Jesus is born in Bethlehem
Luke 2:1–20; Matthew 1:18–25; Micah 5:2
Augustus's decree of a census took Joseph and the pregnant Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, David's town. There Jesus was born and laid in a manger, and angels announced his birth to shepherds.
For there is born to you today, in David’s city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Luke 2:11 (World English Bible)
There was no room for them in the lodging place, so Mary wrapped her newborn son and laid him in a feeding trough. That night an angel told shepherds in the fields that a Savior had been born, and a multitude of angels praised God. The shepherds found the child just as they had been told and spread the news.
Seven centuries earlier Micah had named little Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel's ruler, “whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2). On the eighth day the child was circumcised and named Jesus.
Places
Dating notes
Ussher dates the birth to the autumn of 5 BC, 4,000 years after creation; Herod died in the spring of 4 BC (Matthew 2:19). Many scholars place it between 6 and 4 BC. December 25 is a later church tradition. Luke calls the census “the first enrollment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2); Quirinius's well-known census of Judea came in AD 6. Suggested solutions include an earlier registration under Herod, an earlier role for Quirinius in the region (Ussher, citing Tacitus and Strabo, has him serving nearby at this time), or reading Luke's Greek to mean a registration made before Quirinius was governor.