Saying for the sake of argument that Jesus really existed:

The only clue in the Bible about the time of year in which Jesus was born is the part about the shepherds being in the fields to keep watch over their sheep. Not a shepherd myself, but I've been told that shepherds only stay in the fields all night during lambing season, when the lambs are being born. And since that is in the spring, Jesus must have been born in the spring.

But Spring already has Easter; let Winter keep Christmas!

This caught my eye because we raise painted desert sheep in Texas. There is no true "lambing season" with our sheep, which give birth throughout the year. If I had to pick the most typical time of the year, it would be November or December, about the time we have our first sub-freezing temperatures (they have a real penchant for giving birth during the worst weather). I did a quick Google and found several pages like the following: http://mindrenewers.com/2012/12/15/silly-reasons-to-abandon-christmas-4-its-the-wrong-date/.

I can take a spring "lambing season" off the list of things I've learned.

I doubt the birth narratives are historical. But if we take the accounts to be historical for the sake of the argument:

Since a cencus is reported, and people are travelling back to their place of birth because of the census, they would have to bring the cattle with them, or it would die of thirst or starvation in the stables at home... And so shepherds would be in the fields no matter what time of year it was...

Such a census makes no sense and would never happen. The romans were interested in where people lived (for tax and military recruits), not where their ancestors came from. Furthermore Galilee was at the time a Roman province while Judea was a puppet kingdom. Maybe people moved around in judea for the census, but not so in any province ruled directly by the romans.

Exactly. The whole "went to Bethlehem to be taxed" idea is
insane. This is early Roman Empire, shortly after the
collapse of the republic. Travel back then was difficult and
dangerous. There are many tombstones with the engraving,
"killed by robbers." There were no McDonalds or Dennys. The
average person never traveled more than 20 miles from where
they were born. Think about it. You can get food here out of
the ground or from your flocks. If you go 5 miles away you
have no way to eat. And the only way you can get there is on
foot, unless you are rich enough to afford a horse or camel
that's not needed back home.

Having everyone in the empire return to their ancestral home
would create insane chaos. This story was made up to get
Jesus to Bethlehem, so he could be from the "city of David" as
they assumed is prophesied in the old testament.

This, by the way, is an indication that Jesus actually
existed. If he were a totally fictional character they would
have him as a native to Bethlehem rather than someone from
Nazareth who had to be born in Bethlehem because of an insane
tax/census decree. That they had to go to such lengths to get
him born in Bethlehem tells me he actually existed and was from
Nazareth.

Interesting post Baura, but the archaelogical evidence does not support the idea that Nazareth existed when Jesus was supposed to have been born.

Nazareth did exist at the time that the gospels were written. There are several ways that a link between Jesus and Nazareth could have been established. An actual Jesus born in Nazareth was not needed to create the myth about him.

Frodo and Bilbo Baggins birthday is 22 September.

Just sayin'.

This explanation makes more sense than many that I've seen out there:
http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/ARTB/k/568/

Here's a quote from it: "With this information we can calculate Elizabeth's sixth month as December, during which Mary also conceived (Luke 1:26-38). It is probable, because of the circumstances shown in Luke 1, that Mary conceived during the last two weeks of Elizabeth's sixth month. Thus, John was born in the spring of 4 BC, probably between March 18 and 31. By projecting forward another six months to Jesus' birth, the most probable time for His birth occurred between September 16 and 29."

Perhaps one should also ask....

Of the 37 miracles credited to Jesus, why is being born in a town that did not exist for another hundred years omitted?

In BB, they they kept the sheep out until it snowed, but that was in cold Wyoming. Israel is much warmer than that.

I was thinking all these years it was April 1...