.
Catholic expert opinion missing something. Ancient Israel had a law handed
down by God to Moses for the "kinsman-redeemer", which had to do with
getting your tribal land back and keeping it in the family.
The writers above ignore this leaving it incomplete. Christ must be born on
his ancestral lands of Judah. The journey for the census is secondary.
These lands are the lands given to the tribe of Judah by Moses and must
stay in the family of David. You just did not sell your tribal lands in Israel,
although you could lease them. Every 50 years debts were forgiven and
the ancestral lands went back to the owners (called a Jubilee)
Secondly, these are the very lands owned by Naomi, (a picture of
impoverished Israel), and redeemed by Boaz, (also of the tribe of Judah),
in a complicated ceremony spelled out in (Leviticus 25:47-49). Boaz is a
perfect picture of the kinsman-redeemer who married Ruth, (a gentile
bride representing Christianity), and took her into his household just as
Jesus Christ, God's kinsman redeemer and bridegroom, will marry His
Church and take her to heaven.
Link below:
Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem