(February 9, 2016 at 8:40 am)Brian37 Wrote:(February 9, 2016 at 7:20 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote: Actually the whole census narrative was shoehorned in pos hoc to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for the birth (to fulfill prophesy). First of all in the period in question Iudea was a tributary state rather than a Roman province, and the Romans didn't conduct censuses in tributary states. Second, outside of the bible itself there is no record of anybody having to go to their ancestral home in order to be ennumerated in a Roman census. The whole story smacks of a late rewrite.
Of course you've also the problem of Joseph supposedly a member of the preeminent royal house in Israel being a menial worker, an extremely unlikely event. But that is another problem.
Doesn't matter what that specific location had as far as real laws, the bible claims he caused a ruckus throughout Israel in the alleged characters life as the bible claims. If that had happened, the Romans would have taken notice. The fact they do in the bible, where as in real life nobody said shit during the real time frame, as you said, says to me some writers decided to create a new myth after the fact.
Do we have a record or evidence showing Romans were known to list the names of every criminal they had arrested and crucified? No.
Jesus, if he existed, was just one of many ...