Matthew's account of the nativity includes Jesus and his family living in Egypt until the death of Herod the Great. We know that this occurred in 4 BC.
Luke's nativity story has Joseph and the pregnant Mary traveling to Bethlehem in response to a census ordered by Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. The census (such as it was) administered by Quirinius was around 6 AD.
That's a difference of at least 10 years between the two accounts as far as when Jesus was born. Again, using historically verifiable data, as you seem want to do. The two accounts directly contradict each other. Jesus cannot have been born both before the death of Herod the Great and after the census of Quirinius.
Ok. It's possible that Quirinius was consul in syria in about 7BC and Luke uses the word for governor broadly. But i dunno about this one. I'll have to ask about it. I'll get back to you.
Luke is actually prety widely regarded as a very accurate historian, so I don't think he would get the date wrong by 10 years. It seems more likely to me that there's just something that history lost. People used to discount John because he mentioned a pool that supposedly didn't exist. They found it mid to late (I think it could have been in the seventies) last century.
Which gospel is it again that got geographics wrong, i.e. the author was writing about an area he didn't actually know?
rumborak
can you be more specific?