Luke 2 informs us that Mary and Joseph traveled to the town for a census prior to Jesus's birth, thus fulfilling the prophecy. Unnoticed and unremarked, Joseph and Mary make their way into this bustling scene. The scene takes inspiration from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 1 to 5. It looks like a scene right out of the Christmas hymn, “In the bleak midwinter.” Peter Bruegel has evocatively painted the arrival of Mary and Joseph at Bethlehem, to participate in the census. In his “The Census at Bethlehem,” Bruegel presents a prologue to the Nativity of Christ. It gives us a wonderful way to consider the Christmas Gospel. Census at Bethlehem (Blog) by Gerry (See also this post) “In the centre of the painting are two large wooden O’s made by the wheels of some hay wagons. Census at Bethlehem He Comes to Us Unrecognized . QuickFacts Bethlehem city, Pennsylvania. To date, the only census documented outside the Bible near this time under Quirinius is the one referred to by the historian Josephus (Antiquities XVIII, 26 [ii.1], which he says took place in 6 A.D. For Bruegel and his viewers, the circle was a symbol of eternity and represented the continuing cycle of life in death and birth. QuickFacts provides statistics for all states and counties, and for cities and towns with a population of 5,000 or more. Throughout all the Roman Empire this census was registered in the year 8 B.C., except in the Palestinian kingdom of Herod, where it was taken in 7 B.C., one year later. According to Micah 5:2 and Jewish tradition, the Messiah (the Christ) would be born in Bethlehem, a small town near Jerusalem. Hours later, a child is born. The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in 6 CE. 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