Birth of Jesus

Some Xians seem to think that the Bible is very accurate and archaeologically proven. I've previously shown some examples of how this is not so. Let's take a look at another one, Jesus's birth.

In order to fulfill some prophecy, Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem, so the gospel authors had to invent some reason for Jesus's parents to travel there for his birth as well as establish a timeline. Luke and Matthew both tell us that it was during the time of King Herod's reign. Herod, however, died in 4 BCE. Luke goes on to invent a reason for Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. He tells us that Augustus Caesar has decreed a tax and that all people have to travel to their ancestor's homeland in order to pay this tax. Apart from the absurdity that the Roman government would force people to move simply in order to pay a tax (they were better governed than that and would not erect barriers to taking tax money from their subjects), the timeframe for this is supposedly when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. But, Cyrenius wasn't governor until 6 CE.

So, it appears that there is a problem of timeline here, one that the Bible writers were careless about. It does speak against the claim that many make that the Bible is highly accurate and reliable. There are many instances where the stories simply don't match up with history and evidence, and this is just another case.