Were Was Jesus Born?
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The town of Bethlehem in the West Bank, some six miles south of Jerusalem, is revered by millions as the birthplace of Jesus. According to the New Testament account of the apostle Matthew, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem in the southern region of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth and later moved to Nazareth in the northern Galilee region.

In the more popular account of the apostle Luke, Joseph and a very pregnant Mary traveled more than 90 miles from their residence in Nazareth to Joseph’s Judean hometown of Bethlehem to be counted in a Roman census.

Regardless of the variation, both apostles agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, the city where King David had been born a thousand years earlier. The Christian Messiah could thereby be considered a descendant of the House of David - a requirement for followers of the Judeo-Christian tradition But while Luke and Matthew describe Bethlehem in Judea as the birthplace of Jesus, “Menorah,” the vast database of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) describes Bethlehem as : an “ancient site” with Iron Age material and the fourth - century Church of the Nativity, and associated Byzantine and medieval buildings.

But there is a complete absence of information for antiquities from the Herodian period—that is, from the time around
the birth of Jesus.

Already by reading in between the lines in Origen who was the Bishop of Caesarea Maritime who wrote in 248AD In Latin:

"Quod autem in Bethlehem sit genitus Jesus, si velit aliquis post Michaelae vaticinium et post scriptam in Evangeliis per Jesu discipulos historiam et aliunde fieri certior, consideret ut subsequenter in Evangelio, cum ejus nativitas enarratur,et in Bethlehem speluncam ostendi ubi ille sit natus; quod utique et in illis locis percelebre, ut apud eos quidem qui a fide sunt alieni, fama et nomine cirumfertur, eadem in spelunaca Jesum quemdam, quem Christiani adorent et demirentur, genitum esse."

Translation:

"as to Jesus having been born in Bethlehem, if any would have other proof beside the account that has been recorded in the gospels by the disciples of Jesus ,let him consider that in agreement with the account of his birth in the gospel they still show the cave in Bethlehem where he was born and the manger in the cave where he was wrapped in swaddling bands. And this which is shown is notorious in the district, even amongst strangers to the faith that in this cave he who is worshipped and reverenced by Christians, namly Jesus, was born" .

This text is no more then an attempt to undermined existing controversy over the true location of the nativity, controversy that existed already in the third century AD.