Ok, so I don’t actually know the real reason that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But it’s a part of the Christmas story I think is worth exploring because the reason given in scripture is historically problematic.
Let’s take a look at the text in question from Luke 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 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.Â
So here’s the good news, there IS historical evidence of a census taking place. According to the 2nd Century history Josephus, in 6 CE Herod Archelaus, a puppet king in Judea, was ousted and Quirinius was made governer for the new consolidated province of Judea. As the newly appointed governor, he was assigned to carry out a tax census.
However, there are some problems with Luke’s account. It was not a “census of the entire Roman world,” as the text would suggest. The Romans were pretty good record keepers, and, as far as records show, that kind of census really didn’t happen.
Luke 1:5 places the pregnancy of Mary and her cousin Elizabeth under the reign of Herod the Great. Herod the Great’s reign ended in 4 CE, two years before the alleged census took place. Matthew 2:1 also places the location of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem under the reign of Herod the Great.
Some people chalk this up to a historical misrepresentation or mistake in the Bible. The coming Messiah needed to be born in Bethlehem to confirm the prophecy of Micah 5:2. The census might be an attempt to explain why a man who grew up in Nazareth was actually born Bethlehem.
And maybe he was actually born in Nazareth. That is mostly likely.
But I wonder if there is another reason that Mary, an unwed pregnant woman, might find it a good idea to take some time away from her hometown.
I would imagine that, as Mary began to show the people in Nazareth would have begun to talk. It might have been a welcome change for the Holy Family to go away for a while, somewhere new, somewhere not many people would know them.
It might have even been a reprieve to retreat to the relative privacy of the barn outback. At least the only prying eyes would be animals, and they probably wouldn’t be very judgemental.
A lot of the Nativity story has been characterized as a hardship for Mary and Joseph. The requirement to travel, the location of birth in a barn, but I do wonder how much of a retreat it would have been to a woman living as a cultural pariah to be alone in a new land with God.
Learn more about the historicity of the Nativity story here.
Kena Hawkins Newkirk 