In Asimov’s Guide to the Bible (p. 927), Issac Asimov suggensts that the writer of the Book of Luke used a literary device to place Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem in time for Jesus’ birth, even though it was well known that Jesus was from Nazareth, in order to convince readers that Jesus was the fulfillemt of Old Testament prophecy concerning the Messiah. Luke claims that a census under Roman military governor Quirinius required everyone in Judea to travel to their ancestral town to be counted, thus forcing Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem despite her being heavily pregnant. But number one, there is no corroborating evidence of such an event taking place, and number two, the whole thing doesn’t make sense.
Quirinius served from 6 B.C to 4 B.C. and again from 6 A.D. to 9 A.D. To be sure, according to Jewish historian Josephus, a census was conducted during Q’s second term, but as we all know (except the Pope), Jesus was born no later that 4 B.C. because that’s when King Herod died. There could have been an unrecorded census during Q’s first term, but the idea of requiring everyone to report to their ancestral town is ridiculous. When you’re doing a census, you want to count everyone where they live and work, you don’t want then traipsing up and down the countryside, clogging the roads, getting into all kinds of trouble, fermenting revolt. What purpose would that serve? The Romans were sticklers for efficiency, and once they established a procedure, they tended to conduct business that way throughout the empire. The question is, does anyone have any evidence that the Romans–or anyone else–conducted censuses (censi?) by requring people to travel to their ancestral homes? It’s a lot easier to believe that “Luke” simply made the whole thing up and that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Nazareth.