That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
Here's a good article detailing those problems:
https://bam.sites.uiowa.edu/faq/can-you-explain-problem-cens...
I should note, this is not a controversial take.