Roman Census

[Lost_Warrior]

Someone asked this on a Pagan forum of which I'm a member, and I didn't know the answer, but thought it was an interesting question:

 

Stupid me, arguing with a literalist.

 

Is there any evidence of the Roman census that would have required a man to tke his pregnant wife back to the town of his forefathers? Or simply to have gone himself?

 

Google is annoying on this question, trying to parse the good source/badsource, just claiming this to be true question.

 

It seems silly to me to force a person to go miles and miles every so many years just for recordkeeping; for one thing, during the few months before and after the Census, everything would be chaos, and for another thing, more than likely no one would bother to show up.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Someone asked this on a Pagan forum of which I'm a member, and I didn't know the answer, but thought it was an interesting question:

 

Stupid me, arguing with a literalist.

 

Is there any evidence of the Roman census that would have required a man to tke his pregnant wife back to the town of his forefathers? Or simply to have gone himself?

 

Google is annoying on this question, trying to parse the good source/badsource, just claiming this to be true question.

 

It seems silly to me to force a person to go miles and miles every so many years just for recordkeeping; for one thing, during the few months before and after the Census, everything would be chaos, and for another thing, more than likely no one would bother to show up.

My answer, yes it's impossible to sustain a census of the entire Roman world, but what really happened during Jesus' time was that the "local" governor or king decided to hold a local census so he could TAX them.

 

If you want a long@// answer, here

IF you want an easy answer:

Courtesy of link to article

CENSUS/TAXATION: Luke 2:1-4 mentions that Jesus' birth occurred during the time that Caesar Augustus had ordered all of the known world to be taxed. Luke said that every person had to return to the city of his ancestors, to be registered and taxed. Joseph went to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. But this universal census and tax never actually happened. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote a very complete history of the Jews in Palestine. He does mention a census which was conducted in Judea in 6 CE. But this was only a local census, not one that would enable "all the world to be taxed." Its purpose was to count the male population so that they could be taxed at a later time. And it triggered a major uprising among the Jews, who regarded a census as against scripture and the will of God. He does not refer to an earlier census and poll tax.

At the time of Jesus' birth, the Jews were still subject to King Herod. Since Palestine was a client kingdom of Rome, only the king had powers of taxation in the land. 2 It was only in areas that were operated under direct Roman rule that Caesar Augustus could have taxed the citizens directly. There is no record of a mass migration of adults to their ancestral cities in order to be registered. It would have been totally impractical to hold a census in this way. The primitive transportation systems of the Roman Empire would have been totally inadequate to handle the flow of people. The entire empire would be largely shut down for many months while people were returning to their home towns. Even today, with airplanes, trains, busses and automobiles, it would not be practical to hold a census in this manner.

Edited December 27, 2006 by FLavius Valerius Constantinus

[Lost_Warrior]

Thanks for the info! I knew it was a reference to the Bible, but that's all I knew because I'm not familiar with the Bible.

[Northern Neil]

I knew it was a reference to the Bible, but that's all I knew because I'm not familiar with the Bible.

 

If you know your paganism, you probably know most of whats in the Bible anyway!

[caldrail]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reference to a census in Judaea comes from the bible? There's no other historical source for one earlier than 6ad? The reason I say this is that I tend to think that much of that story is fiction. If there's an official record of such a census then fine, I've got no problem.

 

The other reason I'm sceptical is we assume that Jesus was born on december 25th in the year 0. I doubt he was. Records of births weren't usually kept unless you were of a high born family. Now its true that Jesus's family weren't peasants but in Judaea at that time, despite the roman presence, I don't believe accurate records of births and deaths were kept. The traditional birth date for Jesus was settled at a much later time, three hundred years afterward, and it was fitted into the roman calender to fall at the end of the saturnalia, a very popular festival. All a matter of religious politics and christian marketing really.

 

To answer the original question, surely a census taker would simply require everyone to register locally? Going back to the town of your forefathers carries hints of apartheid in ancient times and would have created financial problems for those forced to travel. Not good for the taxman then.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

It is highly unlikely that Jesus was born on the 25th of December for the simple fact that the early Christians celebrated his birthday on the 6th of January.

25th December is a Pagan grafting into a traditional Christian holiday presumably meant to coincide with the birthday of Sol Invictus, the deity worshipped a large part of the empire in Constantine's day.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Also it has been long shown that the year 0 ( or rather the year 1 ) was a later reconstruction by a monk in the late roman empire, monk who did something wrong in his calculations which, when remade by modern scholars, gives a date of birth around 6 or 7 AD, one of the sources being the Josephus extract already given and it's mention of a census.

[Andrew Dalby]

Also it has been long shown that the year 0 ( or rather the year 1 ) was a later reconstruction by a monk in the late roman empire, monk who did something wrong in his calculations which, when remade by modern scholars, gives a date of birth around 6 or 7 AD, one of the sources being the Josephus extract already given and it's mention of a census.

 

There's a point to make about the sentence "It happened in those days that there came out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the world should be registered/declared/subject to tax' (Luke 2.1).

 

The gospel was written a long time after Jesus's birth, on the basis of about two generations of oral tradition among not very administratively-aware people, in what was (at first) a client kingdom, not part of the Empire (though, by the time Luke wrote, its status had changed!)

 

This means that you can't press expressions like "ten oikoumenen" (the world, the settled world) and you can't rely on the naming of "Caesar Augustus" (but note that there's no anachronism -- he was in power at the time!). All that the people telling the story would have known, is that everyone around them was to be registered, with the cheerful prospect of taxation to follow. It's even possible, if government propaganda reached these people at all, that they were told it was an order of the superior authority (Augustus) when in fact it wasn't. (This happens whenever the British Ministry of Agriculture does something more than usually oppressive and stupid -- they claim it's a ruling from Brussels.)

 

As for the necessity to travel, if we regard this as being within the kingdom of Herod (and not literally "the whole world"), it's oppressive but not unusual. In those ancient pre-online days, the government often made people come and visit it. Even now, if I want to renew my passport quickly, I am probably going to have to make a long journey. The cost of the journey is my problem -- I still have to pay the same fee at the end.