New Testament Studies· 2026Q1
A Census of ‘All the Land’:Two Fateful Mistranslations in Luke-Acts
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Short summary
This paper argues that Luke's references to an empire-wide census at Jesus' birth (Lk 2.1–2) and a 'great famine in all the world' (Acts 11.28–30) are mistranslations of Hebrew/Aramaic phrases that meant 'all the land [of Israel]', not 'the whole inhabited world'.
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Key points
- Luke's accounts of an empire-wide census (Lk 2.1–2) and a global famine (Acts 11.28–30) have long puzzled scholars.
- This paper revives Charles Torrey's proposal that the Greek phrases used in these passages are mistranslations.
- The Greek phrases, translated as 'all the world' or 'all the inhabited world', likely mistranslated original Hebrew/Aramaic phrases.
- The original Semitic phrases, כל־הארץ and כלה ארעא, could mean 'all the earth' or 'all the land [of Israel]'.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract Few historical claims in the canonical Gospels have excited such puzzlement and even derision among exegetes as Luke’s assertion that Jesus was born amid an Empire-wide census (Lk 2.1–2). Similar problems have bedevilled the interpretation of Acts 11.28–30, which describes a similarly unsubstantiated ‘great famine in all the world (λιμὸν μεγάλην…ἐφ᾽ ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην)’. This paper argues, following Charles Torrey’s earlier but neglected proposal, that in our Greek versions of these passages, πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην/ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην mistranslates the Hebrew, כל־הארץ and the Aramaic כלה ארעא, each of which could mean either ‘all the earth’ (Gen 1.26) or ‘all the land [of Israel]’ (as in Jos 2.24, 9.24, 1 Sam 13.3, 2 Sam 24.8, 2 Kgs 17.5, Isa 10.23, Jer 23.15, etc.).
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. New Testament Studies, 2026 · DOI ↗
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