3:14 "Is this like an Easter Egg? Ironically-" Underrated joke

They also left out the book where Mary had a little lamb.

I always thought Mary and Joseph were silly not booking a place at an inn before travelling, especially at Christmas!

I hear on the anniversary of it’s release they’re going to release “The Bible: Director’s Cut”

I used to be an innkeeper back in 1st century Bethlehem, so business that year was booming... Or it would have been, unfortunately I had to close my inn, since I was from Jerusalem... There were a lot of traveling people that year, and tragically, a lot of closed-up inns.

In Denmark, Santa lives in Greenland. Which, now that I've written it, is kind of a weird sentence.

It's so nice to see intelligent people discussing this without saying mean and degrading things like so many sites do. I'm very impressed with all the comments.

It's not meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.

It's weird hearing Sandi talk about her native Denmark with that incredible RP accent

So Jesus was the very first person to learn How to Train Your Dragon?

If you were taking a census, the very last thing you would want is to have people being registered in a different place to where they now live. The whole point of a census is to determine the population distribution etc. at the time of the census, not the situation as it was a variable number of years before when each person was born. Did people also have to register their occupation and status at the time of their birth? If so, the census would show the entire population as being unemployed and in need of full-time social care!

That kind of stories they rejected are exactly why I like the tales of the Norse mythology more. They went all in with crazy stories.

Jesus is too hot, hot damn, make a dragon want to retire man

Stephen's Harry Potter voice makes me feel all warm and cosy.

You can just imagine the discussion group deciding, what was to go into the bible. "How about this bit?", "Sorry, it is a bit far fetched,... Its perfect!"😂 😂

Al Murrays natural voice... I was never confused Until now...

Why is there no Adoration of the Dragons paint-by-numbers merch?

Mary was also a descendant of David, but through a different branch. In fact, the lineage Luke traces *is* Mary's side of the family; it's _Matthew_ who traces Joseph's side.

Leaving aside questions of the historicity of Biblical events, Stephen's comment at 2:04 about Luke being the one most determined to "fit in all the prophecies" strikes me as a bit odd. Of the attributed Gospel writers, Matthew, not Luke, is the one most noted for a clear desire to connect the story of Jesus with Hebrew Scripture up to that point, including the tying in of prophecies. The whole book starts with a massive genealogy, for goodness' sake! Luke is more notable for its emphasis on Jesus' healing miracles, and/or for his anti-wealth sentiments (Magnificat, anyone?); Luke's Gospel discusses money more than any other.

"easter egg" .. nice one, Dara!

That anecdote made Jesus sound like a character out of Game of Thrones.

My favorite is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It’s a lot like the Billy Mumy episode of The Twilight Zone.

1:17 Alan, what are you doing!

Can we just point out how marvelous Stephen looks in that suit.

Jesus playing with dragons! Why isn't that in my Bible!

The reason they weren't considered Canon was that they did not resemble the character of Jesus in reliable works, and were hence considered crapola.

Mary also descended from the stem of Jesse. Matthew chapter 1.

The stem of Jesse, in a matriarchal society that would be Mary, and that is also why Mary had to be the result of the immaculate conception

Baby Jesus would fit in great as a Game of Thrones character

Im sad that did not make it into the bible. Since that would have been proof that dragons are real. Since ofc we know that everything in the bible is true. After all the bible says so.

The bible needs more dragons tbh.

Where is the vicar that's usually on this show when you need him!😁

Those are like baby Krishna stories. Cool.

Stephen Fry says “... no truth in the fact ...”

The Jesus-Dragon myth has parallels in many Proto-Indo-European myths. For e.g.: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliya

If you want a good time, you should look up the infancy gospels. I think most of them are from Thomas, but they're amazing and prove Jesus was actually a little shit. Dragon taming, killing a guy on the spot because he bumped into him, killing another kid because he made a bigger mud puddle, and let's not forget the amazing story of him killing a snake. Why? Because it bit some travellers coming to his town, and they were so busy trying to find a cure that they didn't immediately seek him out and pay tribute. 😂

Sounds like Jesus used his legendary action against the dragons.

The infancy gospels were rejected as 1. They were written much later than the gospels according to M,M, L and J 2. They all write about a Jesus that over emphasizes the deity of Jesus and play down the humanity of Jesus. All stemming from a love For Gnosticism which was popular at the time. Popular as there was a belief that the spiritual life was amazeballs and the flesh was dirty and disgusting. Only in Jesus and 4 accepted gospels do you get the perfect portrayal that harmonizes the humanity and deity of Jesus.

I also liked the one where infant Jesus killed someone for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, and threatened to kill Joseph.

Lapland claiming Santa Claus. My massive nerd self was waiting for someone to mention Riverside Iowa claiming James T. Kirk.

Except Mary was also a descendant of David.

"three boys and Mary, a girl" IS THERE ANY WOMAN IN THE BIBLE NOT NAMED MARY???

Probably the best one yet 🤣

3:06 Not nearly enough laughs for that spot on Easter joke!

No one got Dara’s joke....

You could never make this episode in the USA.

What would even be the point in going to where you were born? The point of a census is to determine who is living somewhere at the moment. Not who was born somewhere 30 years ago.

Mary was from the line of Jesse. Pastor Charles Lawson has a wonderful explanation on this.

Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, the newly-appointed Imperial Legate (governor) of the province of Roman Syria, was assigned to carry out a tax census of the new province. According to Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the late first century CE, Jews reacted negatively to this census.

There were also books that described jesus as having a wife which were left out conveniently

Alan's just looking at them like wtf is this segment

Joseph- carpenter. Are yo telling me he didn't even have a two-wheeled cart? Mary is always riding on the DONKEY for days.

Sandi was funny as a contestant.

It's actually a pity that there was never a census of the Roman Empire

They should have got an airbnb

Like it doesn't make sense to do a cenusus of where you were born like at all, especially back then, surely instead you want to know where everyone actually lives that's a much more practical piece of information. It's no use for the empire to know "3 thousand families used to live here" because when they go to recruit soldiers or workers for projects or try to figure out how much tax they are supposed to be collecting they'll know where people are from but not where they actually are now

The world awaits with bated breath the collaboration between Marvel and the Vatican for their latest superhero, Jesus. Definitely a money-spinner.

In his book Who Was Jesus? the former Anglican bishop N. T Wright states: The question of Quirinius and his census is an old chestnut, requiring a good knowledge of Greek. It depends on the meaning of the word protos, which usually means ‘first’. Thus most translations of Luke 2.2 read ‘this was the first [protos] census, when Quirinius was governor of Syria’, or something like that. But in the Greek of the time, as the standard major Greek lexicons point out, the word protos came sometimes to be used to mean ‘before’, when followed (as this is) by the genitive case (p. 89).Wright then explains how this can relate to the enrollment of Quirinius: I suggest, therefore, that actually the most natural reading of the verse is: “This census took place before the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

They cut the part about dragons in the Bible? Shoulda had a better editor.

Why would they want you take part in a census regarding a place in which you no longer reside?

Stephan Fry's Stephan Tie is Stephan fly.

I realise it's a tiny bit off topic but, even if the 6 BCE census of Judaea is a thing, and even if you accept that as a stand-in for "all the world" being taxed (presumably because the author/s of Luke assumed that the rest of the Empire had been subjected to the same census), it would still be a pretty steep climb from there to get to "Jesus was the son of god, born of a virgin, and rose from the dead." I mean it doesn't in itself establish his existence, never mind the rest of it.

There is a scroll found (with the dead sea and copper scrolls) that states Jesus was one of twin boys, he was said to have another brother and sister too... Strange how the gospel of infant days says Mary travelled with 3 boys and a girl

How many hosts are on this show?

Uh, wrong again Stephen. Records exist to show that Roman-controlled Egypt had begun a census as early as 10 B.C. and it was repeated every 14 years. And Augustus himself notes in his Res Gestae (The Deeds of Augustus) that he ordered three wide-spread censuses of Roman citizens, one in 28B.C., one in 8 B.C. and one in 14 A.D.2 In between there are several other censuses that happened locally across Rome. Luke's account corroborates the idea of multiple censuses for Judea when he writes "This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria." Certainly, the word "first" implies that more than one census happened.Records exist to show that Roman-controlled Egypt had begun a census as early as 10 B.C. and it was repeated every 14 years. And Augustus himself notes in his Res Gestae (The Deeds of Augustus) that he ordered three wide-spread censuses of Roman citizens, one in 28B.C., one in 8 B.C. and one in 14 A.D.2 In between there are several other censuses that happened locally across Rome. Luke's account corroborates the idea of multiple censuses for Judea when he writes "This was the first census taken while Quirinius was govern

I'm slightly upset that apparently nobody got Dara's "Easter egg" joke.

What is the retiring age for a dragon?

I always thought the census thing was weird, like why couldn't they just say she wanted to have her baby at her grandma's place.

The short answer is, it was a plot device.

The bible? Nice story bro, needs more dragons

and thereafter retired...

a rabi put mary and joseph together . she was very young and joseph very old . he had already had lots of children all grown up . he was now a widower as his wife had died . mary was a young and a teenage orphan with no one to help or look after her . both needed each other . she needed a home and security and he neede company and care .

Mary was from the stem in Jesse and descendent of King David. Shesh!

A religious text that's full of lies? You would never expect that. 🤣

Did he say tiger woods

Dragonfruit comes from Israel. I wonder if the "infant gospels" were referring to wild animals of some sort, or actually told as a simple children's story. Also, in Judaism the birthright is passed down from the male line (Isaac from Abraham, Jacob from Isaac, Judah from Jacob). The lineage of Jesus through Jesse, David, Solomon and Joseph is the opening part of the New Testament (Matthew). So, census or not, there has always been a long tradition of knowing the long male line from which you are descended. Of course Y DNA records the same thing, changing very little over 15 or so generations.

they're likely referring to the Census of Quirinius, which might as well been the whole of the Roman world to the Jews at the time, but not given by Octavius. QI is mistaken, people did have to return to their homes, censuses were mandatory and happened often under Imperial rule; under particular Caesars. If I"m wrong, I'd be happy to learn otherwise.

Mary was a descendant of David...thus the prophecy was fulfilled.

So who actually did return for the census?

Mary was a cousin of Joesph so she was from the stem of Jesse but on a female line

SMH... It wasn't due to a census. It was due to a tax being levied. Geez. It took me all of 10 seconds to check the 'return to their birthplace for the census'...and find out the claim is entirely null and void. I really do expect a higher standard of fact-checking from QI.

First page of the NT they go through all the trouble to list down the family line of Joseph before proceeding to say that Jesus, the claimant to the Messiah, was not Joseph's son in the very next page. Classic. Wake up people

reminds me of fanboys deciding what's canon and what's not

In the darkness - there be dragons

"The whole thing doesn't make sense!" I'm not sure it's meant to, it's a fiction book about magical beardy men.

02.02 "Luke is the one, out of all the Gospels, most determined to fulfil alll the prophecies." Actually this was Matthew, not Luke. The stem of Jesse was not cut off because Jesus was not the biological son of Joseph because it was acceptable in their culture for a person to incorporated into their family to bear the family name (see, for example, Abraham trying to give Sarah a child through her maidservant Hagar.) Furthermore the evidence of the Talmud tells us that Luke's geneaology is of Mary which means Jesus is descended by blood from Jesse, just not through the father. The argument against the census is an argument from silence and so inherently promlematic - censuses took place regularly. Furthermore, to say that no one had to travel to their place of birth was incorrect (see short video below). Incidentally, if Luke has invented Mary and Joseph, and wanted to "get them to Bethlehem" to fulfil the prophecy, he could just have told us all that they lived in Bethlehem. Job done. For a bit of balance (and so we are not informed by comedians rather than historians) see the link below: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ott4aJtizbzIiKs.html

i understand they left out the Book of Mary Magdalene as well.

aannndd......cue the religeous arguments......

Soooo.... who did?! QI is great, but it always irritates me a bit when they ask questions like this, as if it has an interesting real answer when in reality it's just a trick question designed to trigger a specific wrong answer.

Why didn’t they just say the angel said they should go there

So whats the answer? Who returned home for the census?

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David." Luke 2:1‭-‬4 NIV Sorry Stephen, but Joseph never returned to Bethlehem because it was his place of birth - verse 4 states that it was where his line was from. So the klaxon was right to sound, but not for the reasons you give. Secondly, as to the point of the genealogy, you refer only to the genealogy of Jesus given in Matthew. The genealogy in Luke chapter 3 is considered the maternal genealogy (although Joseph is mentioned, the Greek word used suggests Joseph is being considered the Son in Law of Heli, as opposed to the Son of Jacob as mentioned in Matthew.

Only a Transformers movie can even compete with the amoumt of plot holes in the Bible...

"Don't stop me preaching" followed up "I love the meek and souls" as a third Christmas No1, having started with "We built this city on a rock with holes".

Which Arabian Peninsula native jumped over the moon on a Pegasus?

OK, I knew this wasn't Mary and Joseph but for an even more basic and pedantic reason. Even leaving aside historical accuracy, the gospel says nothing about Joseph having to go to his 'place of birth', it says he had to go to Bethlehem because he was descended from a family that came from Bethlemen (he was 'of the house of David'). So you don't even need to go so far as they're going here, since the question Stephen asked would be wrong anyway, even according to the tradition.

You'd think Luke would have been clever enough to come up with something more plausible than that ridiculous idea about the census.

At the very beginning of Luke’s Christmas narrative in Luke 2:1-5 we are told that a census took place in the entire Roman world. The words are very familiar during Christmas as they are read aloud in so many sermons, plays, musicals and Christmas celebrations. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered, to Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child (Luke 2:1-5). For many years, historians and scholars have pointed to the passage above mentioning the decree by Quirinius, as problematic if not completely inaccurate. Did a census really take place in the entire Roman world during that time, and did Mary & Joseph actually go up to Bethlehem to be registered, as Luke Gospel says? New Testament scholar Dr. Harold W. Hoehner has summarized some of the top challenges faced by those who hold to the historical accuracy of Luke’s account. He writes: “[Emil] Schurer states that Luke cannot be historically accurate because: (1) nothing is known in history of a general census during the time of Augustus; (2) in a Roman census Joseph would have not had to travel to Bethlehem but would have registered in the principle town of his residence, and Mary would not have had to register at all; (3) no Roman census would have been made in Palestine during Herod’s reign; (4) Josephus records nothing of a Roman census in Palestine in the time of Herod - rather the census of A.D. 6-7 was something new among the Jews; and (5) a census held under Quirinius could not have occurred during Herod’s reign for Quirinius was not governor until after Herod’s death.”[2] At first glance, these objections to the Roman census during the reigns of emperor [Imperator] Caesar Augustus (Octavius) and governor [legatus] Quirinus may seem insurmountable and quite difficult to answer, but an honest appraisal of the historical and archaeological evidence suggests that they are not. The objections we will answer here are 1 and 2 - (1) the claim that nothing is known in the history of a general census during the time of Augustus, and (2) that in a Roman census Mary & Joseph would not have had to travel to Bethlehem to register. Was There Census During the Reign of Augustus in the Roman World?  Roman denarius It is a commonly held assumption that the decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world was to be taxed, was a single census [a single event] in the entire Roman empire. The question is, is this how Luke understood it, or intended it to be understood? Very likely, not. According to Hoehner, “What is meant is that censuses were taken at different times in different provinces - Augustus being the first one in history to order a census or tax assessment of the whole provincial empire. This is further substantiated by the fact that Luke uses the present tense indicating that Augustus ordered censuses to be taken regularly, rather than only one time.”[3] New Testament historian Jack Finegan says, “As to the taking of such an enrollment in general, it is known from discoveries among the Egyptian papyri that a Roman census was taken in Egypt, and therefore perhaps also throughout the empire regularly, every fourteen years. Many actual census returns have been found, and they use the very same word (ἀπογράφω) which Luke 2:2 uses for the “enrollment.”[4] The specific census which Luke mentions (Lk. 2:2), is that it “first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.” Apart from Luke, we have two other historical sources concerning Quirinius - the Roman historian, Tacitus (Annals 3.48) and the Jewish/Roman historian, Flavius Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 18.1-2). According to Tacitus (Annals 3.48), P. Sulpicius Quirinius died in A.D. 21. Josephus’s reference to Quirinius in Antiquities of the Jews (18, I,1.) poses somewhat of a problem, because he informs us that the “taxings conducted by Quirinius while governing Syria were made in the thirty-seventh year of Caesar’s victory over [Marc] Anthony at Actium in 31 B.C. This would place the census in about A.D. 6/7, a date which is too late to be brought into alignment with the birth of Christ which was likely in the winter 5/4 B.C.[5] In Luke’s account in Luke 2:2, he speaks of a census which “first” took place when Quirinius was governing Syria, so it is not out of the question that the census to which Josephus is referring was the second one, while Luke mentions the “first” one [i.e the earlier one]. Gleason Archer also notes that Luke, “was therefore well aware of the second census, taken by Quirinius in A.D. 7, which Josephus alludes to… We know this because Luke (who lived much closer to the time that Josephus did) also quotes Gamaliel as alluding to the insurrection of Judas of Galilee “in the days of census taking” (Acts 5:37).[6] Additional evidence also seems to suggest that Quirinius served as governor twice which would then put him in an official position over Syria to enact the census of Luke 2:2. In 1784, a Latin inscription was discovered near Tivoli, located about twenty miles east of Rome. It is known as the Lapis Tiburtinus inscription, and according to Jack Finegan it, “…contains the statement of a high Roman official that when he became governor of Syria he entered the office for the second time (Latin, iterum). It has even been thought that this personage might have been Quirinius…”[7] Whatever the identity is of the Roman official mentioned in the inscription, at minimum shows that it was not uncommon for Roman procurators to have served twice, and maximally it may eventually reveal that it was Quirinius himself, through further research. Is it Plausible that Mary & Joseph Traveled to Bethlehem for the Census? Luke 2:4-5 states: And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  Mary & Joseph traveling to Bethlehem Objection 2 listed above states, that in a Roman census Joseph would have not had to travel to Bethlehem, but would have registered in the principle town of his residence, and Mary would not have had to register at all. It was generally understood that Roman law instructed property owners to register for taxation in the district where they owned land. However, “…a papyrus dated to A.D. 104, records an Egyptian prefect who ordered Egyptians to return to their ancestral homes so that a census could be taken. In the first century Rome, since the Jews’ property was linked to their fathers (i.e. patriarchal), the Romans would certainly have allowed them the custom of laying claim to their family estate for taxation

Oh man, the Infancy Gospels are a real treat to read. There's the one where Jesus kills a kid for shoving him and blinds their parents, then striking people illiterate for trying to teach him how to read, and like at least 5 different resurrections (including undoing his earlier tantrum murder).

It’s great to have zero counter opinions or evidence on topics like this as everyone smirks and agrees with each other and mocks those not like them.