@Smileyrius,
OK, first, theists do that **** all the time around here. Look at your buddy Romeo here who just makes the **** up as he goes along.
Here, from a Christian source, is an explantion of why it was important to claim that Jesus had been born in Bethlehem:
Quote:The New Testament records that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. In fact, this was a fulfillment of prophecy, as Matthew records:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
6 “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” Matthew 2:1-6 ESV
So, what is the significance of Bethlehem and why did God choose this city, and not any of the other cities in Israel, for the birthplace of the Messiah? It seems that it should be something more than just a random selection.
Source (More information can be found at the source.)
Claiming that your boy Jeebus was born in Bethlehem, and making up a story to claim it was due to a census ordained by the emperor was all a part of the messianic "package" Christians were peddling at that time.
How do you know that no one objected at that time to the story? For that matter, why do you assume that anyone but Christians were paying any attention to the whole song and dance? That preconceived bias to which you refer would have made the members of the cult want to believe, especially as it purportedly was the fulfillment of a prophecy. It would also likely have lead them to ignore anyone who objected. As i've already mentioned, there are no copies of this scripture any older than the early 4th century. A lot could have happened in those 300 years, and we don't have any documentary evidence for how the text read in the first century.
Now, let's eliminate a basis for anyone to claim that i've been bullying you with
ipse dixit claims.
From Fordham University,
by clicking here, you can read a text of an English translation of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti ("The Deeds of the Divine Augustus," from more than one monumental inscription on monuments erected by Tiberius, the step-son and successor to Augustus).
As for the office held by Pilate, that has been settled by what is commonly know as the Pilate inscription:
This was found by Israeli archaeologists in about 1960 at the site of Caesarea Maritima, which was the capital of the sub-province of Iudaea (what you would call Judea)--
not Jerusalem.
You can read about it by clicking here.
(Looking at the article, i see that my memory is faulty on a couple of minor points--it was uncovered by Italian archaeologists, and in 1961--otherwise, what i have told you is accurate.)
The Pilate inscription was very important at that time becasuse careful scholars from around the world considered the passage in Tacitus purporting to describe the persecution of Christians in Rome after the great fire to be an interpolation, and many questioned if Pilate had ever actually existed, as there were no other records of him. This inscription confirmed that he had existed, and that he was the
prefect of Iudaea--not the proconsul. However, the fact that he did exist has been taken by far too many Christians as proof that the text of scripture about "passion week" is an accurate historical record. That, of course, is nonsense. We know that George Washington existed, but that doesn't mean that all that old "chopping down the cherry tree, i cannot tell a lie" bullshit is true--Parson Weems was making that **** up as he went along because it was a great story. Much as Romeo makes his **** up as he goes along.
This may not seem important to you, but it brings up two points. One is that the passage in Tacitus is almost certainly an interpolation (a forgery inserted into the text), both because Pilate was not a proconsul, and because Tacistus, who did hold that office in the province of Asia (we would think, western Turkey), and he would have known better. It is also important because if they get such a basic fact as that wrong, then it calls into question the rest of the claims made in scripture about that period of time. It also shows that their source could not possibly have been an eyewitness, because any such witness would have known that Pilate was a prefect.
As i said before, it's literally carved in stone.
