I agree that it could be similarly odd to suppose that the reader of the Wars had just entirely missed Archelaus in the transition between Herod the Great and direct Roman rule.C) Luke 5.1 begins ‘in the days of Herod, king of Judea’ and introduces the story of the annunciation of John the Baptist’s birth to John’s father Zechariah. Luke 2.1-3 introduces the story of Jesus birth and is set during the census of Quirinius. As we can date the death of Herod to 4 BCE and the census of Quirinius to 6/7 CE based on Josephus, there are chronological difficulties within Luke’s gospel. Many proposals to reconcile the two accounts have been proposed, but most scholars allow that Luke has made an error in his chronology. Muller suggests that ‘with the Antiquities’ it would have been impossible for Luke to have made Mary pregnant at the time of Herod’s death and yet set Jesus birth at the time of the census of Quirinius. He also supposed that Luke did not know either the Jewish War or the Antiquities because he spelled Quirinius name Κυρηνίου (in the genitive) rather than Κυρίνιος, which is what Josephus has. Muller proposes that Luke must have had some other source.
Again, we have to wonder why the theory that Luke had read Antiquities in the past might not serve here. He recalled the names of Herod the King and the census of Quirinius but did not recall the events that occurred in between them and thought the census occurred soon following Herod’s death. The spelling difference is minor. Josephus gives a better Greek rendering of the Roman name Quirinius. Luke may have thought the name was derived from Cyrene.
D) “ Archelaus' nine years rule over Judea is described in no less than a whole section in 'Antiquities' (XVII, XIII, 1), and not in a few words as in 'Wars'. A whole section would be hard to skip!”
Muller’s logic here is that Luke could have skipped the brief account of Archelaus’ nine year rule in the Jewish War, but not the longer account in Antiquities. This is simply an assertion of one of Muller’s presuppositions as a fact. From a compositional perspective, making short and long omissions are equally simple. Muller cannot bring himself to believe that Luke would have omitted a account of Archelaus’ reign if he had known it. But we have to allow that he may not have considered it important and it may not even have stuck in his memory.
I have an additional issue here.
(a) So-called technically wrong uses of the term "king" were common. For example, Josephus could use the name "king" for Lysanias, son of Ptolemy son of Mennaeus, but from coins we see that his title was "tetrarch and high priest" (for a while some scholars wrongly assumed that the coins could not have meant this Lysanias because Josephus called him king). Josephus also seems to slip up in AJ 18.6.1, Ἡρώδου τοῦ βασιλέως, when he means tetrarch.
(b) Archelaus was designated as king in the will, according to Josephus.
(c) Some people called Archelaus king, according to Josephus.
(d) Archelaus was designated as ethnarch by Augustus, with a promise that he could be upgraded to king, according to Josephus. This term has a few different associations, but the one likely invoked here is Maccabean or Hasmonean, e.g. John Hyrcanus II who was king and then ethnarch. The two titles were not so distant in conception when used for the ruler of Judea.
(e) Herod the Great did not have "the title “King of Judaea” (basileōs tēs Ioudaias). Herod the Great was referred to as “King of the Jews” (basilea Ioudaiōn) in inscriptions (Richardson 1996: 203-209), on coins (Meshorer 1982: 17), and in extant documentary evidence (Jos. War 1.282; Ant. 14.381-385)" (link)
This has been proposed before:
So, Nikos Kokkinos proposes that Archelaus is Luke’s “Herod, King of Judaea” (Kokkinos 1998: 226-227, fn. 78). Archelaus appears in Matthew’s birth narrative (Matt 2:22) where the first evangelist writes that he was “ruling Judaea in place of his father” (basileuei tēs Ioudaias anti tou patros autou). Matthew’s narrative may be an indication that Archelaus was popularly known as “King of Judaea” given the appearance of the verb basileuō. Though Archelaus was technically “Ethnarch of Judaea,” the titles “Ethnarch” and “King,” similar to “Tetrarch” and “King,” were interchangeable (France 2007: 90).
Since it's not really clear to me that Luke 1:5 refers to Herod the Great, I don't subscribe to the arguments listed by Muller under (C) and (D).
Statistics: Posted by Peter Kirby — Wed Nov 20, 2024 1:15 am