When was Yeshua born?
There was no agreement on when the nativity occurred in early Christianity, which is one reason for the utter absence of its celebration among early Christians.
The earliest church fathers seem just as uninterested in the circumstances of Yeshua's birth as the apostles and other authors of the New Testament.
The earliest gospel, Mark, doesn't even concern itself with the circumstances of Yeshua's birth and, instead, presents an adult Yeshua at its outset. It's not until later in the Gospel of Matthew that a birth narrative is first introduced. Even that narrative is not immune to criticism as to its historicity, albeit these criticisms are unpopular and generally constitute a minority position in Christian scholarship.
To briefly introduce the discussion surrounding Matthew's birth narrative, it's important to note that no single original manuscript of any New Testament writing exists today. A myriad of copies and fragments of copies are available, and the copyists must be trusted to have transcribed and relayed the information correctly, which the scholarly community does for the most part.
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