If Jesus was born outside Bethlehem, would the ancient sources be so unsupportive of that conclusion?

Critics of the Bethlehem birthplace often act as if they're confident that Jesus wasn't born there or that he was born in Nazareth instead. I've addressed their arguments many times, such as in the posts collected here. The article here argues for the likelihood that the early Christians and their opponents had access to reliable information on Jesus' birthplace and the likelihood that they obtained that information. For a brief overview of the evidence for the Bethlehem birthplace, do a Ctrl F search on "shows" here and go to the last hyphenated section here for information on ancient non-Christian sources. What I want to focus on in this post is something I wrote in a Facebook thread a few years ago. This is about whether evidence was lost or suppressed for a false date Jesus and the early Christians had set for the second coming. The same principles can be applied to the notion that Jesus was born outside Bethlehem, but that the evidence for that birthplace was lost or suppressed:

The Value Of Geographical Issues In The Christmas Context

I wrote a post a few years ago about a geographical argument for prophecy fulfillment related to Christmas. It's based on Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 9:1. I want to discuss a few of the reasons why such geographical factors are evidentially significant, both in the context of prophecy and in other contexts:

Two Important Verses For Framing The Chronology Of Jesus' Childhood

The first is more commonly discussed, but is sometimes neglected. Matthew 2:16 suggests that Jesus was somewhat close to two years old when the events in the surrounding context occurred. See here, including the comments section, and here for discussions of the passage. The timing of the Matthew 2 events goes a long way in explaining why Matthew's material is so different than Luke's (the two authors are covering different timeframes) and addresses other objections.

The other verse to keep in mind, which is seldom understood or discussed as it should be, is Luke 1:56. See my post on the passage here and my explanation of some of its implications here, for example, among other posts in our archives that discuss it. Joseph and Mary probably went to Bethlehem during the first half of her pregnancy, not at the end of it. Luke 2:4 picks up where 1:56 left off. If you understand Luke 1:56 and its implications rightly, other issues in Luke and elsewhere will fall into their proper place, and some objections that are often brought up will be weakened or eliminated.