The Nativity of Our Lord/ Midnight Mass, Year A
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic word, we reflect on the Gospel reading for the Midnight Christmas Mass. The lectionary prescribes different readings for the different Christmas Masses: Vigil, Midnight, Dawn, and Christmas day. Since the Midnight Mass deals with the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, and it has the most details that are relevant for doing apologetics, we focus on the Gospel reading for the Midnight Mass, which comes from Luke 2:1-14. We address two objections that skeptics pose to us as Christians, one of which pertains to Luke’s view of the scope of the enrollment and the other to the timing of the enrollment.
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Speaker 1:
This is the Sunday Catholic Word, a production of Catholic Answers, the only podcast to look at the Sunday Mass readings from an apologetics perspective.
Speaker 2:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith. I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers and the host for this podcast. In this episode, we’re going to reflect upon the gospel reading for the Midnight Christmas Mass. As you know, the lectionary gives us several different readings for the different Christmas Masses, the vigil, midnight, dawn, and Christmas Day. Since the Midnight Mass deals with the birth of Jesus directly, and it has the most relevant for doing apologetics, I chose to go with that Gospel reading, the gospel reading for the Midnight Mass, which comes from Luke chapter 2, verses 1 through 14.
The part of the gospel that’s most relevant for us in this episode is verses one through five, and I’m going to read that for you here instead of the whole entire gospel passage. We read starting in verse 1, “In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was at the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.”
There are two objections that arise from this text, both of which has to do with the enrollment that Luke speaks of. The first objection pertains to Luke’s view of the scope of the enrollment. The other pertains to the timing of the enrollment. Now, what’s interesting about the objections that are rising out of this particular liturgy of the Word and even more particular, this gospel passage, is that these are objections that are going to be posed to us as Christians from skeptics. So in the previous episodes of this podcast, we’ve been looking at apologetical issues that often arise within conversations with our Protestant brothers and sisters, and those are good issues to tackle and to think about. But here we have something a little bit different. These are issues that both we as Catholics and our Protestant brothers and sisters are going to have to deal with in our conversations with non-Christians and skeptics to Christianity.
So this is a unique episode of the podcast where we have sort of unique objections to tackle that goes beyond the boundaries of Catholic-Protestant dialogue. So let’s take the first objection that deals with Luke’s view of the scope of the enrollment. Notice, Luke reports that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. Now, some argue that Luke gets the nature of the enrollment wrong since there never was an empire-wide tax census that took place at that time. The only tax census that took place around this time was AD 6, which was restricted to the region of Judea. Its purpose was to initiate direct Roman rule in that region.
So with no empire-wide tax census, there would’ve been no need for Joseph to go to Bethlehem. So how should we respond to this objection? Well, here’s our first response. If this is a tax census, then it could be the prolonged tax census of Augustus in 5 BC. The Encyclopedia Britannica states the following, “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 BC.”
Now, you might be thinking, well, how in the world would the enrollment that Luke speaks of be a census that was called for in 5 BC? That’s way before the time period that Luke’s dealing with, with Jesus’ birth. Well, the key here, as my good friend and colleague apologist Jimmy Aiken points out, these censuses were done in stages, taking place in different countries in different years, and the reason for such prolonged census taking was the size of the empire. Pretty reasonable. This being the case, it’s possible that the decree of 5 BC, which is affirmed by Encyclopedia Britannica, would not have been implemented in Palestine for a few years, putting the enrollment for Judea right about 1 BC, the time of the birth of Christ.
The idea of this enrollment being a census for tax purposes explains why Joseph would’ve gone to Bethlehem for the enrollment. That was his hometown, and it’s likely that he would’ve had property there. So notice, this hypothesis has explanatory scope. It’s not only explaining the empire-wide tax census, but it also explains why Joseph would go to Bethlehem. Now, here’s a second possible response to the objection. If this is not a tax census, then it could be what some have called the loyalty oath of Augustus in 2 to 3 BC. The enrollment here might not necessarily be a tax census, but more of a registration that would fit with the so-called loyalty oaths. Many think the enrollment was a tax census because of the translations, like the King James version. They translate the Greek word [foreign language 00:06:32] as taxed. The King James Version of Luke 2:1 reads this way, “There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.” However, [foreign language 00:06:44] is better translated as registered.
Now, according to Josephus, Herod had all the people of the Jews give assurance of their good will to Caesar and to the king’s government. That comes from Josephus Antiquities 17:2.4. Augustus attests to this oath himself in an inscription which reads, “When I was in my 13th consulship,” which was about 2 BC, “The Senate and Equestrian order and Roman people as a whole called me father of my country and voted that this should be inscribed on the porch of my house.” Such an oath would have required some sort of registration of their goodwill, and so it’s possible that the enrollment or the registration that Luke refers to is a reference to this registration during the reign of Herod the Great. And concerning Joseph having to go to Bethlehem for the registration, again, Jimmy Aiken writes this, “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.”
So again, this hypothesis has explanatory scope as well, explaining the enrollment or the registration, as well as explaining why Joseph goes to Bethlehem. Now, there’s one possible counter here, and that is many scholars will say, “Well, Herod the Great died in the year 4 BC, before the birth of Christ. This being the case, the registration that Luke mentions here taking place at the time of Jesus’ birth cannot possibly refer to Herod’s call for the quote, unquote loyalty oaths because that was happening way before Jesus’ birth. So you cannot possibly appeal to that as explaining what the registration is at the time of Jesus’ birth.”
Well, in response, there’s actually newly developed scholarship that reasonably places Herod’s death closer to 1 BC right about the time of Christ’s birth. And a couple of sources for this, you might want to check out Andrew E. Steinmann, When Did Herod the Great Reign? in the journal Novum Testamentum, volume 51, issue 1, 2009, pages 1 through 29. And you might also check out Jimmy Akin’s article, Jesus’ Birth and When Herod the Great Really Died. And of course that’s at Jimmy Akin’s blog, jimmyakin.org I think it is. And the date for that article is April 17th, 2013. So two sources that illustrates the developed scholarship reasonably placing Herod’s death closer to 1 BC.
So with that, in light of that, that would make this hypothesis, that this could be the loyalty oath of Augustus, a reasonable hypothesis for explaining what Luke’s talking about. So given these two plausible explanations, if it’s a tax census, the prolonged tax census of Augustus in 5 BC, or if it’s not the tax census, the loyalty oath of Augustus, given these two plausible explanations, there’s no need to conclude that Luke is mistaken about the scope of the enrollment or the quote, unquote registration.
Now, the second objection pertains to the timing of the registration. Our previous responses can be utilized in response to this objection, but there are some unique things about this objection that makes it necessary to address as a separate challenge. So here’s the objection. Notice that Luke records that the decree was the first enrollment which went out when Quirinius was governor of Syria. This seems to be a problem because Josephs tells us that Quirinius didn’t become governor of Syria until the year 86, which obviously is long after Jesus’s birth. So how do we respond to this challenge? Well, some scholars argue that the Greek can be read in such a way as to support the idea that this is a reference to a different type of enrollment before Quirinius was governor of Syria, rather than at the time of. So for example, Anglican New Testament scholar N.T. Wright explains it this way, and this is coming from his work Who Was Jesus?, page 89. He writes this:
“Most translations of Luke 2:2 read ‘This was the first [foreign language 00:11:49] census when Quirinius was governor of Syria’ or something like that. But in the Greek of the time, as the standard major Greek lexicons point out, the word [foreign language 00:11:58] can sometimes be used to mean before when followed, as this is, by the generative case.” A good example is in John 1:15, where John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He was before me,” with the Greek being again [foreign language 00:12:12] followed by the genitive of me. I suggest, therefore, that actually the most natural reading of the verse, Luke’s verse, is this census took place before the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So Luke could be referring to some enrollment event that took place before Quirinius was governor, like the events that we mentioned before earlier.
So that’s one possible response. Luke could be referring to some enrollment that took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria. Now a second response is that this may be a reference to a prior governing role of Quirinius. Notice the objection assumes that Luke referring to Quirinius role as quote, unquote governor of Syria in AD 6. But there’s reason to think that Quirinius may have had another type of governing role, a prominent administrative role of sorts, before his formal role as governor in AD 6. At least the Greek allows for this interpretation.
Luke doesn’t say that Quirinius had the formal title of quote, unquote governor. The word that Luke uses for governor is [foreign language 00:13:31], which is a verb that simply means to exercise an administrative position, to be a leader, command, rule or order. Such a governing role could be a higher administrative position like a legate, which consisted of a general who oversaw a province, or it could refer to a lower administrative position like a procurator or a prefect.
The latter position was that of Pontius Pilate, and [foreign language 00:13:57] is the word that Luke uses in Luke chapter 3, verse 1 to describe Pilate’s position. A legate would not be placed to rule over Judea until after the destruction of the temple in AD 70. So the question now is, well, is there any historical evidence that Quirinius had a lower administrative role before his role as governor in AD 6? The answer is yes. According to Tacitus, in his work, The Annals 3:48, Quirinius had a governing role in the military at the time of Christ’s birth, conducting a military campaign in a nearby area. Josephs tells us in Antiquities 18:1 that one named Varus was the governor of Syria during this time. Quirinius’ governing military role, therefore, could be that which Luke refers to when he speaks of the enrollment during the time when Quirinius was governing, when he had this administrative position.
Moreover, check this out. A coin was discovered in the 19th century with the name of one named Quirinius who was proconsul of Syrian and Cilicia from 11 BC until the death of Herod the Great, which some say was 4 BC and others say 1 BC, the time of Jesus’ birth. If this refers to the Quirinius that Luke is speaking of, it’s possible that Quirinius governed twice and took two censuses. This is not out of bounds if we take the first enrollment to mean first in the chronological sense as opposed to the before interpretation of [foreign language 00:15:42]. The second census would be when Quirinius was governor of Syria in AD 6, and looks clearly aware of this census since he correctly associates it with the rebellion of Judas the Galilean. Now, if the Quirinius on the coin refers to some other individual, then Luke may be referring to that individual and not the Quirinius that governs Syria in AD 6. Either way, we have at least a plausible explanation to make sense of Luke’s statement.
And finally, a third possible answer or response to the objection is that Josephus may simply have been wrong. And I like how Jimmy Akin points this out in his book, A Daily Defense. Notice the entire challenge rests on the claim that Quirinius’ census took place in AD 6 through 7, which is derived from Joseph’s belief that the event occurred in “the 37th year of Augustus Caesar’s victory over Antony at Actium,” which would’ve been around AD 6 through 7. However, some have argued that there is internal evidence with Josephus’ text that he was mistaken concerning the timing of this event. And you can check out, as I mentioned before, Andrew Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology. So he points this out. So if that assumption is wrong, well then the skeptic has no grounds to stand on in order to pose a challenge to Luke’s statement here.
So given that we have several different ways to explain the apparent historical error made by Luke concerning Quirinius’s enrollment, there’s no need to conclude that Luke is in fact mistaken. There may be a lot of things that stress us out about the Christmas season, my friends, but at least this won’t be one of them, or at least it does not have to be one of them. So that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. Thank you, my dear friends, for subscribing to the podcast, and please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well. I hope that you have a great and blessed Christmas weekend. Merry Christmas, everyone. God bless you.
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