The Nature of Luke’s Enrollment

DEFENSE

There are solutions to each challenge.

Augustus was emperor from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14, and he began the practice of empire-wide census taking: “Every five years, the Romans enumerated citizens and their property to determine their liabilities. This practice was extended to include the entire Roman Empire in 5 B.C.” (“Census,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016 ed., emphasis added).

Because of the size of the empire, census taking was done in stages, taking place in different countries in different years. The decree of 5 B.C. thus likely wasn’t implemented in Palestine for a few years.

If the census was being done for tax purposes—as was normal—it would explain why Joseph returned to Bethlehem: He was from there and still had property there.

However, the enrollment may not have been a census. It may have been an event that took place in 3–2 B.C. when the people of the empire swore allegiance to Augustus (see Day 182 and 138). In this case, Joseph may have returned to Bethlehem because Israel was organized tribally, and the Romans may have used the tribal structure to ensure that the locals took the oath. Since Bethlehem was the ancestral home of Joseph’s clan, that is where he went.

Mary went with Joseph because she was his wife and she could be better cared for by him and other relatives in Bethlehem than if she were left at home. Contrary to popular depictions in art, we need not suppose that she made the journey to Bethlehem in the last stages of pregnancy. Luke merely says that “while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered” (Luke 2:6).

There are unanswered questions about this event, but Luke and his readers were familiar with the way such enrollments worked. They had taken part in such events themselves. Even skeptical scholar Ray- mond Brown notes: “It is dangerous to assume that [Luke] described a process of registration that would have been patently opposed to everything that he and his readers knew” (The Birth of the Messiah, 549).