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This matter came up on a different threat, but it now has now become a question about errors in the New Testament. If I understand the ground rules, I should post it here. Please correct me if I’m wrong and transfer it to the correct thread. (I’m a new poster on SoF and may not be doing this correctly yet).

The issue is Luke’s rather obvious blunder in his second chapter, namely:

[Luke 1:5, 41-43] In the days of Herod, King of Judea, in which Mary had conceived during the lifetime of King Herod (died in 4 BC) and yet have given birth [Luke 2:2-7 ] during the census of Quirinius in 6 AD.

Thus, Mary’s pregnancy would have lasted 10 years.

I received the following replies:

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From Lyda*Rose: “The timing of events described in Luke's nativity story are just screwy. Not that important unless a literalist gets into it with a Jesus Seminar adherent.”

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From Trudy Scrumptious: “It's always struck me as a bit odd that Luke would go to such great lengths to tie his narrative in to specific historical dates, characters and events -- something most Biblical writers, including the other gospel writers, don't bother to do -- and write a preface telling us that he's a careful historian who did his research, only to get the dates all wrong.”

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Traditional Catholic Teaching on the infallibuility and hence inerrancy of scripture has been:

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PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII, 1893, Article 20

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. ……..For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican….Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write-He was so present to them-that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture.”

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Do not Luke’s Chapters 1 and 2 disprove the above papal teaching (which also seems to be infallible by way of the ordinary universal magisterium)?

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You know, I'd really hesitate about trying to prove anything from an alleged error in Luke--plenty of people have done similarly and then been embarrassed when a new scroll or a bit of monumental carving turns up to show he was right after all.

Generally speaking, when your ancient source indicates that he is trying to be accurate about events near his own time, it's wise to be very, very careful before claiming to know better 2000 years into the future. He's bound to have better and more numerous sources than we.

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Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
The issue is Luke’s rather obvious blunder in his second chapter, namely:

[Luke 1:5, 41-43] In the days of Herod, King of Judea, in which Mary had conceived during the lifetime of King Herod (died in 4 BC) and yet have given birth [Luke 2:2-7 ] during the census of Quirinius in 6 AD.

Thus, Mary’s pregnancy would have lasted 10 years.

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That's not really a blunder. Luke 1 deals with the pregnancy of Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist. Mary is a character in this narrative and is told she'd eventually be impregnated with Jesus, but there's no indication that Mary is pregnant at any point in the first chapter of Luke. Unless there's some major translator's error, Luke's version of the Annunciation is all given in the future tense, meaning it's describing events yet to happen. So we've got Luke 1 describing events during the reign of King Herod but not actually saying Mary was pregnant at that time, and we've got Luke 2 placing the birth of Jesus during the Quirinius census. There's no inherent contradiction there, although it can't be reconciled with Matthew's account, which puts the birth of Jesus during the reign of Herod.

This seems to be a case of reading into scripture the things we expect to find there, rather than what's actually there. (We think of Mary as the mother of Jesus, so if she gets mentioned she must either be pregnant or already have given birth.)

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Generally speaking, when your ancient source indicates that he is trying to be accurate about events near his own time, it's wise to be very, very careful before claiming to know better 2000 years into the future. He's bound to have better and more numerous sources than we.

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Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
"Diviney inspired" is the Church's claim, but note that Luke wrote 80 years after the fact.

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Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:

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Originally posted by Aristotle's Child:
"Diviney inspired" is the Church's claim, but note that Luke wrote 80 years after the fact.

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I wouldn't be so sure about that. There are some very good arguments which would put both Luke and Acts earlier than AD110+

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