Category: Bible History

The Gospel of Luke describes the timing of Jesus’ birth as follows (Luke 2:1-6):

¹ In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.

² This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

³ And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city.

⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be enrolled with Mary his betrothed, who was with child.

⁶ And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered (RSV).

Skeptics have claimed that this passage reveals historical error on Luke’s part. It has been claimed:

• • Augustus never instituted a worldwide census.
  • Quirinius conducted his census in A.D. 6, but Jesus was born around 7-6 B.C., meaning Luke is off by a decade.
  • People were not required to go to their ancestral cities in Roman censuses—much less the city where an ancestor like David had lived a thousand years earlier.

Each of these claims has straightforward answers. In fact, there are multiple answers.

The problem is not knowing how to respond, because we have an embarrassment of riches here in the form of numerous responses. The actual challenge is figuring out which of the many possible answers are the most likely.

Here we will look at only some of the responses that have been proposed. There are numerous others.

 

Did Augustus ever decree a worldwide enrollment?

How should we understand Luke’s statement that “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled”?

“All the world” means the Roman world—i.e., the Roman empire.

And many take Luke’s statement to mean that there was a single legal document issued by Augustus that commanded a worldwide enrollment, and this is possible.

As we will see below, there is evidence of a worldwide enrollment occurring in 3/2 B.C.; it just wasn’t a tax census.

On the other hand, the term that the RSV translates “decree” (Greek, dogma) can also mean things like “decision” or “command” (cf. BDAG, s.v. dogma).

Understood in this way, Luke would not be referring to a single legal document but just to a decision or command issued by Augustus. In other words, Augustus decided the whole empire needed to be taxed, and so it needed to be enrolled for those purposes.

This would tell us nothing about how the decision was implemented, just that the decision was made.

And this corresponds to the historical facts as they are known to us. Historian Paul L. Maier writes:

The three celebrated censuses conducted by Augustus in 28 B.C., 8 B.C., and A.D. 14—Achievement No. 8 in his Res Gestae—are apparently enrollments of Roman citizens only, although they may have involved censuses in the provinces also, since some Roman citizens certainly lived outside Italy.

Luke rather intends here a provincial census of noncitizens for purposes of taxation, and many records of such provincial registrations under Augustus have survived, including Gaul, Sicily, Cilicia, Cyrene, and Egypt. Among these were client kingdoms such as that of Herod the Great; for example, Archelaus (unrelated to Herod), client king of Cappadocia, instructed a subject tribe “to render in Roman fashion an account of their revenue and submit to tribute.”

Provincial enrollments are also well attested in Dio Cassius (53:22) and Livy (Epistles 134ff.; Annals 1:31, 2:6). There is also an epigraphic mention of a census by Quirinius at Apamea in Syria (an autonomous “client” city-state).

In view of such provincial enrollments, Mason Hammond concludes that Augustus began “a general census of the whole Empire for purposes of taxation” in 27 B.C.

It thus may be a mistake to suppose that Luke is referring to a single legal document issued by Augustus rather than a general policy established by Augustus to enroll the empire.

The latter better corresponds with the facts as they are known.

 

How Long Did Enrollments Take?

The Roman empire was a big place, and the Romans did not have rapid transportation or communication by today’s standards. As a result, censuses took time.

They often were performed in stages, the first stage being known as the descriptio prima (Lat., “first enrollment/registration”), which involved getting a list of everybody that needed to be taxed and their resources.

The taxation itself would come at a later stage, which added time to the process.

Subjects of the Roman empire also didn’t like being taxed—especially since so many of them were living in conditions of poverty—and Roman censuses often met with resistance, including violent uprisings.

Putting down these uprisings or otherwise getting stubborn locals to comply with the census process further added time to the procedure.

This could result in a census taking much longer than you might expect. Today, the United States conducts a population census once every ten years, with the survey period occupying a year.

However, we know of one case in this period when a Roman census in Gaul (France) took 40 years to complete! (I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke at 2:3).

Consequently, if the enrollment of Jesus’ birth was a tax census, Luke could be referring to an early phase of it—such as the descriptio prima—occurring at the time of his birth, but the census itself may have stretched into the first decade A.D., leading it to become associated with the later administration of Quirinius.

 

What year was Jesus born/What year did the enrollment occur?

Both Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. A common view is that Herod died in 4 B.C., and since Matthew indicates that Jesus was born up to two years before this (Matt. 2:16), it has been common to date Jesus’ birth in 7 or 6 B.C.

Despite its popularity, this view is inaccurate. As recent scholarship has indicated, Herod the Great actually died in 1 B.C. (see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology [2nd ed.], Andrew E. Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul).

Consequently, Jesus was not born in 7 or 6 B.C. but in 3 or 2 B.C., as multiple early sources indicate.

We thus should look for the enrollment occurring in 3/2 B.C.

 

What was the nature of the enrollment?

Many people assume that the enrollment was a census. Historically, censuses have been used for a variety of purposes.

Today in America, they are used for determining things like the apportionment of government representatives and funding. However, in history they were used for other purposes, like assessing the size of an army one could muster or raising tax revenues.

Many interpreters have assumed that the census Luke is referring to was a tax census, and this is possible.

However, it is not the only alternative, since he does not say that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world be taxed. Instead, he says that the whole world should be “enrolled” and that an “enrollment” occurred.

The Greek word Luke uses for the act of enrollment—apographô—does not mean specifically “to take a census.” It is more general than that and means “to enroll,” “to transcribe,” “to inventory,” “to list,” “to register.”

So, any kind of empire-wide registration in 3/2 B.C. might be in view.

And it so happens that we know of one.

 

An Enrollment of Loyal Subjects?

There is an inscription composed by Augustus known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Latin, “Acts of the Divine Augustus”), in which he states:

In my thirteenth consulship the senate, the equestrian order and the whole people of Rome gave me the title of Father of my Country (Res Gestae 35).

Augustus’s thirteenth consulship was in 2 B.C., and as the people of Rome were scattered over the empire, declaring him Father of the Country involved an empire-wide enrollment.

The historian Orosius states:

[Augustus] ordered that a census be taken of each province everywhere and that all men be enrolled.

So at that time, Christ was born and was entered on the Roman census list as soon as he was born.

This is the earliest and most famous public acknowledgment which marked Caesar as the first of all men and the Romans as lords of the world, a published list of all men entered individually. . . .

From the foundation of the world and from the beginning of the human race, an honor of this nature had absolutely never been granted in this manner, not even to Babylon or to Macedonia, not to mention any lesser kingdom (Seven Books of History Against the Pagans 6:22).

Josephus appears to refer to this enrollment, stating that a group of more than six thousand Pharisees refused to swear the loyalty oath to Augustus:

When all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good will to Caesar, and to the king’s government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand; and when the king [Herod the Great] imposed a fine upon them, Pheroras’s wife paid their fine for them (Antiquities 17:2:4[42]).

For this to work, records would have had to have been kept for who did and did not swear goodwill toward Augustus, meaning an enrollment was made of those who did swear.

Since the proclamation of Augustus as Father of the Country by “the whole people of Rome” occurred in 2 B.C.—coinciding with Jesus’ birth—it is possible that the attestation of loyalty to him was the enrollment to which Luke refers.

 

What is the relation of the enrollment to Quirinius?

Luke 2:2 contains a clarifying comment to help the ancient reader identify which enrollment Luke is referring to. The RSV renders the verse this way:

This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria

This statement contains two parts, the first of which says it was the “first” enrollment and the second relates it to the Roman official Publius Sulpicius Quirinius.

 

“First” or “Before”?

The RSV translates the initial part of the clarification as “This was the first enrollment.”

If that is the correct understanding, Luke may be indicating that the enrollment taking place when Jesus was born took place earlier than some later enrollment.

Such a later enrollment would presumably be more famous, and so Luke may be specifying that this was the first one to keep his readers from confusing it with the later, better-known one.

However, there is another option. Some commentators have pointed out that the word that the RSV translates “first” (Greek, prôtê) also could be rendered “before.”

In this case, the passage would be rendered “This was the enrollment before Quirinius was governing Syria.”

Consequently, Luke would again be contrasting the enrollment of Jesus’ birth with a later, better known one.

On the other hand, it also has been suggested that Luke’s phrase apographê prôtê (“first enrollment”) may be a translation of the Latin phrase descriptio prima, which was a technical term for an initial registration of people prior to taxation.

In that case, Luke would be clarifying that it was a preliminary listing of the population to get them on the books for later taxation.

 

Was Quirinius Governor of Syria at This Time?

The RSV translates the second part of Luke’s clarification as “when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

However—as commentators have widely noted—this is not a literal translation of the Greek.

The Greek noun hêgemôn can be used as a technical term for a Roman prefect. It also can be used in a more general sense to mean “ruler” or “governor,” without indicating a specific rank.

However, Luke does not use a noun in this verse. Instead, he uses the participle hêgemoneuontos, which would be translated “ruling” or “governing.”

As a result, commentators have pointed out that a more literal translation of Luke’s statement would be “Quirinius being in charge of Syria” (J. A. Fitzmyer, Anchor Bible, The Gospel According to Luke (1-9) at 2:2).

This means that the text does not tell us that Quirinius was specifically the prefect of the Roman province of Syria but just that he had some important governmental function there at the time of the enrollment.

 

When Was Quirinius Governor of Syria?

Like many Roman officials, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius had a long and varied career, in which he held many different positions.

And, unfortunately, we do not have a complete account of what he was doing in each year of it. I. Howard Marshall provides a summary of what historians generally believe to be the case:

After holding a military command against the Marmaridae (in N. Africa?), Publius Sulpicius Quirinius became consul in 12 BC. At some point during the next 12 years he subjugated the Homonadenses, a race of brigands on the south border of Galatia. He acted as guide and supervisor of the young prince Gaius Caesar in Armenia, AD 3–4, and he was legate of Syria, AD 6–9; he died in AD 21 (The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text at 2:2).

As you can see from this, we don’t know a great deal about what Quirinius was doing in the first decade B.C., when Jesus was born. We know that he subjugated a group of brigands at some point, but that’s it.

It also is generally thought that he was legate (governor) of Syria in A.D. 6, but Roman officials could hold posts more than once, and historian Jack Finegan gives the following as “the usually accepted sequence of governors of Syria” (Handbook of Biblical Chronology [2nd ed], §519):

10-9 B.C.	M. Titius
9-6	C. Sentius Saturninus
6-4	P. Quintilius Varus
3-2 (?)	P. Sulpicius Quirinius
1 B.C.-A.D. 4	C. Caesar
A.D. 4-5	L. Volusius Saturninus
6-7	P. Sulpicius Quirinius

This table is based on the work of historian Emil Shurer, and it includes an initial period in which Shurer concluded that Quirinius likely served as governor of Syria in 3-2 B.C.—the time when we know on other grounds that Jesus was born.

In his History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Shurer writes:

During the period B.C. 3-2 there is no direct evidence about any governor of Syria. But it may be concluded with a fair amount of probability from a passage in Tacitus, that about this time P. Sulpicius Quirinius, consul in B.C. 12, was appointed governor of Syria. . . .

Quirinius led the war against the Homonadensians as one who had been consul. Now, one who had been a consul was never sent to a praetorian province, which was administered by one who had been a praetor. The only conclusion then that remains is that Quirinius at the time of the war with the Homonadensians was governor of Syria.

But since this governorship belongs to the period before the year A.D. 3, that is, to the period before he had been appointed counsellor to C. Caesar in Armenia, it cannot be identical with the one of A.D. 6, referred to by Josephus. The only date, therefore, that we can assign it to is the interval between Varus and C. Caesar, that is, B.C. 3-2 (1:1, p. 351-353).

We thus have reason to think that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice, and the first occasion coincides with the correct time frame of Jesus’ birth.

 

Was There a Census in A.D. 6?

The common claim that Quirinius performed a census in Roman-occupied Palestine in A.D. 6 is based on statements by the Jewish historian Josephus.

However, there is a problem with the data in Josephus. As historian Andrew E. Steinmann notes in his book From Abraham to Paul:

There is another approach that is more likely—that Josephus misdated Quirinius and the census. This argument was made a century ago by Zahn, Spitta, Weber, and Lodder and has most recently been revived by Rhoads. . . .

In close proximity with Quirinius’ presence in Judea, Josephus also noted a rebellion led by a man named Judas. In fact, in Antiquities Josephus recounts three rebellions led by an insurgent or insurgents named Judas.

The details of these three rebellions overlap in ways that suggest Josephus is actually giving three different accounts of the same event.

However, they occur at different points in Josephus’s narrative, suggesting either (1) that Josephus was bringing together multiple sources that dated the rebellion differently, or (2) that Josephus misunderstood what his sources were saying, or (3) that Josephus changed his mind about when the event should be dated and later re-inserted it into his narrative. Based on this, Steinmann concludes:

In summary, it is likely that Josephus misplaced the arrival of Quirinius in Judea and, therefore, misdated the census. The initiation of the census in Judea should be dated to the spring or summer of 3 BC. That census prompted Judas’ rebellion. Once again the date of Jesus’ birth must have been sometime in late 3 BC or early 2 BC.

The entire basis of the objection to Luke 2’s accuracy thus may result from a confusion on the part of Josephus.

 

Did enrollments require people to go somewhere special?

Luke 2:3 says that, in response to Augustus’s mandate, “all went to be enrolled, each to his own city.”

Some have questioned whether this would really have happened. Did people need to go someplace special to be enrolled?

The answer is not difficult to see: If you were already in your “own city,” you didn’t need to go anywhere. You were already there.

Luke is referring to the situation of people who—for one reason or another (travelers, merchants, migrant laborers, people with more than one home)—were away from their place of legal residence.

This is not unexpected, as many processes historically have required people to be in their place of residence. Until very recently, people in America were required to be in their place of legal residence in order to vote, and people still need to file their state and property taxes where they live.

With modern mail and the internet, we have more flexibility, but those didn’t exist in history, and people needed to be in a stable place—such as their place of legal residence—in order to participate in various enrollments.

Thus, in A.D. 104, the Roman governor of Egypt, Gaius Vibius Maximus, issued a decree in which he stated:

Since registration by household is imminent, it is necessary to notify all who for any reason are absent from their districts to return to their own homes that they may carry out the ordinary business of registration and continue faithfully the farming expected of them (lines 20–27; in Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 268).

Returning to one’s place of residence was especially significant if one owned property there, because the property one owned needed to be assessed for purposes of taxation.

 

Why did Joseph go to Bethlehem?

Luke 2:4 states that “Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.”

This tells us that Joseph was staying in Nazareth but traveled to Bethlehem for the enrollment, and thus that Bethlehem has a claim as his primary residence for purposes of the enrollment.

Luke then adds the comment that this was “because he was of the house and lineage of David.”

If the enrollment was for purposes of taking a loyalty oath to Caesar, Josephus may have been specially required to go to Bethlehem because of his Davidic descent.

It was well known that Jews regarded the descendants of David as the stock from which legitimate Jewish kings must come—and that from them would come the hoped-for Messiah.

It could make sense for the authorities to demand that, as part of the enrollment, all the descendants of David come to Bethlehem—David’s own city—and there swear loyalty to Caesar.

This would be a dramatic act to head off future rebellions, both because the descendants themselves had sworn allegiance to Caesar and because the fact that they had done so (in Bethlehem itself!) would deter others from following them in a rebellion, as they could be viewed as Roman collaborators who had sullied the memory of David.

On the other hand, Joseph likely regarded Bethlehem as his legal residence anyway, for other reasons.

Keeping land within tribes and families was especially important in Israel. In fact, land was not supposed to be sold to outsiders. Instead, it could be effectively leased, but the legal title reverted to the family every fiftieth year in the Jubilee celebration (see Lev. 25).

It is not at all unlikely that Joseph had property in Bethlehem as a result of such arrangements. He may have even grown up in Bethlehem before moving away for work.

And so, although he was a carpenter in Nazareth for his income, his natural pride in his Davidic ancestry—and his being part- or full-owner of property in the clan’s ancestral home in Bethlehem—may have naturally led him to think of the latter as his proper legal residence, with Nazareth being a residence of economic convenience.

This could be the case whether the enrollment was for purposes of a loyalty oath or whether it was a tax registration.

If it was the latter, the fact Joseph owned property in Bethlehem would make his presence there necessary for purposes of assessment. (He also may have been assessed in Nazareth if he owned property there as well.)

And we have independent evidence of Joseph owning property in Bethlehem, for Matthew records that, as much as two years later, Joseph and Mary were living in a house in Bethlehem when the magi arrived (cf. Matt. 2:16).

 

Conclusions

We have surveyed only some of the responses that scholars have proposed to the challenges made regarding Luke 2:1-6.

Factors we have seen include:

• • While Augustus did not (so far as we know) issue a single legal document mandating a tax census of the empire, Luke does not say that he did; all the text requires is that Augustus made a decision to tax the empire, and he definitely did that.
  • The enrollment that Luke speaks of may not have involved a tax census but a loyalty oath, and we have evidence pointing to such an oath being administered empire-wide in 3/2 B.C., the year of Jesus’ birth.
  • Luke in some way relates the enrollment to Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, but Luke’s language is ambiguous: (1) he may say this was the “first” enrollment, before the more famous one later performed by Quirinius, (2) he may say that this enrollment occurred “before” the later, famous one by Quirinius, and (3) he may have indicated this was the “first registration” (Lat., descriptio prima) that preceded the actual taxation later carried out by Quirinius.
  • Luke does not say that Quirinius was the governor of Syria but that he had some kind of leadership role there, and Quirinius’s career is only partially known from our surviving sources.
  • There is evidence that Quirinius governed Syria twice—in 3-2 B.C. and again in A.D. 6-7.
  • And the timing of Quirinius’s census is uncertain because Josephus either changed his mind about when it was to be dated or because he was combining different sources, resulting in him referring to the events at three different places in his narrative.
  • Roman subjects who were away from their place of legal residence could be required to return there for registrations, as in the Egyptian census of A.D. 104.
  • And Joseph returned to Bethlehem because he regarded it as his primary legal residence in view of his Davidic heritage and the fact he owned property there. He may have even been specially required to go there, because of his Davidic descent, in order to swear loyalty to Caesar.

Which of these options (and there are others we haven’t mentioned) are the exact ones Luke has in mind is difficult for us to determine, given the state of our surviving historical sources.

However, Luke is referring to events that were publicly known in the first century. That’s his point. He’s helping his first century readers understand the timing of Jesus’ birth based on public events they would have known about. They lived in the first century, and this was still recent history for them. They also had access to numerous sources now lost.

Given the state of our sources today, it’s hard for us to know which precise things Luke is referring to, but he and his audience would have known which ones were under discussion—even if the particulars are hard for us to ascertain two thousand years later.

As Darrell Bock concludes:

In light of this and the various possibilities, it is clear that the relegation of Luke 2:2 to the category of historical error is premature and erroneous (Luke 1:1-9:50, 909).

The Jewish historian Josephus is an extraordinarily important author. Without his writings, we would know little about several centuries of Jewish history.

His works provide valuable insights for both Old and New Testament scholars. And he provides the earliest discussions of outside the New Testament of figures like Jesus, John the Baptist, and James the Just.

Josephus was born in A.D. 37 into a priestly family, and he served as a general in the Jewish War of the 60s, went over to the Roman side, and began a literary career after the war. He died around 100.

 

Josephus’s Works

As a historian, Josephus is known principally for two works—a seven-volume history known as The Jewish War, which provides an eyewitness account of the conflict in which he served, and Antiquities of the Jews, a twenty-volume history of the Jewish people.

He also wrote a two-volume apologetic work called Against Apion and a one-volume autobiography known as the Life of Flavius Josephus.

Given his importance, a question naturally arises: How reliable is he when he tells us something?

The answer is more complex than you might suppose. Josephus is not totally accurate, as quickly becomes clear if you read him in-depth rather than looking at isolated passages.

It could be tempting to dismiss him altogether, but that would be a mistake. Serious scholars of all persuasions recognize that—despite his flaws—Josephus is an extremely valuable source.

 

Josephus Gets Defensive

So, what are the limits of his reliability? One of the first things a reader of Josephus discovers is that he is extraordinarily defensive, and about two things: his people and himself.

He’s defensive about his people because he was living in an ethnically tense world, with friction between different groups in the Roman empire. Jewish people, in particular, were viewed as arrogant and standoffish because they did not participate in many Gentile practices. And their reputation only declined after the disastrous war of the A.D. 60s.

Why is he defensive about himself? The fact his Gentile readers knew Josephus to be a Jew would be enough, but he’s also acutely aware that his fellow Jews regarded him as a traitor.

After serving as a general in Galilee, Josephus was captured and managed to survive by allying himself with the Romans. He was even given Roman citizenship and—as was customary—took the name Flavius in honor of the emperor who granted it to him (Titus Flavius Vespasianus).

Consequently, two of Josephus’s overarching themes in his writings are making his people look good and making himself look good. There are passages where his desire to do this is so palpable that the reader realizes he’s either exaggerating or lying.

 

Josephus the Wonder Child

For example, in his Life, Josephus begins by stressing the nobility of his priestly family and the fact he had royal blood from the Hasmonean dynasty that sprang from the Maccabees. This was a way of silencing Jewish critics by cowing them with his dual lineage, which was both sacred and royal.

He’s undoubtedly telling the truth about this. These facts were too well known and confirmable for his critics to deny them. But then Josephus starts making self-aggrandizing claims that strain credulity.

He writes: “While still a mere boy, about fourteen years old, I won universal applause for my love of letters; insomuch that the chief priests and the leading men of the city used constantly to come to me for precise information on some particular in our ordinances” (Life 2:9).

Really? The chief priests and civic leaders used to consult a 14-year-old boy to find out the precise details of Jewish law? And they did that constantly? Josephus may have been a studious lad, and maybe someone having trouble remembering something ask him a question occasionally, but at a minimum this claim involves exaggeration.

So does his next set of claims: “At about the age of sixteen I determined to gain personal experience of the several sects into which our nation is divided” (2:10). He then began studying the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. “I thought that, after a thorough investigation, I should be in a position to select the best. So, I submitted myself to hard training and laborious exercises and passed through the three courses” (2:11).

(Notice that this would suggest that the chief priests and leading men were regularly consulting him about finer points of Jewish law even before he acquired a technical knowledge of how the Law was interpreted by the three schools. Yeah, right.)

As part of his training, Josephus began living in the desert with a hermit named Bannus and undertaking ascetical practices. “I became his devoted disciple. With him I lived for three years and, having accomplished my purpose, returned to the city. Being now in my nineteenth year I began to govern my life by the rules of the Pharisees” (2:12).

If Josephus came back to the city and decided to be a Pharisee at age 19, after living with Bannus for three years, then he must have begun his desert sojourn at age 16. But that’s the same age he said he started “hard training and laborious exercises” in the three Jewish schools of thought.

So, which was it? Was he living with a hermit in the desert or getting a thorough training in the thought of three different sects during this period?

Josephus probably did live with a hermit for a while, but he probably only gained a passing familiarity with the thought of the three sects—and it’s possible that all the training he got in their beliefs came from a single guy: Bannus. The account of studies of the sects is at least exaggerated.

 

Josephus: “I’m not a traitor! No! Really!”

When it comes to his wartime activities, Josephus portrays both himself and the wise leaders of the Jewish people as opposing the outbreak of the rebellion, and he lays the blame for it at the feet of certain younger hotheads.

One strongly suspects that both Josephus (a general!) and various Jewish leaders were rather more willing to rebel than he makes out and that he’s minimizing this to counter their warlike reputation in Gentile eyes—as well as relieving himself of responsibility for the disastrous outcome of the war for his Jewish readers.

After Josephus was captured by the Romans, he was in danger of being put to death, and at this point he announced that he’d received a divine revelation and told the Roman general Vespsian that he and his son Titus would become emperors.

At the time, Rome was engaged in a series of civil wars, and Vespasian was a respected general who could plausibly become emperor.

But “to this speech Vespasian, at the moment, seemed to attach little credit, supposing it to be a trick of Josephus to save his life” (War 3:8:9[404]). And that’s exactly what most commentators have concluded. Josephus didn’t receive a revelation but made the prediction as a desperate gamble.

And the gamble paid off, because when the legions acclaimed Vespasian emperor, Josephus’s fortunes rose dramatically!

These examples let us identify the main situations when we should be skeptical of what Josephus says. When he lies or exaggerates, it’s for defensive reasons. He’s either defending himself—like preserving his life or reputation—or he’s defending his people by seeking to rehabilitate them in the eyes of Gentiles.

But how reliable is he in other situations? That’s what we’ll look at next time.

Mark contains a brief story not found in the other Gospels. Immediately after Jesus’ arrest, the Eleven scatter, and we read:

And a certain young man was following him, clothed only in a linen cloth on his naked body. And they attempted to seize him, but he left behind the linen cloth and fled naked (14:51-52, LEB).

People naturally want to know who this young, anonymous man was.

 

Was it Mark?

Today, many say it was Mark himself—that he recorded this incident the way medieval artists sometimes put tiny portraits of themselves in their paintings or the way Alfred Hitchcock briefly appears in his films.

Some may even suppose this is the traditional answer that has always been believed, but it’s not. The Church Fathers made other proposals, and this theory only became common in the late 19^th century.

There also are problems with it. One is that the Greek word for “young man” (neaniskos) indicates a man who is past puberty and thus in his late teens or early 20s.

But when we meet Mark in Acts 12:12, it is the year A.D. 43—a decade after the Crucifixion—and it appears that Mark is a young man then, not one pushing or over 30.

We also have testimony from a first century figure named John the Presbyter, who says Mark “had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him” during his ministry (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).

Finally, we don’t have evidence of an ancient literary tradition of authors giving themselves brief, anonymous appearances in their works. That isn’t what Mark’s audience would expect, so this theory reads a much later artistic and cinematic technique into ancient literature.

 

A Curious Stranger?

Another proposal is that this was a random person—not a member of the Christian community—who happened to be following out of curiosity and got nabbed.

This isn’t impossible, but the argument for it is weak. The argument is that people normally wore two garments, an inner one and an outer one. So, perhaps the young man was asleep, heard the noise, quickly put on a single garment, and when to see what the commotion was.

The problem is that people also sometimes wore just one garment, so the man was not clearly underdressed.

Further, if he were not a Christian, why would the authorities grab him? Mark tells us that “a crowd” was present for the arrest (14:43), and a person walking along with the crowd would not be grabbed unless he previously had been seen among Jesus’ followers.

Also, if this man had no connection with the Christian community, how did this story get preserved? The way Mark tells it, the Eleven had already fled, and the arresting party would have no reason to tell the story to the Christian community later on.

The preservation of the story—and its use by Mark—would be more logical if the person was known to the Evangelist and his audience.

In that case, the question would be: Why isn’t his name mentioned?

 

Protective Anonymity

Scholars have noted that, in the Synoptic Gospels, certain people remain curiously anonymous in the Passion narrative.

These include the woman who anoints Jesus (Mark 14:3), the owner of the house where Jesus eats the Last Supper (14:14-15), and the disciple who strikes off the ear of the high priest’s servant (14:47).

What these figures have in common is that they committed acts that would be considered seditious by the Jerusalem authorities. The woman anointed Jesus, which could be seen as consecrating him for his role as the anointed Messiah, the king of the Jews. The householder then hosts the new rebel king. And the last takes up arms in defense of the rebel king.

When the story of Jesus’ Passion was first being told in the Jerusalem church, it would not be safe to publicly name these people—not if they still lived in or visited Jerusalem, where the Jewish authorities could get them.

Neither would it do to write their names in a Gospel that would find its way to the Jerusalem church. So, the theory is that the Synoptic Evangelists give these people “protective anonymity.”

But when John was written, the individuals may have moved away, died, or already been taken into custody, so they didn’t need protection.

That’s why some are named in John. The woman who anoints Jesus is revealed to be Mary the sister of Lazarus (John 12:3), and the disciple who wielded the sword is revealed to be St. Peter (John 18:10).

But their identities were known in the Christian community from the beginning. Jesus had said, concerning Mary, “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Mark 14:9), and when Peter was preaching the gospel orally, he would have identified himself as the man with the sword.

Yet in Mark, Mary is simply “a woman” (14:3) and Peter is “a certain one of the bystanders” (14:47).

 

Someone we know?

Could Mark be withholding the identity of the “certain young man,” though it was known to the Christian community? Might we have heard of him? If so, who might it be?

St. Ambrose suggested that it might be John son of Zebedee, but it’s hard to see why he would need protective anonymity. People knew he was one of the Twelve, and Mark names him as present at the time of the arrest (14:33). He already was in danger as a known supporter of Jesus, and merely escaping an arrest was not a seditious act.

Theophylact of Ohrid suggested the man might be James the “brother” of the Lord. However, Jesus’ brethren didn’t believe in him during his ministry (John 7:5), so he was unlikely to be following Jesus that night.

Some have proposed that the “beloved disciple” was actually John the Presbyter, who was from an aristocratic Jerusalem family and personally knew the high priest. He may have been the host of the Last Supper, which is why he was seated next to Jesus (John 13:23).

If so, there could be reason to shield his identity, and he never names himself in the Gospel!

However, he doesn’t identify himself as the man who ran away. And, after Jesus is arrested, he follows Jesus to the high priest’s house and even gets Peter access to the courtyard (18:15-16). This makes it unlikely he had just escaped arrest.

 

The ideal candidate?

The ideal candidate for the young man would be someone who (a) was not one of the Twelve, (b) lived in the Jerusalem area, (c) was a follower of Jesus, and (d) was already wanted by the authorities, since he doesn’t do anything criminal in Mark.

Is there such a person? Yes, and it’s Lazarus. Immediately after John records Mary anointing Jesus, he says:

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus (12:9-11).

The authorities thus were already looking to kill Lazarus. But he may not have known this, which could explain why he thought it would be safe to follow, only to be seized and forced to flee naked.

Lazarus—like his sister Mary—was known to the early Christian community, and when the Passion was retold in the Jerusalem church, people would have known the parts they played. Yet, it wouldn’t have been safe to name them publicly, such as in a Gospel, as long as they remained alive and in the Jerusalem area.

This doesn’t prove Lazarus was the man who ran away naked, but it fits the evidence, and it’s an intriguing possibility!