But not like this... not by claiming that the Magi (who BTW did not come from Teheran or the vicinity) traveled to Nazareth. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew until the Holy Family returns from Egypt.

It is true that Matthew does not claim that this was the Holy Family's first time at Nazareth. However, said Gospel also does depict that move not as "they returned where they lived before". Quite the contrary - the move is depicted as a decision to avoid Judaea as the realm of Archelaus. According to the account, they would have returned to Judaea had the new ruler there been more to their liking, say if Antipas had been given Judaea or the entire realm of his father. This also indicates that the stay at Bethlehem before was not merely a one-off event, during which Jesus was born.

IMO, the Holy Family stayed in Bethlehem after the Nativity for quite a while, which included the trip to Jerusalem mentioned by Luke and moving into a house. This is where the Magi found them. Joseph after all had his family connections in Bethlehem and what better place could their be, in his thinking, for the Messiah to grow up. All these plans were dashed by Joseph's dream warning him of Herod's attack, leading to the flight to Egypt and eventually the return to Nazareth.

Luke does not refer to the trip to Egypt. It would have to occur in the middle of verse 39 of chapter 2 between performing the Law of the Lord and returning to Galilee. To make it clearer, we can illuminate this with a temporal adverb. Which is it "? After completing the law of the Lord, they (immediately or eventually) returned to Galilee". or again. "After completing the Law of the Lord, they" ended up in Nazareth where Jesus grew up. I see no contradiction there, Luke just omitted the part of going back to Bethlehem down to Egypt before going to Nazareth. It does not preclude or deny it from happening.

I cannot offhand name any of my sources, either, but the majority opinion among them seems to be that the paragraph you mention is indeed authentic. At the same time, however, they do not regard it as certain that Tacitus was relying on official Roman records or any comparable source when he wrote it. Anyone acquainted with Christians would have known that they believed their sect's founder to have been executed by Pontius Pilate. Considering Tacitus's opinion of Christianity, if he had known that much about them, he would have had no motivation to make any effort to set the record straight.

I don't deny the possibility that Tacitus was relying on official records, but possibility is not probability. I think I'm justified in regarding it as likely that he was merely reporting hearsay. That doesn't mean it wasn't true, but does mean that he is not an independent source for anything we know about Christianity's origins.

Each did post that there is still debate as there are no original manuscripts.

Nothing even close to the original. The oldest extant copy is from late Medieval times.

I’m sorry I can’t name them. I started in Wikipedia and then pursued it on a number of other sites. I actually avoided any site that appeared to be Christian motivated. There were common names of “noted” Christian and non-Christian scholars that showed up on each site, but I am not familiar with them as that is not my field of interest, and all indicated that the majority of experts hold this paragraph to be authentic. There were some mentions that there might have been some inserts by Christians in later centuries, but even with those removed it seems clear that this author documented some evidence that Christ was crucified by Pilot, that Christianity then quickly bloomed in Rome and that they were hated and brutally persecuted. On a couple of sites, extensive evidence was detailed about the author’s use of grammar, words, style, and bias from the entirety of the work which indicated that this record (once cleaned up) is his offering. (This is not my strength so I am regurgitating what they indicate they did). These sites were hard for me to read but I worked through them looking for dissension. Each did post that there is still debate as there are no original manuscripts.

Are the gospels really what we would expect from a group of people who sat down and created a religious hero?

Not at all. Which is why I don't think for a moment that that is how the gospels originated.

I have prayed for you and just learned something new that made me think of you.

Tacitus may be new to you. What he wrote about the Christians is old news to me.

Scholars give him credit for having access to the Roman Senate and assume he used them in this extensive work.

Which scholars are you talking about? Can you name one of them?

I have prayed for you and just learned something new that made me think of you. I felt I should return here to offer it. You wrote that you have "no reason, other than many centuries of Catholic tradition, to believe the writers [in the New Testiment] were even attempting to produce a factual narrative." This is what I just learned. I found it by “accident”, but can't recall what I was doing at the time. Reading it brings me pain because it is another testimony of the early persecutions of Christians.

A roman Senator named Tacitus in around 116 AD set out to write a book about the history of Roman rule. Scholars give him credit for having access to the Roman Senate and assume he used them in this extensive work. In a small part of these writings, he addressed the Great Fire of Rome in 64AD. Apparently, he felt that Nero accused the Christians in Rome of setting the fire in order to divert beliefs that he had set it himself. In these writings, Tacitus confirms that there was an extensive Christian presence in Rome in 64AD and that they were hated and persecuted, just as the Bible records.

In his book, this non-Christian addressed the crucifixion of the leader of this “hated” group. He referred to their leader as “Christus, from whom then name had its origin”. He wrote of this founder of the Christians that he “suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome”.
Scholars both Christian, and non, hold these writings to be authentic.