Every Christmas there is a ritual kabuki that Catholics who take the New Testament seriously have to go through. First, is the response to the standard claim that Christmas is \u201creally\u201d just a warmed-over pagan feast. The short answer to that is to ask if the skeptic is \u201creally\u201d a worshipper of Saturn if he calls today \u201cSaturday\u201d. The longer answer is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n A newer addition to the canon of rebuttals that is now necessary, thanks to the rise of the antichrist Christianist Cult of Trump and its gospel of racism, is the need to rebut the lie that the Holy Family were not refugees. That is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then there is the old chestnut about the problem of the infancy narratives and, in particular, Luke\u2019s account of the census and the circumstances leading up to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Since it is Christmas and I am lazy, I am reposting something I wrote to a reader a while back for your Christmas reading pleasure!<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n He writes:<\/p>\n Hi, Mark, what do you make of the idea that Mt and Lk have contradicting accounts of Jesus\u2019s birth? We were told today that Lk invented the census to get Jesus to Bethlehem (there is no historical record of a census at that time) and Mt has Mary and Jesus living in Bethlehem \u2013 no inn but a house, no shepherds. So they both just embellish the story to satisfy their own theologies. I get that these texts are not history in the modern sense, but it seems really close to saying that the whole virgin birth thing was just made up\u2026 and that\u2019s not far from denying the Incarnation, and so on it goes till there\u2019s only theology and no history. Some pointers esp with research value would be appreciated. Thanks for all you do, and blessings to your family in this holy season.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The problem with an invented census is discussed here:<\/a><\/p>\n Comedian Steve Martin used to do a routine in which he smiled broadly with that distinct smile of his and said, \u201cRemember a couple of years back when the earth (wry pause)\u2026 exploded<\/i>? Remember how they built that giant space ark and loaded all of humanity into it, but the government decided not to tell the stupid people what was going on so that they wouldn\u2019t panic\u2026..\u201d The light of understanding would then break across his face as he surveyed the faces of the audience and he would quickly backtrack saying, \u201cOooooooh! Uh\u2026.. Never mind!\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t help but think of that as I read Crossan\u2019s take on Luke. We are being asked to believe that the gospels are works of cunning fiction by people laboring under some huge need to bring others under the spell of their delusion of a Risen Christ. Part of their messianic delusion requires them to link the Nazarene carpenter with King David by portraying him as born in \u201cthe city of David\u201d, Bethlehem. And so they do what to get Jesus there in time for his birth and debut as the Son of David?<\/p>\n Well, a lot of options are open to the creative gospel writer whose only goal is to write a tall tale. You could just say that Mary\u2019s grandmother took sick and she went to visit her. You could claim that Joseph bought a plot of land and didn\u2019t want to leave Mary behind while he went to inspect it. You could cook up an angelic visitation commanding the Holy Family to go to Bethlehem and wait for their son to be born. Any of these stories have the tremendous advantage of being extremely hard to refute decades after the event. And since you\u2019ve already stuffed your gospel full of miracles, what\u2019s one more angel?<\/p>\n But no, according to Crossan, Luke tells the equivalent of Martin\u2019s space ark story: \u201cRemember, a few decades back when the entire world was enrolled for taxation<\/i>?\u201d He invites, not just somebody to refute it, but everybody<\/i> in his entire audience. That\u2019s an awfully strange thing to do if the enrollment never happened and an awfully odd way to establish the bona fides of your main character.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As to the evidence for the historicity of Luke\u2019s account<\/a>:<\/p>\n Luke\u2019s Account<\/strong> Herod\u2019s death<\/em>. This is important because we know Jesus was born during Herod\u2019s reign\u2015therefore, obviously, before his death. Most scholars today date his death to 4 B.C. His death was linked to a lunar eclipse\u2014and since one occurred during March of 4 B.C. this year has been recognized as a perfect candidate. However, a growing number of scholars are recognizing problems with that view. Many are now looking at an eclipse that occurred in 1 B.C. (See John Pratt, \u201cYet Another Eclipse for Herod<\/a>,\u201d in Planetarian 19\/4 (1990): 8-14). In fact, this would fit in well with the witness from the earliest Christians, who believed that Jesus was born between 3 and 2 B.C.<\/p>\n Caesar\u2019s enrollment<\/em>. Many people have dismissed this element as unhistorical since such enrollments have been seen as occurring for tax purposes and Herod, as king, would have collected his own taxes. Yet, many have argued that there may be another rationale behind the enrollment. Josephus recounts that Judea was required to take an oath of loyalty to Caesar during the end of Herod\u2019s reign (Antiquities<\/em> XVII. 41\u201345). Archeological evidence confirms it was taken in other places around 3 B.C. In fact, Orosius (5th cent) says Augustus required all to be enrolled with an oath. This oath apparently was established not long before 2 B.C., when Augustus came to be called \u201cfirst of all men.\u201d<\/p>\n Quirinius\u2019 census<\/em>. Quirinius\u2019 role is the most difficult detail. Some scholars assert that Luke has made a mistake. We know that Quirinius became governor later and took a census in 6 A.D. Has Luke made a mistake. Why would Luke associate him with an earlier enrollment.<\/p>\n Luke\u2019s language here may be significant. In describing Quirinius, Luke uses the same term he uses for Pontius Pilate, a regional procurator, in 3:1, hegemon. <\/em>Pilate was not a governor, but a regional authority. Perhaps Luke is indicating that Quirinius had some role as administrator prior to his appointment as governor. Justin Martyr testimony concurs with this as he records that Quirinius was procurator in Judea at this time (First Apology<\/em>, 34).<\/p>\n In fact, Luke tells us that this was the \u201cfirst\u201d enrollment\u2014implying he knows about a later one. He apparently mentions it in Acts 5:37.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For more information on the timing of the birth of Christ and the census, I strongly urge you to check out the Ignatius Study Bible, which has a fascinating discussion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Matthew is doing different work than Luke, but what\u2019s notable is that both agree on the essentials: Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod. That\u2019s not what I call \u201ccontradicting\u201d. Matthew says nothing about where Mary and Joseph were living. He simply notes where Jesus was born and then, after the sojourn in Egypt, that he went to Nazareth, which agrees with all the gospels about where Jesus was raised. Again, not very contradictory.<\/p>\n As with the resurrection narratives, what is striking to me is how much agreement there is. I always think of the assassination of JFK. It\u2019s like somebody a thousand years from now saying, \u201cFour shots? Three shots? Some people thought they came from the grassy knoll and some from the school book depository? Why I doubt JFK even existed<\/em>! \u00a0Why, some traditions record him saying, \u2018Ich bin eine Berliner!\u2019 How could a supposedly Harvard-educated figure have said, \u2018I am a jelly donut\u2019? \u00a0Obviously \u2018JFK\u2019 is a fictional Eucharistic figure offering his his life for the nation to give it new life. \u00a0Anthropologists have this all figured out out.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s really remarkable, of course, is how much the witnesses agree on, not the piddly details which owe to vagaries of human memory and the particular points the narrator wants to emphasize. Luke is doing theologized history in the Greco-Roman manner and relying heavily on eyewitness accounts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
\nWhat about Luke? The issues here revolve around Luke 2:1-2: \u201cIn those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.\u201d Three major problems emerge: identifying the year of Herod\u2019s death, determining the nature of Augustus\u2019 \u201cenrollment,\u201d and the chronology of Quirinius.<\/p>\n