G. The birth of Jesus (2:1–7)
G. The birth of Jesus (2:1–7)
1. There are difficulties posed by the facts that our knowledge of the times is imperfect and that what Luke says is not easy to fit in to what we do know. Thus there is no record of any law of Augustus that a universal census be held. But he did reorganize Roman administration, and there are records of censuses held in a number of places. In Egypt, where the custom is unlikely to have differed significantly from neighbouring Syria (of which province Judea was a part), a census was held every fourteen years. Actual documents survive for every census from AD 20 to 270 (Barclay). When Augustus died he left in his own handwriting a summary of information, such as statistics on direct and indirect taxation, which would most naturally have been derived from censuses.3 The evidence seems best satisfied if we understand the decree of which Luke writes, not as a formal law, but as an administrative direction which set the whole process in motion and had its effect in distant Judea.
It was not, of course, necessary for Luke to mention the point (none of the other Evangelists does). But it seems to be part of his plan to set his story in the secular context (cf. 3:1). He sees God as Lord of history, and the actions of the emperor in faraway Rome do but set forward the divine plan and purpose (Fitzmyer’s ‘Lit. “and it happened” ’ obscures this).
2. There is a further difficulty about the part Quirinius played. As governor of Syria he carried out a census in AD 6 (Josephus, Antiquities xviii.26; this is mentioned in Acts 5:37). This aroused violent opposition and Judas of Gamala led a rebellion (Antiquities xviii.3ff.). That census is too late for the present passage but certain inscriptions show that between 10 and 7 BC Quirinius performed military functions in the Roman province of Syria. If the interval between censuses was fourteen years, this brings him into the area in an official capacity at the right time. There is no record outside Luke for a census at this time, but there is nothing improbable about it. Josephus tells us that at about this time ‘the whole Jewish people’ swore an oath of loyalty to Caesar (Antiquities xvii.42), which possibly reflects a census. It is also worth noting that Tertullian says that the census was carried out under Saturninus, who was governor of Syria 9–6 BC (Adversus Marcionem iv.19). This is not in the Bible, so, if the statement can be relied on (which many scholars doubt4), Tertullian must be relying on other evidence. Justin, in the middle of the second century, assures the Romans that they can see the registers of Quirinius’s census (I Apology 34). Some hold that the census of AD 6 must have been the first, for people rebel at the unfamiliar, whereas once a census had been held a second would be accepted. But it is fairly contended that at the time of which Luke writes Herod would have arranged the details and ‘it would be quite like Herod’s skill in governing Jews to disguise the foreign nature of the command by an appeal to tribal patriotism’ (Easton, cited in Manson). This is supported by the fact that in Luke’s census people returned to their family homes, whereas a Roman registration would have been at the place of residence. N. Turner argues on grammatical grounds that we should understand Luke to mean ‘This census was before the census which Quirinius, governor of Syria, made.’5
3. A command that everyone return to his own home seems to us a curious way of taking a census. But at least one such direction is preserved from antiquity, namely an edict of the governor of Egypt in AD 104 ordering everyone to return home for enrolment.6
4–5. Since Joseph was of the family of David he had to report at Bethlehem, called the city of David (though David is not recorded as having contact with it after he left it; similarly Jesus is never said to have visited it after his birth there). Mary’s attendance was probably not necessary. Little is known of the regulations governing such a contingency, but the probability is that, even if she had property, Joseph’s attendance would suffice. Perhaps Joseph did not care to leave her at Nazareth. She had been with Elizabeth for three months after her pregnancy began (1:56) and we have no way of knowing how much later the wedding took place. To have remained behind may have exposed her to calumny. Luke refers to Mary as his betrothed, perhaps because, though they were married (Matt. 1:24), the marriage was not yet consummated (Matt. 1:25).
6–7. The birth of God’s Son is described very simply. Swaddling cloths are long strips which could wrap the child round and round. That Mary wrapped the child herself points to a lonely birth. That he was laid in a manger has traditionally been taken to mean that Jesus was born in a stable. He may have been. But it is also possible that the birth took place in a very poor home where the animals shared the same roof as the family. A tradition going back to Justin says it occurred in a cave (Dialogue with Trypho 78) and this could be right. Some have thought that the birth took place in the open air (possibly the courtyard of the inn), that being where a manger would likely be. We do not know. We know only that everything points to poverty, obscurity and even rejection. There was no place for them in the inn. Joseph may have left his journey too late. Or the innkeeper may not have wished to have them. Another possibility is that the word does not mean inn here, but a room in a house (as in 22:11). It had been meant for Joseph and Mary, but was occupied by others by the time they arrived.
We should perhaps reflect that it was the combination of a decree by the emperor in distant Rome and the gossiping tongues of Nazareth that brought Mary to Bethlehem at just the time to fulfil the prophecy about the birthplace of the Christ (Mic. 5:2). God works through all kinds of people to effect his purposes.