McRay knew I was raising an issue that archaeologists have wrestled with for years. There's a big gap there how can you deal with such a major discrepancy in the dates?' 'That poses a significant problem,' I pointed out, 'because Herod died in 4 BC, and Quirinius didn't begin ruling Syria until AD 6, conducting the census soon after that. Luke said the census that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem was conducted when Quirinius was governing Syria and during the reign of Herod the Great. This, however, did not entirely dispose of the issue. And another papyrus, this one from AD 48, indicates that the entire family was involved in the census.' 'As you can see,' he said as he closed the book, 'that practice is confirmed by this document, even though this particular manner of counting people might seem odd to you. Gaius Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt : Seeing that the time has come for the house to house census, it is necessary to compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are residing out of their provinces to return to their own homes, that they may both carry out the regular order of the census and may also attend diligently to the cultivation of their allotments. Finding the reference he was searching for, he quoted from an official governmental order dated AD 104. 'Actually, the discovery of ancient census forms has shed quite a bit of light on this practice,' he said as he leafed through the pages. McRay calmly pulled out a copy of his book.

'How could the government possibly force all its citizens to return to their birthplace? Is there any archaeological evidence whatsoever that this kind of census ever took place?' 'Let me be blunt: this seems absurd,' I said. Luke's narrative claims that Mary and Joseph were required by a census to return to Joseph's hometown of Bethlehem. I pulled out my notes and got ready to challenge McRay with longstanding riddles about Christmas-related issues that I thought archaeology might have trouble explaining.

Adapted from 'The Case for Christmas' with permission of Zondervan. In this excerpt from 'The Case for Christmas,' author Lee Strobel challenges John McRay, a former professor at Wheaton College and the author of Archaeology and the New Testament, to provide historical evidence of Christ's birth.

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