Ancient Censuses — Does Luke's Christmas Story Make Sense?

Biblical Time Machine

In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph and a very pregnant Mary travel to Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus has ordered a census of the entire Roman Empire. But does Jesus's birth story in Luke align with what we know about censuses in the ancient world? How were people counted? Who conducted these censuses? And did people really need to travel back to their ancestral homes to register with Rome?
For this special holiday episode, Helen and Dave are joined by Andrew Whitby, a data scientist and author of The Sum of the People: How the Census Has Shaped Nations from the Ancient World to the Modern Age.
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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos