[B-Greek] Luke 2:2 Again

Stephen C. Carlson scarlson at mindspring.com
Wed Dec 22 11:13:10 EST 2004


gfsomsel wrote:
>To exclude the Quirinian census
>(which is historically impossible) but to maintain its reference here it
>would be necessary to understand this somewhat in the sense (not a
>translation) "Augustus decreed that the whole world would be enrolled. 
>This most prominent census  took place when Quirinius was governor of
>Syria."  This, however, leads one to wonder what the point was in
>mentioning Quirinius at all.  Furthermore, it would almost be necessary
>to assume that there was a preceding census (which was not so prominent)
>during which the holy family was in Bethlehem.  While the understanding
>of PRWTH as "most prominent" is possible as you point out in regard to
>other Lukan passages, it fails to solve the basic problem.

I don't want to get too much into the historical issues on this list,
but the point of mentioning Quirinius at all is because Josephus
as early as 75 (I date Luke later than that) had already identified
the Quirinius census a major cause in the Jewish War.  Acts 5:37
evidences the overwhelming importance of this census.  In light of
that, any discussion in the last part of the first century of a census
in Judea had to deal with the fact that the immediate audience
(here, Luke's patron "Theophilus") is going to wonder about the
relationship with that most prominent census.

As I understand Luke 2:2, it is a parenthetical but necessary reference
to it, basically saying Augustus's policy of getting registered (the
antecedent of hAUTH is DOGMA, with hAUTH being attracted to the
gender of APOGRAFH in the predicate [see BDF on this]) became 
(EGENETO) most important when Quirinius was governing Syria.  The
implication is that the census in Luke 2:3ff. is a less important, earlier
registration.

This also fits in comfortably with Luke's pro-Roman take on the ministry
of Jesus, because it has the nice effect of distancing Jesus's family both
geographically and politically from one of the early hot spots of Jewish
rebellion against Rome, namely Judas of Galilee.  (Matt. does a similar
thing by having Joseph resettle Nazareth after the whole thing blows
over.)

Nevertheless, regardless whether reading PRWTH as I propose solves
or does not solve the historical problems, I still think that understanding
PRWTH as a reference to priority in prominence is more exegetically
defensible than as a reference to sequential priority.  The information
conveyed by the standard temporal reading of PRWTH in Luke 2:2 makes
the verse more of a digression--and less of a fit with its immediate context--
than in my proposal.  Not only that, it fits in nicely with one of the themes
of Luke's narrative, while the chronological interpretation of PRWTH is to
read the Gospel of Luke as if it had the same interests as Josephus.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson, 
mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com 
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35



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