For ancient Roman censuses, were people really required to travel long distances to register?

by ArrantPariah

Luke 2 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2&version=GNT

has Joseph bringing Mary from Nazareth in Galilee, to Bethlehem in Judea, to register for the census, because Joseph was a descendant of King David.

Did Roman censuses really require people go to the town of their ancestors to register? Or, could people simply register where they lived?

KiwiHellenist

Here's a detailed response from last year, in the form of an exchange between myself and /u/mythoplokos.

The upshot is:

  • no, Roman censuses absolutely did not require this;
  • in the specific case of Quirinius' census, it would entirely defeat the purpose of the census;
  • Luke's census could be a conflation of some actual censuses of Roman citizens (not Judaeans) with a motif from the Hebrew Bible in Numbers 1;
  • alternatively it could be a result of confusion over the nature of Augustus' censuses (as per /u/mythoplokos);
  • either way, the census is a plot device that the author of Luke uses to solve a theological problem over where the Messiah was supposed to come from, and all three gospels that mention Jesus' birthplace (Matthew, Luke, and John) solve the problem in different ways.