Bible Study Methods

Luke 2:1-20

Verses 1-7 The fulness of time was now come, when God would send forth his Son, made of a woman, and made under the law. The circumstances of his birth were very mean. Christ was born at an inn; he came into the world to sojourn here for awhile, as at an inn, and to teach us to do likewise. We are become by sin like an outcast infant, helpless and forlorn; and such a one wasChrist. He well knew how unwilling we are to be meanly lodged, clothed, or fed; how we desire to have our children decorated and indulged; how apt the poor are to envy the rich, and how prone the rich to disdain the poor. But when we by faith view the Son of God being made man and lying in a manger, our vanity, ambition, and envy are checked. We cannot, with this object rightly before us, seek greatthings for ourselves or our children.
Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Concise)
Luke 2:2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

Cyrenius The Grecized form of Quirinus. His full name was Publius Sulpicius Quirinus. Recent historical investigation has proved that Quirinus was governor of Cilicia, which was annexed to Syria at the time of our Lord'sbirth.
These dictionary topics are from
M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition,
published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain, copy freely.

This map from: http://www.ebibleteacher.com/imagehtml/ntmaps.html
Micah 5:2 KJV
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to beruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting . (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance)

John 4:7-30
8. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
[To buy meat.] If the disciples were gone into the city to buy food, how agrees this with verse 9, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans? and with that rule of the Jews, "Let no Israelite eat onemouthful of any thing that is a Samaritan's; for if he eat but a little mouthful, he is as if he ate swine's flesh." A mouthful, that is, of nothing over which a blessing must be pronounced.
"Ezra, Zorobabel, and Joshua gathered together the whole congregation into the Temple of the Lord; and with three hundred priests, three hundred books of the law, and three hundred children, anathematized,shammatized, excommunicated the Samaritans, in the name of Jehovah, by a writing indented upon tables, and an anathema both of the upper and the lower house: 'Let no Israelite eat one morsel of any thing that is a Samaritan's; let no Samaritan become a proselyte to Israel; nor let them have a part in the resurrection of the dead.' And they sent this curse to all Israel that were in Babylon, whoalso themselves added their anathema to this," &c.
But Hierosol. Avodah Zara tells us, "R. Jacob Bar Acha, in the name of R. Lazar, saith, That the victuals of the Cuthites are allowed, if nothing of their wine or vinegar be mingled amongst them." Nay, further, we meet with this passage in Bab. Kiddushin; "The unleavened bread of the Cuthites is allowed, and by that a man may rightly enoughkeep the Passover." If the unleavened bread for the Passover may be had of the Samaritans, much more common bread. And grant that the Samaritans were to the Jews as heathens, yet was it lawful for the Jew to partake of the edibles of the Gentiles, if there was no suspicion that they had been any way polluted, nor been offered to idols; as may be largely made out from Maimonides in his treatise aboutforbidden meats. Which suspicion was altogether needless as to the Samaritans; because they and the Jews in a manner agreed upon the same things as clean or unclean, and they were very near as free from idolatry.
A Commentary on the New Testament From the Talmud and Hebraica by John Lightfoot
Samaritan Pentateuch
On the return from the Exile, the Jews refused the Samaritans participation...