The Historical Jesus

[Pat Mustard]

even though this census would obviously be very demanding of people who travel by foot and donkey it is still not at all outside the realm of possibility,

It is very much outside the realm of possibility that everyone in the empire is returning to the home of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier. Joseph had to return to the town of Bethlehem because he’s from the lineage of David, but King David "lived" a thousand years earlier.

How is that possible? How would people know where to go? If you had to go register to vote in the town your ancestors came from a thousand years ago, where would you go? And are we to imagine that this massive migration of millions of people, all over the empire, took place without any other author from the period so much as mentioning it? We know a lot about the reign of Caesar Augustus from the writings of historians, philosophers, essayists, poets, and others living about that time. In none of these writings, including an account written by Caesar Augustus himself about his own reign, is there a solitary word about any empire-wide census.

But yeah, the entire Roman Empire went uprooting for a weekend in order to register for a census. Give me a fucking break.

How could Joseph even know he was of the "House of David"? We're talking about fifty generations here, with many impostors claiming descent in the meantime because the "House of David" was the biblically approved monarchical bloodline.