And it came to pass in those days {that} a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. [Luke 2:1 NKJV]
A criticism frequently offered to make Luke look foolish or worse, is to suggest that “The Romans were experts at both taxes and census taking,” and then claiming, “… because there is no record of Quirinius’ census (Luke 2:2), clearly Luke was mistaken.”
This sounds convincing at face value but misses some valuable historical insights about Roman censuses during the first century BCE. The Romans were indeed experts at census taking, because census taking was considered a religious duty as well as an executive function.1 The consul was the highest elected office in the Republic, while the censor was the highest appointed office in the Republic. In the Republic, censuses were supposed to be performed every five years unless there was some overriding exception. Once the census was completed, the censor offered animal sacrifice for the people of Rome as a religious obligation. But the time in question is no longer the Republic per se. The “officially” recognized beginning of the Empire may have January 16, 27 BCE, but the Republic had been in chaos at least since Caesar crossed the Rubicon if not since Sulla’s dictatorship or even earlier. Censuses had not been consistently taken for over 100 years. Different Roman leaders during the first century BCE (Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar) when in power, handled it differently according to their personal beliefs and ambitions. If they wanted a census, they would order one. If they didn’t want any, there weren’t any. The point being that the claim regarding “Romans being experts…” and “no records mean Luke was inept,” etc., is misleading. What few Roman censuses were performed during the first century BCE, were performed by whichever leader was in charge at the time and at his personal discretion. This is the only criteria that matters. This means that the real question we need to be asking is, “Did Augustus order a census (registration) near the time of Jesus’ birth? And that answer to that question is “yes”.
Augustus was declared Pater Patriae at the Festival of Concordia in February of 2 BCE. A Breviarium Totius Imperii (A Summary of the Whole Empire) was exhibited in Rome in May of 2 BCE. The corresponding registration to make these two events possible would have been a registration ordered by Augustus in 3 BCE.
- There was no such thing as a secular society in the ancient world. All government functions, whether executive, legislative, or judicial were also “religious” in nature since everything was the purview of the gods.