Census of Quirinius

The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judaea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in 6 CE. The author of the Gospel of Luke uses it as the narrative means to establish the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1-5), but Luke places the census within the reign of Herod the Great, who died 10 years earlier in 4 BCE. No satisfactory explanation of the contradiction seems possible on the basis of present knowledge, and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake.

The census

Mary and Joseph register for the census before Governor Quirinius. Byzantine mosaic c. 1315.

In 6 AD Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was appointed Imperial Legate (governor) of the province of Roman Syria and tasked to carry out a tax census of the new province of Judea, one of the three territories into which the kingdom of Herod the Great had been divided on his death in 4 BC. The Gospel of Luke links the birth of Jesus under the reign of Caesar Augustus ("In the days of Caesar Augustus..."– Luke 1:5) to the census:

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.

— Luke 2:1–5

There are major difficulties in accepting Luke's account: the census in fact took place in 6 AD, ten years after Herod's death in 4 BC; there was no single census of the entire empire under Augustus; no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee; most scholars have therefore concluded that the author of Luke's gospel made an error.

Some biblical scholarsand commentators argue that Quirinius may have had an earlier and historically unattested term as governor of Syria, or that he previously held other senior positions which may have led him to be involved in the affairs of Judea during Herod’s reign, or that the passage should be interpreted in some other fashion, but these arguments have been rejected by mainline scholarship as "exegetical acrobatics".

See also

• Biblical inerrancy
• Chronology of Jesus
• Date of birth of Jesus
• Judea (Roman province)
• Luke 2
• Nativity of Jesus
• Roman censor