Chapters Two and Three

Chapter Two

Luke writes that a decree went out from the Roman emperor, Augustus, that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire and that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to fulfill this lawful obligation. Critics of the bible from a historical standpoint have a field day pointing out perceived historical inconsistencies related to this account. If you will Google this subject, you will find a lively debate. Those critical of Luke's account point out that there is no written historical accounting of a census ordered at this time in history, that Joseph was not a Roman citizen (therefore exempt from a census obligation) and Mary would never have gone with him because women had no legal status per say, and it wasn't important enough to count how many women were in the kingdom. From a social standpoint, these same critics point out that if Joseph was going back to his home town he would in accordance with middle eastern custom, would have stayed at the home of a relative no matter how distant. He would have never looked for a rented room at an inn mainly because Bethlehem was off the beaten path so to speak and only had a population of around 1,000 people at the time and probably didn't have an inn.

History points out that counting people and collecting information about the population goes back to the Egyptians who used this information to build the pyramids and to appropriate land following the annual flooding of the Nile. In fact, the Romans were big believers in keeping track of its people, specifically because it enabled them to maximize their tax revenue from a far flung empire. Those critics of the historical value of Luke's account also point out that there are no written accounts of many of the day to day business functions of the Roman government so they have no written or substantial proof that such a census did not happen when Luke said it did.

Why is all this conjecture important to believers and non believers? The simple answer is that by being born in Bethlehem, the Messiah fulfilled the old testament prophecy in Micah, Chapter 5:2. In this verse, the bible points out that the "ruler of Israel" will come from this small village. The reason that the enemies of the word try to pick apart this part of the bible is because of this foundational fact, if you disprove that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, you disprove Him as the Messiah. I find this interesting that people who don't believe in the veracity of the bible, attempt to use that very bible to disprove it and by removing this linchpin foundational belief, they believe that they remove who Jesus is. It is also very interesting that these enemies know the bible better than most of the faithful.

It should also be noted that many of these critics focus only on Jesus and avoid other religious icons and base religious beliefs. It is difficult to find passionate disbelievers of other faiths and the related miraculous events in that religion. The simple reason for this is Jesus Himself. Religions that acknowledge Him such as Islam, Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses only do so from the standpoint of His stature as a prophet who was not God but instead a religious creation of God. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses use their limited recognition of Jesus as a marketing ploy to attract uninformed believers who don't know what the bible says about who Jesus is. Mormons reject what they call creed influenced accounts of Jesus as being tainted by man but will accept the creed and interpretation of the bible according to Joseph Smith. Muslims believe in the virgin birth, they believe that Jesus was a human prophet and as with all of the other human prophets, must be revered and they believe that he performed miracles while on this earth. Followers of Islam do not believe that Jesus died on the cross or that the Trinity exists or that in any shape or form that Jesus is God. I would like to know just how the understanding of who Jesus is got so complicated?

In the book of John, Jesus tells His disciples that they believe (in Him) because they have seen Him and those that will follow and believe without seeing Him will be blessed because they believe based on faith. We can secure our faith in Jesus through the account in the bible of how the apostles changed after seeing and interacting with the risen Christ. They went from spineless, stressed and unsure followers of a now dead spiritual leader to powerful men of God who all suffered (with the exception of John) horrible, lonely and singular deaths. If Jesus wasn't who He said He was, and these men were part of some huge farce, one of them would have broke and confessed that it was all a joke. That man would have been cleaned up, wounds treated and carted around for his whole life speaking to everyone who would listen about what a phony Jesus was. The truth is that we would be reading the accounts of that person's testimony today as it would be included in the words of the detractors of the bible but the reality is that all of those bold believers praised God through the Son up until and including their deaths.

Getting back to Luke, I think that Joseph was glad to get out of his hometown and go to Bethlehem. No doubt that people being people from a small town like Nazareth, asked a lot of questions about Mary and her pregnancy. Even though Joseph knew what the truth was, the angel didn't explain things to his neighbors and relatives for him and they were left to their own conclusions. No, he and Mary were probably glad to get out of Dodge for a little while and figured why not go stay with distant relatives who didn't have so many questions? It was during this time that Mary gave birth to her first son, wrapped Him snugly in strips of rags and laid Him in a manger. This is a very real description of the times and customs as the manger was part of the main living quarters for the family and the animals who had real monetary value ate in the center of the home.

In regards to the criticism of Luke's writings from a historical standpoint, we have a choice of either accepting the written account of a believing eyewitness to the miraculous ministry of Jesus Christ or to believe the doubtful word of a person who wishes to dilute the legacy of Jesus Christ through the filtered interpretation of history. I know this for a fact, if you doubt who Jesus is you will have plenty of company but if you believe that He is the son of God, you will have no doubt that the bible is the true word of God. If you have doubts, doubt your doubts.

After the account of the birth of Christ, Luke tells us that an angel appeared to the shepherds in the field and again we find that they were terrified when it happened. Shepherding is one of the oldest professions that dates back over 6,000 years. Those who did this work were usually children or the elderly and almost always the offspring of a poor farming peasant class that had little or no status or standing in society. Working for wages in most instances, this solitary profession was practiced in rugged and mountainous areas of Israel and Greece. The angel told them of the birth of Jesus, told them where He was and after revealing the armies of heaven all praising God, the angels returned to heaven. It was then that the shepherds went to find Jesus for themselves and after doing so went and told everyone what had happened as they returned to their flocks praising God.

In effect, these people who were probably young, poor and part of a disenfranchised segment of society became the first Christian evangelists. Surely if a revisionist writer were to be documenting this account of the birth of the Messiah, he or she would have picked a locale that made more sense and the first evangelists to be more important people of society. The fact is that this is how God did it all through the whole earthly ministry of Jesus as He used those people who responded to the call without concern for their status among people.

Luke then tells us that in accordance with the law of Moses, the baby Jesus was presented as the first son of Joseph and Mary in the temple. They offered a sacrifice of two young pigeons or turtledoves to fulfill the Jewish law of the time. Imagine the priest in the temple that day, going about the business of his official work, taking the child of these two and obviously poor Galileans dressed in the humblest of garments and lifting up their child before the altar and inscribed the name "Jesus" on the roll of the first born. Little did he realize that he held the babe that Moses wrote about as "A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you" The priest didn't see the this babe as He whose glory Moses asked to see and the fact that this infant who was greater than Moses lay in the priests arms; and when he was enrolling the name of the One who was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy. The name of this child was to be the death warrant for the system of sacrifices and offerings that had existed from the time of Moses until then. How many times does God put the spectacular in our hands and mind and we fail to recognize it as such?

In His word, God never seems to fail to add an exclamation point to the prophetic obvious. In this case, the affirmation came in the form of Simeon and Anna. Simeon was apparently a devout lay person who lived near the temple and under the influence of the Holy Spirit went to see the baby Jesus and to pray over Him. Recognizing the child to be the Messiah who was to come to rescue Israel, Simeon felt that God had delivered on the promise to allow him to see the Messiah and that he could now die knowing that the prophecy was true. As Simeon was praying over Jesus, Anna was also in the temple. She had been widowed for some time and spent all of her time in the temple, worshipping God. After seeing the infant, she went to spread the word of the birth of the rescuer of Israel.

God seems to use a wide cast of characters all through the bible to confirm His word and events. In the case of Simeon, who according to tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church was one of the seventy two translators of the Septuagint, a translated document written in Koine Greek of the old testament between the 3rd and 1st century BC in Alexandria. "Septuaginta" means "seventy" in Latin indicating the seventy two Jewish scholar - translators. Tradition tells us that Simeon, during the performance of his translation duties, was struck by the prophetic words of Isaiah regarding the Messiah and as he lingered over the translation of Isaiah 7:14 ("Behold, a virgin shall conceive...") an angel appeared to him and told him that he would not die until he had seen the Christ born of a virgin. This would have made him well over two hundred years old at he meeting described in the book of Luke.

It should be noted that the language of Koine Greek was used in that translation and interpretation. It is believed that the language was written by Alexander the Great for the practical purpose of giving concise and correct direction to his army in the heat of battle. Alexander's armies were made up of people who spoke many different languages and if soldiers were told to advance or turn right as a group, precise commands that could not possibly be misunderstood, were essential. Thus the language of this important translation was made up of that concise and clear language. I find it amazing how God works with man for the betterment of His kingdom. Out of all the accomplishments of the young Macedonian king, this Hellenic language was his most enduring achievement and was a natural choice for the transmission of the "Good News" of Jesus Christ, by His disciples as it was the common language of the Roman Empire at that time and because of its precise nature, allowed for a flawless interpretation of God's word to be shared with the masses.

In regards to Anna, this is what is known. She was the daughter of Phanuel whose old testament name meant "the face or appearance of God" and a descendant of the tribe of Asher. Luke also tells us that she was a prophetess, a designation given because she may have been the wife of a prophet, she may have prophesied herself or was just given that name by Luke himself. The bible says that she was very old, either 84 years old or she has been a widow for 84 years, in either case she spent a long time in widowhood as she was married for only seven years of her life. She was free to marry again after her husband died but instead chose to devote her life to God while serving in the temple. This patient woman who fasted and worshipped God daily, trusted that same God for her every need and served that same God with patience and self control and was guided to the place to be a confirming witness to who the son of God was and is.

The enemies of Christianity, both subtle and overt, point out the many failings of the social customs that Christians participated in during biblical times. They fail to recognize how God handled things and how His actions validate the truthfulness of the bible. If the bible was a loose interpretation of the social views of the writer alone, it would have been written to reflect the times and how society viewed the characters in the bible. No writer of this period would give importance to a woman or assign her authority to be a witness to this great event. All through the bible great women of God are documented including Miriam, Deborah, Ruth etc... If it was a contemporary writer in charge of editing and not God Himself, Anna would have been replaced by another male character to stand along with Simeon. And if a woman was mentioned in this story she sure wouldn't have been a widow simply because a woman of that social station would have no influence for the intended reader. It is in these details that we are able to build our faith stone by stone in the veracity and truthfulness of the bible.

The next part of Luke's account of the life of Jesus details a time where He became separated from His mother and father on their return home from Jerusalem after the feast of Passover. Luke tells us that as a youngster, Jesus was strong and filled with wisdom and when they back tracked their journey, they found Jesus listening and asking questions of the teachers in the temple. They asked Him why He had eluded them and He answered that He was going about His Fathers business in His Father's house and basically, what's the problem? We apparently had a bunch of confused adults, the teachers were startled by the boy's questions and answers and Joseph and Mary, who were concerned for their lost son, had no idea what His answer meant and we read that they just went home and that He was obedient to them.

It took me a long time to get a grasp on just who Jesus was and is. I don't claim to have every answer but here is the bare bones outline. He is God who became man, He was a human being made of flesh and bone and as God, had everything, but gave it all up to experience being a human. It is a total case of immersion reduction so as to rescue you and I from a sin and a fate that we were incapable of saving ourselves from. He felt hunger, pain, loneliness, temptation, joy, sorrow and rejection like any other person living on this earth. He was and is the only perfect and sinless person to walk as a human being. That sinless behavior and example was achieved without any special powers of determination brought with Him or given to Him. Any powers that He exhibited in His life came from the Father, a fact that He repeatedly tells all who would and will listen. As a human being, Jesus knew friendship, studied and learned (as in this example) from religious leaders, went to social gatherings where He enjoyed food and wine as well as the company of close friends. All of the good and bad of our lives was experienced by our Lord and Saviour and currently He is in heaven, reclaiming His position as God, the Alpha and the Omega.



Chapter Three

In chapter three, Luke introduces us to the ministry of John The Baptist and gives us some timeline references in the form of historical figures. The first mentioned is Tiberius who was a Roman emperor, A.D. 14-37, during Jesus' adulthood and crucifixion. He is also mentioned again in Luke as well as the books of Mark, Matthew and John. Tiberius was preceded by the emperor Augustus and followed by Caligula and died three or four years after Jesus, murdered at the age of seventy seven. He was recognized as one of Rome's greatest generals responsible for the foundational building of the Roman Empire in the northern frontier. He oversaw campaigns throughout what is now Poland, Switzerland and victory over the very people who hundreds of years later invaded and conquered Rome, the Germanian's.

Tiberius was known as a tristissimus hominum, the gloomiest of men who never really wanted to be emperor. He exiled himself from Rome after the death of his son and left the administration of the government in the hands of his assistants who misused their power, murdered and plundered to get in positions of power (including the murder of the son of Tiberius, a real piece of work known as Julius Caesar Drusus) and were either executed for their crimes or committed suicide before they got caught. After the death of Tiberius, Caligula, who was the adopted grandson of Tiberius and rumored to be the very one who smothered the emperor as he slept, accepted the powers of the Principate conferred by the Senate and entered Rome as the crowd hailed him as "our baby" and "our star". The people loved him like a rock star and one account says that over one hundred sixty thousand animals were sacrificed during the three month party to usher in his reign. During his tenure as emperor, Caligula reduced taxes, built roads and many buildings, literally turned his palace into a whore house and almost bankrupted the Roman empire. A big part of the problem relating to people accepting Jesus as the Messiah, then and now, is found in the historical sketches that are drawn of emperors, kings and powerful public leaders that existed and exist. Jesus didn't act like any king before Him as He didn't conquer earthly principalities, wage war against human armies or accumulate worldly treasures. He simply came from heaven and engaged spiritual principalities that if they had any idea what He was really up to, would have never allowed their minions to murder Him and allow Him to have victory over death and devil himself.

The next person listed is Pilate who was the governor over Judea. As governor, he was responsible for the collection of taxes and was considered to be the emperor's personal financial agent who supervised the local authorities in this endeavor, as well as the publicans or private tax collectors. In his official role, he could mint coins and negotiate with wealthy institutions like the Temple in Jerusalem that could advance the money needed. The governor took the roll as a public accountant who inspected the books and supervised large scale building projects and public works projects. He commanded an army of auxiliary troops, a force that was small compared to other more important provinces, but he had the power to call on his superior, the governor of Syria for backup if things got out of hand. The only problem with this part of the story is that during the first six years of Pilate's tenure as governor, he didn't have a superior in Syria to back him up or to oversee his performance. For whatever reason, this governor of Syria was called to Rome during this time and he died in the year 33. As governor, Pilate also also involved the courts in Judea as he was considered the province's supreme judge and appeal to his judgements required a journey to Rome which wasn't very practical at all.

Pilate took money from the Jewish holy ministry and spent it on the construction of an aqueduct designed to bring water into Jerusalem. This riled up the Jewish people and when they would gather to protest his actions. Pilate had his troops dress in traditional Jewish clothing and would give them the "high sign" at the height of the crowds frenzy and thereby ending the uprising as the troops would drop their disguises and beat the protesters. The interesting thing about this whole incident is that technically, Pilate didn't do anything wrong as the money that he used was earmarked for social welfare and public works projects. Historians believe that the problem was that Pilate took the initiative and the religious leaders in the province didn't, and the end result was that they didn't get the proper credit for the project, so they were upset and complained.

Pilate served an unusually long tenure of ten years as governor covering the whole active ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus and the infamous action that he took during that period seemed to appear to him to be of small importance even though history views those actions as more severe. His rule came to an end when he overreacted to an uprising in Samaria killing a great many people who Pilate thought were going to undermine him and his authority. The survivors appealed to Pilate's boss in Syria and he was sent to Rome to answer charges for the mistakes made during his administration but before he could appear before the emperor, Tiberius died.

From an official historical standpoint, Pilate at this point falls off of the map and the last written account of him says that he had fallen into great misfortune under Caligula and eventually committed suicide. Legend tells us that his body was thrown into the Tiber river but that the waters were so disturbed by evil spirits that the body was moved two times with the same results and eventually was sunk into a deep lake in Switzerland. An interesting side note to this is that the Abyssinian Church recognizes Pilate as a saint along with Claudia Procula, his wife because they believe that they accepted Christianity and the Greek Church assigned a feast day for Pilate's wife due to her attempted intercession on behalf of Jesus. In any case, this man stood at a crossroads of history and probably never understood, that what he saw as common events, were far more important than they appeared to be.

The next historical figure mentioned at the beginning of the third chapter of Luke is Herod Antipas. This ruler was the son of Herod the Great who ruled through Rome and Augustus himself. He was a despicable historical figure who murdered his wives, sons and other members of his family on a whim. Augustus was quoted as saying, "It would be better to be Herod's pig than to be his son". Herod the Great was an agressive builder of public works projects and building including Herod's Temple, that history records as a marvelous achievment. After the Temple was built, Herod the Great placed hugh Roman eagles over the entrance doors infuriating the pious Jews. A group of Torah students smashed them and Herod had them hunted down, drug in chains to his residence in Jericho, and burned alive. He murdered forty six leading members of the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical court and kept one of them alive where he pushed a crown of porcupine quills on the man's head, blinding him. As a result of his interference, the Temple hierarchy became corrupt. The Sadducees, a religious group of the wealthy,who collaborated with the Romans in order to keep their power base, now controlled the Temple, much to the chagrin of the Jewish majority, the Pharisees, and the extreme religious minority, the Zealots.

It is believed that Herod the Great died of a cancer like infection and shortly before his death had his most logical heirs to the kingdom, Aristobulus and Antipater executed because he did not want them to rule and designated his other sons, Herod Antipas and his stepbrother, Philip as his successors. It is recorded that Herod the Great died a painful death and that it was unlikely that his subjects mourned or missed him at all.

Back to Herod Antipas and Philip. After Herod died, these two brothers along with another brother by the name of Archelaus traveled to Rome to have their fathers will verified by Augustus. Since none of these heirs were Herod's first choice to succeed him and since he killed his favorite potential heirs, these survivors made their case before the emperor. Augustus made a few changes to the will and guided by what was good for the Roman empire, designated Antipas and his half brother Philip to share the power over the kingdom and Archelaus got the short end of the stick and was later deemed incompetent by Augutus and replaced by a prefect, he was denied the title of king and forced to accept the lessor designation of a ethnarch. After all this drama, Philip was put in charge of Iturea and Traconitis, Antipas was to rule over Galilee. It should be noted that Luke mentions an additional ruler by the name of Lysanias who had jurasdiction over a part of the kingdom known as Abilene but I found very few mentions of him in secular historical research information.

Herod Antipas ruled for forty-two years and when he took over, he realized that he inherited an uneasy political situation. While he was in Rome, pleading his case before Augustus, dissidents attacked the palce of Sepphoris in Galilee, abscounding with weapons and money and proceeded to go on a crime spree throughout the kingdom. The Roman governor of Syria counterattacked and burned the town of Sepphoris down and sold all of the inhabitants as slaves. In the middle of this revolutionary mood, Antipas decided to follow his father's example and became a builder. He started in Sepphoris, rebuilding and fortifying it, and later built important stadiums, palaces, public buildings and sanctuaries for prayer. His first wife was Phasaelis, a daughter of a neighboring king and after divorcing her, married Herodias who was the wife of his half brother, Philip. After an unusually long sixty year period of rule, Antipas was exiled by Caligula to Lugdunum in Gaul where he was followed in death by his wife.

The names Annas and Caiaphas are also mentioned by Luke and they were the high priests of their geographical area at the time. Apparently, Annas, the father in law of Caiaphas, was the real power behind the scene. They belonged to the Sadducean aristocracy who were known to be arrogant, astute, very wealthy and ambitious and their families were very well known for their greediness. They seemed to acquire their wealth through the sale of required sacrifice material such as sheep, doves, wine and oil required to be used by the faithful at the temple. During the great feasts they were able to extort high prices for their goods because they had a monopoly on them. Because of their actions they were denounced in the Talmud (Pes 57a) "Woe to the family of Annas! Woe to the serpant like hisses" and by Jesus in the book of Mark (Mark 11:15-19) when He called them out as those who turned the house of prayer into "a den of robbers". I tell you this, the Godfather, all of the Mafia and Tony Soprano had nothing on these folks. In fact, later we will find that secular writers of this time period reflect that Annas himself had the most responsibility for the death of Jesus above Caiaphas and even Pilate. We find that Annas is mentioned several times in the New Testament and was present at the meeting of the Sanhedrin after Pentacost when Peter and John defended themselves for preaching the gospel of the resurrection (Acts 4:6).

Luke now turns his attention to the ministry of John the Baptist who Luke describes as a person who is living in the wilderness. Secular scholars and experts believe that Luke was embellishing the relationship between Jesus and his cousin. In fact, these experts believe that this account of Luke was designed for the convenience of the young Christian church. I don't know about you, but I have gone camping for several days and when I got home I really couldn't wait to shower and get right with the world, so to speak. Can you imagine this wild man walking out of the woods, hair going everywhere, maybe wearing animal skins and then he starts telling you to get your act together? Secular historians feel that John was a prophet who lived this life of denial and sacrifice as a way of pleasing God, I have a different theory. If you look at the situation, and realize that you have an Emperor who is suffering from depression and was probably murdered by his adopted grandson, throw in a crazy governor of Judea, a wingnut of a king who killed his children and wives on a whim and a group of criminal and religious elitist zealots who controlled the economy and lives of the people, who are you going to call to do the job? In this case God called on an outsider who had no connection to anyone, didn't owe anyone anything and didn't care what they thought of him. He had a clean slate to work with.

It is the rhetorical style that the bible assigns to John, that I love the best. He starts out by calling them what they were, "You brood of snakes!". Anyone else would have had to speak in a more gentile manner because if they didn't the very least that would happen would involve being shunned by the rest of "polite" society, maybe you and your family would be banned from the temple or maybe you or a family member would get hurt or lose their life as a result of your preaching. I believe that God knew what He was doing by calling in someone who had nothing to lose. It is safe to say that John the Baptist came out of left field and the status quo really didn't know what to do with him at first, God's version of "shock and awe" if you will.

John continued to call on the people to avoid the legalism position regarding faith, just because they were sons and daughters of Abraham would not secure them salvation and further more, God was ready with the proverbial ax of His judgement, poised to sever those roots as well as any other metaphysical tree that wasn't bearing good fruit. His continuing message was consistent with the book of Acts as he called on believers to be kind, honest and loving to one another. It was during this period of John the Baptist's ministry that he criticized Herod Antipas for marrying Herodias, his brother's wife. John's candor got him thrown in jail. Herodias was related to Antipas in another way as she was the daughter of one of the sons of Herod the Great, a son who was unfortunatly murdered by his father for purported treason. Even though he murdered their father, Grandpa Herod took a shine to his grandchildren and raised them as his own, including Herodias.

After John went to prison for being critical of the marraige of Herod Antipas and Herodias, Jesus was baptized either by John before he went to prison or by one of John's followers as Luke was mum regarding the details. There has been quite a discussion throughout history as to why Jesus was baptized at all. Unbelievers say that it would have been unnecessary since He was without sin and didn't need baptism, so why do it? My question to that is, He didn't need to become human at all or to die on the cross either?
The truth is that God loves us so much that He became one of us to give us a perfect example of how to live this human life. As man, Jesus was vulnerable to everything that we are and like us, needed the Father's blessing and the infusion of strength and wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. At this time of baptism, the Father speaks from heaven saying, You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you."

In verse 23 of the third chapter of Luke, we are told that Jesus started His earthly ministry. After that, the geneology of Jesus is detailed and in this case, the geneological line appears to be Mary's and not Joseph's even though Jewish tradition did not recognize the mother in family records like these. Matthew has a similar lineage chart that is designed to reach the Jews while Luke detailed the chart with the Gentile in mind. Luke inserts Joseph's name as the son of Heli when in fact Heli was Mary's father and that Joseph was his son by marraige. Early enemies of Christianity pointed out the discrepencies between Matthew and Luke and wanted to stir doubt about Christ's lineage. It is things like this that help me to understand the truthfulness of the bible as discussion of a topic like this can be understood and if it was written by man, to suit man, this would have been edited a long time ago to avoid perceived bumps in the story line.