the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Taxing
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or TAXING (ἀπογράθω, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘enrolment’), occur in the Gospels only in Luke 2:1-5. The words refer to the registration of the inhabitants of Palestine, with a view to levying taxation upon them for Imperial purposes. In the present instance this appears to have been done, not by the usual Roman method of enrolling persons under their place of residence, but by the Jewish method of enumerating them according to the cities and towns with which their families were originally connected. For the enrolment is mentioned in order to explain why Joseph and Mary came from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the time when Jesus was born. The passage would need no further comment, were it not for the historical difficulty that has been raised in connexion with the statement of v. 2 about Quirinius. There was a well-known enrolment (Acts 5:37) which took place in Judaea under his supervision, after the deposition of Archelaus in a.d. 6 (Josephus Ant. xvii. xiii. 5, xviii. i. 1); but it has been seriously questioned whether he held an earlier governorship of Syria before the death of Herod the Great [Note: reat Cranmer’s ‘Great’ Bible 1539.] , and whether such an enrolment as St. Luke describes really took place at that time. With regard to the first point, it is now admitted that Quirinius probably held a post of responsibility in Syria before the governorship which began in a.d. 6 (see Schürer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] i. i. 353 ff., and art. Quirinius). With regard to the second point, it has been shown by Sir Wm. Ramsay (Was Christ born at Bethlehem?) that, in Egypt at least, enrolments took place every fourteen years, that traces of the same arrangement have been found in other parts of the Empire, and that it may have extended to Palestine. The dates, when traced backwards, would include a.d. 20, a.d. 6, and b.c. 8. If an enrolment were actually due in Palestine in the last-named year, its completion may have been somewhat delayed by the disturbed state of Herod’s kingdom, and may have fallen as late as b.c. 6, which is the probable date of the birth of Jesus.
James Patrick.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Taxing'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/t/taxing.html. 1906-1918.
