Talk:Luke and the Census

On the alleged 'solution'

αὕτη ἡ ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου

This is the word-for-word translation of Luke 2:2

prôtê means "first" as in first in a sequence. It's a superlative adjective that means "most before." It's not a preposition. It doesn't mean "before," and that would make no sense with the rest of the sentence anyway, since it says "while Quirinius was governing." It would make no sense to say "this was the census before while Quirinius was governing."

In any case, we already know that there was never any census in Judea before 6 CE. There was never any census either while Herod the Great was King or while Archelaus was Tetrarch. The whole reason for the census in 6 CE was that Judea had just become a Roman property and the first order was to count the people and levy taxes. The census in 6 CE was the first Roman census taken in Judea because Judea was not part of Rome until 6 CE (and Luke specifically states that it was a Roman census.)