo: I only presented my own analysis on this in response to Wdford presenting his own personal analysis. As for the idea that I refuse to present any alternative RSs: whenever anyone has presented RSs in the past, you've always claimed that these should be relegated to the status of "fringe sources" because Ehrman says so. Then you eventually purge them from the article completely by claiming they are "undue weight" (for the same reason - Ehrman says so). That makes it completely pointless to present any more RSs to counter Ehrman: you will never allow them. But then you accuse me of "obstructionism" ?  You haven't even responded to my last note to you in this discussion, and your previous responses did little more than claim (falsely) that I hadn't presented any reasons for my position.
 * It looks like the person you asked for advice about my "obstructionism" actually agreed with my position: EdJohnston wrote that the current lede "goes out of its way to zing a book in the Bible" and could be "worded more neutrally", or words to that effect. So can we finally have a more neutral lede? And more neutral article as a whole?   GBRV (talk) 01:12, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Bardoligneo: It should be about the census, yes. But all these articles end up being about the same topic, often with the same refutation of the Bible repeated almost verbatim with hardly any variation. GBRV (talk) 01:12, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Just because you cannot trust every jot of it, does not mean that the Bible is bunk. That's a false dilemma. We have a consensus view expressed by multiple reliable sources and we have to render it, not shove it under the carpet as insulting your religion. Of course, it should be noted that consensus isn't unanimity and some scholars still disagree with the consensus view. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * There is an argument indulging in this false dilemma at . What can I say about it is that it is anti-intellectual, being anti-intellectual is anti-Wikipedia. Being anti-intellectual means it is anti-scholarly and no wonder that people who support anti-intellectual fundamentalism don't qualify for Bible scholars at major universities, that might be the origin of your reported percentage of liberals in the academia. I mean the fact that the Bible has errors is rock-solid for every scholar except the fideists, so pretending that the Bible has no problems whatsoever makes one incompetent as a Bible scholar at a non-fideist university. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:02, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * TGeorgescu: Am I "censoring" Ehrman's view by saying it shouldn't be the ONLY view ever given? My edits to these articles haven't removed what you call the mainstream view, in fact my edits have usually kept your statements about it being the mainstream view even though I think that can be debated for the reasons I've given many times before. It is you who consistently try to censor all other views. You've also again repeated your standard mantra that everyone aside from the Ehrmanists are inerrantists/fundamentalists, while also claiming that 98% of academics in all fields are liberal because fundamentalists are "anti-intellectual". So there are virtually no moderates teaching computer programming because moderates are all fundamentalists who can't get into computer programming departments due to being "anti-intellectual"? Remember that both moderates and conservatives are being squeezed out by the 98% liberal dominance in academia, not just conservatives, much less only fundamentalists. GBRV (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: After having been busy for a few days, I have finally caught up on this discussion. There is, however, precious little to respond to - we seem to be having a theological dispute rather than discussing how the article could be improved. As I said above, Wdford's edits on 11 March produced the best version we've had so far; since then, we have had the addition of the revolt and the theory that "Quirinius had an earlier and historically unattested term", both of which are helpful additions. On the other hand, the addition of "The author of the Gospel of Luke incorrectly dates it to the reign of Herod the Great" is POV. As the article points, there is (presumably a minority) of scholars who do not think (the author of the gospel of) Luke is (necessarily) incorrect. So even if the majority of scholars think that Luke is incorrect, putting it in WP voice violates NPOV. (I am OK with having the words "Most scholars accept that Luke has made a mistake".) StAnselm (talk) 05:01, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, PiCo has cleared that up now. Personally, I would still like to see N. T. Wright mentioned, but we must be close to being able to remove the NPOV tag. StAnselm (talk) 09:23, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * STAnselm: Firstly, welcome back and thank you for improving the article. Secondly: there are still many violations of NPOV in the article. For example, it says that Quirinius' possible first tenure is "historically unattested", which is just one viewpoint, because the other side bases its view on a Roman inscription. Also, the aggressive debunking of Luke right in the lede is excessive as well as out of place, as even the guy whom PiCo consulted (EdJohnston) said. Since when does the lede go into details about controversies and present only one side as dogmatic truth? There are disagreements among scholars about many things related to this subject, but the lede doesn't mention these other disputes, nor should it since that's not the purpose of the lede. The article also states things like the date of Herod's death as if it were a certainty, although none of these dates are certain since the original sources always give them as an offset from some other event and they are therefore approximate. Also, the wording "most scholars accept that..." is just another case of PiCo making it sound as if his view is an acceptance of basic reality, like accepting that the sky is blue. Why not just say "most scholars believe...."? But if I put in even a small change like that, PiCo will revert it on sight and then threaten to report me. GBRV (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)


 * "Since when does the lede go into details about controversies". Per Manual of Style/Lead section: "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." The date of Herod the Great's death, 4 BC is the standard date chosen. According to his article: "Josephus tells us that Herod died after a lunar eclipse. He gives an account of events between this eclipse and his death, and between his death and Passover. An eclipse took place on March 13, 4 BCE, about 29 days before Passover, and this eclipse is usually taken to be the one referred to by Josephus. There were however three other total eclipses around this time, and there are proponents of both 5 BCE with two total eclipses, and 1 BCE." Dimadick (talk) 06:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The guidelines say prominent controversies should be mentioned; it doesn't say the lede should promote one side as dogmatic truth without going into the different points of view. The issue is already discussed in depth in the body, which is where it belongs. Even the guy whom PiCo asked for advice, EdJohnston, said the lede "goes out of its way" to push one viewpoint and should be worded more neutrally. Re: Herod's death: your own description notes that the 4 BC date is not the only possible date. But this article and related articles always present such issues as if the matter was decided beyond any doubt, although that's rarely the case. GBRV (talk) 01:32, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, Herod is not actually mentioned in the 2nd chapter of Luke which deals with the Nativity of Jesus (and the Census). Herod is mentioned briefly in the 1st chapter, but in another context. Quoting from the World English Bible: "There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the priestly division of Abijah. He had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth." Most of the 1st chapter is devoted to the family background and birth of John the Baptist, not of Jesus. Dimadick (talk) 09:37, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * So GBRV continues to indulge in what Geza Vermes (a leading biblical scholar) describes as 'exegetical acrobatics'. Mmmmm. St Anselm, you say that you would like to see N. T. Wright mentioned - please would you propose the sentence you would like to include, so that we can close this loop? Wdford (talk) 15:01, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * And N. T. Wright (another leading biblical scholar) does it as well. I have added him as a footnote; maybe that's enough for the article as it is now (i.e. an extended quote might be undue weight for an article of this size). StAnselm (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Vermes is the guy who claims that Jesus shunned / avoided all non-Jews (both Samaritans and Gentiles) by rewriting the passages about the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well, the Roman centurion's servant, etc. GBRV (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * StAnselm: Thank you for improving that section. GBRV (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Undue weight
The article has an undue weight tag, and quite rightly, since GVBH continues to flog his personal point of view, which is that there exists a scholarly debate over the reliability of Luke, regardless of the lack of reliable evidence for it. And so the section on Luke gets longer and longer and he cherry-picks and argues. To recall: the tag says that the article "may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies." The ideas, two of them, are that the word prote in Luke 2:1-7 can be read as "before", and that there exists evidence that Quirinius may have had a prior (prior to 6 AD) term as governor. Both these are fringe positions, according to our sources. If you, GVBH, believe otherwise, then produce a reliable source that says so. Otherwise, please leave the article alone.PiCo (talk) 02:56, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * That material you deleted was added by Wdford and/or StAnselm, not me. And it isn't "undue weight" to briefly mention a viewpoint other than your own. Claiming that I made an "unexplained deletion" is false, because I had explained the reasons for it many times on the talk page before making the edit, and even the guy you consulted for advice (EdJohnston) told you much the same thing I've been saying. You just keep ignoring everything I say, or misrepresenting it, while refusing to discuss anything: you haven't replied to any of the comments on the talk page in days. GBRV (talk) 01:22, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * "Many have joined Archer in the hypothesis that Quirinius had an unrecorded term as Syria's governor during the time of Jesus' birth." StAnselm (talk) 08:30, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

The mention of prote is a translation issue, but is not currently covered in the article. The historical record on Quirinius might be incomplete, we don't know what was his title during a lengthy campaign against the Homonadenses. But I don't see what would an earlier term of the man in Syria have to do with Judea. The Roman province of Judea was only established in AD 6, and a guy named Coponius was its first Prefect. Dimadick (talk) 07:50, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * @Dimadick - I have included the translation issue and even mentioned it in the lede - although that got reverted. I have now made it even more clear.
 * @StAnselm - if that Gier thesis is considered WP:RS, we should note that Gier demolishes Archer's hypothesis. The full quote shold read: "Many have joined Archer in the hypothesis that Quirinius had an unrecorded term as Syria's governor during the time of Jesus' birth. Some misuse the "Tivoli" inscription which they say proves that some Roman official served twice in Syria and Phoenicia.  First, the name is missing, so this is no proof that Quirinius is involved.  Second, the inscription has been mistranslated.  It should read:  "legate of Augustus for a second time" not a second legate in Syria as the harmonizers insist." Wdford (talk) 12:47, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, because they are talking about two different claims, with very different standards of evidence. But I'm not suggesting we use Gier in the article: I was citing him to show that the minority position is not (necessarily) fringe. StAnselm (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wdford: Actually, the "harmonizer" argument is that the inscription reads as you described it: that someone held the position twice. And as Dimadick pointed out, it's accepted that Quirinius held some type of prominent position in Syria during a military campaign before the governorship mentioned by Josephus, so he clearly held some type of position in Syria twice. In any event, the normal procedure is to present both sides' best argument rather than presenting one of them only as a foil which is dismissed in the same phrase. It's one thing to note what the dominant viewpoint is; but it's another thing entirely to just gloss over the other viewpoint. GBRV (talk) 01:22, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * GBRV, you've been asked to produce a source for your belief that Luke has been mistranslated or that Quirinius held a prior office as governor in Syria. You seem to have an aversion to producing evidence, but if you have any, please produce it. (As Wdford notes, Anselm's Grier actually demolishes the point you're trying to make.)PiCo (talk) 04:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Both of those points already have sources - the article currently lists three of them. How many more does it need? GBRV (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * But it doesn't matter if Grier demolishes it, or whether we think he does. (Personally, I don't believe prote can be translated as "before"). What matters is whether the body of scholars that hold to/suggest it is significant enough. That's what NPOV means. And we also have to take into account the significant number of scholars who don't accept either explanation but still believe that both accounts can in principle be reconciled. StAnselm (talk) 06:03, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * For the proportion of scholars holding that prote can be translated as "before" we have Novak, who says "before" is rejected by the overwhelming majority of scholars and no real dispute exists (Novak, page 294); for the second, there's no point in the history of the period when Quirinius could have held a previous governorship and no suggestion in any historical source that he did so (Novak page 296). PiCo (talk) 07:22, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * And I think we've gone in circles with the (first) Novak quote: I have argued that it is pre-Wright and therefore dated; I don't think there is a consensus to include it. StAnselm (talk) 10:31, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * We must certainly include mentions of the "prote = pre" argument, but with the explanation that this is a minority view. If we mention the "two-terms" hypothesis at all, we must again mention that this is decidedly fringe, that no names were ever mentioned on this inscription, and that Quirinius was certainly never a governor twice - although perhaps he held other "senior" positions over time. If so, why was Quirinius conducting a census in Judea while Herod was still king - was that normal? Wdford (talk) 14:53, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's fringe because Grier says "many" people have believed/suggested it. (There is a very important difference between minority and fringe.) StAnselm (talk) 19:41, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wdford: I think the argument is that the term used in Luke can refer to any high-ranking official, not just a "governor", and that Quirinius held some type of high-ranking position during a military campaign prior to his term as governor described by Josephus. GBRV (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

The fact that many people believe it, doesn't mean its not fringe. (For a thorough grounding on this concept, check out the Christ myth theory discussions.) However the fact that the majority of scholars believe the complete opposite view, means that this view could possibly be fringe. Many "minority" scholars believe that Luke was somehow still correct, just because they want to believe that this is the case - for them, no actual evidence is required. Some "minority" scholars believe the "prote = pre" story, because there is actually some faint sense to it, even though the majority make strong arguments to the contrary - so I would agree this is a valid minority opinion and should be stated as such. However the "undocumented first term" makes no sense - there are no names in the Tivoli inscription, and even if Quirinius was indeed present in Syria as a military commander in an earlier period (is there any actual evidence to support this?) then on what basis was he conducting a census in Herod's "independent" kingdom? This seems like a long long stretch indeed to clutch at a small and soggy straw. Where is the cut-off between a valid minority opinion, and a fringe opinion? Wdford (talk) 07:29, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * And so we drag on, rehashing the same points over and over. We need to, and must, reflect the balance of scholarly opinion, Novak gives it - the idea that by prote Luke is talking about an earlier census is dismissed by the overwhelming majority of scholars. No, Anselm, I do not see Wright as obviating this - Wright seems to be aiming his words at an audience with a reading age of about 12 (read it!) and although he says that one way of translating Luke's Greek is to see it as referring to an earlier census, he doesn't endorse that view. In fact he seems to be offering it as a sop. And most certainly he doesn't make any suggestion whatsoever as to where the weight of scholarly opinion lies. No, Wright is not an authoritative source for your point of view, and I think he'd be appalled to be seen as such. (Suggestion: email him on ntw2@st-andrews.ac.uk). Use Novak.


 * Which brings us to the second point, the idea that Quirinius may have had an earlier term as governor of Syria. Our source again is Novak, who says that the list of Roman governors between 25 BCE and 6 CE is well-known,that there is no space for Quirinius, and there is no suggestion in the historical sources that Quirinius served a term as governor of any province prior to 6 CE. General, yes, governor, no. We owe it to our readers to show the evidence, not hide it. PiCo (talk) 09:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems that somewhere in all of this you've missed the fact that there are two Wright books. The book by Tom Wright is indeed addressed to an audience with a reading age of about 12, and does only say "One way of translating the Greek here is to see this census as the earlier one." But then in Who Was Jesus? (2014) - and this time writing as N. T. Wright - he is much clearer and more forceful, and says that translating prote as "before the time" is "actually the most natural reading of the verse". Certainly no sop here. StAnselm (talk) 19:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's true that Tivoli inscription has no names, but contains many other details (Roman official who lived in the reign of Augustus, and survived that emperor, conquered a nation, rewarded with two Supplicationes and the Ornamenta Triumphalia...) so that Mommsen, Borghesi, de Rossi, Henzen, Dessau, and others agreed that it was almost certainly Quirinus (I've read it on this book by W.M.Ramsay).


 * I think the article should simply describe the difficulties and the possible explanations given by various historians: confusion/invention on Luke's part; Herod having to comply with Roman policies in an earlier term of Quirinus; different translation of prote ecc.. Descriptions like "(overwhelming) majority" / "minority" / "fringe", should be included but only if it is some RS that says that. Bardoligneo (talk) 10:57, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I think StAnselm and Bardoligneo covered the issues pretty well, but I would add that the other side still seems to be claiming that one view is "fringe" because a handful of authors claim all "real scholars" agree with them. That's not a valid basis for labeling one side "fringe", much less for virtually excluding that entire side except to present it as a simplistic caricature which is immediately dismissed in the same breath. That's not the normal Wikipedia procedure. Likewise for the constant allegation that the "minority view" is biased, despite the fact that the other side is almost entirely composed of self-described atheists, radical Christians, or others who clearly have an agenda. So there is clearly bias on both sides, not just one. And as Bardoligneo pointed out, many of the great historians of the recent past accepted the Tivoli inscription as a reference to Quirinius because there aren't many (if any) others who would fit the description given. No new evidence has surfaced since then to justify a new conclusion, and the current academic fads in Biblical scholarship really do not overrule these long-respected historians. It should be added that the argument by various authors doesn't come down to Quirinius personally conducting the census, because the Bible doesn't say he conducted the census, it only places the census within a time period when he held some type of position in Syria. Additionally, a number of authors have pointed out that there were cases of "independent" jurisdictions (such as Apamea) which were still subject to Roman censuses.
 * Can we even mention historians like Mommsen? If I added a citation, it would be reverted on sight, wouldn't it?  And that's entirely unacceptable. GBRV (talk) 01:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Re: the recent edit: You have again done the same thing you've done many times before: you wait awhile and then come in and see if you can completely purge the article of all alternate viewpoints while claiming that "due weight" requires a complete purge. That's nonsense. "Due weight" doesn't overrule the NPOV principle of including alternate viewpoints, including minority ones. GBRV (talk) 23:39, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If you revert this one more time I'll take it to conflict resolution - your actions are pov-pushing, and I believe you know it. The Wikipedia =guidelines on due weight are quite clear. PiCo (talk) 08:45, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * "One more time"? I only reverted it once before you wrote the above note. But go ahead, take it to conflict resolution : at least then we'll have a relatively neutral mediator who is likely to agree that allowing both sides is not "POV-pushing", but removing all viewpoints aside from your own certainly IS POV-pushing. In no fashion do Wikipedia's guidelines allow systematically censoring everything but one viewpoint. I would add that I didn't even write the material you're deleting : I think Wdford added it, unless it was StAnselm.
 * I'd like [User:Wdford|Wdford] and [User:StAnselm|StAnselm] to weigh in here. GBRV (talk) 23:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You really should be checking the edit history for things like this. It was in fact, added by an IP address, 69.127.248.215. As a contested recent edit it should stay out until there is consensus to include it. StAnselm (talk) 02:29, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I removed this duplication, with a mild rewrite that covers all the various viewpoints while being clear about the weight of scholarly opinion. Please all help to polish it up, so that this can be put to bed. Wdford (talk) 07:46, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * StAnselm: If all contested recent edits need to be discussed first, then why can PiCo continuously add disputed material without discussion? In any event, the material he's deleting now is merely a statement about one opposing view, which needs to be included for balance and which shouldn't be controversial. Wdford re-added a pretty balanced version. GBRV (talk) 00:34, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe this source could help clarity some things or this one or. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 23:52, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The above sources are a good reflection, but I think we have covered these points in the article already? Honestly people, the article now states clearly that the majority opinion is that Luke probably made a mistake in linking Jesus' birth with the term of office of Quirinius, we have mentioned all the different minority interpretations and explanations, and we have noted that these interpretations are considered to be "acrobatics" - what more remains to be done? Wdford (talk) 12:55, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Luke did not actually mention Quirinius, that's a translation error.
http://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2014/11/cyrenius-does-not-mean-quirinius.html --JaredMithrandir (talk) 06:46, 6 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Your own blog post is not a reliable source. --Amble (talk) 15:43, 6 June 2016 (UTC)


 * i source every argument I make.--JaredMithrandir (talk) 22:34, 7 June 2016 (UTC)


 * You should read the ban upon pushing your own arguments, what counts as a reliable source and how Wikipedians verify claims in reliable sources. You cannot verify claims to your personal analysis. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:41, 7 June 2016 (UTC)


 * So, basically, we're not interested if you're right or wrong. We only care for claims explicitly made by reputable scholars, published in either peer-reviewed articles from reputable scholarly journals or in books published by prestigious publishing houses. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:45, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

JaredMithrandir, please understand that Wikipedia doesn't really allow blogs as sources per WP:NOTBLOG. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 16:13, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

The word 'Critical' as applied to scholars
Recent edit-skirmishing on the word in the lead (or lede if you insist) raises what this word means in the context. My objection is foremost that of ambiguity: critical can either mean someone who argues against, or describe someone whose job it is to be a critic (as in theatre) and who will necessarily sometimes laud rather than criticise. So what sort of scholar is a 'critical scholar'? Should not all scholars be critical (in the theatre sense)?

I'm in over my head on this article as I don't have the referenced text (Brown 1978), but the disagreement smells of a proxy dispute over chronology, and perhaps religious orthodoxy. But putting that aside, what we need to do is establish what the book that is cited to support this statement actually says. Mcewan (talk) 17:39, 9 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Turns out that Google Books have it, and 'critical scholars' is a direct quote. Page 17. Wasn't expecting that. But then the unexpected is commonplace these days. Mcewan (talk) 17:47, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, my English is somewhat poor, so I'm not sure I fully understand your suspicions (accusations?), if you have any. As a matter of fact, what I did was mainly to fix an obvious mistake you have made earlier, as I explained in this edit summary. You can quote a sentence, you can paraphrase it, but you simply cannot put quotation marks around a sentence that is not in the source cited. As for the word "critical", apparently you added it trying to "correct" the "quote" you had just made. I find this word unnecessary, but I don't quite care if it's there or not (not a critical issue...). ראובן מ. (talk) 11:45, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Not Herod the Great after all?
Currently, the article in the very second paragraph provides a summary judgment on the scholarship regarding the Census of Quirinius that reads, "No satisfactory explanation has been put forward so far to resolve the contradiction"... quoting Professor Gruen's footnote in a 1996 book on a different subject and also something from 1975. I dug up a year 2000 paper in "Catholic Biblical Quarterly" which proposes an explanation for the alleged contradiction (http://www.jstor.org/stable/43722645?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents), and therefore we Wikipedia editors now know our statement to be false: how can references from 1996 and 1975 evaluate whether a proposal from 2000 is satisfactory? Was Smith's proposal already known and part of the review by the other authors? Clearly not, in the case of Dr. Gruen's 1996 book, which offers no more than a few words in a footnote on the subject, and the other Wikipedia editors did not say that the proposal wasn't satisfactory but only, "who is this M. Smith? DELETE". In order to adequately satisfy WP:NPOV, I recommend that the article remove the comment about "satisfactory explanation" to a subparagraph, and include the update in the scholarship as of 2000. If the seriousness of the source is in question, look at the citing newer articles here in Google Scholar: (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=13589444918741178202&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en )  These articles do not simply dismiss M. Smith's proposal, as Wikipedia has done. 168.88.65.6 (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Maisch & Vogel are about as cautious as Wikipedia, writing in 1975: "None of the explanations of this contradiction so far suggested is satisfactory", and there is no indication that they were evaluating Smith's proposal, that the writer of the gospel of Luke was actually talking about a different Herod, Herod Archelaus. 168.88.65.6 (talk) 20:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The paper by Beauchamp in 2010 which criticizes Smith's position seems to agree with Smith's own analysis that Matthew's reference to Herod the Great is not likely to be historic. I believe that this PhD thesis is not good enough reason to discount the published work by Smith.  168.88.65.6 (talk) 20:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * User:Harizotoh9 had proposed including M. Smith's work back in 2012 (see archives) and his proposal was unanswered here in the talk page. 168.88.65.6 (talk) 21:21, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Consider the actual wording of the gospel. Matthew 2:1 and Matthew 2:3 refer to "King Herod". Only Herod the Great was a King - his sons were not kings. Matthew 14:1 refers to "Herod the tetrarch", so as to distinguish him from the King Herod. Matthew 2:22 says "But when [Joseph] heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there." Archelaus was indeed a son of Herod the Great. Once again, there is no doubt that Matthew was referring to Herod the Great as the king of the nativity who tried to murder the infant Jesus. I don't know where Smith got his ideas from, but if he is postulating that the Matthew-author merely mixed up his Herod's when describing the circumstances of the nativity, how does he explain Matthew 2:22? Do you perhaps know? Wdford (talk) 21:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with Wdford and it makes no sense to say "As of 1975, no satisfactory explanation had been put forward so far to resolve the contradiction". This is not 1975. If the IP is trying to say that the situation changed in 1975 when someone did put forward a satisfactory explanation to resolve the contradiction, he or she should say what it was, referenced to a reliable source.I reverted that edit but the IP just put it straight back in again and I don't want to edit war about it.Smeat75 (talk) 01:16, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Regarding Smith's ideas about Matthew 2, Smith takes the modest position that in a contest between Matthew and Luke for historicity, choose Luke... Luke explicitly starts by saying he's writing chronologically, and Luke is supposedly considered a reliable historian through the book of Acts. Smith makes the case that Archelaus fits as "King Herod" (I got through the paywall... actually, it's just a registration-wall at JStor... in order to read Smith's 2000 work http://www.jstor.org/stable/43722645 ).  His is not the definitive position on the subject, but he makes a plausible case based in part on the account in Josephus that Herod the Great willed Archelaus the title "king" (p. 286) even though Caesar Augustus officially denoted him "ethnarch".  Mark 6:14 also refers to a tetrarch as "king" apparently.  168.88.65.6 (talk) 21:30, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I would happily agree with Smith that Luke is more historic than Matthew. I would also agree that Harry Potter is more historic than Matthew. Luke does however have problems too - the whole basis of the Roman census bringing Joseph and his pregnant wife a hundred kilometers on a donkey to Bethlehem is vaguely ridiculous as well, for starters. At least Luke doesn't have corpses rising out of their graves and wandering around in town - unremarked by Luke, or any other bible author, or Josephus, or the Romans.
 * However, while I would accept that LUKE is perhaps talking about Archelaus when he says in Luke 1:5 that John the Baptist was conceived "In the time of Herod king of Judea", I cannot accept the view of Smith that Archelaus was the Herod of the Magi and of the massacre of the infants. This is because Matthew 2:19-23 states quite clearly that Joseph fled to Egypt to escape Herod, and that when he was told in yet another dream that Herod was dead, and that he should return to Israel in fulfilment of yet another prophecy, he was afraid to return to Bethlehem because Archelaus had now taken over from his late father, so Joseph instead settled in Nazareth in fulfilment of yet another prophecy. The Herod of the nativity thus cannot have been Archelaus, because Archelaus only became "king" when Jesus was already in Egypt - and was perhaps already several years old. Surely Smith would have read a few verses further, seen this anecdote, and realized that his theory was ludicrous? What does this say about Smith as a reliable source? Wdford (talk) 11:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Wdford, Mark Smith is in favor of the theory that Jesus was born following the death of Herod the Great. He says "Herod had already been dead some ten years when Jesus was born."

He makes his case that the only thing connecting Jesus to Herod the Great is "the infancy narrative unique to Matthew". And to quote an online source: "Smith himself did not accept the historical accuracy of the Gospel of Matthew". Smith made several arguments defending the historicity of Luke and rejecting the historicity of Matthew. Dimadick (talk) 18:39, 20 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, I am very happy to accept that Matthew is largely fiction, including the Magi, the Star, the massacre, the plentiful dreams and prophecies, the flight to Egypt etc etc (although I have been to Cairo, and I have visited the cave where the Holy Family allegedly sheltered - which is a big tourist attraction today as you might imagine.) I still question the historicity of much of Luke, but I can accept the possibility that Luke sets the conception of John the Baptist in the last days of the term of Archelaus, with transition to direct Roman rule taking place during the course of the pregnancies, hence the census. How long after the demise of Archelaus did the census take place - does anybody perhaps know? Wdford (talk) 14:45, 21 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The census, as the article says, was in 6 CE. This was not after Archelaus' demise but after he was deposed and exiled by the Roman emperor and Roman direct rule imposed. The article as it stands now is neutral and accurate, attempts to say "it was some other Herod", "it was some other census" or anything like that with reference to the passage in Luke are lame and rather desperate attempts by Biblical literalists to avoid the fact, agreed on by all neutral authorities, that the passage in Luke is historically inaccurate. See for a full discussion.Smeat75 (talk) 21:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Technically, we can not be certain when Herod Archelaus died. He was deposed in AD 6, and exiled to Vienne, Isère in Gaul. Primary sources do not seem to cover his final years. We do know that the province of Judea was formed following his deposition. And that someone called Coponius was appointed as the first prefect of the province. Dimadick (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Please consider this source
I find Sir William Mitchell Ramsay's book, "Was Christ Born in Bethlehem?", particularly chapter 11 to be helpful in expanding perspectives on the chronology of the census; but if it is indeed not just me that thinks so, I feel that more seasoned users would do a better job at incorporating this source than I would. Here's a link so you can access chapter 11 of the book and possibly find a way to incorporate the perspectives shared on this article: http://biblehub.com/library/ramsay/was_christ_born_in_bethlehem/chapter_11_quirinius_the_governor.htm Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.8.13.225 (talk • contribs)
 * In case you look back to this page to see what's happened: An excellent source for this is Ralph Martin Novak's Christianity and the Roman Empire: background texts, which you'll find in our article's bibliography. The tombstone you talk about (or rather that Ramsay talks about) is discussed on page 294/95. The general opinion of scholars is that it does not refer to Quirinius.PiCo (talk) 05:35, 20 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It's also worth looking at page 296, which gives a list of all known governors of Syria between 23 BC and 5 AD. There is only one period for which the governor is not known, which is 12/11 BC; but in those years Quirinius was Consul in Rome, and thus could not have been in Syria.PiCo (talk) 05:41, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Minority/fringe view
This is about. Christian Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals will only agree with historical facts which do not imply that the Bible has errors. So, they offer whatever ad hoc reasoning for asserting a theologically orthodox stance. Imho, we should say that such "scholars" do exist, even though they are minority/fringe. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:15, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * This article is about an actual historical event,the census. What Luke says about it is wrong,plain and simple, as has been recognised by all impartial historians and scholars for many years. As you say, the only people who try to defend the passage in Luke are "Christian Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals" who start from the position, often required by the positions they hold, that everything the Bible says is true, therefore this absurd story of people having to travel to the cities of supposed ancestors from a thousand years earlier to register in a census, must be true and try to justify the incorrect dating by whatever "ad hoc reasoning" they can find. I would not call them "scholars" but more "propagandists". However Tgeorgescu if you want to add a few lines saying that Biblical inerrantists try to find some way to make out that the passage is true, I would not object, I have seen your edits for a number of years now and trust you to be neutral. I actually have a problem with the way the article says "the author of the gospel made a mistake" "the author of Luke's gospel made an error". How does anyone know that? maybe the author of the gospel made up this ridiculous story for his own purposes.As long ago as 1763, Voltaire wrote of Luke 2:1–5 "how many decided falsehoods are contained in these few words" and in his 1935 book "Jesus" Charles Guignebert wrote "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." I think it would be better to say something like "Virtually all scholars think the author of the gospel is in error".Smeat75 (talk) 04:51, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Is Luke Wrong About the Time of Jesus' Birth?
Please do a little more research before deciding if bible authors are accurate or inaccurate. Thanks you. http://www.comereason.org/roman-census.asp — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2D80:401B:896D:651C:DF09:B612:441E (talk) 09:37, 22 October 2017 (UTC)


 * That's not even history, it's apologetics. Sorry, our rules are clear: secular academia trumps your religious faith. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:41, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

There are several theories that describe the controversy
Herod the Great Wikipedia page has several verified references that Herod died 1 BCE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoveldowns (talk • contribs) 12:50, 26 November 2017 (UTC)


 * That's still five years before the census. So he died ten years before the census or five years before it, anyway, Herod was already eaten by worms at the time of the census. There is no controversy about this. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:26, 26 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hoveldowns, you've put three tags on the article, saying it contains weasel wording in general, that you doubt no convincing argument has been put forward regarding the discrepancy of dates, and that additional citations are needed on one specific point. You need to explain in detail why you reached these conclusions. (You should also sign your contributions using the tilde key).PiCo (talk) 22:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hoveldowns shows no sign of engaging in genuine discussion so I'm removing the tags. If he wishes he can return here and give meaningful reasons for his concerns.PiCo (talk) 13:28, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

"no satisfactory explanation"; "most scholars" and "most most scholars" are not only weasel words but also untrue, you can check the Wikipedia's more definitive biography of King Herod to find there is significant scholarship relating to the date of King Herod's death being 1 CE. In addition, quoting an authors weasel words does not make them any less what they are. Thank you for your patience as I try to unravel the intricacies of this site Hoveldowns (talk) 14:35, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * As I hinted above, "Herod died in 1 CE" is a red herring in respect to this article, as it has no impact on the neutrality of the article. So that might be a controversy about Herod's death, but it is no controversy about the census of Quirinius. So you have to articulate what the controversy about Herod's death has to do with this article being controversial. That Herod died either ten or five years before the census seems to be quibbling about minor details which do not change the overall story. If we state something like "other scholars maintain that Herod died in 1 CE instead of 4 BCE" would that be enough? Anyway, in respect to the historical Jesus, 4 BCE seems to be the much more favored dating in WP:SOURCES. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hoveldowns if you're genuinely trying to communicate here then it's ok. But the phrases "no satisfactory explanation" and "most scholars" are found in the cited sources, and therefore are not weasel words. As for Herod dying in 1 BC instead of 4 BC, do you not see that this makes no difference? Both dates are prior to the census in 6 AD.PiCo (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

If it makes no difference, then why is it there. It is disingenuous to support a position that states that there are no other valid arguments AND it doesn't matter anyway! It appears the author you are quoting has a biased point of view and it is generally poor scholarship to claim that researchers that disagree either don't exist or have all been discredited. We can go over all of the references to a later date of death,if you wish, although it won't prove what date Herod died it will prove that there are other valid theories and that your citation is biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoveldowns (talk • contribs) 16:15, 27 November 2017 (UTC) Hoveldowns (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2017 (UTC) adding tildes Hoveldowns (talk) 16:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The death of Herod is important because of dating when Jesus was born. I read many scholarly books about the Bible and not even once have I read that Jesus would have been born in the Common Era. Even Pope Benedict XVI did not buy that. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:54, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * User:Tgeorgescu, thank-you for the information you posted for me earlier it is helpful in understanding the culture and labyrinth of Wikipedia. Have you looked at the references on the King Herod page pertaining to his death and the date of the census?  I am astounded that people believe and even publish as fact that there are no other theories!  I do not know when Herod died, but it is obvious that the authors cited have a biased view when they deny there is any other view.  I'm still learning how this works, it seems reasonable that this page and the King Herod page would have some continuity as they both cover his death.  I will now go to the Herod talk page and read how they came up with the compromise to allow for differences of scholarly opinion. Perhaps I'll even find out what Pope Benedict XVI wrote.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoveldowns (talk • contribs) 19:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC) Hoveldowns (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The Pope wrote that Jesus was born in 4 BCE. Anyway, I am not principally opposed to rendering the info that Herod could have died in 1 CE, since notable minority views may be rendered. I suggested a solution above. There is nothing about any census in Herod the Great. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hoveldowns, Luke says that Jesus was born "in the days of King Herod of Judea," and in the year when Quirinius conducted a census that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. So the census has to be in a year that Herod was king. We know that the census was in AD 6, so Herod has to be king in AD 6. If he died at any point before AD 6, Luke is wrong. So 1 BC doesn't help.
 * As for books, yes, it's good to read. We have a lot of books listed with this article, and you could start with them.
 * Please sign your posts on this page with four tildes - the squiggly key next to the number 1 on your keyboard (use SHIFT+~).PiCo (talk) 22:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * At present the article doesn't touch on the arguments that have been made to resolve the problem, nor why they're generally rejected. I could add a summary from Novak, who seems pretty thorough.PiCo (talk) 22:45, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Would it be possible for you to stay on topic as to the date of Herod's death. I suggest that you re-read my posts and read the Herod the Great page. It is very simple. There is no consensus that Herod died in 4 BCE. Thank-you for your patience.Hoveldowns (talk) 04:12, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The topic is not the date of Herod's death, it's the contradiction in Luke's attempt to say that the census of Quirinius held in AD 6 happened while Herod was alive. For what it's worth, our article doesn't say there's a consensus over 4 BC, but it's certainly the widely accepted date, and so we're justified in putting that in the article.PiCo (talk) 05:31, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

"The death of Herod is important because of dating when Jesus was born."

Why? Of the four canonical gospels, only the Gospel of Matthew features Herod the Great as a character and connects him to Jesus. The Gospel of Luke says that Zechariah lived in the days of Herod, but makes no other mention of the king: "There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the priestly division of Abijah. He had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. " Dimadick (talk) 07:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Dimadick - this article is about the census of Quirinius, a census which would be totally unimportant if Luke hadn't correlated it with the lifetime of Herod to date the birth of Jesus. In other words, we aren't discussing when Herod died, or when Jesus was born, but whether the census was held during Herod's lifetime. PiCo (talk) 07:56, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The discussion seems to assume that Luke says something definite about Herod, or that we can safely date his account. Herod at best receives a brief mention in the text, and Luke's account is rather vague in chronology. The account of the Nativity and previous events does not match any of the other Gospels. Due to previous Wikipedia discussions on the topic, I have become more familiar with the contradictions in the Gospel accounts. Dimadick (talk) 08:04, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not the one who made that call, experts in the historical Jesus made it. They need some dating for the birth of Jesus, and the death of Herod is a way of dating it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Pico, The date of Herod's death is the topic I flagged, I don't believe that we are making any progress in that discussion. This page should agree with the more definitive Herod the Great page. I am ready to take it to the next level. BTW this has been a great learning experience and I appreciate what you have done.Hoveldowns (talk) 20:52, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * (1) Jesus being born in the Common Era is a WP:FRINGE idea. I don't know if this implies that Herod's death in 1 CE is fringe. My two cents are that it does.
 * (2) I suggested a solution for such claim, you did not say if you agree with it.
 * (3) If Herod died in 4 BCE or 1 CE is a minor detail which does not change the substance of this article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:31, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hoveldowns, I don't know what "next level" you have in mind, but Request for Comment would seem appropriate. That's asking for uninvolved bystanders to offer their views. PiCo (talk) 21:42, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I will look into that, like I said this has been a wonderful learning experience and I don't want to short-cut the inevitable outcome. I have always hated "process" and because of that have missed many opportunities. I apologize for my lack of patience and I expect that Request for Comment is the next step forward but for now I need to step back and do the first things.Hoveldowns (talk) 01:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry Tgeorgescu I didn't understand how this works. 4BC-1AD or BCE-1 CE is fine. Who makes the changes? How does this work? Is there a guardian or hierarchy to every page? How does one know who she is dealing with


 * The standard advice is "be bold, but not reckless". Wikipedia renders verifiable information from WP:SOURCES, but only according to WP:DUE. So if it is a WP:FRINGE view, it generally cannot be included in articles about a mainstream subject. I don't know how recent biographies of Herod handle "he died in 1 AD", but I surely know that "Jesus was born in 1 AD" is a fringe view. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:50, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I believe 4 BC is the consensus view - certainly it's the most common one to come across.PiCo (talk) 02:14, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are bringing Jesus into this.Hoveldowns (talk) 02:30, 29 November 2017 (UTC) I understand. Hoveldowns (talk) 02:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * If you did not read the above: because the historical Jesus scholars say that Jesus was born in the year when Herod died. So, if Herod died in 1 AD, they would have to say that Jesus was born in 1 AD, which they obviously don't. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

got itHoveldowns (talk) 02:38, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * It's of course not the only view out there, but it is what most of them say. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:48, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

If I am understanding this correctly, when I change the date of death to mirror that on the Herod the Great page, it will be flagged as a fringe view. I find that very interesting. Hoveldowns 07:32, 29 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoveldowns (talk • contribs)


 * I'm not sure if it is a fringe view, that depends upon what most of the recent scholarly biographies of Herod say. But since it implies that Jesus was born in 1 AD it is a WP:REDFLAG. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:41, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Curious, does more recent work generally carry greater weight here even if there are no new discoveries? Is this a wiki standard you can direct me to. I understand this is a dynamic field, but would be concerned if something is deemed weightier just because it's newerHoveldowns 17:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoveldowns (talk • contribs)


 * See WP:SOURCETYPES. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Unreliable source due to lack of scholarship and bias
Citation is from a book written by a priest for the layperson and published a religious publishing house. Reliable sources should published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. The author tells us that "most critical scholars have concluded"...if so then those should be cited. In addition I have been repeatedly informed in the TALK titled "There are several theories that describe the controversy" that the it is a consensus view, as such there should be better sources to cite.Hoveldowns 00:47, 30 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoveldowns (talk • contribs)


 * "Priest" does not mean "biased hack who cannot tell the truth". As an aside, not all scholars agree that Jesus was born in 4 BCE, but the dates usually range from 7 BCE to 2 BCE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:35, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Raymond Brown is an extremely well-respected scholar, there's no way he can be called unreliable. Books aren't peer reviewed (only journal articles), but Liturgical Press is likewise a highly respected house. Hoveldowns, I get the distinct impression that your knowledge of biblical scholarship is bit limited.PiCo (talk) 04:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I am sure he is a wonderful Scholar, maybe you could find a better example of his work to use as a reference. Hoveldowns 04:37, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I respect the Priesthood. Tgeorgescu, This particular work does not meet the standard of scholarship and any religious leader published by their own church is by definition biased. That does not mean that he doesn't have scholarly work, but this one doesn't hit the mark and I'm sure you know thatHoveldowns 04:45, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

If this Page is important to you, then clean it up! I can't believe I have to tell you this.Hoveldowns 04:50, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

BTW, I think a reference from Justin Martyr would add some credibility and depth to the page, you know, so it looks like a serious work of history. Hoveldowns 05:02, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Justin Martyr is not a contemporary scholar. So his writings aren't WP:RS. As simple as that. I think you would like to read this (behind paywall). And this. The gist: there is no such thing as unbiased scholar or unbiased historiography, but studying religion is pretty much as studying architectural styles: they are pretty much out there, they can be seen by everybody. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:28, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

"So this makes history look like a kind of battleground. In other words “you have got my story and I have got mine”. As a matter of actual historical practice, when you read historians, I don’t think this is a bad description of the way they actually work. I don’t know why certain neo-conservatives like William Bennett find this to be relativism, when I see it as a just good description of the way historians actually practise their craft, and its not a simple minded thing like “everyone has an axe to grind”, it’s not like you don’t get surprised even based on your own interpretation and its also not the case that as you work through your interpretation you do not change it radically and change your mind and your prejudices, in fact, when you do that, that’s when you are doing your best work usually. So I don’t see this as outrageous as many other people do."

- Rick Roderick


 * Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:38, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I know the early church fathers don't carry scholarly weight and can't be used as "proof" but isn't an Encyclopedia about history too. Hoveldowns 06:02, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Original research performed upon WP:PRIMARY religious sources is prohibited. Not only that citing Justin Martyr does not prove stuff, but it may not be used except for very brief illustrative quotes, and only when germane (i.e. when his view is particularly notable and it does not serve to make a point, but as as illustration for points already made by WP:SECONDARY sources). So, no, Wikipedia editors are not allowed to perform their own historical studies, except outside of Wikipedia. So, if it is your own interpretation, or your own conclusion, or quoting Church Fathers serves to draw your own conclusion, it is banned from Wikipedia and should be done elsewhere. Conclusions about what Church Fathers meant are only allowed from established modern scholars, and only if such research is not outdated/fringe. Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:11, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think this would be considered original research, The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judaea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in AD 6.[1] Justin Martyr mentions the event "in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judaea." [X} The author of the Gospel of Luke uses it as the narrative means to establish the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1-5),[2] but Luke places the census within the reign of Herod the Great, who died 10 years earlier in 4 BC.[3] No satisfactory explanation of the contradiction seems possible on the basis of present knowledge,[4] and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake.[5][unreliable so

[x]Justin Martyr -- THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN CHAPTER XXXIV

what are your thoughts, just a draft, I have to learn about wiki style first, for instance Cyrenius (sic). Idealy it should come after the quote in Luke because of the timeline but the would interfere with the flow as the article is really about Luke. Hoveldowns 16:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, why should be Justin Martyr quoted? For what purpose? What does it add to the article? Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:01, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I should have looked at other pages first, does this work The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judaea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in AD 6.[1] Justin Martyr mentions the event in his early writings. The author of the Gospel of Luke... again for historical purposes, Josephus also mentions the event. I guess this conversation should have it's own Talk areaHoveldowns 17:12, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * J.M. should come after Luke and Josephus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

That's what I thought originally, but then you run into continuity problems with Luke. Could go History: Luke, Josephus and J.M. new paragragh starting exposition  of lukeHoveldowns 18:10, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Posted questionable source on Reliable Sources Noticeboard
Source is a book written for laymen by a religious leader published by his church publishing house. Not appropriate due to bias and Scholarship issues

Brown, R.E. (1978). An Adult Christ at Christmas: Essays on the Three Biblical Christmas Stories. Liturgical Press. ISBN 9780814609972. article:Census of Quirinius

and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake.

there was no single census of the entire empire under Augustus; no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee; most scholars have therefore concluded that the author of Luke's gospel made an error. Hoveldowns 03:27, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

"living in Galilee" The Gospel of Luke states that Joseph headed from Galilee to Bethlehem, but does not state whether he actually lived in Galilee. It states very little of Joseph's background. See: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Luke

"And all went to have themselves appraised, each man to his native city. Since Joseph was descended from king David, he traveled from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the city of David, in Judea. There he would register, together with his betrothed wife Mary, "

Or if you prefer the King James version of the same passage: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Luke

"And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child."

The Greek text states: https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Κατά_Λουκάν

"καὶ ἐπορεύοντο πάντες ἀπογράφεσθαι, ἕκαστος εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν πόλιν. 4 Ἀνέβη δὲ καὶ Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας ἐκ πόλεως Ναζαρὲτ εἰς τὴν Ἰουδαίαν εἰς πόλιν Δαυῒδ ἥτις καλεῖται Βηθλέεμ, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐξ οἴκου καὶ πατριᾶς Δαυῒδ, 5 ἀπογράψασθαι σὺν Μαριὰμ τῇ ἐμνηστευμένῃ αὐτῷ γυναικὶ, οὔσῃ ἐγκύῳ. "

Which roughly translates to "everyone moved for the census, each to his own city. And Joseph headed from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to the city of Judea. to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he has from the house and clan of David, to be enlisted, along with Mariam, the woman betrothed to him, who was pregnant. "

It is unclear from the text whether Joseph was a returning native of Judea, or even native to Bethlehem in his own right. (One of the reasons that outside Wikipedia, I always try to find the primary text for comparison). Dimadick (talk) 22:33, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Raymond E Brown
Brown does NOT support the historicity of the census as described by Luke. See 101 Questions and Answers on the Bible By Raymond E. Brown, pg 79, here Wdford (talk) 16:56, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Another census
Luke clearly states that the Census at the time of the birth of Jesus was the first census of Quirinius. This would imply that there were more than one. Is there a known second census of Quirinius? If not, this would suggest that Luke was asserting that there was another census unknown to us. Further, wouldn't the phrase "when Quinirius was governor of Syria" be odd for a description of historical events which happened when Quinirius governor of not only Syria, but of Galilee as well? Wouldn't it be reasonable to suppose that Luke means, "This was the FIRST census, taken while Quinirius was STILL in Syria (as opposed to the later census, when Quirinius was in Palestine)."

Alternatively, how much precedence is there for calling Cyrenius, "Quirinius?"


 * Please sign your posts on talk pages. Luke clearly states that the Census at the time of the birth of Jesus was the first census of Quirinius. No he doesn't, that is incorrect. Historian Robin Lane Fox in his book "The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible" writes "Since the 19th century, there have been attempts to evade the meaning of the Third Gospel's Greek: This census was the first, when Quinirius was governor of Syria. Smeat75 (talk) 20:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

BAR
Suppose your country would order you (and the rest of the citizens) to go for a census to the ancestral home from 1000 years ago, where would you go? Wouldn't you expect newspapers to write about it? Imagine masses of people from all parts of the Empire going thousands of miles away for the census, and no other writer noticed it? Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:47, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The idea is ridiculous and is covered in the passage arrived at by consensus which Ashleymcglone deleted and I restored "These arguments have been rejected by mainline scholarship as "exegetical acrobatics."Smeat75 (talk) 09:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I could go to where I was born. Further back I have 4 grandparents. I think they came from two places. Further back.... how do I choose? Doug Weller  talk 12:35, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Era style
This has been changed twice in the last 24 hours. WP:ERA does not say we use the original style but that we shouldn't change the established style without discussion, and the era style was changed in 2009. Doug Weller  talk 12:21, 28 November 2017 (UTC) :Actually the era style has not been changed, some edits have been made that introduced a mixture of era styles. It is legitimate to make the era setting uniform throughout as per WP:ERA. Since there has been no reason offered or discussed for introducing a different style in the first place it can be reset to what has been used right from the beginning, which is what I tried to do when Doug Weller reverted me--CouncilConnect (talk) 12:53, 28 November 2017 (UTC) Also the WP:MOS says that a setting must be used consistently to be considered established. That never happened except with the original style, which again is why I think my edit was correct. And no discussion ever was held to justify a supposed change to the common era style either. Any discussion needs to be about why that style need be adopted so I am reinstating my edit--CouncilConnect (talk) 13:40, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The MOS there is talking about language variations, and you're wrong anyway. The lack of earlier discussion is irrelevant, that should have been dealt with at the time. There have indeed been editors with hardly any edits adding or changing to BC, at least one with a deliberately misleading edit summary. User:Tgeorgescu undid one in January 2016. A no longer active editor reverted someone else January 2015.(the edit summary of the editor who changed to BC said "Added comma to correct grammar mistake" It was BCE in Jan 2014> Further back it's a lot murkier, I agree. You say this is a discussion, fine. WP:ERA says the discussion and decision should be based on the content. Doug Weller  talk 15:26, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

In addition subsequent editors have added material in keeping with the original style but their edits should be modified (as you have done) to conform with the altered era style not with the original one (which was no less established in state than the state that you support). That is highly subjective and it seems to me that you are using your position as an admin to enforce your POV over other people's. The appropriate policy is sometimes ignored when nobody pays heed to it but here it has not been followed and I am raising an objection and that is not an "unfounded argument".--CouncilConnect (talk) 17:54, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm busy so won't respond fully other than to say that I'm not using my position as an Admin in any way, and that my latest edit dealing with this issue was this one a few hours ago reverting to BC as it was a BC article. Doug Weller  talk 19:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

It should be reset.--Runwayrollr (talk) 09:54, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
 * This is another instance of one editor using a point of view to force an issue to conform to his own way. It should be returned to the BC format.--192.173.128.45 (talk) 16:34, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It appears that this "discussion" is just an echo chamber of confirmed socks talking to themselves. Certainly not a consensus. Mojoworker (talk) 16:58, 20 May 2018 (UTC)


 * you're absolutely right. The two editors are socks: Sockpuppet investigations/Mevagiss/Archive and the IP definitely is also, geolocates to the same as the blocked IP in the SPI. Striking through sock edits. Doug Weller  talk 18:10, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Matthew 2:1 says nothing about a Census
On 3 JulyUser:Sjl197 altered the lead so that it read "The author of the Gospel of Luke uses it as the narrative means to establish the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1-5, but in contrast Matthew (Matthew 2:1[3]) places the census within the reign of Herod the Great who died 10 years earlier[4] in 4 BCE.[5] No satisfactory explanation of the contradiction seems possible on the basis of present knowledge,[6] and most scholars think that one or both authors of these gospels made a mistake." Matthew 2:1 in the KJV says "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem", NIV says "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem". Obviously that does not belong in this article as it is about the Census of Quirinius and that verse says nothing about a census. So I removed it with an edit summary,"Matthew 2:1 does not mention the census, only Luke"only for Editor2020 to put it back in with the edit summary "read it again." No matter how many times I read it, Matthew 2:1 does not say anything about the Census of Quirinius (an actual historic event, this is not an article about Bible stories). That verse of Matthew has exactly zero relevance to this article.Smeat75 (talk) 00:28, 6 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Smeat75, you are correct. Matthew does not mention the census. Editor2020 (talk) 00:53, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Possible copyvio
OCR software produces spelling errors like in the text I have reverted. Notice the hyphen where it does not belong? Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Erroneous statements
I eliminated erroneous statements and restored a more NPV regarding historical facts recorded in other Wikipedia entries. The article falsely claimed that "Herod" was not reigning in 6 AD, but as Wikipedia itself notes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Antipas) the reigning official was indeed Herod Antipas or Antipater. This is not a controversial claim. The "Herod" who had died previously was Herod the Great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MatthewCHoffman (talk • contribs) 20:27, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * First, Antipas never ruled Judea. When Herod the Great died his kingdom was divided up by the Romans. Judea fell to Herod Archelaus, not to Antipas.


 * That doesn't mean it's impossible that Herod Antipater was being referred to. See the following PhD thesis: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/9834/Dicken2014.pdf Moreover, this is your own private research, which can't be used as the basis for the article. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Second, the point in the article refers to the fact that one gospel references Herod the Great as ruler of Judea at the time of Jesus' birth, while another gospel refers to a census carried out by a Roman ruler who would never have over-lapped with Herod the Great. This is an unresolvable contradiction.


 * It's your own private conclusion that "this is an unresolvable contradiction." Scholars have offered resolutions. You appear not to like them, but NPOV requires that you recognize that your position is not held by all scholars, and in fact you have no evidence of a consensus among scholars (your 1978 article is too old to show such a thing, and is only one article). MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Third, the Gospel of Matthew clearly refers to "King Herod", (Matt 2:1) while Archelaus was never a King.
 * Answered above MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Fourth, the Gospel of Matthew clearly states that Joseph fled with his family to Egypt to avoid the murderous Herod (Matt 2:13), and they stayed in Egypt "until the death of Herod" (Matt 2:15). Matt 2:19 tells that "after Herod died", an angel told Joseph to return to Egypt, but when Joseph "heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there." (Matt 2:22). Joseph thus went to Nazareth instead, which was part of the jurisdiction of Herod the Great, but which was NOT part of the jurisdiction of his son Archelaus.
 * This is your own personal opinion and reasoning, which can't be the basis of the article. It has to be based on published scholarship, not personal research on your part. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Conclusion - Matthew was clearly referring to Herod the Great when he spoke of the birth of Jesus, and during the reign of Herod the Great, there was no Roman ruler in Judea, and thus no Roman census.
 * I am thus reverting your edits. Wdford (talk) 21:19, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I have erased my previous comments here and have provided more detailed responses above. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * You are wrong and you are editing against consensus. You need to stop doing that or you will be forced to at ANI or somewhere else.Smeat75 (talk) 03:50, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

"Third, the Gospel of Matthew clearly refers to "King Herod", (Matt 2:1) while Archelaus was never a King."

The Greek text at this point mentions "Ἡρῴδου τοῦ βασιλέως", roughly translating to "of Herod the Basileus". Which is the same Greek title which Herod used in his coins, and the same title which Josephus uses for him in his writings. Dimadick (talk) 08:24, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I want to add, by the way, that no one has responded to my other point, which is that a single 1978 journal article, one written forty years ago, cannot establish the existence of a "consensus" among scholars today. This is obviously true. The statement is inappropriate for the article MatthewCHoffman (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Factually incorrect statements that contradict Wikipedia itself
The article, as it stood until I corrected it, was highly misleading -- yet a user continues to revert my correction. It is a historical fact that Herod Antipater was the successor of Herod the Great and WAS in fact in power in 6 BC. So there was a "Herod" at this time in power. The article misleads the reader and contradicts Wikipedia's own entry on Herod Antipater. I stand by my correction. This article should not be used to push any agenda, religious or anti-religious, by denying or distorting historical facts that are not contested by anyone.

Here is the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Antipas

I also corrected a statement claiming that a consensus exists among historians which seemed very polemical, and which cited a single 1978 journal article. No journal article that old can be used to even begin to establish a consensus among historians 40 years later. So that claim was removed.

MatthewCHoffman (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)


 * You should start new sections of an article talk page at the bottom, not the top of the page. You are obviously the same user as IP 187.192.215.132 and your edits have not been reverted by "a user" but by two, one of them being me. You are not correcting "factually incorrect statements", you are introducing them. What those edits say is wrong, see the replies given to you at the bottom of this page by Wdford and Dimadick.Smeat75 (talk) 02:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry about placing this out of order. However, what you write is false and unsupported, and the responses involved private research and polemics, not any cited sources.


 * You yourself don't name a single statement I made in editing that is "wrong." I simply modified the texts either to remove unsupported claims or to specify that certain claims were only being made by individual scholars. Why do you object to that? If I wrote something that is false, state precisely what it is. If you are trying to establish a "consensus" the source given clearly fails because it is a 40 year old journal article that cannot possibly establish a consensus today. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:44, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Let's make that three users who have now reverted Hoffman's contributions. Alephb (talk) 04:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Deleted addition
The addition I made:

However, some scholars have stated that such censuses did occur

was deleted because my sources were supposedly not reliable. I included three sources: F.F. Bruce was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, Gregory Boyd got his PhD from Princeton, Gary Habermas has a PhD from Michigan State. What's the problem?24.189.41.10 (talk) 04:22, 3 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The problem is with WP:UNDUE. See my take above. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia says "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". It was easy and I named them. It is against the rules of Wikipedia to exclude the views of these prominent academics.24.189.41.10 (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It is clear that such a position exists, it is less clear how a verifiable and neutral statement to that extent should be formulated. Also, here inside Wikipedia, apologetics is often regarded as not being on a par with historical scholarship. For conservative evangelical and fundamentalists, our neutral point of view could be seen as neutered point of view, since it treats their views as subjective beliefs among many other subjective beliefs. This is our wall of separation between theological claims and content stated in the voice of Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * If you think that "neutered" is too strong a word, see Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:09, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I am sure you are too fair-minded and intelligent to believe that Christian scholars are second class scholars who should be discriminated against. Isn't Bloom decrying this kind of bias? Christian scholars can employ rational analysis like other scholars. Discrimination against scholars who happen to be Christian would be a clear violation of Wikipedia rules.


 * N.T. Wright also argues for the historicity of the census in his book Who Was Jesus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.41.10 (talk • contribs)


 * We have policies like WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. While technically I agree that there should be a mention that conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists don't agree with the academic consensus, it is difficult to formulate a statement to that extent which is verifiable and neutral, as told above. And, no, the accuse of discrimination is preposterous. When bona fide peer-reviewed biology journals reject 6-day creationist articles, that's not discrimination, that's doing good peer-review. And the great prize for who gives a convincing inerrantist solution to this dilemma is still pending, there have been many attempts to explain away these facts, but these explanations did not convince the bulk of mainstream scholars. We also distinguish between theological claims (which are by definition subjective) and historical facts (which are argued objectively). From the assumption that evangelicals have reason it simply does not follow that they have a convincing explanation for this issue. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:06, 6 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I am sure we both agree that some Christians are irrational and some atheists are irrational. Of course this does not justify discrimination against either Christians or atheists.


 * I suggest: Some theologically conservative scholars argue for the historicity of the Quirinius census. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.41.10 (talk • contribs)


 * Yes, that would be neutral. But according to WP:OR we cannot simply write what we please, we have to find a source explicitly claiming that some theologically conservative scholars argue for the historicity of the Quirinius census. Also, according to WP:UNDUE we would have to state that it is a minority view, and a source would have to be found for this, too. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:32, 6 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Why are they a minority? Well, this event is notable because of its implications for biblical inerrancy, but in itself it is not a Christian event, it is part of the history of the Roman Empire or Ancient Palestine. So, there are more stakeholders to this debate than being a match between conservative Christians and liberal Christians. So, while its theological implications are notable, in itself it is not a matter of theology, but of vanilla historical scholarship (which is religiously neutral, seeking to establish facts for people of diverse religious faiths). Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:48, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll add four footnotes showing that some theologically conservative scholars argue for the historicity of the Quirinius census. The article already mentions (twice!) that this is a minority view.24.189.41.10 (talk) 14:09, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with that at all. This is an article about a historic event, the desperate attempts of Christian fundamentalists to make the Luke story seem accurate do not belong here.WP:UNDUESmeat75 (talk) 14:54, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I just noticed: the historicity of the census has never been in doubt, what does not match historical records is putting it in 4 BCE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:22, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Also as the article says "there was no single census of the entire empire under Augustus; no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee". Particularly ludicrous is the idea that there was a Roman census that required people to leave their homes and travel to the reputed birthplace of semi-legendary supposed ancestors from a thousand years before to register. There never, ever was such a thing and that is a fact of history.Smeat75 (talk) 19:40, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * True, it is Luke's report of the census which is unhistorical, not the census itself. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:38, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to label certain scholars "fundamentalists" so we can dismiss their views. Why do you say all these scholars are fundamentalists? What is your evidence for this statement?

How about: Some theologically conservative scholars argue for the accuracy of Luke's nativity account. 24.189.41.10 (talk) 10:28, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Here's N. T. Wright: The question of Quirinius and his census is an old chestnut, requiring a good knowledge of Greek. It depends on the meaning of the word protos, which usually means ‘first’. Thus most translations of Luke 2.2 read ‘this was the first [protos] census, when Quirinius was governor of Syria’, or something like that. But in the Greek of the time, as the standard major Greek lexicons point out, the word protos came sometimes to be used to mean ‘before’, when followed (as this is) by the genitive case (p. 89).

Here's Habermas: Several questions have been raised in the context of this taxation [1. See Bruce, Christian Origins, p. 192, for example]. Even if such a taxation actually did occur, would every person have to return to his home? Was Quirinius really the governor of Syria at this time (as in v.2)? Archeology has had a bearing on the answers to these questions.

It has been established that the taking of a census was quite common at about the time of Christ. An ancient Latin inscription called the Titulus Venetus indicates that a census took place in Syria and Judea about AD 5-6 and that this was typical of those held throughout the Roman Empire from the time of Augustus (23 BC-AD 14) until at least the third century AD. Indications are that this census took place every fourteen years. Other such evidence indicates that these procedures were widespread [2. Ibid., pp. 193-194]. Concerning persons returning to their home city for the taxation-census, an Egyptian papyrus dating from AD 104 reports just such a practice. This rule was enforced, as well [3. Ibid. p. 194].

The question concerning Quirinius also involves the date of the census described in Luke 2. It is known that Quirinius was made governor of Syria by Augustus in AD 6. Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay discovered several inscriptions that indicated that Quirinius was governor of Syria on two occasions, the first time several years prior to this date [4. Robert Boyd, Tells, Tombs, and Treasure (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969), p. 175]. Within the cycle of taxation-censuses mentioned above, an earlier taxation would be dated from 10-4 BC [5. Cf. Bruce, Christian Origins, pp. 193-194 with Boyd, Tells, p. 175. Bruce prefers the date 10-9 BC for the empire-wide census, with that which took place in Judea occurring a few years later. Boyd places the date of the earlier census 6-5 BC, which coincides closely with the accepted dates for Jesus' birth]. Another possibility is Bruce's suggestion that the Greek in Luke 2.2 is equally translatable as "This enrollment (census) was before that made when Quirinius was governor of Syria" [6. Bruce, Christian Origins, p. 192]. This would mean that Luke was dating the taxation-census before Quirinius took over the governorship of Syria. Either possibility answers the question raised above [7. While ruling out the two-date approach to the governorship of Quirinius, Sherwin-White basically vindicates Luke's account, while still finding more problems that does Bruce (pp. 162-171)].

Therefore, while some questions have been raised concerning the events recorded in Luke 2.1-5, archaeology has provided some unexpected and supportive answers. Additionally, while supplying the background behind these events, archaeology also assists us in establishing several facts. (1) A taxation-census was a fairly common procedure in the Roman Empire and it did occur in Judea, in particular. (2) Persons were required to return to their home city in order to fulfill the requirements of the process. (3) These procedures were apparently employed during the reign of Augustus (37 BC-AD 14), placing it well within the general time frame of Jesus' birth. (4) The date of the specific taxation recounted by Luke could very possibly have been 6-5 BC, which would also be of service in attempting to find a more exact date for Jesus' birth.

I suggest we leave aside our personal views and just report on the findings of a diverse set of scholars.24.189.41.10 (talk) 10:28, 8 September 2017 (UTC)


 * This is an encyclopedia article about an event in history, not a Sunday school lesson. The stuff you quote is exactly what I meant when I referred to "desperate attempts of Christian fundamentalists to make the Luke story seem accurate". I have read it all before many times and it is all a load of tosh. The Luke story is objectively historically false. The dating is wrong, end of story, and even the sources you quote do not attempt to defend "Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. " People did have to return to their homes for certain Roman censuses, yes, but the idea that someone had to go to a city of a supposed ancestor from a thousand years earlier for a census is absurd. Actual historians of Roman history, as opposed to "theologically conservative"  propagandists, dismiss this story as laughable. However I do not believe in one person trying to force their view onto a WP article, if I were the only person saying these things I would accept consensus but I am not.Smeat75 (talk) 13:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

This is very interesting information about your personal opinions, but it seems beside the point. The scholars I have mentioned defend the historicity of certain parts of Luke's nativity passage. We should not suppress their views. For you to say "The dating is wrong, end of story" is completely inappropriate. N. T. Wright mentions other scholars who agree with his translation and dating. You are in clear violation of Wikipedia rules when you exclude scholars because you personally disagree with them.24.189.41.10 (talk) 05:02, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Here's another scholar who argues for the "plausibility of Luke's census": http://www.academia.edu/26047721/The_Lucan_Censuses_Revisited 24.189.41.10 (talk) 05:02, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Here's Raymond Brown: One cannot rule out the possibility that, since Romans often adapted their administration to local circumstances, a census conducted in Judea would respect the strong attachment of Jewish tribal and ancestral relationships. (The Birth of the Messiah: New York: Doubleday, 549)24.189.41.10 (talk) 06:18, 10 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Ok, I have restored some older information, I hope it does justice to both the fact that such views exist and that they are seen as minority/fringe views by mainstream scholars. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:14, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you Tgeorgescu, that's fine with me.Smeat75 (talk) 16:15, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

To PiCo: Can you provide proof that an overwhelming majority of scholars agrees with you? Moreover, Wikipedia policy is to include minority views.24.189.41.10 (talk) 00:23, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The policy is not to include WP:FRINGE views in articles about mainstream subjects. At least, I tried to oblige your request, in the end I think that is to be trusted when he states "the WP:RS/AC is...", "the majority view is..." and "that is a fringe view". Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:15, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Our article relies on R.E. Brown for the statement that most scholars have concluded Luke to have made an error. (Brown's actual words can be found on page 17 of his book, which in turn can be found in the bibliography). If you want to include the minority arguments that can be done, but we'd also need to include the reasons these are rejected and conclude with Geza Vermes's observation about exegetical acrobatics or whatever it was he said.PiCo (talk) 07:15, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

That's fine.24.189.41.10 (talk) 10:25, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

I am honestly a little shocked to read what seems to me to be a clear bias by the editors. I guess religion is always a controversial topic, but to rely on one line in one book to dismiss an entire group of scholars, and not even to seem open to considering their arguments (or even acknowledging that they exist in the article!) is pretty surprising. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.133.52 (talk) 23:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Their arguments are acknowledged for what they are, namely having failed to convince mainstream historians. Remember, history is a different field from theology. What is fine and dandy in theology could be "anathema" in history. Inerrantists have an axe to grind against everything that contradicts the letter of the Bible; such position is very, very WP:FRINGE/PS in history, which is by default extremely biased against inerrant viewpoints and inerrant sources, i.e. it critically evaluates viewpoints and sources. Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:15, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * While your assessments of inerrantists in history seems correct, it might be out of topic here. The debate seems to concern how to interprete a specific narrative concerning the Nativity of Jesus, not an attempt to defend the historicity of the entire Bible. Dimadick (talk) 16:05, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * "one line in one book" is not being relied on "to dismiss an entire group of scholars" that is merely one example. This is an article about a historical event and what Luke says about it is objectively historically false, recognised as long ago, as I have already posted on this page, by Voltaire in 1763 and Charles Guignebert, for instance, in the 1930's. There are no historians who defend Luke's account, it is impossible and absurd, it is only Biblical fundamentalists who attempt to do so, with results of zero credibility, and WP is not a Sunday school class.Smeat75 (talk) 17:43, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * "one line in one book"? To whom are you responding? This was not part of my comments. Dimadick (talk) 21:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That is a response to IP 24.192.133.52|24.192.133.52, sorry.Smeat75 (talk) 01:17, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

The bias from some users on this page is amazing. As was stated above, "I am honestly a little shocked to read what seems to me to be a clear bias by the editors." It is a clear violation of NPOV to exclude scholars because of their personal religious beliefs. If some scholars hold to X and that can be documented, it is perfectly reasonable to mention it. This page is clearly being used by people with agendas to exclude points of view they simply don't like. No one has a right to use Wikipedia that way.

MatthewCHoffman (talk) 23:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Yup, it's called Academic bias: theologians are bosses upon the theology of their own church, mainstream historians are bosses over objective historical facts. It is not hard to grasp. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:20, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Article has misleading title
"Census of Quirinius" is a very misleading title - as the article is mostly a critique of some chronology in Luke's Gospel.

"Criticisms of Luke's Gospel" or "Chronological Errors in Luke's Gospel" would be much more accurate titles. Under such titles the criticisms could be explored fairly.

Note also that the Census of Quirinius is already better described in the article about Quirinius himself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirinius SelfOwnedCat (talk) 09:47, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Whatever POV-pushers might think of it, this article is about an objective historical fact, not about stating myths as facts. Of course, it is notable because of myth, so the myth gets debunked. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:58, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Confusing readers with misleading titles makes a mess of any encyclopedia. The reader expects an article about the Census of Quirinius, but what he gets is a critique of the Gospel of Luke. What is the reason for the bait and switch? SelfOwnedCat (talk) 06:56, 30 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Sealioning. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:02, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Paul Meier's solution?
There's one mainstream solution that the article doesn't mention, i.e. Paul Meier's.

"Nor is Luke exempt from charges of error, distortion, and inaccuracy. We now examine Lukan passages in which errors are claimed, aside from the charges of numbers inflation already discussed. Luke 2:2 is easily the most famous of these. In his Nativity narrative, Luke states that the Augustan census, which brought Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, “... first took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” According to Josephus, however, that governorship occurred in CE 6, ten years later than the birth of Jesus (Ant. 17.354)... Still, there has never been a scholarly consensus that Luke did, in fact, get it wrong here, in view of the variant values of the πρτη in Luke2:2. As is well known, the Greek syntax here can also be translated, “This census was before that made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” I also propose another alternative rendering: “This census was first completed when Quirinius was governor of Syria,” i.e., a decade later. Ten years to take a census? Yes. It took the Romans forty years to complete their census of Gaul. Accordingly, Luke may have been referring to a preliminary enrollment in Herod’s Judea, during which census data was collected and then used later for the complete assessment under Quirinius." ("Luke as a Hellenistic Historian," in Porter and Witts, Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture. Brill, 2013, 431.)

This is a minority interpretation but Meier is credible enough that it should be mentioned. Meier mentions two proposals -- that first be translated "before", which has been rejected more recently, but his second solution, that it should be translated completed has not to my knowledge.

I should also note that there's also Mark Smith ("Of Jesus and Quirinius." The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 62.2 (2000): 278-293.) who argues that Luke actually dates Jesus' birth to 6 AD and that Matthew is the one who inaccurately placed Jesus birth in the time of Herod the Great to model his story off of the Exodus.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:07, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Yosef and Miryiam being forced to travel to Yosef's home town
"no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee.[6]"

Couldn't Yosef ostensibly have been a roman citizen? Does the greek for Luke 2:4 arguably provide, ie, οἴκου, the possibility for him to have grown up in Bethlehem with his family, been a roman citizen, traveled and lived "abroad" in the client state of Galilee? If when the taxation-census cycles first begin, if Quirinius isn't yet governor of greater Syrias, then Galilee is not yet a roman province. Were client-states be censused and taxed the same as roman provinces? Did roman citizens abroad have a legal obligation to go to a roman city, preferably their home town, and file their taxes?63.77.24.102 (talk) 22:24, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

The background of Saint Joseph is unclear. Two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) mention him only in the context of Jesus' early life, one Gospel (John) only makes a single passing reference to him, and another Gospel (Mark) does not mention him at all. He is not one of their narrative's main characters.

Roman citizenship is not out of the question here. It could be extended to the citizens of Roman client states and to Rome's allies. However, Jesus is thought unlikely to have held citizenship rights, which he would be entitled to as a son of Joseph.
 * "Following the early 2nd-century BC Porcian Laws, a Roman citizen could not be tortured or whipped and could commute sentences of death to voluntary exile, unless he was found guilty of treason."
 * "If accused of treason, a Roman citizen had the right to be tried in Rome, and even if sentenced to death, no Roman citizen could be sentenced to die on the cross."

Galilee was part of the Herodian kingdom (37-4 BCE). After Herod the Great's death, it became part of the Herodian Tetrarchy (4 BCE-44 CE). The local Tetrach was Herod Antipas (reigned 4 BCE-39 CE). In 40 CE, Caligula granted control of Galilee to Herod Agrippa. From 41 to 44, Agrippa ruled over a restored Kingdom of Judea. Following his death, Galilee became part of the restored province of Judea. Dimadick (talk) 23:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Opening of article is misleading
Here is the opening paragraph of the article:

"The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in 6 CE.[1] The Gospel of Luke uses it as the narrative means to establish the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1–5), but places it within the reign of Herod the Great, who died 10 years earlier.[2][3][4] No satisfactory explanation of the contradiction seems possible on the basis of present knowledge,[5] and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake.[6]"

1. Scholars do not agree that it was Herod the Great being referred to in Luke. Frank E.Dicken, in his PhD thesis for the Unversity of Edinburgh, states that it is Herod Antipater (see https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/9834/Dicken2014.pdf). Dicken also holds that multiple people are being referred to with the name "Herod" in different places in Scripture.

2. The statement, "No satisfactory explanation of the contradiction seems possible on the basis of present knowledge" is only attributed to a single author of one journal article, without reference to other scholars who do not agree with this conclusion. Dicken is just one. A single journal article cannot be used to make a sweeping statement that contradicts other scholars.

3. The statement, "and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake" gives a single journal article from 1978, forty years ago, to establish this consensus. This is obviously inadequate.

The opening and other similar statements within the article should be amended to state that some scholars hold these views, while also discussing other views by other scholars. Otherwise, this article clearly violates NPOV. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 04:28, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Are we seriously supposed to rework the lead of an article because you found a PhD Thesis you like? Come on. On the very first page of Dickens' PhD thesis, Dickens admits that he is the only person who views the "Herod" issue this way. You need to stop edit-warring to put in your preferred text over the other editors, and take a while to read WP:FRINGE and WP:RS carefully. They'll help you understand why we won't rework an entire article around a single PhD thesis that puts forth a completely novel theory. Alephb (talk) 04:44, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * You are distorting what I wrote and appear to be arguing in bad faith. I simply gave that view as an example. There are many theories about how to resolve what appear to some to be historical contradictions in Luke. Furthermore, I note you DID NOT RESPOND to my other arguments at all. So I ask you the following:


 * 1. Do you expect Wikipedia readers to believe that a "consensus" exists among scholars today because (supposedly) a 1978 article claims that such a consensus existed then? That is patently absurd.
 * 2. Do you expect us to believe that "No satisfactory explanation of the contradiction seems possible" because you can cite one single scholar (who is not quoted) who supposedly holds that that is true?


 * To your unsolicited advice, I offer my own to you: You need to read about NPOV, and about the use of sources in Wikipedia. You can't establish a "consensus" that way or come to a general conclusion based on single articles that are contradicted by other scholars.MatthewCHoffman (talk) 05:07, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I want to add another scholar who questions the narrative in this article (which again, is presented as a "consensus" without adequate proof), one who is very well known: Corrado Marucci, in his History and Roman Administration in the NT (Storia e amministrazione romana nel NT). He offers several alternative theories the problem of the census in Luke. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 05:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * It might be worth sharing with us the part of the article which uses the word "consensus". Look all you want: you won't find it. What the article is claiming is that "most scholars" see Luke as having made a mistake here. The fact that a Catholic priest named Corrado Marucci has a suggested some "alternative theories" most likely doesn't change anything. The article isn't claiming that everyone sees a historical problem in Luke. It's claiming that most scholars do. Alephb (talk) 05:54, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I want to add another scholar who questions the narrative in this article (which again, is presented as a "consensus" without adequate proof)-"consensus"in this context refers to the consensus among your fellow editors on this page.You are the only user arguing against the rest of us, which is arguing against consensus.Smeat75 (talk) 06:03, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah, thank you for that clarification, Smeat.
 * Anyhow, nothing's changed when it comes to Quirinius' census. The people who usually do that kind of thing continue to find a variety of complex theories to try and make the biblical data work, and the majority of mainstream scholars continue to see this as a mistake on Luke's part.
 * For example, a 2006 review in the Journal of Roman Archaeology (see p. 685) notes in passing that most scholars see Luke's dating as wrong. More recently, retired Bishop Paul Barnett, who defends Luke on this count in good bishoply fashion, notes that "The majority of scholars are convinced that Luke has made a glaring error." Nothing's changed here. Alephb (talk) 06:28, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * So then these quotes and these citations should be added to the article to establish the claim of a majority view among scholars. Given that these are more recent statements and add to the 1978 statement, I would agree that it is enough to establish that. However, the previous arguments were faulty, and it's disturbing. It is not proper to respond to a legitimate point about an article being too out of date to establish a claim by saying "there are three of us against you." That's just wrong. Obviously a single article from 40 years ago is NOT enough to establish such a claim, and this page should not be used to push ANY agenda, be it religious or anti-religious. Moreover, the article should not fail to mention that, although a majority of scholars hold that view, a variety of opinions exist about the matter. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 06:08, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the other users were responding to two separate things, which are worth distinguishing (1) content issues ("What should this Wikipedia article contain") and (2) behavioral issues ("How should Wikipedia editors act?").
 * As a behavioral matter, it's a well-established point of Wikipedia etiquette that one user should not repeatedly push changes into an article over the objections of multiple users. If you find your changes being overidden by multiple other editors, the first thing to do is to stop making those changes and try to work things out on the talk page, and try to work through the issues involved and try to reach consensus on the talk page. Then, if you've brought the other users around, you can go ahead and implement your changes. If you don't follow that etiquette, then you're likely to find yourself frustrated. You did come around after a bit and stop trying to change the article right away, giving some time for discussion, so you did the right thing there, and I thank you for that.
 * Another set of behavioral standards we try to follow on Wikipedia center around "personal attacks" (WP:PERSONAL) and (WP:AGF). It's about the tone we use, and what kinds of things we say about other people. In light of those policies, some of the things you've said on this page ("the bias from some users on this page", "people with agendas", and accusing another user directly of "bad faith" in an edit summary) are troubling. So there's that issue to deal with. Admittedly, things can get fairly heated, especially on controversial topics, but that kind of thing doesn't help.
 * We were also dealing with issues around sourcing, like your claim that a student's highly novel PhD thesis was relevant to what kind of things the article should contain. So we were dealing with a number of issues all at once, and that's probably why all your concerns weren't immediately addressed to your satisfaction. These things take time -- and that's part of why Wikipedia has its norms around consensus-based editing. The fact that you're still bringing up the "three against one" issue at this point in the conversation means either that you're still not quite getting this consensus thing, or we're failing to explain it well, or both. So it would probably be a good idea to read through WP:CONSENSUS, which does a better job than I could of explaining how consensus-building works on Wikipedia and why it's so important. Alephb (talk) 23:30, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

There are only two gaps in the list of known Roman governors of Syria, and they fall in the years 12-11 BC and 4/3-1 BCE. The latter period is after the death of Herod and can be ruled out.That leaves 12-11 BCE, but Quirinius was serving as Consul in Rome in 11 BCE, leaving only a single year. None of the Roman-era records suggest he served as a legate in that year. See Novak (link in the bibliography), p.296. PiCo (talk) 23:53, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment - agree with MatthewCHoffman - several articles of this kind are written with a severe POV, which emphasizes only one historical narrative. Specifically, currently the article makes that "all dates" of Luke are wrong, while there is no reference to opinions which attempt to explain discrepancies otherwise. Claiming that only "mainstream opinions" count, undermines the NPOV WP:WEIGHT principles of Wikipedia.GreyShark (dibra) 12:48, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Personally, I view Luke's Nativity account as more plausible than Matthew's, since it features less "miraculous" events and lacks a depiction of persecution of Jesus and his family by the Herodian dynasty. However, Wikipedia's NPOV policy does require presenting mostly mainstream opinions. See Neutral point of view: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.[3] Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views." Dimadick (talk) 07:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Regardless of which of the two evangelists was wrong, one of them was wrong according to mainstream historians. And the supernatural does not count in writing history, beginning with the Enlightenment. Historians do not work with the hypothesis that the supernatural is real when they write history, only theologians do that when they write theology. So, yeah, sooner or later inerrantists will find that the whole historical method is from Satan, just as they found that about evolution and about mainstream geology. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Do not switch the topic, we are talking about dating events and identifying Herodian rulers. Don't try making it a joke.GreyShark (dibra) 10:08, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Ok, then let me spell it out this way: in a "just the historical facts" article we listen to mainstream historians, or maybe mainstream Bible scholars if it concerns the history of Christianity. If you can reasonably make the case that a certain POV wouldn't be booed off the stage at WP:CHOPSY, then we may consider inclusion. As once said, if we show the fringe or minority views, we also have to show why mainstream historians consider them wrong. The scholarship reached a point wherein attempts to say that Luke was correct are considered "exegetical acrobatics" and not serious scholarly arguments. I.e. those are considered preaching to the choir, but not WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "we also have to show why mainstream historians consider them wrong" Unfortunately, several of our articles fail to do that. We include statements concerning the historicity of people and events, but we often fail to reproduce or summarize the reasoning behind these conclusions. Dimadick (talk) 13:11, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Edit war
Considering his historical accuracy elsewhere is a pretty inflated reputation of accuracy, see e.g. Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:35, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's widely, perhaps almost universally, accepted that the infancy narratives of both Matthew and Luke, including this particular trope, are fictional. But the real point here is that we have a source expfressing the general opinion of scholarship, making the contrary opinion, i..e. that Luke's account is, or even might be, trustworthy, a minority one.121.45.217.141 (talk) 04:22, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, MoonlightOverMoscow's edit history looks rather, shall we say, odd: a few edits in 2014, then nothing until this year. Without making any allegations of sockpuppetry, it does look suspicious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.217.141 (talk) 04:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yup, I noticed similar behavior at Sockpuppet investigations/Barok777. They do not seem to be one WP:SOCK, although WP:MEAT is quite probable. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:43, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Doctoring statements
has doctored WP:Verifiable statements, changing those to his own POV. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Misquoting Novak 2001?
TGeorgescu, you cannot use Novak 2001 as a commentary on Boyd 2007. I have now disconnected the Boyd2007 from the Novak 2001 sentence, as a stop-gap solution. Secondly, the highlighted text on the Novak2001 link is a statement on inerrancy. Clearly the link is wrong, as it does not link to any inerrancy statement by Novak2001. Please cite the precise page number where Novak2001 makes the statement on Biblical inerrancy. As a stop-gap measure, I have moved the inerrancy link to the Further Reading link section. When and if you can provide the correct page number in Novak 2001, I am happy to leave your inerrancy link in the Novak sentence if it is important to you. Please pause and reflect before making hasty deletions. 86.172.133.205 (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Assumption of the inerrancy mentioned verbatim at Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that is a big step forward. On this basis, I think it is fair to say that Novak indirectly accuses scholars of assuming Biblical inerrancy if they disagree with his own interpretation of history. (Personally, I am not happy with Novak's defensive attitude, but so be it.) Please make a suggestion how to fix the Wikipedia text accordingly.86.172.133.205 (talk) 15:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * For one or another reason, the correctness of the gospels in respect to this census is a WP:FRINGE view. Generally, biblical inerrantists have a problem with the Bible being proven wrong, so as a rule of thumb they are those advocating for the view that Gospel of Luke were correct. Otherwise, their view does not get much traction from WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Novak's judgment is acceptable per WP:FRIND. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not sure how your comments tackle the problem at hand. Let me rephrase: Are you happy with my having placed the inerrancy link in the further reading section? I think that is an appropriate location, given that the article is about the Census of Quirinius, (and not about Novak's academic mistrust/paranoia). Let me know.86.172.133.205 (talk) 16:58, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not "paranoia". It is how the WP:MAINSTREAM (WP:CHOPSY) judges fringe authors. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with putting inerrancy somewhere other than the text. I'm not happy with the direct quote, as it suggests that this idea is unique to Novak when in fact it's the consensus.Achar Sva (talk) 09:14, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with keeping the Biblial inerrancy in the Further Reading section, and I agree with your deletion of my extensive Novak quote (which was only temporary, to illustrate the citation problem). 86.172.133.205 (talk) 11:34, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Mainstream Scholarship
, you mention that Geza Vermes is mainstream scholarship, but reject Evans, Bock, and Porter as "non mainstream scholarship". Why? All are scholars and neither hold to fringe theories. To state that the writer of Luke, when the evidence, for example the text refers to the first census of Quirinius as a clarifier. Dr. Ryan E. (talk) 06:48, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I mean the opinion is not mainstream - perhaps I should have said that more clearly.
 * I'm not sure of the meaning of this sentence, "To state that the writer of Luke, when the evidence, for example the text refers to the first census of Quirinius as a clarifier."
 * Geza Vermes' words ("exegetical acrobatics") are being quoted and therefore need to be identified as his. That they're being quoted at all is because they express rather well the the opinion of "most critical scholars", as sourced to Brown 1978. That's rather old, I'll grant you, but I can't find anything more recent that expresses clearly where the balance of opinion lies.
 * At one stage in the past (rather distant past) this article was far, far longer. The problem with that was that it far too long for the average reader. I want to keep it as brief as possible, or else (I fear) ordinary readers won't bother.
 * I gather you want more discussion of theories that would rescue Luke's historical accuracy. We could, but we'd have to set out the reasons why they're all rejected. PiCo (talk) 10:05, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Again, we are having an absence of evidence here for the census problem. Why is it that atheists wanna bring in their own bias and stated "most scholars think Luke is in error?" Please see the commentary from Cambridge and let me know why it is NOT mainstream?
 * https://biblehub.com/commentaries/cambridge/luke/2.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lallan88 (talk • contribs) 20:23, 14 July 2019 (UTC)


 * See WP:RNPOV and WP:BATTLEGROUND. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:32, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I find it funny how they think that inerrancy is an assumption, while the argument made works essentially itself with the veiled assumption that historiography is somehow inerrant. This while there are itself numerous errors with historiography itself: Incomplete records, events not recorded, falsities in the records, bias or folly of historians, etc., etc. Even when one is fairly accurate in matters, even has most details right, little errors and imprecisions can make some differences in such matters. 105.8.0.175 (talk) 12:18, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:RGW: Wikipedians do not make the call; the scientific community makes the call; we render WP:RS/AC as fact, period. We're in no position to overthrow the academic consensus, see WP:CHOPSY. The purpose of Wikipedia isn't fomenting a fundamentalist revolution in historiography. We side with mainstream historians, not with fundamentalists. As long as you live in a free country, you're free to disagree with mainstream historians; Wikipedia simply does not have that liberty. The basis of Wikipedia is kowtowing to mainstream science and mainstream history. You may disagree with our choice, but that's what Wikipedia is. It is you who have a choice, Wikipedia doesn't. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Original research
WP:CITE WP:RS by modern, mainstream Bible scholars or be gone from this article.

I found a source for your claims: But I don't know in how far this source represents the majority view of Bible scholars. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

At least you could cite a decent source, like the source above, not random websites written by true believers. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:48, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Too much Luke
I have a slight problem with the balance this article. It is about a historical event, the census, but almost the entire article is taken up by a discussion of a different matter, the accuracy of Luke's reference to it. While I quite understand that the majority of people coming here are primarily interested in the implications for their understanding of the Bible, it is the secondary aspect of this topic. The article should start with a section about the historical census - what sources are there, how do we know its date, what significance did it have for the establishment of Roman rule, was it a typical census or something unusual, etc. All the obvious historians' questions. Then we can talk about significance for the New testament second. This would not only be a better way to do justice to the Roman history, it would also be beneficial for the theological argument - a fuller understanding of what the census was and how we know about it would provide a better basis for the Luke question too. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:43, 26 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The weight of the article is dependent on notability - would this census even rate a Wikipedia article at all if not for the gospel use / misuse? However you make good points - we do need more reliable historical info on the "real" census itself. Do you have any reliable sources which provide the needed detail please? Wdford (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, it's not my field: I came here looking for answers to those questions, so I don't have them myself. That's why I wrote on Talk rather than editing. I was hoping someone here is a competent ancient historian. --Doric Loon (talk) 14:14, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Scott Hahn's solution
I think Scott Hahn's solution should be added. He says:

Despite Luke's intention to set the birth of Jesus on the timeline of world history, many scholars claim that Lk 2:1-2 are the most historically inaccurate verses of the entire Gospel! It is said that Caesar Augustus never ordered an empire-wide census (Lk 2:1) and that the census of the Roman governor of Syria, Quirinius, did not occur until A.D. 6, a full decade after what many accept as the date of Jesus' birth (c. 64 B.C.). If Caesar's decree is historically suspect and Quirinius' census is chronologically too late to have brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, how can Luke bind these events together to set the stage for the first Christmas? Various explanations for this have been proposed by scholars. Some think Luke was confused about his facts. Others suggest Luke was giving us a rough sketch of these early events without intending to be precise about chronological details. Still others rush to Luke's defense as a reliable historian but are forced to reconstruct the history of the period in ways that are not easily reconciled with the historical data currently available. Thankfully, recent research is beginning to shed more light on this issue. It involves a reinterpretation of three essential pieces of the historical puzzle: the year of Herod the Great's death, the nature of Caesar's decree, and the role of Quirinius. 1. A majority of scholars believe that Herod the Great, the ruler of Palestine, died in the spring of 4 B.C., soon after a lunar eclipse in March of that year. Widespread agreement on this date has led modern interpreters to place Jesus' birth a year or two earlier, between 6 and 4 B.C.—after all, Herod was still alive at the time of the Nativity (Mt 2:1-18). Objections are now being raised against this view. In fact, several scholars are favoring a date for Herod's death in the early spring of 1 B.C., soon after a lunar eclipse in January of that year. Interestingly, this alternative chronology would push the date of Christ's birth into full agreement with the testimony of the early Christians. By calculating the Nativity according to the years of Caesar Augustus' reign, several Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Hippolytus of Rome, Eusebius, and Epiphanius, fix a date for Christ's birth between 3 and 2 B.C. If accepted, this chronological revision moves the Nativity closer to the end of the first century B.C. and opens new possibilities for understanding the circumstances described by Luke. 2. Caesar's decree has long been a problematic detail in Luke's narrative (Lk 2:1). There is clear evidence that Augustus initiated registrations of Roman citizens at different points during his career, but there is said to be no indication that any was taken in the closing years of the first century B.C. or that such a census would have embraced the entire empire. Since most registrations in the Roman world were taken for taxing purposes, it is further argued that Caesar would never have taken a census of Palestine while Herod the Great ruled the region as king and collected taxes of his own. These commonly accepted views are currently coming under fire. The Jewish historian Josephus recounts that during the last years of Herod's rule, Judea was required to swear an oath of loyalty to Caesar. Archeological evidence confirms that the same type of oath was sworn elsewhere in the empire around 3 B.C. This might well mean that the registration described in Lk 2:1 involved an oath of allegiance sworn to the emperor, not a census taken for the purpose of taxation. A later Christian historian named Orosius (fifth century A.D.) says explicitly that Augustus required every person in every Roman province to be enrolled with a public oath. His description of the event strongly suggests that this oath was required in the years just prior to 2 B.C., when the Roman people hailed Augustus as the first of all men. Even Caesar Augustus tells us in his personal writings that the whole Roman world had professed him to be the "Father" of the empire by the time this title was officially given to him in 2 B.C. These converging lines of evidence make it possible that the census of Luke 2 was not a registration of residents to be taxed but a public enrollment of subjects expressing their loyalty to the reigning emperor. 3. The role of Quirinius is perhaps the most difficult detail to interpret in Luke's narrative (Lk 2:2). It is well established that he initiated a taxation census soon after he was appointed the provincial legate of Syria in A.D. 6. Yet evidence is lacking that he held this position more than once or that he ever conducted more than one census. How, then, can Luke associate Quirinius with a census that occurred many years earlier, when Jesus was born? The most helpful clue might be found in Luke's own words. The Greek expression that he uses in Lk 2:2 for the governing role of Quirinius is the exact description he uses for Pontius Pilate's governing role in Lk 3:1. Since Pilate "governed" as a regional procurator and was not the legate of an entire Roman province (like Syria), it leaves open the possibility that Luke is referring to an administrative role assumed by Quirinius that had nothing to do with his later position as an imperial legate. This possibility is strengthened by the Church Father Justin Martyr, who states that Quirinius was a "procurator" in Judea (not Syria) at the time of Jesus' birth! It likewise enables us to make greater sense of the testimony of another early Christian writer, Tertullian, who says that Saturninus (not Quirinius) was the official legate of Syria at the time of the Nativity. It may be that Quirinius was an administrator of a Judean census (i.e., the 3 B.C. oath-registration) several years before conducting another census for taxation in A.D. 6. Although there are gaps in this reconstruction, and much remains uncertain, the cumulative force of the evidence is significant. Herod's death, Caesar's decree, and the governing position of Quirinius are all historical factors that, when reconsidered, yield a more coherent portrait of the events surrounding the Nativity. This would mean that Jesus was born between 3 and 2 B.C., the enrollment of Joseph and Mary was a registration of their loyalty to the Roman Caesar, and the documentation of this oath was organized and implemented in Judea by Quirinius several years before he was made the official governor of Syria. This reconstruction not only eases the chronological tensions in Lk 2:1-2, it helps to confirm Luke's reliability as a historian as well as the early Church's reliability as a channel of historical traditions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leonardo T. Oliveira (talk • contribs)

Doubtful Sources
In research the original sources are first preferred, followed next by the oldest available documents. The page gives references, but mostly recently published work. Better references are suggested for the page, and a trail of older documents covering this rather old argument.

Astrojed (talk) 06:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)


 * See WP:OR, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS/AC, and WP:RSPSCRIPTURE. Wikipedia sides with modern, mainstream historians. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Thankyou for reply Tgeorgescu, Main stream historians are not in agreement about the dates on the page, and the page needs to be improved to show an impartial and accurate status of the ongoing debate. I hope the various experts will improve the page without me becoming one of the principle editors.

Graduate studies are always done with statistics in drawing conclusions. There is always a chance of being right, and a chance of being wrong. A percentage is attached to both outcomes. The statistical chances are found described when reading the scholarly documents. The page doesn't seem to have such considerations.

My years of residence overseas taught me that every country writes a different version of history and changes it from time to time for political gain. Our opinions about history come to us from analysis of many old documents all of which are questioned.

Christian writings are questioned mainly by Christians in graduate seminaries, where the candidates must discover something worthy of thesis to graduate. Every phrase has been dissected numerous times. Some passages have several different versions in use, and there is possibility the originals were different. Roman persecution of Christians began before the linguistically dated book of Luke.

When looking for original documents about Quirinius, not much is found other than the several versions of Josephus, which have always been recognized as political in purpose. first for Josephus to deny his guilt in the Jewish War, then to assist his Roman benefactors in their political struggles to control their territories in Asia. Josephus wrote the related Antiquities Of The Jews in old age (93-94 CE) about events he did not witness personally, but were told to him.

One of the oldest references I found other than Josephus is from the Vatican Museum, a grave stone for Quirinius discovered at Tivoli in 1764, attesting that Quirinius was twice legate.

Another old Roman inscription is titulus Tiburtinus which is much studied by Jewish educators, who gave better bibliographies than the page.

A mixed Jewish and Christian argument can also be found with better references claiming that writing of Josephus does not lead to the proposed date (4 BC) for death of Herod the Great, because of the eclipse (4 BC) being too close to Start of Passover (29 days). Another eclipse (1 BC) agrees with the time sequence of Josephus (10 to 12 weeks before Passover). The argument is made that Jesus was born (2 BC) during a short first term of Quirinius as legate, and Herod the Great died the following year. The Wikipedia page for Herod the great presents the possibility of Herod's death at a later date (1 BC) as a prevailing historical opinion of many scholars, while the earlier date (4 BC) is a more recent claim.

The census being discussed was a taxation event, better described in the Greek translation. Different places were taxed at different rates, while people were taxed differently based on their origins, giving cause for travel. Client states paid tribute to Rome under a formula different from direct taxation.

I will not try to say which view is correct if any, only that there is a long standing debate which still continues and is not well presented or referenced on the page. Something more scholarly is preferred and in better compliance with Wikipedia principles. Claims on the page are referenced but not well supported in the trail of documents. Astrojed (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Astrojed, primary sources (Josephus etc) are used by scholars, but Wikipedia is not written by scholars and is not a scholarly source. The aim of WIki is instead to summarise and fairly represent scholarly thought. For that reason, we do not use Josephus etc, but rather contemporary scholarly sources.The points you rasie have been discussed extensively in the literature, and I suggest you read the book by Novak in our bibliography. Achar Sva (talk) 11:15, 2 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The page seems to have been improved in the past year somewhat as requested in Talk, acknowledging diverse opinions, while recognizing some of the opinions may be wrong. Astrojed (talk) 04:28, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Luke 1:5 Luke 1:26 Act 5:37
are these verses relevant? the first two say that John the Baptist was born in the time of Herod and the second says that six months later Jesus. the third I don't know what it means but it talks about the census. why also Lucas says the "first" census where are the others? What does this word mean to scholars? Tuxzos22 (talk) 20:03, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

sorry the third verse talks about Judas of Galilee Tuxzos22 (talk) 20:06, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I just saw that in the "Mention of Lukes" in the article it affirms what I am affirming. Tuxzos22 (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * As you can see, we used sources for that section. Our articles need reliable sources - see WP:RS, and primary sources can't be used to make arguments. Doug Weller  talk 16:50, 3 August 2021 (UTC)