The YouTube channel Religion For Breakfast recently put out a video about the birthplace of Jesus, arguing that he probably wasn't born in Bethlehem. Some of the claims in the video are inaccurate, but the problems with it are largely a matter of omission. There's a lot of relevant evidence that isn't discussed.
Most the New Testament evidence for the Bethlehem birthplace isn't addressed. See here for an overview of that evidence. And the extrabiblical evidence is ignored. (The closing section of the post just linked briefly discusses some of the extrabiblical material.) To get an idea of how significant those omissions are, think of the fourth gospel as an example. Not only is the video wrong in suggesting that the gospel of John is evidence against the Bethlehem birthplace, but it doesn't even interact with the evidence for the gospel's support of the Bethlehem birthplace and the widespread acceptance of that birthplace among the extrabiblical sources most closely associated with that gospel. So, a line of evidence for Bethlehem is being portrayed as if it's evidence against Bethlehem, and some evidence we could use to test the video's hypothesis (how the early Johannine sources viewed Jesus' birthplace) isn't even brought up.
One of the problems with this video and so many other sources who argue along the same lines is that they subject their own views to so much less scrutiny than they apply to traditional Christian sources. For example, if Jesus' birthplace was always or usually said to be Nazareth for something like half a century or more, and that birthplace was supported by such prominent sources as the family of Jesus, Paul, and the second and fourth gospels, why would we see such early and widespread support for the Bethlehem birthplace just afterward, including among Pauline sources, Johannine sources, heretics, Jews, pagans, etc.? I've argued here that both the early Christians and their early opponents would have had a lot of access to reliable information on where Jesus was born. Given the weakness of the evidence cited in support of a non-Bethlehem birthplace in sources like Paul and Mark, the best explanation for the early and widespread agreement about a Bethlehem birthplace among such a larger and more diverse group of sources contemporary with Paul and Mark and just afterward is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And I've argued that the Bethlehem birthplace is found in Paul's letters. See my post on the New Testament evidence linked above. (For those who want to deny that Paul wrote Ephesians, you'll need to interact with the external evidence for his authorship, particularly what's found in Ignatius and Polycarp, who had a lot of significant interaction with the Ephesian church, as discussed here. And if you're going to assign Ephesians and 1 Timothy to multiple sources other than Paul, then you're increasing the number and variety of early sources who supported a Bethlehem birthplace.)
If the Slaughter of the Innocents occurred in Bethlehem, that's further evidence of Jesus' birth there. I've argued elsewhere that the account is partially corroborated by the Assumption Of Moses and Macrobius. There are internal indications of historicity within Matthew's account as well, like what's discussed here.
The video makes some references to Raymond Brown's work, which I've responded to elsewhere. We're told that Brown "rejected" the Bethlehem birthplace, focusing on Appendix III in The Birth Of The Messiah (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1999). In that appendix, Brown cites various arguments for and against the historicity of the Bethlehem birthplace, but I don't recall anywhere in that appendix or elsewhere in the book where Brown says that the Bethlehem birthplace is unlikely.
The video repeatedly tells us that Luke refers to an ancestral census, a census that required people to go back to their place of distant ancestry. There are many problems with that interpretation:
- Unlike modern critics of Luke, he and his initial audience lived in the Roman empire, and it's likely that many of them experienced Roman censuses firsthand. And we have a large amount of evidence that Luke was well informed about recent history. Here's Craig Keener, one of the foremost modern scholars on Luke (having published a commentary on Acts that's close to five thousand pages long, for example), discussing Luke's historiography. And see here for some relevant excerpts from his Acts commentary. See Lydia McGrew's comments here about how Luke got hard things right. Given that the Romans didn't conduct ancestral censuses, it's highly unlikely that Luke would have been ignorant of that fact.
- Luke 2:3 is about census participants in general, and no ancestry is mentioned there. The reference to ancestry in verse 4 is likely about one of the reasons why Joseph lived in Bethlehem (not the only reason, but one Luke wanted to highlight).
- The only source I'm aware of who comments on this issue in the first two centuries of church history is the Protevangelium Of James. Section 17 of that document refers to how "there was an order from the Emperor Augustus, that all in Bethlehem of Judaea should be enrolled". It refers to "all in Bethlehem", with no reference to ancestry, implying that Joseph had to go to Bethlehem because he was "in Bethlehem". Though the Protevangelium is often wrong on historical matters, and that weakness significantly diminishes the document's testimony, its view of the census has to be taken into account as an early interpretation of Luke 2.
- Joseph and Mary are referred to as engaged in verse 5. They're living together in verse 7. Most likely, they got married upon their arrival in Bethlehem. A wedding in Bethlehem makes more sense if Joseph had more than a distant ancestral connection to the town.
- Both Luke and Matthew refer to the family's staying in a house, at the time of the birth in Luke and for a long time afterward in Matthew. There's no reference to an inn or some other such setting of a more temporary and relationally distant nature. Most likely, Joseph and Mary were staying in a guest room in his parents' house after the wedding. There wasn't enough space in the guest room for Mary to give birth, so they moved to the part of the house where animals were kept. See this article published by Stephen Carlson in 2010 for further details.
- The last we'd heard of Jesus and his family was in 1:56, when Mary departed from Elizabeth to return to Nazareth. Because that's the last timeframe mentioned, that's the most likely time for when 2:4 occurred. Furthermore, since Mary was pregnant, they're unlikely to have waited until just before the birth or just after it to carry out the wedding. It's probable that they got married earlier in the pregnancy, probably just after the time mentioned in 1:56, when Mary was about three months pregnant. So, they were in Bethlehem for at least about half a year, and they could easily have been there longer. This follows from Luke's material alone, before we even get to Matthew.
- But we can't leave Matthew out, of course. He corroborates Luke's suggestion that the family was in Bethlehem for a longer rather than shorter amount of time (Matthew 2:16 suggesting that they were there until somewhat close to when Jesus turned two years old). The family's lengthy time spent in Bethlehem, which is supported by both Luke and Matthew and is consistent with contemporary and earlier sources, makes more sense if Joseph had more than just a distant ancestral connection to Bethlehem.
As discussed in one of my posts linked above, you don't place Jesus and his family in Bethlehem for so long and have the family's residence there connected to so many public events if you're making up a Bethlehem birthplace and want it to be highly unfalsifiable. The early Christians could have claimed that Joseph and Mary were traveling for some reason (to visit relatives, for a religious observance, or whatever) and that Mary happened to give birth in Bethlehem along the way, which involved their being in the town for some short period of time without the sort of public connections we see in Matthew and Luke. In Luke's account, we don't just have Jesus born in Bethlehem, but also a somewhat explicit reference to Bethlehem as the place of Joseph's residence (Luke 2:3) along with subtler implications (discussed above) that he lived there. In other words, Luke not only placed Jesus' birth and several months of his life (before and after birth) in Bethlehem, but also placed his father there as a resident of Bethlehem. The degree to which multiple early Christian sources put Jesus' birth in Bethlehem in a falsifiable context reflects well on their honesty, their confidence about the birthplace, the significance of the lack of dispute over the Bethlehem claim, and the significance of the corroboration of the claim from non-Christian sources.
Luke 2:4 and 2:39 are often brought up as evidence that Joseph lived in Nazareth instead. That doesn't address the much larger number and variety of lines of evidence for his residence in Bethlehem. Stephen Carlson's article linked above addresses both Luke 2:4 and 2:39, and I've discussed them elsewhere, like here and here. I don't think either of those passages makes Joseph's residence in Nazareth prior to Jesus' birth likely. But even if both passages did make that conclusion probable, Joseph could have lived in and/or had property, relatives, and such in multiple locations. The video being reviewed here mentions the low economic status of the family, as reflected in Luke 2:24. But having the relevant connections to two towns wouldn't require much money. Richard Carrier has written, "so much as a tiny plot of ancestral land would be enough, and Judaic law made it unusually difficult to get rid of such properties".
The video raises a lot of the typical objections to Luke's census account. That's a distinct issue from the place of Jesus' birth, and I've said a lot about the census elsewhere, like here.
As with the alleged ancestral nature of the census, it's highly unlikely that Luke thought that everybody in the empire was being required to register for a census at one point in time. He knew that censuses occurred in different regions at different timeframes. He's referring to a census-taking process that would gradually unfold in different places at different times.
Luke refers to the census of 6 A.D. in Acts 5:37, and he doesn't describe the atmosphere surrounding Jesus' birth the way he describes the context of that Acts 5 census. Josephus corroborates Luke about that Acts 5:37 context (Antiquities Of The Jews, 18:1; Jewish War, 7:8:1). By contrast, the setting of Luke 1-2 is peaceful. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, etc. interact with people, travel, and so on without any mention of the unrest surrounding the 6 A.D. census or any suggestion that the individuals involved in the opening chapters of Luke were concerned about such matters. Furthermore, it would have been in Luke's interest to have mentioned the atmosphere of the 6 A.D. census in Luke 1-2 if he had thought such an atmosphere existed at the time. Luke was a Gentile writing to a largely Gentile audience, in a context in which Paul and other Christians were often having to defend themselves before Roman authorities and were suspected of destabilizing society. It would have been in Luke's interest to have contrasted Joseph and Mary's submission to a Roman census to the rebellion of other Jews at the time. No such contrast is made, though. The differences between Luke 1-2 and Acts 5:37 are striking. It's likely that Luke was aware that two different timeframes were involved.
I think Stephen Carlson's rendering of Luke 2 is the most likely one, to the effect that the census became most prominent under Quirinius: "This registration became most prominent when Quirinius was governing Syria." Carlson's interpretation of the verse makes sense even if the passage isn't translated the way he translates it. He seems to be right about what concept Luke has in mind, regardless of whether we accept Carlson's wording. Remember, Jesus and his family don't even enter the narrative in Luke 2 until verse 4. The verse in question here, verse 2, is a parenthetical comment adding further detail to verse 1. Luke is referring to a process of census taking that happened in different parts of the empire at different times. The phase of that census-taking process under Quirinius was well known in Jewish circles and among people with an interest in Jewish history, like Luke's audience. He's adding a qualifier to further identify what census-taking process he has in mind. He's not identifying who was governor when Jesus was born. Jesus and his family won't enter the narrative until verse 4.
The video objects that it would be an exception to the rule for a Roman census to be held in a client kingdom. (Israel was a client kingdom at the time of Herod the Great.) At least the video acknowledges that Rome did sometimes conduct such censuses. See Glenn Miller's documentation to that effect here and here. And Augustus wouldn't have to be directly responsible for the census in order for Luke's account to be accurate. Indirect involvement would be sufficient. If Herod implemented a census in an effort to please Augustus and conform Israel to Roman culture, as Herod did in other contexts, that would be enough to justify Luke's comments. Read Chris Price's article just linked for further details. The process of taking a census of the empire was initiated by Augustus. Whether that led to a census in Israel in a more direct or more indirect manner is a secondary issue, and the accuracy of Luke's account doesn't depend on it. The unusualness of such a census in Israel doesn't change the fact that there's some precedent for it, and it doesn't require much evidence to outweigh the initial improbability. Many events in history seem unlikely initially, before you take other factors into account.
Again, though, the historicity of the census account is a different subject than where Jesus was born. The video doesn't even address most of the evidence relevant to Jesus' birthplace, and what it does address isn't handled well.
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