The Miracle in the Manger
The Miracle in the Manger
Howard Marshall writes, “The census … serves to place the birth of Jesus in the context of world history and to show that the fiat of an earthly ruler can be utilized in the will of God to bring his more important purposes to fruition” (The Gospel of Luke, The New International Greek Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], 97–98).
Nor were such censuses merely one-time occurrences. In Egypt, for example, censuses were taken every fourteen years, beginning no later than A.D. 20 and running through at least A.D. 258 (William Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1898], 132; The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament [2nd edition; London: Hodder and Stoughton 1915], 256). Ramsay argued that the practice of taking recurring censuses was not limited to Egypt, but was empire-wide (The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 257; cf. William Hendriksen, The Gospel of Luke, New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978], 138–39). Further, the second-century church father Clement of Alexandria wrote that the same cycle of periodic censuses existed in the province of Syria (which included Palestine). Clement also stated that the first census taken in Syria was the one connected with Christ’s birth (A. T. Robertson, Luke the Historian in the Light of Research [New York: Scribner, 1920], 122–29).
Luke’s readers knew all about the census system he was describing, so for him to have invented the story would have been foolish:
No historian of any kind or class would state a falsehood whose falsity was obvious to every reader.… The conclusion was evident. Luke trusted to his readers’ familiarity with the facts and the census-system. He spoke of the first census, knowing how much that would imply to them. They knew the system as it was carried out in the Roman Empire. (Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 239)
an early second-century document from Egypt indicates that the Egyptians were also required to return to their homes for the census just as Joseph and Mary did (Robertson, Luke the Historian, 125–26). That shows that the Romans were flexible on such matters of local custom.
Martin Luther confessed,
When I am told that God became man, I can follow the idea, but I just do not understand what it means. For what man, if left to his natural promptings, if he were God, would humble himself to lie in the feedbox of a donkey or to hang upon a cross? God laid upon Christ the iniquities of us all. This is that ineffable and infinite mercy of God which the slender capacity of man’s heart cannot comprehend and much less utter—that unfathomable depth and burning zeal of God’s love toward us.… Who can sufficiently declare this exceeding great goodness of God? (cited in Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand [Nashville: Abingdon, 1950], 223)
Shepherds were near the bottom of the social ladder. They were uneducated and unskilled, increasingly viewed in the post-New Testament era as dishonest, unreliable, unsavory characters, so much so that they were not allowed to testify in court. Because sheep required care seven days a week, shepherds were unable to fully comply with the man-made Sabbath regulations developed by the Pharisees. As a result, they were viewed as being in continual violation of the religious laws, and hence ceremonially unclean.
That is not to say, however, that being a shepherd was an illegitimate or disreputable occupation. Two of the greatest figures in Israel’s history, Moses (Ex. 3:1) and David (1 Sam. 16:11–13), were shepherds at some point in their lives. Moreover, the Old Testament refers metaphorically to God as the “Shepherd of Israel” (Ps. 80:1; cf. 23:1; Isa. 40:11), while Jesus described Himself as the “good shepherd” (John 10:11, 14; cf. Heb. 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25; 5:4). Shepherds were, however, lowly, humble people; they certainly were not the ones who would be expected to receive the most significant announcement in history. That they were singled out to receive this great honor suggests that these shepherds were devout men, who believed in the true and living God. Such people are later described as those who were “looking for the consolation of Israel” (2:25) and the “redemption of Jerusalem” (2:38).