Luke 2:1-2 and the Census of Quirinius

 

Without a doubt, the issue of the census of Quirinius is one of the biggest alleged "biblical errors" in the Gospels put forward by the enemies of Scriptural reliability, whether it be on the internet or within liberal scholarship. The text in question is Luke 2:1-2, which says the following:

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria." (Luke 2:1-2)

The basic problem can be summarized as follows: "Luke’s mention of Quirinius (Cyrenius) as governor of Syria during the time of Caesar’s census appears to cause a problem as history records that Quirinius held that governorship between AD 6 and 7, at least ten years after the birth of Jesus"(https://www.gotquestions.org/Quirinius-census.html)

According to Luke, Quirinius was governor in 4 BC (which was most likely the year of Christ's birth). However, other historical sources such as Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 18.1) say that Quirinius was in power around AD 6-9, which is not a time period early enough for Christ to have been born in.  

There are two main solutions (and one minor "argument from plausibility), all of which I think have plausible arguments in their support. I will list each of them here and the data that has been put forward in their favor.

Solution #1 - Quirinius was governor of Syria on two occasions

There is some possible evidence that AD 6-7 (an occasion where Quirinius almost certainly was indeed governor of Syria, if Josephus may be believed) was not the only time that Quirinius was the governor of Syria. 

In 1764, the "Tivoli" inscription was discovered, which describes (without naming Quirinius, to be fair) a Roman general who had ruled Syria twice, and was described as having been victorious in war during the reign of Augustus. According to Tacitus (Annals, Book III), the description of Quirinius given by Tiberius Caesar at his funeral was as follows: "[he was a] tireless soldier, who had by his faithful services become consul during the reign of Augustus." This matches with the description of the unnamed general on the Tivoli inscription. This argues in favor of the hypothesis that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice, and thus there would have been two census: one around 7-4 BC (the approximate period in which Christ was born) and the other in AD 6-7 (the one mentioned in Acts 5:37, which sparked the rebellion led by Judas the Galilean). 

Solution #2 - Josephus was wrong in his dating of Quirinius' census

This is a much less popular solution, but has been forcefully argued by John H. Roads in a paper for JETS. Roads argues that while Josephus is an important historical source of information, he nonetheless sas very much prone to errors about dating. For example, Josephus misdated the building of the Samaritan Temple (Reinhard Plummer, The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, pg. 43) and misplaced the Tobaid Saga (ed. Pastor, Stern, More, Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and History, pg. 141-145).

Roads builds on the work of Daniel Schwartz (“Pontius Pilate’s Appointment to Oficce and the Chronology of Josephus’ Antiquities, Books 18–20,” in Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, Vol. 60, pgs. 197–98), who has shown that Josephus often had a practice of recording the same historical event twice but in different contexts. One such example is how "the trip of Vitellius to Jerusalem in order to dismiss Pontius Pilate reported at Ant. 18.90–95 was mistakenly duplicated in Ant. 18.122–26 as a trip occurring in the following year." (Roads, Josephus, pg. 67).  

Roads applies this to the issue of Quirinius' census, saying that Josephus accidently misplaced the event, which originally occurred during the reign of Herod the Great. Roads lists the following three parallel accounts from Josephus (the similarities are highlighted):

Ant. 17.148-67	Ant. 17.269–85	Ant. 18.4–23
A narrative of a Judas son of the Sepphorean who gathers a group of young disciples around himself and a teacher named Matthias teaching zeal for the law of Moses and the expectation of lasting reward in the face of death. Judas and his followers raid Herod’s Temple to tear down an eagle from its gate and are captured. Herod the Great orders those directly involved to be burned alive. Herod also deposes the previous high priest and promotes Joazar apparently in response to this insurrectionist activity.	A catalogue of disturbances plaguing Judea— reported while Archelaus is in Rome seeking confirmation of his father’s will— mentions that Judas the Galilean, son of Hezekiah, active around Sepphoris, Galilee raised an insurrection to raid Herod’s armory. Josephus reports that Archelaus deposes Joazar both before and after his trip to Rome, and for different reasons.	A teacher named Judas the Galilean—who gathered a group of disciples around himself and another teacher named Sadducand who focused on zeal for the law of Moses and willingness to die in the expectation of lasting reward—raised a revolt against the taxation tied to the census of Quirinius. Josephus reports that the high priest Joazar persuaded the people to go along with the census, and Quirinius deposes Joazar before the census is complete. Josephus reported no reappointment for Joazar.

Based off of the extreme similarities in the above accounts, it is clear that Josephus is three times recording the same event, but in different literary contexts, and with differences in certain details (such as the father of Judas, and who it was that deposed Joazar [Herod, Archelaus, or Quirinius, depending on which account you take]). 

"The gist of his [Roads] piece is that the Judas whom Josephus associates with a tax revolt in AD 6 (Ant. 18.4-23) is the same Judas whom Josephus says was killed a decade or so earlier by Herod the Great (Ant. 17.148-67)" (https://biblearchaeology.org/research/contemporary-issues/3918-josephus-not-luke-misdated-quiriniuss-census)

All of this data argues in favor of Roads' conclusion that Josephus would have misdated the census of Quirinius/Sabinus by around ten years or less. 

A Minor Argument from Luke's Historical Reliability

I have argued in another article, based off a consideration of ancient historiography in general, that Luke was a reliable historian of the life of Christ. However, things go further than that.

Colin J. Hemer, in his work The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, on pages 108-158, goes through Acts (which is almost universally accepted to have been written by Luke) and points out the various indications and details relating to things like history, geography, culture, language, etc. All of these things demonstrate Luke's thorough knowledge of the Greco-Roman world in which he lived. Here are some examples:

- The natural crossing between correctly named ports (Acts 13:4-5)

- The proper port, Attalia, which travelers would use (Acts 14:25).

- The natural stopping point on the way to Caesarea (Acts 23:31).

- The use of the correct Athenian slang word for Paul, "spermologos" (Acts 17:18)

- Luke refers to the board of magistrates in Thessalonica as "politarchs" (Acts 17:6), a term attested in ancient Macedonia.

- Samothrace was a sailor's landmark (Acts 16:11)

- Acts 12:4 gives an accurate description of the structure of Roman military (Vegetius, De Re Milt. 3.8)

Touching on the issue of Luke's historical reliability (in Acts in particular), Craig Keener says the following:

"These judgments from ancient historiography provide merely a range of options; they do not by themselves tell us where on the accuracy scale of ancient historians Luke appears nor decide for us how often Luke’s details reflect prior historical tradition. Granted that Luke writes history, where on the continuum of historical reliability (by either ancient or modern standards for history) does his work lie? When we examine more concrete evidence not pertinent to historians in general but specific to Luke’s treatment of various issues that we can test, in the strong majority of cases we find Luke a reliable reporter of events. It is especially our comparison of Paul’s letters with Acts’ claims about Paul that will confirm this expectation in greater detail. That Luke was a masterful narrator is not in question; that what he narrated was historiography rather than a novel most scholars concur; that his historical work is useful for modern historical understanding of early Christianity should, I believe, likewise be granted. Where we can test him, Luke is as accurate as, or more accurate than, many historians contemporary with him (perhaps partly because, although he employs rhetoric, his audience expected less rhetorical embellishment than was demanded by some more elite contemporaries)." (Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary: Introduction and 1:1-2:47, pg. 220)