UK lacks 'nativity knowledge'

[Jocky]

The reverse-negative-statistics thing always makes me laugh ... The funniest one I ever saw was "1 in 4 road accidents are the result of drunk driving" ... So...statistically, you're safer driving whilst drunk. Drunk drivers have fewer accidents than sober ones!

So on that logic, teetotallers must be an absolute menace behind the wheel, wouldn't you agree?

[Janot]

There was, in fact, a fiscal census in Judaea in 6AD, by the new legate of Syria, Quirinius. It's the first known general census carried out by the Romans in the area. (There was one in 3BC, but it involved Roman citizens only). Quirinus' census isn't 6BC, granted, which it would need to be to make the Herod bit of the story fit, but it's not so far away (and even closer to year zero!). The problem is that Galilee was not involved ....

DrS is giving the sources for a census in the population of Judaea. This population would naturally assume it applied to the whole of the Roman world, and the sources would reflect that. Nevertheless the area described in the sources does not include Galilee, so it would not have affected Jesus' family anyway.

The census was supposed to be of the entire Roman empire. No such thing ever happened.

As a sceptic, surely what you mean to say is that we have no evidence for a universal census of the Roman Empire.