Work Notes XI

Reminder: Anyone may review my work notes during the progress of this work. If you would like a copy of the key to the shorthand, please email me. Thank you.

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Gentiles in the Roman Empire had heard the expression "son of god." In particular, that honorific had been applied to the first emperor, Augustus. The title was also applied, it is reported, to tably Tiberius, who was emperor during Jesus' earthly ministry, Nero, who persecuted Christians, and Domitian, who may have persecuted Christians. All three emperors commanded the empire in the First Century, when the idea of Jesus as "son of God" was catching on.
The idea of Jesus as Messiah (=Christ) was meaningful to Jews, but Gentiles were not familiar with this tradition. But they were familiar with the concept of "son of God." So the apostles used that concept as a means of reaching Gentiles. And, "son of God" also had Semitic meanings, two of which are "servant of God" and "angel." It is curious that the synoptic gospels, in particular, equate Jesus' admission to being the/a "son of God" with blasphemy. Blasphemy would have been more arguable had he admitted to being "God the Son," a Trinitarian notion that emerged in the church over time.
More on this subject found in shorthand notes MDM below.
WikiPedia informs us:

In Greek mythology, Heracles (son of Zeus) and many other figures were considered to be sons of gods through union with mortal women. From around 360 BC onwards Alexander the Great may have implied he was a demigod by using the title "Son of Ammon–Zeus."
In 42 BC, Julius Caesar was formally deified as "the divine Julius" (divus Iulius) after his assassination. His adopted son, Octavian (better known as Augustus, a title given to him 15 years later, in 27 BC) thus became known as divi Iuli filius (son of the divine Julius) or simply divi filius (son of the god). As a daring and unprecedented move, Augustus used this title to advance his political position in the Second Triumvirate, finally overcoming all rivals for power within the Roman state.
The word applied to Julius Caesar as deified was divus, not the distinct word deus. Thus Augustus called himself Divi filius, and not Dei filius [divi implied a lesser god; dei probably implied Zeus/Jupiter, the chief god]. The line between been god and god-like was at times less than clear to the population at large, and Augustus seems to have been aware of the necessity of keeping the ambiguity. As a purely semantic mechanism, and to maintain ambiguity, the court of Augustus sustained the concept that any worship given to an emperor was paid to the "position of emperor" rather than the person of the emperor. However, the subtle semantic distinction was lost outside Rome, where Augustus began to be worshiped as a deity. The inscription DF thus came to be used for Augustus, at times unclear which meaning was intended. The assumption of the title Divi filius by Augustus meshed with a larger campaign by him to exercise the power of his image. Official portraits of Augustus made even towards the end of his life continued to portray him as a handsome youth, implying that miraculously, he never aged. Given that few people had ever seen the emperor, these images sent a distinct message.

A denarius minted circa 18 BC. Obverse: CAESAR AVGVSTVS; reverse: DIVVS IVLIV(S) (God's son).

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Above: 2 pages from Brown, BoM

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Above: Brown BoM 268. Footnote 14. Important point.

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Work Notes X

2 coins

Temporarily posted for my reference.

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Michael Molnar's coin depicting a star that inspired his Star of Bethlehem theory.

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From Wiki page: denarius minted under Tiberias

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Appendix: Out of Egypt

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Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus
Matthew 2:1-23; Luke 2:40. About 3350 words.

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The stories about the birth of Jesus are placed in appendices because they are not at all essential to the message of salvation. There are a number of questions as to their authenticity. The remainder of the gospel accounts clearly are recollections of words spoken and actions taken by Jesus, though the writers were not always certain of where, when, or in what order, events occurred.

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After Joseph had established himself in Bethlehem and his little family had been living there for some time,¹ three magi (astrologers)² showed up in Jerusalem, wanting to know where the new king of the Jews was. They said they had seen his "star rise in the east,"^z1 and wished to worship him. Everybody was very interested in this news, which could easily spell trouble from the Romans, who would brook no challenge to their rule. King Herod was especially worried. He was well known for getting rid of anyone who might present a rival claim.

Herod summoned a meeting of the leading priests and experts in scripture and demanded that they tell him where the Messiah was to be born. (The Hebrew word Messiah and the Greek word Christ both mean Anointed. Every proper king of Israel was anointed with oil as a sign that he had been chosen by Jehovah. Many hoped that God would send a man anointed by God as the king chosen to save the Jews and Israel. This then implied that such a "son of man" would have been born a descendant of David, since it was believed that only David's descendants had a right to be king.)

After consulting one another, they told Herod, "In the Bethlehem that is in Judaea. We refer you to the scripture that says,

And you Bethlehem, in Judah,
are not in any way the least among the clans of Judah
for out of you will come a governor
who will be the shepherd of my people, Israel.

(Matthew quotes what we know as Micah 5:2.³)

English translations of Matthew vary on this passage. The Matthean version came across something like this: Bethlehem is not to be counted as insignificant with respect to Israel's rulers because out of Bethlehem is to come a good ruler who will shepherd God's people, Israel.

Once the room had cleared, Herod had the three brought in secret to his court, where he questioned them carefully as to exactly when they first saw the star. This permitted him to calculate the child's age. The king then sent them to Bethlehem to locate (and identify) the child. He told them to let him know when they had found him so that he might also go to worship the child.

Having obtained the information they needed, the three traveled to Bethlehem, which was only five miles away. Once there, they were able to locate the child.

Matthew says the star led them directly to the right house, but if so, one wonders why they had to ask around in Jerusalem. They doubtless went to Jerusalem because, as the capital of the Jewish land, that seemed a logical place for the birth of a messiah. In any case, as Bethlehem was rather small, it doesn't seem that, with diligent inquiries, they would have had much trouble finding a male child of the right age.

On reaching the right house, they found the baby boy with his mother Mary. They fell to their knees and worshiped him and then opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.⁴

Before leaving Bethlehem, one of them was warned in a dream to steer clear of Herod, and so they left for their own land by a route that avoided Jerusalem.

After their departure, Joseph also had a dream in which one of Jehovah's angels told him: "Get up right now! Take the baby and his mother and flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you differently. Herod is about to try to destroy the baby."⁵

So Joseph arose and did as he was told. He and his family remained in Egypt until after Herod's death.  (This episode fulfills the saying, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."⁶)

Once Herod realized that the astrologers had made a fool of him, he went into a terrible rage. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys under age two⁷ in and around Bethlehem. Herod knew how old his target was by what the astrologers had told him.

This atrocity fulfilled a passage of the prophet Jeremiah:

A voice was heard in Ramah –
Weeping and great mourning;
Rachel weeping for her children
And she would not be comforted,
because they are not⁸

Once Herod was dead, Joseph had another dream in which Jehovah's angel appeared. The angel told him, "Arise and take the youngster and his mother and go back to the territory of Israel. They are dead⁹ who sought the child's life.

Joseph did as he was told, but as he entered Jewish territory, he heard that Herod's son, Archelaus, was now in charge (Caesar Augustus had denied him the kingship but named him ethnarch, or national leader). Archelaus had a terrible reputation and so Joseph decided to stay out of Judaea, instead taking his little family up north to Galilee, back to the town of Nazareth. This choice fulfilled what was said by the prophets, that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene.

The child grew strong, and was exceptionally intelligent. God gave him wonderful spiritual gifts.

On their return journey they once again decided to avoid Bethlehem and Judaea in particular, says Matthew, because Archelaus was (still) ruler. Though Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas, his rule evidently wasn't considered to be quite as awful as that of Archelaus, whose reputation was very bad. If we accept Matthew on this, then we know that the family traveled back to Nazareth during or before 6 a.d. Jesus would have been between 8 and 12 years old. Assuming he was born near the beginning of Archelaus's rule, we can say Jesus would have been 10 years old at about the time Archelaus was deposed and exiled to the barbaric frontier town of Vienne, in Gaul.

Under Augustus, the Jews of Egypt were reduced to the lowest status, and thus all had to pay the burdensome poll tax at the full rate. This was quite a comedown from the generous treatment in Egypt that they had received from the Greek Ptolemaic rulers. (History repeats: The Jews of Egypt experienced favorable treatment under several pharaohs but their fortunes greatly reversed under a very powerful pharaoh, Augustus.) Most of the Jews, it appears, lived in and around Alexandria.

Thus when Joseph brought his wife and child to Egypt, they were assured a relatively stable civil environment. But the onerous tax would have been reason enough for Joseph to seek to relocate back to his home country once the civil unrest there had cooled. Yet, not long after their return, insurrection erupted again. Insurrection marked both the beginning and the end of the reign of Archelaus, though the bloodshed in the former period seems to have been the most terrible.

So we are assuming that Joseph brought his pregnant wife to Bethlehem for some unspecified reason eight to ten years prior to the date given by Josephus (perhaps inaccurately) for the census of Quirinius. Though I have suggested that Joseph felt it expedient to take his family far from the slaughterhouse of Galilee and Judea, another possibility is that he left Nazareth in order to spare his wife the humiliation of everyone knowing that the birth had come too soon to have occurred within normal wedlock. It may be that early Christians were averse to mention of that point, not wishing to give ammunition to skeptics or simply being unwilling to make it seem as though there was all that much of a scandal.

If we decide against reconciling the Lucan and Matthean accounts, we may speculate as follows: When Joseph heard about what the Romans had done in the nearby town of Sepphoris  – massacring the populace and selling the surviving women and children into slavery – he immediately made haste to flee Galilee with the pregnant Mary.

So we may imagine that the Matthean writer had heard, in part, of the massacre at Sepphoris and Joseph's flight southward, and brought in King Herod's well-known antagonism to potential rival claimants to the throne to explain Joseph's flight southward (this time from Bethlehem to Egypt rather than from Nazareth to Bethlehem). In addition, we now know from history that Herod had had three of his adult sons executed for supposedly endangering his hold on the throne. This information may have become mixed with the old account of the Sepphoris massacre.

This hypothesis would require Jesus to have been born in 4 b.c., the year of Herod the Great's death. But there is a credible theory that the star of Bethlehem was a conjunction of heavenly bodies that occurred in 6 b.c. Still, we don't know when the magi actually arrived in Jerusalem. They might have come two years after the fact, perhaps asking about the sign while they were acting as envoys of a foreign state. Note that "Herod" ordered the death of all boys aged two and under, and Jesus would have been about two years old under that scenario.

We also note that Archelaus was a ruthless tyrant who took after his father in that respect, though lacking his father's political acumen. After Quintilius's Roman legions restored order, Archelaus began his reign. There is nothing inconceivable about either Herod or his son Archelaus ordering the death of boys in the Bethlehem area that were regarded as potentially true heirs of David and hence very dangerous. Scholars estimate that, supposing such an event occurred, no more than 20 children would have been slain. Considering the violence of that period, we should not rule out that possibility.

And since Archelaus was a Herod, it is conceivable that Matthew's information actually concerned Archelaus.

Still, Herod was very ill in his final months and fully capable of ordering such a massacre. In either case, the account of it would have been just one more atrocity report among the many that were soon to follow as the anti-Roman insurrection was suppressed.

We note that Zechariah encountered the angel during Herod's reign, says Luke. Further, Jesus was born about 15 months after John the Dunker, Luke implies. This information places the births of both John and Jesus during or shortly after Herod's reign. Now because Matthew and Luke have independent sources, we tend to suspect that Jesus' birth during or shortly after Herod's reign is confirmed – though Luke's dating of a.d. 6 is improbable.

In any case, if we follow Matthew, we have some astrologers (often assumed to have been three in number) from a Gentile country to the east seeing a star (Johannes Kepler considered the possibility of a nova but settled on a supernatural event) that they recognized as a sign of the birth of the Jewish messiah. Were these, perhaps, Babylonian Jews who had learned Gentile mysteries? Babylonian Jews had extensive interaction with Jerusalem in that period. Perhaps their arts had been passed down from the period before Darius, when the magi were still strong. The pre-Darian magi^wx1 represented an extension of the old Sumerian practice of sorcery. On the other hand, most of the Roman empire, though not the Judaean part, took astrology very seriously.

When these magi asked around in Jerusalem where the new king of the Jews might be, the populace was stunned – because by that period astrology was strictly forbidden by, in particular, the Pharisee watchdogs of Judaism, and so no one in Jerusalem was aware of the sign.

These men were brought to Herod's palace and interrogated. But Herod or Archelaus was concerned not to tip his hand and so he did not order the three watched when, after his advisers had pointed to Bethlehem as the messiah's birthplace, the three left for that town, only five miles distant. But the ruler told them to return when they had found the infant so that he could worship him also.   Matthew has the star materializing and leading them straight to the right house. Yet, we would think they did not need the star's help. Had they gone to the village, a few inquiries would undoubtedly have led them to the right place. After all, they knew the boy's age to within a good degree of accuracy.

Matthew records that as the astrologers departed Bethlehem, they were warned by an angel to take a detour around Jerusalem, which they did. Also, an angel told Joseph in a dream to flee immediately to Egypt, Matthew adds. But we can imagine Joseph's horrified reaction when the foreigners told him about their visit to Herod's palace. Any adult Jew living under the Herods would have immediately grasped the extreme danger, knowing the horrendous measures that would be used to suppress rival claims to the seat of power. We can visualize Joseph himself warning the astrologers, who then prudently took another route while Joseph saddled up his donkey and left immediately for Egypt.

To repeat, the ensuing massacre of the little boys fits quite well with the character of both Herod and of his venal son Archelaus.

A massacre of some innocents
Earlier in Herod's reign, the Judaean people, led by the Pharisees, rejected Herod's attempt to bring some Hellenic culture to Jerusalem with a theater and a sheltered horse race arena for games, gladiatorial contests and chariot races, reports A.H.M. Jones in The Herods of Judaea (Oxford 1938). Jones continues:

Feeling ran very high and ten fanatics resolved to save their people by assassinating Herod. Their plan was to strike him down while he was sitting in the theatre glorying in his sin. It was discovered just in time by one of Herod's secret agents and the assassins were arrested, and, boldly confessing their crime, were tortured and executed. Popular sympathy ran high in their favour, and soon afterwards the spy who had betrayed them was lynched in the open street and his body, torn limb from limb, was thrown to the dogs. Herod had some difficulty in identifying the perpetrators of the outrage, but by persistent torture of some bystanders who had been seized he elicited their names. They were all executed with all their families. By these grim methods Herod enforced his will, and the games went on. Their propagandist effect was, however, negligible for the Jews sullenly refused to attend them and the audiences were composed almost entirely of foreigners attracted by their splendour.

Plainly, the families of the killers had done nothing to warrant death. But Herod was applying a type of punishment common in the Orient in those days and for many years thereafter.

A number of stories of Herod's cruelty circulated after his death, some having a legendary quality, Jones points out.

When he lay dying, it was said, he caused all the notable men of the Jews to be assembled in the hippodrome of Jericho and   charged Salome and Alexas, as soon as he was dead, to slay them every one; for he knew well the people would rejoice at his death and he would have mourning at his funeral. The historical origin of this story is probably the fact  that the national assembly was summoned shortly before his death, probably to hear the arrangements for the succession, and was dismissed by Salome and Alexas without explanation. Another more familiar legend tells how wise men came from the east announcing the birth of a king of the Jews at Bethlehem, and how Herod, when they did not tell which child it was that should take his crown from him, massacred every man-child in Bethlehem. 

All that notwithstanding, we don't know where the story of the wise men comes from. For that matter, neither do we know where   Luke's story of the three shepherds comes from, but certainly God has the power to make such events happen.

In any case,   we can imagine that Jesus was born during a break in the strife, thus permitting his parents to dedicate him at the Temple, as told by Luke.

The writer of Matthew sees the move to Nazareth as providential, as he finds here a divine pun. Nazirite means consecrated one. Certainly during Jesus' 40 "days of separation" in the wilderness, Jesus met the criteria of a Nazirite.¹⁰ Further, as God's Anointed, who could be more consecrated than Jesus? In fact, the word messiah – more accurately rendered mashiach – means a person anointed, which is to say, consecrated, to serve God.

One of the prophets referring to an anointed deliverer is Daniel. In chapter 9 of the book Daniel, we have,

25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Perhaps the writer of Matthew did not name Daniel because he saw the prophecy as too difficult for his readers. Elsewhere in the Old Testament are at least 40 references to a messiah, although that word is not used.^r3

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1. I must assume this statement in order to bring Matthew and Luke into partial conformity to each other. You will also see that I insert here and there other relevant detail based on modern research and knowledge.

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2. These men, whom Matthew calls magi, were very probably skilled in astrology, as well as in other areas of occult knowledge.^Wx2 The word magic stems from the Greek word magus (magi is the plural). By the time of Herod, any form of divination was shunned by Jews, who would then not have been aware of such a sign. By worshiping Jesus, and giving him gifts, the magi symbolically acknowledged that he was granted mastery of all worldly power, the spiritual power Jesus himself later associated with Satan.
Interestingly, the Jehovah's Witnesses group argues that the association of the magi with Satan is demonstrated by how their desire to pay their respects went so badly wrong.
The 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler suggested that the magi saw a nova, a fairly common astronomical event in which two nearby stars interact, appearing to us as a "new star." Indeed, they may have seen a supernova, whereby a star is destroyed by explosion. The light output is fantastically high and, when close enough (not too close, God willing!), can be seen from earth for as much as several months.

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3. Micah 5:2

But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you be little among the clans of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me him who is to be ruler in Israel – whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Notice that the final clause implies the pre-existence of the one who comes out of Judah to save Israel, even though he is to come forth to God. The doctrine of the dual sonship of God and his humanity is here implicit. If we then regard the Holy Spirit as effectively the mind of God, we have the doctrine of the Trinity.

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4. The Psalms and Isaiah use poetic imagery as they forecast the reign of Israel's deliverer. A more or less literal fulfillment of that theme is given by Matthew.

Psalm 72:10-15

10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.
12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.
13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
15 And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.

Isaiah 60:6

The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.

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5. History records that Herod was a very dangerous man. He even had three of his adult sons executed.

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6. Hosea 11:1

 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.

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7. We should not assume that Jesus was two years old at that time, though he might have been. Herod was quite capable of trying to make very sure that the child was not overlooked by setting an age threshold well above the lad's actual age.

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8. Jeremiah 31:15

Thus says Jehovah:
A voice was heard in Ramah –
lamentation, and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeping for her children
would not be comforted,
because they were not.

As with other Old Testament scriptures quoted in Matthew, some object that the passage is taken out of context and that the prophet was not conveying the message that Matthew relates. An answer: The Holy Spirit is the one who helps Christians interpret scripture. Thus, scripture means whatever God says it means. God speaks through his old word in new ways. In fact, the story of Jesus itself proves that fact!

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9. "They" may refer to Herod and his inner circle.

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10. On Nazarites, we have
Numbers 6

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord:
3 He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.
4 All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk.
5 All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.
6 All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body.
7 He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die: because the consecration of his God is upon his head.
8 All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord.

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z1. It has been reported that the phrase "in the east" apparently refers to the specific astronomical concept termed "heliacal rising."
More on this matter will be included in an updated version of this page.

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r3. Many other suggestions on this topic have been made. I don't insist that my proposed solution is necessarily correct. On the nazirite interpretation, see The Birth of the Messiah – A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke by Raymond E. Brown (Doubleday/Image 1979), pp 210 and 211. Brown does not mention my Daniel reference.
He notes on p225 and elsewhere that the Matthean writer has two definite passages in mind: Isaiah 4:3 (He who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy) and Judges 16:17 (I have been a Nazirite of God from my mother's womb). Holy is equivalent to consecrated, which is what a Nazirite was. Brown gives a detailed explanation of Matthew's justification for interchanging Nazirite and Holy One.

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Wx1. The Star of Bethlehem – The Legacy of the Magi by Michael R. Molnar (Rutgers 1999). Molnar brings the penetrating mind of a scientist to his research on this topic.

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Wx2.

Appendix: Jehovah helps: the birth of Jesus

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Luke's nativity story, plus commentary.
Luke 8: 8-39. Commentary and explanatory information is found below the birth story. About 2000 words.

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The stories about the birth of Jesus are placed in appendices because they are not at all essential to the message of salvation. There are a number of questions as to their authenticity. The remainder of the gospel accounts clearly are recollections of words spoken and actions taken by Jesus, though the writers were not always certain of where, when, or in what order, events occurred.

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Luke says,

It so happened during that time that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a worldwide taxation census be conducted..

This census occurred when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to his ancestral town in order to register.

At that time, Joseph, with his pregnant fiance Mary, left the Galilean town of Nazareth in order to register in Bethlehem in Judaea. Bethlehem is known as the City of David, being of the house and family of David.

In any case, Joseph for some reason traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem with his pregnant wife.

On arrival in Bethlehem, Mary's water broke and the baby was delivered – in an animal manger because the inn was full up. Mary wrapped her firstborn son in a newborn's cloths.

Luke adds,

Several shepherds were keeping a night-watch on their flock in a field nearby. Suddenly, Jehovah's angel was right next to them, and everything lit up with God's glory.

The men were frightened, but the angel said, "Nothing to fear. Behold: I bring you awesome news that is wonderful for everybody. Born to you today in David's city is a Savior [later known as Christ the Lord]. And here is a sign for you: Lying in a manger, you will find a baby in newborn cloths."

Suddenly a host of divine beings appeared with the angel, thundering:

Glory to God in the highest heaven!
On earth, peace among humans, for whom he cares deeply.

Once the angels vanished, the shepherds made haste to see what the Lord had revealed. In Bethlehem, they quickly found Joseph and Mary, with the baby lying in the animal manger, as they had been told. Immediately they told the parents about what they had just seen and heard concerning the child. Mary never forgot this incident, and continuously mulled it over.

Luke continues,

On the eighth day after birth, it was time for the baby to be circumcised in order to fulfill Jewish law. At the ceremony, the lad was officially given the name Jesus (which means Jehovah helps or Jehovah saves).

Once Mary's time of purification was done (when Jewish women were kept apart from others after the menstrual period or after childbirth), they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, in accordance with Jewish custom based on the scriptures that say that every firstborn who is male will be deemed holy to Jehovah. (Under the law, they were required to offer for sacrifice in the Temple either a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.)

Now there was a devout and upright man in Jerusalem who had been looking for the Consolation of Israel. Being one of the rare Jews blessed with the Holy Spirit, he had been assured by the Spirit that he would not see death before first seeing what he had so longed for [that is, the Lord's Anointed].

The Spirit led him into the Temple, and on seeing the baby with his parents, took him in his arms and praised God,

Now let your servant depart in peace, O Lord
for, as you said, my eyes have seen your salvation
prepared in front of all peoples:
a light for revelation to the gentiles
and the glory of your people Israel

After blessing the parents, Simeon told Mary, "This child is set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel, and for a sign which is spoken against, so that the real thoughts of many will be revealed. Yes, and a sword will pierce through your own soul."

Soon after this, the prophetess Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, approached. She was a very old woman who had been married for seven years and a widow for 84 years. She spent most of her time in the Temple, worshiping, fasting and praying for others night and day. She talked about the boy to anyone who was interested in the Redemption of Israel.

The information on the Quirinius census is found in the current version of Luke 2: 1–5.

Quirinius' first census of Galilee and Judea occurred in 6 a.d. (or possibly 7 a.d.). But scholars tend to agree that the date implied for Jesus' birth here is implausible. That is, 6 or 7 a.d. seems contrary to various other data given. Thus, they tend to see Luke's infancy narrative as a pious interpolation – perhaps inserted to fight the Marcion heresy, which dehumanized Christ.

The Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown notes, "The wrong temporal sequence in the Acts reference suggests that the Luke-Acts author did not know precisely when this census took place ... and so he may have mingled it with the troubled times of Archelaus's father, Herod the Great, ten years before."¹

After Caesar Augustus removed Herod Archelaus² as ethnarch of Judaea, the emperor appointed Quirinius as his legate for the newly formed Syrian tetrarchy, thus putting the Judaean part of the new administrative area under direct Roman rule. In the name of the emperor, Quirinius required that everyone in his tetrarchy register for a census. As Herod the Great, Archelaus's father, was a hereditary ruler of Judaea, he had paid Rome a vassal's tribute, which his tax gatherers gained without necessity of a census. But Quirinius, imposing the Roman system, required to know how many people lived in his region for taxation purposes.

Generally, scholars put the year of Jesus' birth as within the period spanned by 6 b.c. to 2 b.c. So clearly Luke's story appears to be anachronistic. Our earliest version of Luke comes from Marcion, who led a sect strongly at variance with orthodox Christianity, and Marcion's version lacks the infancy story. But, as Marcion is reported to have pruned Luke rather a lot, we cannot tell whether he lopped off that story or whether it was never in the earliest Luke.

In any case, I find it quite interesting that Brown's list of Roman legates for Syria includes Quintilius (or Quinctilius) Varus for 6 to 4 b.c., or perhaps a year or so longer. That time period corresponds to the period of Jesus' birth.³ In other words Quintilius governed in the time frame for Jesus' birth. The names of the two governors strike the ear as very similar and we can well imagine people confusing them. So is it unreasonable to conjecture that the two names were merged in the historical data available to an editor or writer of Luke?

The chief problem with that idea is that Quintilius would not have compelled the vassal king of Judaea, Herod, to perform a census. But, in 4 b.c., soon after Herod the Great's death, a rebel named Judah seized the arsenal of Galilee's largest city, Sepphoris, and armed the citizenry. In response, the Syrian governor Publius Quintilius Varus sacked Sepphoris – which is just a few miles north of Nazareth – and sold the population into slavery.

Also interesting is the fact that this Judah was the same man who in 6 a.d. led a revolt against the census of Quirinius, the census noted in Luke. That census was not imposed on "all the world" but on the whole of the new Roman tetrarchy over Jewish Palestine because Rome had deposed one of the vassal rulers and begun direct rule, which meant that it would now collect taxes directly. But, the census – which is forbidden in the old Jewish law – sparked Judah's second insurrection.

Hence, we have the possibility that Joseph took his family south to get clear of the rebellion or its aftermath. But civil unrest also rocked Jerusalem, with thousands slain. The suppression of the first insurrection by Quintilius Varus's legions was a catastrophic event for Jews, according to rabbinic sources.

So it does indeed look as though the Luke account's time discrepancy was a result of a simple confusion of nearly identical names. Luke's writer assumed Joseph was responding to Quirinius's census, which was associated in his mind with Judah's rebellion – though he was unaware that there had been two rebellions by the same man fought against first Quintilius in 4 b.c. and then Quirinius in 6 a.d. (these years correspond to the reign of Archelaus).

But, another intriguing possibility is that the historian Josephus failed to realize that he was reporting as independent happenings two different versions of the same set of events. Could Quirinius have been the Sabinius of the earlier revolt? Was a census for tax purposes conducted before or soon after the death of Herod the Great? Minority scholarly opinion favors that idea.

In any case, I find the idea of Joseph fleeing a war zone with his pregnant wife more reasonable than the idea of his taking her 90 miles in order to enroll in a census. Scholars tend to doubt that the Romans would have required such a thing – though Roman rule could be harsh. In fact, the high plausibility of my conjecture tends to corroborate the essential claim that Joseph removed with his pregnant wife from Nazareth to Bethlehem. A skilled carpenter can work anywhere.

We may stretch this reasoning further and suggest that during the couple's flight from the war zone, they stopped in Bethlehem mainly because Mary had to give birth.   As said, the civil violence was not confined to Galilee. Revolutionaries took advantage of the fact that Archelaus had to go to Rome to resolve a dispute over whether he was to rule Judea in the wake of his father's death.

While he was away, a bloodbath struck Jerusalem as religious patriots tried to remove the Roman eagle from the Temple. Perhaps Joseph stopped in Bethlehem so his wife could give birth but, considering the awful atrocities (rabbinical tradition calls this period a "terrible" time for Jews), headed south to one of the Jewish colonies in Egypt, as Matthew says, rather than directly back to Nazareth, as Luke indicates. We might expect that God would make sure his precious son was kept safely away from the tumult.

We should not be overly troubled by the cloudiness of the tales of events surrounding Jesus' birth, realizing that modern historians probably have much more information about events 65 to 95 years before the infancy narratives were composed than the authors had at the time. It would have been no small chore to obtain relevant information of events that occurred decades prior to Jesus' earthly ministry, especially because it is unlikely that the writers had access to Roman archives. And many archives were destroyed when Jerusalem was overrun in 70 a.d. But even had they had some access to official records, they were living in an era when transmission of information was not all that easy. No printing presses, no typewriters, no telephones, no computers.

On the other hand, though there is much that we don't know, various Roman and Jewish documentation has emerged – along with the forensic expertise of archaeologically oriented scientists, giving modern historians more data on the period around the time of Jesus' birth than the birth narrative writers had.

(Lack of instantaneous communications and photography also helps explain how it could be that officials in Jerusalem could be so skeptical of Jesus' miracles while he was not so far away. For example, Jericho is only about 15 miles from Jerusalem, but that's far enough so that all these officials had were jumbled verbal reports.)

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1. An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond E. Brown (Anchor/Doubleday 1996).

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2. The best account of Archelaus's reign is from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
https://miraclecurebook.blogspot.com/2020/09/herod-archelaus-troubled-career.html

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Herod Archelaus: a troubled career

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Below is one of the best accounts I have encountered on Archelaus. The apparent conflations and errors of Josephus and others have been corrected and put in perspective.
The original is found at
The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1729-archelaus

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By Richard Gottheil and Louis Ginzberg
Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
Son of Herod I.; king of Judea; born about 21 B.C., his mother being the Samaritan Malthace. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Rome for education, and, after a stay of two or three years, returned home with his brothers Antipas and Philip, who likewise had attended the schools of the Imperial City. His return was possibly hastened by the intrigues of Antipater, who by means of forged letters and similar devices calumniated him to his father, in the hope of insuring for him the same sanguinary fate he had prepared for his brothers Aristobulus and Alexander. As a result of these slanders, Herod designated Antipas, his youngest son, as his successor, changing his will to that effect. On his death-bed, however, four days before his demise, the king relinquished his determination and appointed Archelaus to the throne, while Antipas and Philip were made tetrarchs merely. Nothing is known definitely of the occasion for this change, though there may be some foundation for the statement of Archelaus' opponents, that the dying king, in his enfeebled condition, had yielded to some palace intrigue in the latter's favor.

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Copper Coin of Herod Archelaus. Obverse: ΗΡΩΔΟϒ (Hrodoy=Herod).
A bunch of grapes and leaf. Reverse: ΕΘΝΑΡΧΟΥ. (Ethnarchoy=Ethnarch).
A helmet with tuft of feathers: in field to left a caduceus.

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Archelaus thus attained the crown with little difficulty at the early age of eighteen. That aged plotter Salome found it convenient to abet Archelaus, and secured for him the adherence of the army; hence there was no opposition when he figured as the new ruler at the interment of Herod. The people, glad of the death of the tyrant, were well disposed toward Archelaus, and in the public assembly in the Temple the new king promised to have regard to the wishes of his subjects. It very soon became manifest, however, how little he intended to keep his word. Popular sentiment, molded by the Pharisees, demanded the removal of the Sadducean high priest Joezer (of the Boethus family), and the punishment of those former councilors of Herod who had brought about the martyrdom of the Pharisees Mattathias and Judas. Archelaus, professing always profound respect for the popular demand, pointed out that he could not well take any such extreme measures before he had been confirmed by the Roman emperor, Augustus, in his sovereignty: just as soon as this confirmation should be received, he declared himself willing to grant the people's desire. His subjects, however, seem not to have had confidence in his assurances; and when, on the day before Passover—a day when all Palestine, so to speak, was in Jerusalem—they became so insistent in their demand for immediate action, that the king felt himself compelled to send a detachment of the Herodian soldiery against them into the Temple courts; and when this detachment proved unable to master the enraged populace, he ordered out the whole available garrison. In the massacre that ensued, three thousand were left dead on the Temple pavements.

Division of the Kingdom by Rome
As soon as the tumult had been somewhat allayed, Archelaus hastened to Rome to secure the required confirmation of his succession from Augustus. He found that he had to encounter opposition from two sides. His brother Antipas, supported by many members of the Herodian house resident in Rome, claimed formal acknowledgment for Herod's second will, that nominated him king. Besides, the Jews of Palestine sent a deputation of fifty persons—who were supported by about 8,000 Jewish residents of Rome—and petitioned for the exclusion of the Herodians from any share whatever in the government of the land, and for the incorporation of Judea in the province of Syria. Such was the disloyalty among the Herodians, that many members of the family secretly favored this latter popular demand. But Augustus, with statesman-like insight, concluded that it was better for Roman interests to make of Judea a monarchy, governed by its own kings tributary to Rome, than to leave it a Roman province administered by Romans, in which latter case there would certainly be repeated insurrections against the foreign administration. As it would be more prudent to make such a monarchy as small and powerless as possible, he decided to divide Herod's somewhat extensive empire into three portions. Archelaus was accordingly appointed ethnarch—not king—of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, with the exception of the important cities of Gaza, Gadara, and Hippus, which latter were joined to the province of Syria. Antipas and Philip were made tetrarchs of the remaining provinces, the former receiving Galilee and Perea, and the latter the other lands east of the Jordan.

Insurrectionary Outbreaks
While these negotiations were pending in Rome, new troubles broke out in Palestine. The people, worked up almost into a state of frenzy by the massacres brought about by Herod and Archelaus, broke into open revolt in the absence of their ruler. The actual outbreak was without doubt directly caused by Sabinus—the procurator appointed by Augustus to assume charge pending the settlement of the succession—owing to his merciless oppression of the people. On the day of Pentecost in the year 4 B.C., a collision took place in the Temple precincts between the troops of Sabinus and the populace. Sabinus utilized his initial success in dispersing the people by proceeding to rob the Temple treasury. But disorders broke out all over the province, and his forces were not sufficient to repress them. Judas, son of the revolutionary Hezekiah in Galilee, a certain Simon in Perea, Athronges and his four brothers in other parts of the land, headed more or less serious uprisings. It was only when charge was assumed by Varus, the Roman legate in Syria, with his numerous legions, assisted, moreover, by Aretas, king of the Arabs, and his auxiliaries, that any measure of peace was restored to the land, and this not without the loss of several thousand Roman troops. What the loss on the Jewish side must have been may perhaps be surmised from the rabbinical tradition that the outbreak under Varus was one of the most terrible in Jewish history.

Banishment and Death
Archelaus returned to Jerusalem shortly after Varus suppressed the insurrection. Very little is known of the further events of his reign, which lasted ten years; but so much is clear, that instead of seeking to heal the wounds brought on the country by himself and his house, he did much to accelerate the ultimate overthrow of Judean independence. In the year 6 of the common era, a deputation of the Jewish and Samaritan aristocracy waited on Augustus in Rome, to prefer charges against Archelaus, with the result that he was immediately summoned to Rome, deprived of his crown, and banished to Vienne in Gaul, where—according to Dion Cassius Cocceianus, "Hist. Roma," lv. 27—he lived for the remainder of his days.

Archelaus was a veritable Herodian, but without the statesman-like ability of his father. He was cruel and tyrannical, sensual in the extreme, a hypocrite and a plotter. He observed the customary seven days of mourning for his father, but in the midst of them gave to his boon companions a congratulatory banquet on his accession. He carefully avoided placing his image on his coinage in deference to pharisaic susceptibilities; but he nevertheless allowed his passion for his widowed sister-in-law, Glaphyra, to master him, and married her in defiance of the sentiment of the people and the Pharisees, who regarded the union as incestuous (Lev. xviii. 16, xx. 21). He deposed the high priest Joezer on his return from Rome, not in obedience to popular complaint, but for a money consideration. Joezer's brother was his successor, although the latter was of exactly the same type. Indeed, Archelaus, in his short reign, deposed three high priests for purposes of profit. Against this serious list of evils there is hardly anything good to set in contrast, beyond perhaps the fact that he inherited from his father a certain love of splendor and a taste for building. He restored the royal palace at Jericho in magnificent style, surrounding it with groves of palms; and also founded a city, that he called in his own honor Archelais.

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Bibliography

Grätz, Gesch. d. Juden, iii. passim;
Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, iv. passim;
Hitzig, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. passim;
Schuuml;rer, Gesch. i. passim, and the literature therein indicated. On coinage, see Schürer, ib. p. 375, note 4; and Madden, Coins of the Jews, pp. 114-118.