Gary,

I agree that any attempt at figuring out the date, ought to include the "course of Abijah" information carefully noted by Luke in the prologue to his Gospel account. This narrows down the list of options considerably--none of which include Dec 25, but one of which will always include (with varying dates based on the year) the Feast of Tabernacles--a time that would make extremely good sense both in regard to the concept of taking a census in Jewish Palestine, and in regard to Jewish theology. It also would fit nicely with a couple of pieces of overlapping tradition from the Roman Catholic Church and Jewish counter-apologetic: in the first case, Sept 29, the Feast of Michael and All Saints, is of extreme antiquity but the rationale for the feast is no longer clearly known (Sept 29 would be the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles in 5BCE, the year before Herod's death, according to one reckoning... see below); and in the second case, the curious post-Talmudic polemic about Simon Peter, purporting to explain how he saved Jews from persecution by Christians by making them think he was an Apostle of Christ though secretly he was a Jew, preserves a tradition that Peter taught Christians to observe the day of Christ's death on the day of Passover, instead of observing Passover; instead of observing Pentacost, observe the Ascension; and instead of observing Tabernacles, observe the day of Christ's birth. (While the four known forms of this very interesting polemical legend are late, there would be absolutely no point for any late polemicist to invent a story of Peter replacing Tabernacles with Christmas, since the Feast of Dedications will always be closer to Dec 25 than Tabernacles.)

Additionally, Sept 29 in a non-leap year would run exactly 40 weeks (i.e. the 'ideal' human gestation time) back to Dec 25, which would retain the importance of that day as the beginning of the Incarnation proper (at conception). But of course, depending on how the years are reckoned, Tabernacles might have been some other week.

It should be added in fairness that some scholars, reckoning from the "Course of Abijah" timing information in GosLuke, combined with Josephus' claim (along with the Mishna) that the Temple was destroyed during the first course of Abijah, plus a Roman/solar dating for the destruction of the Temple, arrive at Dec 25 (or close enough) anyway. Maier generally follows this route (in the admirable analysis you linked to), but corrects backward to mid-November based on other conjunctive evidence. Only a couple more weeks would bring that to the tail end of Sept; and Maier doesn't reckon the Feast of Tabernacles into his considerations. Sept 29 passes most of the other criteria tests mentioned by Maier as well; including putting Herod near Bethlehem at the proper time.

It's still educated guesswork, of course. {g}

JRP