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Originally Posted by boxcar

Furthermore, I recall telling you once upon a time to Google or Bing (whatever you do with your searches) the phrase "Lapis Tiburtinus" which is an ancient inscription on a tombstone which records an unknown governor who apparently served as pro praetor of Syria twice.

The notion that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice has been debunked. The "Lapis Tiburtinus" doesn't really say anything.

Never mind Google or Bing. I'll save you some time. Here's a link.

http://infidels.org/library/modern/r...tml#Tiburtinus

The Lapis Tiburtinus

Some have tried to appeal to a headless (and thus nameless) inscription as proving that Quirinius held the governorship of Syria twice, but the inscription neither says that, nor can it belong to Quirinius. The inscription in question is a fragment of a funeral stone discovered in Tivoli (near Rome) in 1764, and is now displayed (complete with an inventive reconstruction of the missing parts) in the Vatican Museum.[5.1] We know only that it was set up after the death of Augustus in 14 A.D., since it refers to him as "divine." The actual content of the inscription is as follows:

The most obvious problem with this piece of "evidence" is that it doesn't even mention Quirinius! No one knows who this is. Numerous possible candidates have been proposed and debated, but the notion that it could be Quirinius was only supported by the wishful thinking of a few 18th and 19th century scholars (esp. Sanclemente, Mommsen, and Ramsay). But it is unlikely to be his. We know of no second defeat of a king in the career of Quirinius, though Tacitus writes his obituary in Annals 3.48, where surely such a double honor would have been mentioned, especially since a "victory celebration" was a big deal--involving several festal days of public thanksgiving at the command of the emperor. We also have no evidence that Quirinius governed Asia. Though that isn't improbable, we do know of another man, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, who did govern Asia and who defeated the kings of Thrace twice, and received at least one "victory celebration" for doing so, as well as the Triumphal Decoration, and who may also have governed Syria.[5.2] Though it cannot be proved that this is Piso's epitaph, it is clear that it would sooner belong to him than Quirinius. Thus, to ignore him and choose Quirinius would go against probability. Yet even if we lacked such a candidate as Piso, to declare this an epitaph of Quirinius is still pure speculation.

Even more importantly, this inscription does not really say that the governorship of Syria was held twice, only that a second legateship was held, and that the second post happened to be in Syria.[5.3] From what remains of the stone, it seems fairly obvious that the first post was the proconsulate of Asia. This means that even if this is the career of Quirinius, all it proves is that he was once the governor of Syria.