Nazareth was an oasis on the egypt - babylon trade route.
Not a podunk village.
The word in Luke 2:7 is guestroom. not inn. So the stable of Joseph’s father’s house was where Mary had her labour, because the guestroom was full with the census.
Common knowledge for some.
“Common knowledge for some.”
Uh, OK, guess these are dead wrong:
“During the life of Jesus, this [Nazareth] was an isolated agricultural village with few inhabitants. Some say that as few as 150 people lived here during the days of Christ. Some scholars conclude that Nazareth was founded in 100 BC by a clan from the line of David who was returning from exile in Babylonia. However, ancient sources do not speak at all about Nazareth; we only hear of it in the New Testament.”
http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/nazareth.html
“Situated inside a bowl atop the Nazareth ridge north of the Jezreel valley, Nazareth was a relatively isolated village in the time of Jesus with a population less than two hundred.”
http://www.bibleplaces.com/nazareth.htm
“James Strange, an American archaeologist, notes: “Nazareth is not mentioned in ancient Jewish sources earlier than the third century AD. This likely reflects its lack of prominence both in Galilee and in Judaea.”[27] Strange originally speculated that the population of Nazareth at the time of Christ to be “roughly 1,600 to 2,000 people”, but later, in a subsequent publication, at “a maximum of about 480.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth
FWIW, these are the first 3 listings under a Google search for “Nazareth” “bible,” my point being that I didn’t cherry-pick the results to select the ones supporting my original contention that Nazareth was pretty puny. Even a “village/town/city” of 480 presumably would encompass only about 100 households. Could such a small number seriously support an architect? I’m no biblical scholar: I’m merely saying that the speculation that Joseph was an architect lacks some face validity.