[AnAmericanMother]

But to be serious for a moment . . . the 6 A.D. census is mentioned in Josephus, but Luke also mentions the 6 A.D. census (in Acts) so he was aware of it also. The tally mentioned in Luke may have been an enrollment rather than a census, or it may have been while Quirinius was holding a lower or adjunct office. The evidence is by no means clear in either direction, and certainly it's not proof that Luke was dead wrong throughout.

Some scholars opine that Mark postdates and borrows from Matthew, rather than the other way around. The hypothetical "Quelle" text invented by German scholars figures largely in the "pious expansion" theory. The textual evidence is not entirely clear.

Nobody dates Matthew as late as 200 AD. That's absurd on its face, because the Church Fathers were commenting extensively on all the Gospels by that point. Most scholars place it between 60 AD and 85 AD.

[Oztrich Boy]

The evidence is by no means clear in either direction, and certainly it's not proof that Luke was dead wrong throughout.

Perhaps the judge thinks Luke testified inconsistantly

[RobbyS]

The tally mentioned in Luke may have been an enrollment rather than a census, or it may have been while Quirinius was holding a lower or adjunct office. The evidence is by no means clear in either direction, Father Brown thought that Luke was "wrong." But that ignores the possibility that we just don't have enough evidence. In other words, Luke was talking about events that are unrecorded in surviving documents. Maybe Luke's only "fault" was grandiloquently taking a local event and making Caesar himself the cause of it all. maybe to make Caesar's minions the instruments of the true "king of kings."

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

It is actually possible that a fragment of the Gospel of Matthew--written for a Jewish audience--was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was from the center of a page and contained parts of 2 sentances and the word "Gesseneret" (Sea of Galalee). Someone was able to locate a passage in Matthew that contained the few words in the appropriate passage. The article that I read suggested, that If true, and Matthew followed Mark, then it is possible that Mark was written as early as 45 AD.