Reading the Bible Badly. Karl Allen Kuhn
and resources from the underclass to the very wealthy micro-minority. As a result, 2 to 5 percent of the population controlled about 60 to 65 percent of the empire’s resources, leaving 95 to 98 percent of the population the difficult task of getting by with the remaining 35 to 40 percent.
3 The Brutal Realities of Roman RuleNot surprisingly, for most within the Roman world, life was nasty, brutish, and short. In sharp contrast to the elite and the higher class officials keeping them in power, 75 to 85 percent of the population, consisting of peasants and slaves, oscillated near or below “subsistence.” This means that they suffered irregular access to adequate nutrition, water, hygiene, and secure shelter. The consequences of perpetually living on the edge were devastating.For most lower-class people who did make it to adulthood, their health would have been atrocious. By age thirty, the majority suffered from internal parasites, rotting teeth, and bad eyesight. Most had lived with the debilitating results of protein deficiency since childhood. Parasites were especially prevalent, being carried to humans by sheep, goats, and dogs. . . . If infant mortality rates, the age structure of the population, and pathological evidence from skeletal remains can be taken as indicators, malnutrition was a constant threat as well (Fiensy, 1991, 98).15Take note of these shocking figures offered by anthropologists: because of the way resources were distributed in the Roman world and the resulting poverty afflicting the overwhelming majority, the life expectancy of urban peasants was twenty-seven, and rural peasants thirty-two. Infant mortality rates were about 30 percent, and over half of all peasant children living past age one would fail to make it past age sixteen.16I’ll give you a second to absorb that.In short, many of the underclass were struggling to survive, their days filled with worry about the next harvest, the next tax, tribute, rent, or loan payment, and often the next meal. This was the world mandated by Caesar, and by the gods. This was the world the elite zealously and often brutally protected with their military might, police forces, prisons, and crosses. This was the lived reality of most of the earliest followers of Jesus.
4 More of the Same Among the People of GodThis very same exploitative economic and political system resulting in the tragically disparate distribution of resources was replicated within Israelite society. In reality, the rule and power of the Israelite elite was an extension of the rule and power of Rome. Herod the Great ruled over Israel from 37–34 BCE as a “client king” of the Roman emperors, and following him his descendants ruled in various capacities with the mandate of Rome. The Jerusalem temple was the center of the Judean economy until its destruction in 70 CE. It received tithes, offerings, and sacrifices from the populace, and also collected tribute for Rome, in exchange for its “brokerage” of divine forgiveness and blessing.17The economic benefits for the temple priesthood were significant, establishing them as members of the elite. Just like the Roman upper class, this priestly aristocracy acquired much of the arable land in the region through its own onerous lending policies and peasant foreclosure.18 And just like the Roman elite, the Israelite elite claimed that their rule and the current state of affairs were mandated by heaven, by God.
5 Yearning for the Kingdom of God
But many among the people of Israel living in Palestine and throughout the Mediterranean region did not buy into the elites’ claim that elite rule and the status quo were in tune with the will of God. Remember, among the vast majority of Israelites, half of their children who managed to live past age one would die before they reached age sixteen! As we would expect, many Israelites found this state of affairs unacceptable. Many of them claimed that Caesar and the Israelite elite ruled not with a divine mandate, but a demonic one. Their children were starving.
In protest against their lived reality, many Israelites in Jesus’ time, as did their ancestors, dared to hope for a day when Israel and all the world would become a realm governed by God’s intentions for humanity. They dared to hope for the arrival of God’s kingdom, in which the blessing God intended for humankind would finally be realized. To express such hope and to encourage one another, they told themselves “Kingdom of God Stories.” While these stories took various forms and could be told in many different ways, they nearly always revolved around three essential claims, or story lines:
1 The God of Israel is Creator and Master of all
2 The current state of the world violates God’s intentions for creation
3 God is coming to fix this, to save the faithful, and to return creation to a state of blessing
Within Israel’s sacred traditions (including what Christians refer to as the Old Testament), the abuse of Israel by foreign leaders, and their own leaders, are manifestations of a world gone horribly wrong.19 In the century leading up to the birth of Jesus, many within Israel were proclaiming Kingdom Stories in response to Roman rule and what they perceived as the corruption of Israel’s own rulers, especially the temple elite and those allied with them.20 Some Kingdom Stories, including those found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, regarded Roman and Israelite elite, and their followers, as the spawn of Satan. A day was arriving soon when these reprobates would be destroyed. God would establish a new Temple, a new people of Israel, who would share in God’s abundance.21
So, as we prepare to rejoin Luke’s infancy narrative, let’s quickly summarize the main points from our whirlwind tour of the realm of Rome.
1 In the Roman world, religion and politics mix, all the time. Rulers claim a divine mandate to rule, appealing to and even creating sacred ritual and tradition to validate their control of the economic and political mechanisms of empire.
2 Rome, like most ancient civilizations and many still today, cultivates a grossly unequal distribution of resources. This results in a very wealthy upper class who hoard most of that society’s resources.
3 The vast majority of the population suffers, and many suffer horribly, under the inequity and brutality of Roman rule.
4 Israelite elite are an extension of Roman rule. They are supposed to shepherd the people in ways of righteousness and be ministers of God’s blessings, but many use their positions to abuse and oppress.
5 Most within Israel, well before and during the time of Jesus, know that the current state of affairs is not okay with God. They earnestly hope that God will do something about it, and soon, and tell Kingdom Stories to express that hope and encourage one another.
This information about Jesus’ context is crucial for making sense of what Luke and the rest of the New Testament is trying to say about Jesus and the significance of his birth. And if you approach the passage with this information as part of your interpretive lens, then you can’t help but notice the significance of Caesar in this story. Allow me to repeat myself: most Israelites in the time of Jesus, knew that the current state of affairs was not okay with God, and earnestly hoped that God would do something about it, and soon. According to Luke and the other NT writers, that time has now come. Jesus is God’s answer to Caesar, the Israelite elite, and all that has gone desperately wrong with this world!
Let’s return to the story (perhaps go back and reread it before moving on).
Lord Caesar
Recall that as the passage opens, we are not in Israel. We are in Rome, in the palace of the emperor. We are likely meant to picture Caesar, menacing, seated on his throne.
For it is the one known throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond as Lord who speaks and moves “all the world” to action (2:1). Caesar Augustus orders a census to be taken. Caesar wants to take stock of his subjects and possessions, the objects of his rule and sources of revenue (think taxation). His word is spoken, his underlings such as Quirinius, Governor of Syria, make it happen. The rest of the world has no choice but to comply with this “penetrating symbol of Roman overlordship.” 22 And “all went to their own towns to be registered” (v. 3). As the scene now shifts to the dusty roads of the Israelite countryside, we learn that the father of Jesus is no exception: “Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem” (v. 4).
Note these repeated references to Caesar’s census in vv. 2–5. Nearly all the activity that occurs in this part of the story revolves around the need for people, including Joseph, to be registered. The Roman Emperor dominates