Dating the birth of Jesus

The following is from Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ by Harold W. Hoehner

According to Matthew 2:1 and Luke 1:5, Christ's birth came before Herod's death. ... According to Josephus, an eclipse of the moon occurred shortly before Herod's death. ... this occurred on March 12/13, 4 B.C. After his death there was the celebration of the Passover, the first day of which would have occurred on April 11, 4 B.C. Hence, his death occurred sometime between March 12th and April 11th. ... Christ could not have been born later than March/April of 4 B.C.

Pages 12,13

According to Luke 2:1-5 a census was taken just before Christ's birth. Thus, Christ could not have been born before the census. ... The critics say that Luke's dating of the birth of Christ with the census of Judea, which Josephus places after the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6, is a clear historical blunder. But certainly Luke was conscious of chronology in his works. This is seen, for example, in Luke 3:1 and 3:23. Luke was not ignorant of the census mentioned by Josephus which was conducted by Quirinius in A.D. 6-7 since he mentions it in Acts 5:37. He knew that Jesus was not born that late, for he states in Luke 1:5 that the births of John the Baptist and Jesus took place in the days of Herod.

Pages 13,18

Moving along the same line of argumentation [translating Luke 2:2, 'This census was before that census when Quirinius was governor of Syria'] a better solution is the one suggested by [A.J.B.] Higgins. ... Luke is not distinguishing an earlier census from one during the governorship of Quinirius, but is merely stating that the census at the time of the nativity took place some time before Quirinius held office.

Page 21

The above was excerpted from The Journal, December 2007

Comments: one of the added insights of this is that the text of Luke 2:2, which is often translated "was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria" but could be translated "was the first registration before Quirinius was governor of Syria." Given that Luke is a quality historian, this is a reasonable solution to the "dating" problem.