Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
Where do they get this nonsense from????  |
It is simply this:
Matthew's Nativity before 4 BC. Luke's Nativity 6 A D
They do not match, so the Bible is wrong.
The bible cannot be wrong, so they must match. How?
Herod cannot be placed in the 6 AD census so the 6 AD census must be made a (SECOND) census and a
First Quirinus census must be invented or postulated and placed in Herod's lifetime.
Therefore, no matter what history says,
Quirinus had to have conducted a Judean census in Herodian times.
Look around for anything that supports that view - that Quirinus was around at the time, that Augustus was ordering a census of the Roman world or that they sometimes took several years to complete.
Anything that doesn't support that required supposition - that the accepted history doesn't, that Josephus doesn't, that the status of client kings doesn't and that the improbability of the Matthew story doesn't - is best ignored.
If it still doesn't work, fiddle, fudge and obscure - the suggestion of a census taking a long time being a perfect example - if there is no Roman Census in Judea before Herod's death in 4 BC then the Gospels are wrong, and the length of time taken is irrelevant.
What we get is the common case where using history to support the Bible has become rewriting history because it doesn't and this is the ongoing deceit of Christian apologetics and the reason why we are still being told that the Bible and Jesus is historically supported.
And thanks so much Fullback for those dates (1). I had been taking it that Quirinus was doing Syrian census work in the time of Herod, though it doesn't alter the case that the Romans were not assisting Herod with any census work, let alone Nikk's daft 'co - ruler' invention. But it seems that even the Syrian census work was post - Herodian.
I can't resist re-stating that, if it is correct (and historians seem to agree on this) that Rome 'advised' client kings and bankrolled them too but they did
not send in taxmen and Census - takers, then it means that even the 6 AD census would not have sent Joseph and wife to Bethlehem because Antipas was a herodian client 'king' (Tetrarch). Therefore even the 6 AD Tax and census did not apply to Joseph.
Now, no doubt my good pal Thom R. will dismiss that as not 'mainstream' or 'my own theory' but it seems inescapable to me and in fact one german historian whose name escapes me did come to the same conclusion, though I don't know whether he came to the other conclusion that the Nativity story, though charming and even magical, is quite false in both Matthew and Luke.
We can also see how and why it is false - retrospective prophecy fulfillment - and thus we know how and why other Gospel discrepancies make the rest of the Jesus story equally false.
P. s (luv 'em). This required length and detail. It was worth doing as I believe this one is now done and dusted. Because of the detail (much of which I didn't know) I can forgive C34 and Nikk for not being abreast. Now they are and they should by all reason and intellectual integrity (as should anyone else) concede that the case for the discrepancy, falsity and absurdity of the nativity is made and the implications should be given credence.
(1) "By
AD 1, Quirinius was appointed
rector to Augustus' grandson
Gaius Caesar, until the latter died from wounds suffered on campaign.
[4] When Augustus' support shifted to his stepson
Tiberius, Quirinius entered the latter's camp of followers. Having been married to Claudia Appia, about whom little is known, he divorced her and around AD 3 married
Aemilia Lepida, daughter of
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus a...
(thus we see that after Herod's death in 4. B C Quirinus was
still not in Syria. Arq.)
After the banishment of the ethnarch
Herod Archelaus in 6,
Iudaea Province (the conglomeration of
Samaria,
Judea and
Idumea) [but not Galilee and Peraea, under the rule of tetrarch Herod Antipas. Arq] came under direct Roman administration with
Coponius as
prefect; at the same time Quirinius was appointed
Legate of Syria, with instructions to assess Iudea Province for taxation purposes.
[7] One of his first duties was to
carry out a census as part of this.
[8] The assessment was greatly resented by the Jews, and open
revolt was prevented only by the efforts of the
high priest Joazar.
[9] As it was, the census did trigger the revolt of
Judas the Galilean and the formation of the party of the
Zealots, according to Josephus
." (Wiki) 
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