Is the Bible Totally reliable ? The Nativity

Evidently Augustus listed the census in his 35 greatest achievements. You still didn't say what you thought about Caesar making taxation decisions while Judah was still a "seperate" kingdom as you put it. And I assume by your "there is no evidence" line that you don't believe the archaeological evidence which has been claimed to support Quirinius was governing twice. I'm skeptical too, though. Gotta run. enjoy.

WHy don't you present this alledged evidence. The only peice I have seen was a claim for a stone that had the name obliderated.. that is not evidence, that is wishful thinking.According to historical sources, there are three census's that augustus had on his orders. One was 28 B.C., when he first became emporer (of roman citizens), the second one was 6.C.E... mentioned in Joesphus, and the third one was 13 c.e.so, from known historical sources, there was no known census order by augustus in 8 b.c.e.Let's see if you can find one secular historian (i.e. one that is not trying to use a census in relationship to a religious arguement)that says Augustus ordered a census in 8 b.c.This message has been edited by ramoss, 06-20-2005 08:39 PM

Here ya go. Some more evidence for taxation by Caesar and for the census from 8 B.C. Now ya gotta read the bottom part at least because Augustus himself says he took a census in 8 B.C. I know it doesn't answer all the questions, but maybe it's a start.Josephus records that the Jews were being taxed by the Romans with commands coming from Syria as early as 44 B.C. And the task of raising the funds fell upon the Jewish rulers in power at the time. For example Josephus records: "Cassius rode into Syria in order to take command of the army stationed there, and on the Jews he placed a tax of 700 silver talents. Antipater gave the job of collecting this tax to his sons . . ." Jewish Antiquities XIV 271History also records Judea was being taxed highly under Herod the Great, who was appointed King of Judea by Caesar Augustus, and Herod was subservient to him. After he died, Josephus records the following:"Archelaus grieved over the death of his father for several days and then . . . from his throne of gold, he gave a speech to the crowd . . . pleased by his words, the people immediately began to test his sincerity by requesting certain favors from him. Some pleaded for their yearly taxes to be reduced . . . while others asked that he would only take away the excessive sales taxes that were being levied on goods being brought or sold." Jewish Antiquities XVII 200He also recorded that the common people hated Herod for taxing them so much. He states: "The amount of people, to whom he lavished his money, were very numerous. And because of this, he was forced to collect it through unjust means. Because he was aware that his subjects hated him for these crimes he committed against them, he did not think it would make any difference to treat them kindly, for it might harm his revenue; he therefore, knowing that his subjects feared him because of his harshness, continued on in pursuit of financial gain. Antiquities XVI 150-170
To get an idea of how much he taxed the people, when he died he left ten million pieces of silver to Augustus Caesar and five million to Caesar’s wife Julia and others. (Jewish Antiquities XVII 190)
We also know that Augustus Caesar ordered a Census in 8 B.C., this would have taken a good two to three years to implement and complete in all the provinces under direct and indirect control of Rome. The following is an account given by Augustus of the census:". . . during my sixth term as consul (28 B.C.), I along with my comrade Marcus Agrippa, commanded a census be taken of the people. I directed a lustrum, the first in forty-one years, in which 4,063,000 Roman citizens were counted. And once again, with imperial authority, I single handedly authorized a lustrum when the consuls of Rome were Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius (8 B.C.), during which time 4,233,000 Roman citizens were counted." (Res Gestae 8 - The Deeds of Augustus by Augustus)

I don't know much about a stone that was obliterated. That may have been in an article I put a link to, but I've already quoted from Josephus about the taxation. In fact, because of this discussion, I've ended up with the entire works of Josephus on my computer today! :-)

You can check this excerpt on this link hopefully:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0310262119/...Gives some pretty reasonable answers to these objections:1. Nothing is known in history of a general census in the time of Augustus2. In a Roman census, Joseph would not have had to travel to Bethlehem but would have registered in the town of his principle residence and Mary would not have traveled at all.3. No Roman Census would have been made in Palestine during Herod's reign. (has a case of just such a thing happening during that time with another nation in the same situation of Palestine)4. Josephus records nothing about a census taken in Palestine during Herod's rule, -rather the census in AD 6-7 was something new to the Jews.5. A census under Quirinius could not have occured during Herod's reign because Quirinius was not governor of Syria yet.You can't finish the chapter with this excerpt, and it won't let me copy and paste, but it's a detailed look at the time period. {Shortened display form of URL. Also added some blank lines. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 06-21-2005 01:59 AM

One tidbit; Josephus was not entirely accurate in his dates and such, especially concerning Herod.

The evidence and arguments presented there are pretty convincing. Thanks for posting that. He does a good job, for instance, of showing that the census of 6 AD would probably not require a trip to Bethlehem since that would cross jurisdictional districts, and also answers Ramos' objection in showing that the Romans did tax and do censuses in vassal states such as Herod's "kingdom."

Well I looked over the objections

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1. Nothing is known in history of a general census in the time of Augustus

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His answer here is unclear. He doesn't say specficially what Augustus is supposed to have done. So far as I can see the "censuses in different times and places" are just business as usual.

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2. In a Roman census, Joseph would not have had to travel to Bethlehem but would have registered in the town of his principle residence and Mary would not have traveled at all.

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His evidence is an Egyptian papyrus which supports the objection. His next piece is the claim "Jews property is part of the father' estate" but he offers no clear explanation. Whose father was in Bethlehem, and how does he know ? And if that is the reason why doesn't Luke say so ?

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3. No Roman Census would have been made in Palestine during Herod's reign. (has a case of just such a thing happening during that time with another nation in the same situation of Palestine)

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Richard Carrier deals with the case of Apamea in the link already provided
Richard Carrier Quirinius » Internet Infidels The coins are something of a red herring even if they were rpoduced by the correct Apamea - which is far from certain.He also deals with Cappadocia, poinitng out that this was an unusual case, Carrier states that Cappadocia was under greater Roman control. However reading his source I find that it had been reduced to the status of a province nearly 20 years earlier and that a Roman Governor had been appointed (Tacitus [I]Annals[I] 2:42, 2:56)
The order to reduce the Samaritan taxes, applies only to the Samaritans as a group - and it does not reflect control and certainly not administration of individual taxation.The remaining objections are not answered in the text on Amazon.On the basis of this it is certainly NOT a detailed look at the the period. The answers to the first objections are vague and lacking in detail. The answer to the third has more information but raises a red herring (the coinage) and does not mention the true status of Apamea or of Cappadocia. The other point is not directly relevant to the actual question either.

I am aware of Luke 1:5. There are two possilb eanswers you need to deal with.Firstly it could be a reference to Herod Archelaus - "King" is not the correct title but it could be a "correction" made by a later scribe or a small error.Secondly there could be a significant time period between the events. Certainly there is no need to mention Herod dying when it has nothing to do with the story - especially when the Nativity is tied to a major event, the annexation of Judaea.As for your assertion that there is no need to mention that the census was the furst there is an obivous reason to do it - to reinforce the identification of the census as the first - the census of 6 AD. It is the idea of an earlier census that needs "more records". After all we have no candidate for an earlier census so why imagine that the audience of the time would automatically know of an event too obscure to appear in any of the records that have survived ?

PaulK, we don't have a lot of records from the time period, and those we do have, like Josephus, contain errors.So to argue that because we don't have evidence, other than Matthew and Luke, for this census, with the idea that Matthew is wrong is just a stretch.We don't have but so much evidence, at all. We don't have evidence, imo, that there was not an earlier census.It seems reasonable to me to think there was. Take the first point on Herod. If Luke meant the later Herod, his jurisdiction did not include both Bethlehem and Nazareth so it that argues against that. Imo, that's a pretty strong argument against the 6 AD census being the one Luke referred to since the argument is that the Romans would not involve 2 separate jurisdictions in that manner. By saying they had to return to their birth-place, that indicates an earlier census.I admit I haven't studied this out completely, but if there is no evidence in the 6 AD census requiring travel to one's birthplace, then that would be evidence Luke was not referring to that census, right?

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Oh, I think proposing a conclusion that is false, then claiming there can be no other conclusion therefore the Bible is false... is ignoring evidence and truth.

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a) A conclusion that you dislike is not automatically false. Forget the self-worship.b) Don't misrepresent my claim. My claim is NOT that "there can be no other conclusion therefore the Bible is false". My claim is that the evidence supports the conclusion that the Bible is not entirely reliable.As for your other claims you have raised no valid points based on your study of Greek words. Even if you did it would be questionable if you coul even achieve a result even as good as the actual translations we have.And I don't need to ask about why Mary and Jospeh would be included in the lustrum census. They wouldn't. Your sources misrepresent the lustrum census as a "worldwide" census covering all subject to the Empire - even in places that had nominal independence. But since the lustrum census is part of the Republican voting apparatus such a conclusion is clearly invalid. Even a simple read of the Res Gestae in translation shows that the only count reported is for Roman citizens.What does that show about my worldview - that I hold a greater care for the truth than you and your sources. Your sources did not perform the basic checks that I did (at best). You ignored the information presented to you and repeated the false claim.And please don't tell me that you can't read something into the Biblical text that isn't there. Fundamentalists do it all the time. Certainly don't tell me that ALL the arguments you quoted were based on your study of Greek words ! Are you going to tell me that your study of Greek words gave you a list of URLs that you should take as reliable sources ? If you never said a thing that wasn't in the definition of the Greek words then where does the idea that Augustus held a census of Judaea in 8BC come from ?This message has been edited by PaulK, 06-21-2005 03:22 AM

Antiquities XIV 11.2 Clearly all Cassius did was ask for a fixed sum. The gathering of it was left in local hands. No need for the Romans to hold a census for that.Antiquities XV 10.4 More local control of taxation.Your other quotes also argue against your quotes. Archelaus is credited with the power to reduce taxation, Herod is blamed for high taxes - and for keeping tax revenues for himself.And your evidence for the 8BC census is just a lie. At least you have finally got to quoting the Res Gestae but you already know that that is no evidence for any sort of Roman census of Judaea.

If we don't have any records of that time, why do we have records of the
first cencus of Augustus in 28 B.C., when he first became ruler?Now, you are just not making any sense with that claim.

We have records, but we don't have complete recrords.For example, it is not even clear when Herod died. Most affix his date based on a lunar eclipse, but the 4BC eclipse was not the only one.There is debate on Herod's death, and Josephus who is used highly here makes a number of mistakes in the years he gives concerning Herod.So when the quality of available records creates doubt as to when the king died, more mundane matters such as taxes and the census are understandably less clear.

Well, yes, Herod taxed his kingdom, and then paid tribute to Rome.That does not say that ROME taxed the kingdom.. silly boy.