But the Tony and Gordon show wasn't the first to go all technological and snoopy by a long way. There are two versions (2 Samuel and 2 Chronicles) of an intriguing OT story of David counting the "fighting men" and God getting all wrathful as a result (in one version the devil makes him do it, in the other it is God, hmmm - you never see them in a room together, do you?). There seems to be a desire in unjust rulers to control by counting, the enlightenment brought about a new enthusiasm for domination by label and pigeon hole and we haven't stopped since.
Jesus was born at a time when Herod, a hugely unpopular and unjust king, was making huge records of citizens to tax and control them too. It was a world he was born to resist.
