The Census under Quirinius (Luke 2:1-2)

The census mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (2:1-2) during the birth of Jesus, attributed to Quirinius, conflicts with historical records of Quirinius' governorship and the timing of censuses in the Roman Empire.

• Verse: "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria."

• Concern: Historical records indicate that Quirinius became governor of Syria around AD 6, which is several years after the birth of Jesus (historically estimated around 4-6 BC). Additionally, there is no record of a Roman census that required individuals to travel to their ancestral homes.

For background, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (c. 51 BC – AD 21), also translated as Cyrenius, was a Roman aristocrat. After the banishment of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea in AD 6, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Judaea had been added for the purpose of a census.

QuiriniusWikipedia

Also, it is worth mentioning the strangeness of this narrative that Joseph had to go to Bethlehem because his great-great-great-great-great-great-...great-great-great-great-grandfather was David. It is as if such a thing would be requested in a census or that people even knew their lineage that far back.

Luke 2

The Birth of Jesus

2 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.