Taxing in Biblical History

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Schaff's Bible Dictionary

Definitions in Biblical History
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What is Taxing?
TAXING
, DAYS OF THE, mentioned in Luke 2:2. Properly it was an enrolment, like our census, but, as its object was taxation, there was a registration of property. It was held, under an imperial order, through all the Roman world. We read of another enrolment in Acts 5:37. That Joseph and Mary were enrolled proves that the Roman and the Jewish usages were employed - tribal registration, which was the Jewish usage, supplemented by family, "for the Romans required the enrolment of women, and possibly their actual presence at the place of enrolment. This mixture of Roman and Jewish usage, so likely to occur in an enrolment made under a Jewish king, yet by order of the Roman emperor, is a strong proof of the accuracy of Luke's account." And yet upon this circumstance depended the Bethlehemic birth of Jesus ! "The Saviour of the world was registered in the first census of the world." There is no direct proof that Augustus ordered a universal census, but it is reasonably inferred, from the known fact that he prepared a list of all the resources of his empire, which was read in the senate after his death. Herod manifestly could not resist such an order, inasmuch as he was but a tributary king. And, as Dr. Woolsey says, "if the census was made under the direction of the president of Syria, by Jewish officers, it would not greatly differ from a similar registration made by Herod, nor need it have alarmed the Jews if carefully managed." The interesting question in connection with this enrolment is, "How can we vindicate the veracity of Scripture in saying that it was first made when Cyrenius (P. Sulpicius Quirinius) was governor of Syria?" To this question, for a long time, no definite answer could be given. It formed one of the commonplaces of infidelity. Josephus states that Quirinius came to Judaea as imperial legate, and in a.d. 6 or 7 he completed a census. But this date is ten years after our Lord's birth. The best explanation of the difficulty is to maintain that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria, as lately proved - the first time before Christ's birth, or b.c. 4-1; the second time, a.d. 6 onward. See Cyrenius.

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Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'taxing' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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