Why did Joseph bring Mary to Bethlehem?

Answer 1

A:Many scholars have puzzled over different aspects of this very question. There are aspects to the census story in Luke's Gospel that are contrary to our knowledge of Roman customs and rational behaviour.

In Luke's Gospel, Joseph was required to go to Bethlehem for a census during the time of Quirinius as governor of Syria, but also during the reign of King Herod. This creates a first problem, since Quirinius became governor in 6 CE, with instructions to conduct a census in Judea (not Galilee, which includes Nazareth), but Herod dies ten years earlier, in 4 BCE. Furthermore, the Romans would only have counted taxpayers in the town in which they lived, and would never have required whole populations to travel from province to province just for a census. On these issues, Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) to say the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately.

Even if Jospeh had been required to travel to Bethlehem, there was no need for Mary to undertake the arduous and dangerous journey, since women were never counted in censuses. Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) also says that because Luke places Elizabeth in Jerusalem, it is altogether impossible to understand why Joseph did not arrange things so that when "the time came for her to be delivered" she could stay with her cousin and give birth to her son there. Instead, Luke has her travel onwards to Bethlehem where she knew no one and could not even find accommodation. Not only is the scholarly consensus that Luke's account is not historical, but Ranke-Heinemann says that even Elizabeth was probably a creature of legend.

Answer 2

A:It seems incredibly improbable that Joseph would have subjected Mary to the dangers and hardship of travelling all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem even if she had not been pregnant, and certainly if she was pregnant. Historians have long noted that the only census under Quirinius took place in 6 CE, some ten years after the death of King Herod, and that it could not have required Joseph to travel to Judea just because his ancestors might have come from there. On this, Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately.

Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) says that even if Joseph had been required to be counted in Bethlehem, there is no conceivable reason the Romans would have required his wife to accompany him there. She also wonders why Mary had to sleep in a stable in Bethlehem when she could have stayed with her cousin, Elisabeth, whom they would no doubt have visited in Jerusalem, just a short way from Bethlehem.