Scientists reveal where Jesus was born - and say it WASN'T Bethlehem

According to the traditional story, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea .

This town, about six miles south of Jerusalem , is now located in a part of the Palestinian West Bank .

Archaeologists have found evidence that Bethlehem is old enough for this story to make sense.

But some experts say Jesus would have been born 68 miles away in the small town of Nazareth .

Biblical historians have worked hard to try and find what Luke could be referring to but this census just doesn't seem to be a real event.

There was a small census around the time implemented by the Roman legate of Syria , Publius Sulpicius Quirinius , but this was about a decade after the birth of Jesus .

If Jesus was going to be the Jewish Messiah, then he needed to have been born in Bethlehem .

This is 'almost certainly' the reason that the later Gospel writers insist that Jesus was born there.

An excavation of Nazareth was carried out in 2020 by Dr Ken Dark of the University of Reading .

It found the town was substantially larger than previously thought, intensely religious, and deeply anti-Roman .