Puzzle 1: The Census ...
the birth narratives of Jesus claim that Mary and Joseph were required by a census to return to Joseph's hometown of Bethlehem, this seems absurd on the face of it, how could the government possibly force all it's citizens to return to their birthplace? is there any archaeological evidence whatsoever that this kind of census ever took place? actually, the discovery of ancient census forms has shed quite a bit of light on this practice, quoting from an official governmental order dated AD 104 ...
Gaius Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt (says): Seeing that the time has come for the house to house census, it is necessary to compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are residing out of their provinces to return to their own homes, that they may both carry out the regular order of the census and may also attend diligently to the cultivation of their allotments ...
as you can see, that practice is confirmed by this document, even though this particular manner of counting people might seem odd to you, and another papyrus, this one from AD 48, indicates that the entire family was involved in the census, however, Luke said the census that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem was conducted when Quirinius was governing Syria and during the reign of Herod the Great, this poses a significant problem because Herod died in 4 BC and Quirinius didn't begin ruling Syria until AD 6, conducting the census soon after that, there's a big gap there; how can we deal with such a major discrepancy in the dates? an eminent archaeologist named Jerry Vardaman has done a great deal of work in this regard, he has found a coin with the name of Quirinius on it in very small writing, or what is called 'micrographic' letters, this places him as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 BC until after the death of Herod, what does that mean? it means that there were apparently 2 Quiriniuses, it's not uncommon to have lots of people with the same Roman names, so there's no reason to doubt that there were 2 people by the name of Quirinius, the census would have taken place under the reign of the earlier Quirinius, given the cycle of a census every 14 years, that would work out quite well, Sir William Ramsay, the late archaeologist and professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England, had come up with a similar theory, he concluded from various inscriptions that while there was only one Quirinius, he ruled Syria on 2 separate occasions, which would cover the time period of the earlier census, other scholars have pointed out that Luke's text can be translated, "this census took place before Quirinius was governing Syria" which would also resolve the problem, while this matter is not precisely pinned down, there are plausible explanations, we can conclude with confidence that censuses were held during the time frame of Jesus' birth and that there is evidence people were indeed required to return to their hometowns
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