When was Christ born during the reign of Emperor Augustus?

A:

When Herod the Great died in April, 4 BCE, he was succeeded as king of Judea by his son Archelaus. King Archelaus only lasted ten years before the Roman authorities deposed him, in 6 CE, for incompetence.

After the disaster of Archelaus' reign, Rome decided to make Judea a Roman province, with a local governor under the supervision of the Syrian governor. Quirinius, who had made a name for himself in other parts of the empire, was appointed governor of Syria in 6 CE, with instructions to carry out a census in Judea so that Roman taxes could be levied.

We do not know the actual month in which Quirinius carried out his census, but it is generally thought that he acted with some haste, and that the census occurred later in 6 CE. Luke's Gospel says that, on the one hand, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (therefore before 4 BCE), and on the other hand that he was born during the census Quirinius carriedout for Caesar Augustus. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) explains that Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, although sometimes he does so inaccurately.