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No, the NKJV wrongly translates Luke 2:2 as "governing" rather than "governor".
This is done to circumvent the "embarrassment" Luke causes us in the KJV by claiming an official position for Cyrenius (Quirinius) as governor of Syria at the time of Christ's birth, when profane history claims that Cyrenius only became governor in 6 A.D.
This is similar to MacArthur bowing to scholarship, despite the scriptures, in equating Pul and Tiglathpileser as one and the same king of Assyria (See 1Ch.5:26).
However, in the 19th century, Dr. Zumpt aptly argued that Cyrenius was governor of Syria twice.
As related by Sir Robert Anderson: “The evangelist's mention of Cyrenius appeared to be a hopeless anachronism; as, according to undoubted history, the period of his governorship and the date of his "taxing" were nine or ten years later than the nativity. Gloated over by Strauss and others of his tribe, and dismissed by writers unnumbered either as enigma or an error, the passage has in recent years been vindicated and explained the labors of Dr. Zumpt of Berlin. By a strange chance there is a break in the history of this period, for the seven or eight years beginning B.C.4. The list of the governors of Syria, therefore, fails us, and for the same interval P. Sulpicius Quirinus, the Cyrenius of the Greeks, disappears from history. But by a series of separate investigations and arguments, all or them independent of Scripture, Dr. Zumpt has established that Quirinus was twice governor of the province, and that his first term of office dated from the latter part B.C. 4, when he succeeded Quinctilius Varus. The unanimity with which this conclusion has been accepted renders it unnecessary to discuss the matter here. But one remark respecting it may not be out of place. The grounds of Dr. Zumpt’s conclusions may be aptly described as a chain of circumstantial evidence, and his critics are agreed that the result is reasonably certain.[1]”
“Dr. Zumpt's labors in this matter were first made public in a Latin treatise which appeared in 1854. More recently he has published them in his Das Geburtsjahr Christi (Leipzig, 1869). The English reader will find a summary of his arguments in Dean Alford's Greek Test (Note on Luke 2:1), and in his article, on Cyrenius in Smith's Bible Dict.; he describes them as ‘very striking and satisfactory’. Dr. Farrar remarks, ‘Zumpt has, with incredible industry and research, all but established in this matter the accuracy of St. Luke, by proving the extreme probability that Quirinus was twice governor of Syria’ (Life of Christ, vol. 1. p. 7, note). See also an article in the Quarterly Review for April 1871, which describes Zumpt's conclusions as ‘very nearly certain’, ‘all but certain’. The question is discussed also in Wieseler's Chron. Syn. (Venables's trans.) In his Roman history, Mr. Merivale adopts these results unreservedly. He says (vol. 4., p. 457), ‘A remarkable light has been thrown upon the point by the demonstration, as it seems to be, of Augustus Zumpt in his second volume of Commentationes Epigraphicae, that Quirinus (the Cyrenius of St. Luke 2.) was first governor of Syria from the close of A. U. 750 (B. C. 4) , to A. U. 753 (B. C. 1).”[2]

Thus the KJV wording is more accurate, and the NKJV wording is an unfortunate translation.


[1] Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince, Fifth Edition, ch.8, p.58

[2] Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince, Fifth Edition, ch.8, p.61, footnote #3.

 

Sigh. Which manuscript, and why that one?
See signature #2. Par for the course.

 

Not text, manuscript. Are you sure all the Greek manuscripts say "governing"?