In narrating John's birth, Luke stressed his naming, but in his account of Jesus' birth, he concentrated on its setting.
Luke's brief account of Jesus' birth emphasizes three things. He described the political situation to explain why Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This set Jesus' birth in a context of world history and anticipated His cosmic significance. Second, Luke connected Bethlehem with David to show that Jesus qualified as the Messiah. Finally, he presented Jesus' humble beginnings and so introduced the themes of Jesus' identification with the poor and His rejection.
Luke paralleled John and Jesus' births as he did the announcements of their births, and he stressed Jesus' superiority again. Zechariah announced John's birth, but angels proclaimed the birth of Jesus.
2:1-3 "Those days"refer to the time of John's birth (1:57-79). Augustus was Caesar from 44 B.C. to 14 A.D.75The purpose of a Roman census was to provide statistical data so the government could levy taxes.76"All the inhabited earth"(NASB) means throughout "the entire Roman world"(NIV) or empire. This was evidently the first census taken of the whole Roman provincial system, though it was not the first census that the Romans took within the empire.77
Quirinius served as governor of the Roman province of Syria twice (3-2 B.C. and 6-7 A.D.).78However, Herod the Great was still alive when Augustus issued his decree (Matt. 2), and Herod died in 4 B.C.79This incongruity has cast doubt on Luke's reliability as a historian.80There is evidence that Augustus issued the type of decree that Luke described in 6 A.D.81However there is presently no evidence that he did so earlier.
One solution to this problem is that the decree went out in 3 or 2 B.C., but we have no other record of it.82This solves the problem of a census occurring during the governorship of Quirinius, but it does not solve the problem of Herod being alive then. Another possibility is that the word "first"(v. 2, Gr. prote) means "prior"or "former"here (cf. John 15:18).83Luke's meaning would then be that the census that took Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was the one Augustus made prior to the one he took when Quirinius was governor of Syria (in 6 A.D.). This seems to be the best solution. All the evidence points to the birth of Jesus in late 5 or early 4 B.C.84
Customarily people returned to their own hometowns to register for these censuses.85
By citing Caesar's decree, Luke helped his readers see that human decrees, however powerful, fall under and within the divine decree, which ordered the birth of Jesus (1:37).
2:4-5 It may seem unusual that Joseph took Mary with him to his ancestral home in Bethlehem since she was pregnant. Apparently the Romans required that every adult appear to make a proper assessment of his property.86Perhaps Joseph also did this to remove Mary from local gossip and emotional stress in Nazareth.87Moreover the couple probably knew that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2).
Joseph and Mary apparently lived together as husband and wife, though they did not have sexual relations before Jesus' birth (cf. 1:25). It is unlikely that Mary would have travelled with Joseph as she did if they were only betrothed.88
Most readers assume that the couple arrived in Bethlehem just before Jesus' birth. However the text does not require nor rule out this reading. They may have been there for some time before Mary went into labor.
1:6-7 Normally mothers wrapped their newborn babies in wide strips of cloth to keep them warm (cf. Ezek. 16:4).89Traditionally Christians have believed that the manger or feeding trough in which Mary laid the baby Jesus was in a cave.90However most homes in Israel had two parts, one for the family and another for the household animals. It is possible that this was the location of the manger. An inn (Gr. katalyma) could have been a guest room in a house (cf. 22:11-12) or any place of lodging. This Greek word has a wider range of meanings than pandocheion, which refers specifically to an inn for travelers (cf. 10:34).
The innkeeper has become a villain figure in the Christmas story, but Luke did not present him as such. The writer's contrast was between the royal birthplace that this Son of David deserved and the humble one He received. His exclusion from human society anticipated the rejection that He would continue to experience throughout His ministry.
We may never know the exact day of Jesus' birth until we get to heaven. However, a day in late December or early January is likely. The traditional date of December 25 goes back at least as far as Hippolytus (c. 165-235 A.D.).91Probably Jesus was born in the winter of 5-4 B.C.92
