Is Luke Wrong About the Time of Jesus Birth?
Hello, I wonder if you could clarify something that has me puzzled. According to the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. But Luke also wrote that Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem for a census by Quirinius while she was still pregnant, and this event has been dated at 6 A.D., or ten years after Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. There have been no historical records to indicate that any Roman census was held prior to 6 A.D. I’ve done some research into this apparent discrepancy and have wondered if, perhaps, it was not actually Herod the Great, but one of his heirs apparent that was King at the time of Jesus’ birth. But another thing that I discovered in my research is that the well-known historian, Josephus, never documented the slaughter of the innocents, even though he had written quite extensively about Herod the Great. It would seem that Josephus would write something about the mass slaughter of children. I must be missing some importa
