One of the most notable portions of the Nativity story is when Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem because of the Roman census. It is for this reason that Jesus is born in Bethlehem. However, this is a very controversial part of the story, because some scholars argue that this idea does not make sense with the historical facts. Other scholars argue that a Roman census really would have compelled Joseph, if not Mary, to have travelled to Bethlehem.
The reasons for the controversy about Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem
There are two main objections to this aspect of the Nativity story. The first is that the story of Jesus’ birth takes place during the reign of Herod the Great. It was only some years after Herod’s death, when Quirinius became governor of Syria for the second time in 6 CE, that Judea became part of a Roman province.
Before 6 CE, Judea had been a client kingdom, ruled by Herod’s dynasty. Therefore, some scholars argue that no Roman census would have included Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth. Hence, it supposedly cannot have affected Joseph and Mary, meaning that it cannot have had anything to do with why they went to Bethlehem.
The second objection is to do with the fact that the Gospel of Luke says that Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem because that was the home town of King David, of whom Joseph was a descendant. The idea that people had to go to their ancestral homes is unhistorical, according to some.
Client kingdoms in the reign of Augustus
Do these objections really hold up to further examination? Well, the truth of the matter is that we actually know relatively little about the intricacies of Roman censuses.
Did they really exclude client kingdoms? Were policies regarding client kingdoms always the same in every era? The confident answers given to these questions by many modern sources often go beyond what we really know.
What we do know about client kings in the reign of Augustus is that they were treated in many respects like actual Roman governors. Suetonius, for example, tells us that client kings would often leave their kingdoms and present themselves to Augustus in the same manner as governors.
Suetonius mentions specifically that they would dress as Romans while doing this, not wearing their customary emblems of royalty. Furthermore, he tells us that they behaved like this not just when visiting Augustus in Rome, but also whenever Augustus was “traveling through the provinces.”
Therefore, it is evident that client kings were thoroughly subject to the Roman emperor. The idea of Augustus compelling a client king to perform a census, viewing their subjects as part of the Roman Empire, seems entirely realistic. There is a plethora of reasons why the emperor might want to know the population of their client kingdoms.
Would this census have compelled Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem?
Nevertheless, even if Augustus did compel Herod to perform a census in Judea, would this really have compelled Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, their ancestral home? Firstly, we should note that Roman censuses did usually require people to travel.
For example, a document from Egypt dating to 104 CE states the following:
“Seeing that the time has come for the house to house census, it is necessary to compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are residing out of their districts to return to their own homes.”
Therefore, a Roman census was not (usually) something that could be done from anywhere. A person had to travel to a certain location, such as his own home. It is for this reason that censuses could be unpopular among the people.
In the year 4 CE, for instance, Augustus decided not to include the population outside of Italy in the general census of that year because he did not want to “disturb” the populace and potentially motivate them to revolt.
The ancient Jewish way of performing a census
Of course, in the story of the Nativity, Joseph and Mary do not travel to their own house. Rather, they travel to their ancestral home. While requiring travel, this is rather different from what the Egyptian document states.
Nevertheless, both the Gospel of Luke and this Egyptian record agree that the census had to be taken in a specific place. While not exactly the same thing, this is significant.
It is often said that the Romans would not require their citizens to travel to their ancestral homes for registration in a census. This, of course, is irrelevant. As mentioned earlier, Judea was a client kingdom, not a Roman province. While Rome could and logically would compel a client kingdom to conduct a census whenever it wanted, it would not have been a Roman administration performing the census.
Rather, the task would have fallen to King Herod to conduct the census. Logically, he would have done so according to Jewish custom. And the simple reality is that we do not know the intricacies of how the Jews conducted censuses.
What we do know is that the Jews were very concerned about paternal ancestry and tribal connections. For instance, consider what we read at Numbers 26:1:
“Take a census of the whole assembly of the Israelites from 20 years of age and up, by their paternal houses, counting all those who can serve in the army in Israel.”
As we can see from this, the ancient Jews registered the population “by their paternal houses.” Although this does not explicitly confirm what the Gospel of Luke says about Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem for the census, it is completely consistent with it.
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