The census of Quirinius

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

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?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Perhas one is going by the start of the census, one refering to the completion?
I am not an expert on census taking, but I can imagine these things were not quickly finished in ancient times.

[M. Demetrius]

They're not finished all that quickly in modern times, either, even with computer databasing, etc . Getting the info for a nation the size of the US takes a few months, using a much better postal system than existed in old times, and compiling all the data in those days would have taken several months, I'd guess, since it would be coming in from all over the place at different times. Just doing the first sorting would take quite a while. There were many provinces to gather information from, and many more to get second lists, just like now.

It's hard to know whether there's a conflict with the double Greek naming vs. Latin name. There are probably many more governors we know nothing about than those we have some sketchy details about. Most of the names were different in different languages, which doesn't help, either. Peter, Cephas, Simeon, Petros, Simon: all the same guy.

Are there records of a census' having been taken in other provincial records around the same time? How do the dates correlate if so?

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Well, the census of Quirinius was supposed to be a world-wide one but I'm not sure there is evidence for other provinces with correlating dates. The earlier one under Saturninus was supposed to be one for Roman citizens only which would have excluded Judea under Herod the Great. Judea did not come under direct Roman rule until the deposition of his son Herod Archelaus and even then I don't know if all Judeans would have been classified as citizens.

[D B Campbell]

There seems to be a conflict regarding the dating of the census of Quirinius between Josephus and the Gospel of Luke.

We should probably beware of holding Luke to the same historical standards as Josephus, for history was not his purpose. Nevertheless, you have highlighted an issue that continues to exercise New Testament scholars.

Someone came up with another intriguing explanation - that 'Quirinius' is actually a mistranslation of 'Cyrenius' in Luke, referring to the city in Syria.

I don't see any justification for that in the received text, nor can I see how it would help matters. :?

The Greek text reads thus: ???? ???????? ????? ??????? ????????????? ??? ??????? ????????

Thank you for giving us the Greek -- saved me a search!

The most elegant explanation I have ever read came from Nigel Turner's 1965 book, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament. He suggests that the meaning of ????? has been (and, indeed, continues to be) misconstrued. Rather than taking it as ??????, "the first" (superlative), it might be taken as ????????, "previous" (comparative). The net result would be to render the sentence thus: "This census was previous [to the one] when Cyrenius [i.e. Quirinius] was governing Syria".

The census of Quirinius seems to have been well-known, so it would have been natural to use it as a fixed chronological point in people's memories. A previous census could have been held by Herod himself.

(But, as I said at the outset, we are perhaps asking too much of Luke to give us precise historical data.)

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Thank you for the input D B Campbell. I remember hearing that apologia before. Do you know if Nigel Turner's book is still in print?

[D B Campbell]

Thank you for the input D B Campbell. I remember hearing that apologia before. Do you know if Nigel Turner's book is still in print?

You're welcome. I hadn't really thought about whether the book is still available ... but, amazingly, it is!