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It literally makes no sense to have to go back to your hometown for a census. None at all. A census gathers demographics of where people are. Did you have to go back to your place of birth for the 2010 US census?
It literally makes no sense to have to go back to your hometown for a census. None at all. A census gathers demographics of where people are. Did you have to go back to your place of birth for the 2010 US census?
Yes. That is the way contradictions are overcome. Some aspect is taken and explained with a couple of 'maybes' ..far- fetched ..that Mary would whine to be taken along until Joseph gives in. But believable, if you really want to.
But the real objection - that the census would not even apply to Joseph as Galilee was not a roman province, and that going back to the 'ancestral city' to register is absurd, is overlooked. It should be clear that the whole story is a device to get Jesus born in Bethlehem, by hook or by crook.
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Originally Posted by MoonBeam33
It literally makes no sense to have to go back to your hometown for a census. None at all. A census gathers demographics of where people are. Did you have to go back to your place of birth for the 2010 US census?
Yes, the Roman document found in Egypt telling everyone to go back to their own city is considered proof of Luke's story. Well, of course he would know that was the practice, but that one would NOT go back to some ancestral city rather than the one where you lived and where your tax would be collected seems to have escaped him. It was forced on him because Nazareth would not do as the place to register. It had to be Bethlehem.
His Holy Land geography is not too good and maybe he saw no problem or thought nobody would notice. He was right. Nobody seems to have noticed the problem for 2,000 years.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-03-2014 at 02:42 AM..
From what I understand a census was done every 7 or so years and was very important. Joseph planned on going by himself but Mary insisted that she go with him. I don't think he packed all his belongings, just a few things he needed for the trip. The town they had to go to was not that far, and traveling 4 or 5 days was not a big deal for people during that time. I think the reason all the inns were full was because other people were in town for the census as well.
I find this part of the story believable.
There was no set standard for when they were taken that we know of. The one in the birth narrative is just trying to link the census of Quirinius with the event is all.
Last edited by ~HecateWhisperCat~; 12-03-2014 at 10:15 AM..
Does the Bible say Joseph and Mary "packed up all their belongings"?
Since they traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, it would have been approximately 63 miles. That distance is doable in about 5 days depending on road conditions and how fast a donkey can travel.
The Jews were very careful about their genealogies, so, yes, long genealogies would have been kept for such people.
The accounts of their travels and birth are actually historic records. Yes, of course they are literal truth.
Except the Jews weren't in charge of the Census, the Roman Governor in Syria was. The Romans among all things believed in efficiency.
The only thing absurd about the historical account of the birth of the Messiah of Israel is that the truly moronic types fail to see the non-absurdity of it all.
Says the guy who thinks Noah invented freeze drying food.
So much of history lost in the friction of a largely illiterate Aramaic people handing things down orally until the story made its way into the lap of Hellenic speaking converts decades and hundreds of years later.
Really? Please prove your assertions.
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Right. Virtually no historical truth available so you have to look at surrounding data points and judge by context. To me there's a ring of truth to James head of the Nazarenes ... leader of the faltering Christian mission in Judea post Jesus' death. It seems plausible to me that his stature gave that mission the weight necessary to counterbalance the message of the mentally ill fake apostle Paul spreading a revisionist tale of a man he never met. My guess is that James brother of Jesus kept it real, as it were with a small congregation of the Jews of Judea and that was why Paul's rewrite of Christianity got so little traction ... but then Tiberius arrived like a planet ending asteroid and wiped Jerusalem and every living soul in it off the map. So now Paul is the only apostle left standing somewhere in the salon of some well-to-do Hellenistic Roman converts and his personally manufactured message of Christianity is all that's left to be told. *POOF* there goes history and now we're left not even knowing where Jesus was born. Such a twist of fate.
Interesting that the 12 apostles backed up Paul's apostleship. They would hardly do that if Paul has been, as you so wrongly state "mentally ill" and "a fake apostle." You really need to prove your assertions. Anyone can blather out balogna, but proving it is an altogether different matter.
The fact of the matter is that Christ's birth is an historic fact.
Says the guy who thinks Noah invented freeze drying food.
And what exactly does Noah's flood have to do with the birth of Christ? Some lucid kitty you are.
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