06-07-2010, 10:10 AM
Ave
There seems to be a conflict regarding the dating of the census of Quirinius between Josephus and the Gospel of Luke. While the latter posits it during the reign of Herod the Great, which would have made it no later than 4 B.C.E, the former places it in 6 A.C.E. Obviously a rather unresolvable contradiction here, unless Luke was referring to the earlier census of 6 B.C.E under Saturninus and just mixed up the names.
Someone came up with another intriguing explanation - that 'Quirinius' is actually a mistranslation of 'Cyrenius' in Luke, referring to the city in Syria. The Greek text reads thus: ???? ???????? ????? ??????? ????????????? ??? ??????? ???????? the translation being 'Done first survey when he was ruler of Syria Cyrene', the 'he' here refers to Augustus himself. I personally think the mention of the city of Cyrene along with Syria is rather redundant and doesn't serve a purpose at all, but I'd like to get some input from fellow forum members as well.
Any thoughts?
There seems to be a conflict regarding the dating of the census of Quirinius between Josephus and the Gospel of Luke. While the latter posits it during the reign of Herod the Great, which would have made it no later than 4 B.C.E, the former places it in 6 A.C.E. Obviously a rather unresolvable contradiction here, unless Luke was referring to the earlier census of 6 B.C.E under Saturninus and just mixed up the names.
Someone came up with another intriguing explanation - that 'Quirinius' is actually a mistranslation of 'Cyrenius' in Luke, referring to the city in Syria. The Greek text reads thus: ???? ???????? ????? ??????? ????????????? ??? ??????? ???????? the translation being 'Done first survey when he was ruler of Syria Cyrene', the 'he' here refers to Augustus himself. I personally think the mention of the city of Cyrene along with Syria is rather redundant and doesn't serve a purpose at all, but I'd like to get some input from fellow forum members as well.
Any thoughts?
Cry \'\'\'\'Havoc\'\'\'\', and let slip the dogs of war
Imad
Imad
