Luke 2:1-3

Luke 2:1-3

[1] And  it came to pass  in  those  days,  that there went out  a decree  from  Caesar  Augustus,  that all  the world  should be taxed.  [2] (And this  taxing  first  made  when Cyrenius  was governor  of Syria.)  [3] And  all  went  to be taxed,  every one  into  city. 

What does Luke 2:1-3 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

Quirinius served as governor of the Roman province of Syria twice (3-2 B.C. and A.D6-7). [1] However, Herod the Great was still alive when Augustus issued his decree ( Matthew 2), and Herod died in4 B.C. [2] This incongruity has cast doubt on Luke"s reliability as a historian. [3] There is evidence that Augustus issued the type of decree that Luke described in A.D6 (cf. Acts 5:37). [4] However there is presently no evidence that he did so earlier.
One solution to this problem is that the decree went out in3or2 B.C, but we have no other record of it. [5] This 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" ( Luke 2:2, Gr. prote) means "prior" or "former" here (cf. John 15:18). [6] Luke"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 A.D6). This seems to be the best solution. All the evidence points to the birth of Jesus in late5 or early4 B.C. [7]
Customarily people returned to their own hometowns to register for these censuses. [8]
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 ( Luke 1:37).