Bible Timeline: The Census When Jesus Was Born
Was there a census at the
time of Christ's birth?Share this
article  Yes there is reference to a
census at about the time of Christ's birth which we show as 4BC on our Bible
Timeline
based on Ussher's Chronology. Justin Martyr and Tertullian
say that this census can be verified in the archives in Rome. Even
though these archives no longer exist, the fact that these
contemporaries appealed to them suggests that they did exist at the
time. In the l00's AD these men and others had access to this
information and their writings could easily have been refuted if it
were not so. ( http://www.xenos.org/classes/chronc.htm )
In addition there
is actual mention of Jesus Christ from contemporary
historians: The Roman historian Tacitus writing between
115-117 A.D. had this to say:
"They got their name from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the
procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. That checked the
pernicious superstition for a short time, but it broke out afresh-not
only in Judea, where the plague first arose, but in Rome itself, where
all the horrible and shameful things in the world collect and find a
home." From his Annals, xv. 44.
Here is
a pagan historian, hostile to Christianity, who had access to records
about what happened to Jesus Christ.
Mention of Jesus
can also be found in Jewish Rabbinical writings from what is known as
the Tannaitic period, between 70-200 A.D. In Sanhedrin 43a it says:
"Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve. Forty days previously the herald had
cried, 'He is being led out for stoning, because he has practiced
sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy. Whoever
has anything to say in his defence, let him come and declare it.' As
nothing was brought forward in his defence, he was hanged on Passover
Eve."
That there is any
mention of Jesus at all is unusual. As far as the Roman world
was concerned, Jesus was a nobody who live in an insignificant
province, sentenced to death by a minor procurator.
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