The Census of Quirinius

Luke says the birth happened in those days, when a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Joseph goes up from Nazareth to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. Luke 2:1 Luke 2:2

The registration everyone can date without argument is the one Josephus describes when Quirinius was legate of Syria and Coponius was procurator of Judea, after Archelaus was deposed. That is AD 6. It provoked the revolt of Judas the Galilean, which Luke himself mentions later, in Gamaliel's speech. Acts 5:37 Herod the Great died about 4 BC. A census in AD 6 cannot be the occasion of a birth in Herod's lifetime. If Luke meant that census, and also meant Herod, the two Gospels do not fit.

Several answers are on the table. None of them is a trick.

One says Luke's "first" means the census before the famous one, and that Quirinius held an earlier post in Syria during Herod's last years. A damaged inscription, the Lapis Tiburtinus, describes a man who governed Syria twice. It does not name Quirinius. Tertullian later said the census of the birth was under Sentius Saturninus, who did govern Syria in Herod's last years. That does not match Luke's name. It shows that a registration in the region in those years was thinkable to an early Christian writer.

Another says the Greek can be read so that the census "took place before Quirinius was governor," a harder reading of the grammar, defended by some, not the way most versions translate it. If that reading is right, Luke is distinguishing the birth-registration from the famous one he will mention in Acts. He would be a careful writer doing exactly what a critic says he failed to do.

Another says Josephus is the one who simplified, and a registration begun under Herod was completed years later under Quirinius, so both dates attach to one long administrative act. Possible, and not proven.

What should not be said is that there is no problem. There is a problem. Luke names a man whose famous year is a decade after Herod's death, and Matthew requires Herod to be alive. What should also not be said is that the problem has only the skeptical answer. The skeptical answer is that Luke confused the AD 6 census with the birth and did not notice Matthew's Herod, or did not know it. That treats the author of Luke-Acts, who distinguishes the Judas revolt as a later event in Acts 5, as a man who forgot his own timeline between chapter 2 of the Gospel and chapter 5 of Acts. It is possible he was careless once. It is not the only serious reading of a writer who opens by saying he investigated.

The timeline leaves the birth at about 6 to 4 BC and does not silently move it to AD 6. Moving it to AD 6 saves Quirinius's famous year and loses Herod, the magi, and the flight to Egypt. Keeping Herod and treating Luke 2:2 as a real difficulty, with more than one live answer, is the honest card.