Quirinius, the census, and a date that will not settle
Roman provincial censuses are well documented, and Quirinius is a real governor with a datable census — but that census falls about a decade after Herod's death, and the two datings have not been reconciled.
DisputedAncient writer1st century AD records
Luke dates the birth of Jesus to a census under Quirinius, governor of Syria. Josephus places Quirinius's governorship and its census in AD 6 — about ten years after the death of Herod the Great, whom Matthew and Luke both have alive at the birth. Roman censuses in the provinces are well attested, and an inscription records an unnamed official who governed Syria twice, which some read as Quirinius.
And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.
- Found
- Josephus's Antiquities; Roman inscriptions including the Lapis Tiburtinus
- Now held at
- Vatican Museums (Lapis Tiburtinus); manuscript collections
- Language
- Latin and Greek
- How it reached us
- Never buried — copied by hand, generation after generation, until printing.
What it shows
This is an open problem, not a solved one. Proposed solutions include an earlier Quirinius command, a different translation of Luke's phrase, or an error. None commands agreement. We list it because a collection that only showed the comfortable cases would not be worth reading.
How historians use it
A standard crux in Roman provincial history and in Gospel chronology, argued in the mainstream literature from several sides.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Josephus, Antiquities 18.1–2
- Census of Quirinius — overview of the problem and the proposed solutions
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.