What year was Jesus born? The answer may surprise you.

You might think that Jesus was born in the Year Zero–between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1. You often hear that Jesus was born around 6-7 B.C. The evidence from the Bible and the Church Fathers, however, support a different year.

Here’s what the evidence says . . .

Not in Year Zero

There is a good reason why Jesus wasn’t born in Year Zero: there wasn’t one. The sequence of years before Christ ends at 1 B.C. and the A.D. series picks up the very next year with A.D. 1. This is a bit surprising to us, since we’re used to working with number lines that have a zero on them, but zero wasn’t a concept on the intellectual scene when our way of reckoning years was developed.

If it helps, you can think about it this way: suppose you have a child and you want to date events relative to that child’s birth. The first year before the child was born would be 1 B.C. (Before the Child), and the first year after his birth (that is, the year ending with his first birthday) would be the first year of the child. If the child happens to be the Lord, that would be the first year of the Lord, which in Latin is Anno Domini, from which we get A.D. Thus there is no Year Zero between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1.

(By the way, please note that the “A.D.” goes before the number. “A.D. 2013″ = “The Year of the Lord 2013,” which is an intelligible phrase. If you write “2013 A.D.” that would be “2013 the Year of the Lord,” which is gibberish.)

So what year was Jesus born?

1 B.C.?

The guy who developed the way we reckon years was a 6th-century monk named Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis the Short”). He apparently thought Christ was born in 1 B.C. (actually, it’s a bit more complex than that, but we’ll keep this simple).

Today most think this date is a little too late and that the evidence supports a date a few years earlier.

6-7 B.C.?

For a little more than a century, the idea has been popular that Jesus was born in 6-7 B.C. The reasoning goes like this: Jesus was born late in the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C. Furthermore, the wise men saw the star rise in the east two years before they came to visit Jerusalem, where they met Herod. Back up two years from 4 B.C. and you get 6 B.C. Back up another year in case Herod didn’t die immediately after they visited, and you get 7 B.C.

So: 6 or 7 B.C.

The problem, as we saw in a previous post, is that the arguments that Herod died in 4 B.C. are exceptionally weak.

3-4 B.C.?

Let’s take the same logic as above and plug in the more likely date of Herod’s death.

As we saw in a previous post, the evidence points to him dying in 1 B.C. So . . . back up two years from that and you get 3 B.C. Back up another year for cushion and you get 4 B.C.

Thus: 3-4 B.C.

That’s not an unreasonable estimate, but there are two issues with it:

1. It’s got a couple of problematic assumptions.
2. Other evidence, including other evidence from the Bible, suggests it’s a little too early.

The problematic assumptions are that the star was first visible in the east at the moment of Jesus’ birth and that it was visible for a full two years prior to the magi’s arrival.

The first of these assumptions is problematic (among other reasons) because its appearance could be connected with another point in Jesus’ life, such as his conception. If that were the case, you’d need to shave nine months off to find the point of his birth. It’s also problematic because Matthew doesn’t say that the star appeared two years earlier. What he says is that Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem that were two years old and under, in accord with the time he learned from the magi. That means that there is some approximating going on here.

Herod would certainly want to make sure the child was dead, and he would err on the side of . . . well, the side of caution from his perspective. That is, he would to some degree over-estimate how old the child might be in order to be sure of wiping him out. Thus all the boys two and under were killed. That means Jesus was at most two years old, but he was likely younger than that.

What may well have happened is Herod may have been told that the star appeared a year ago and he decided to kill all the boys a year on either side of this to make sure of getting the right one.

And then there’s the fact that the ancients often counted parts of a year as a full year in their reckoning, so “two years” might mean “one year plus part of a second year.”

All this suggests that two years was the maximum amount of time earlier that Jesus was born, and likely it was less than that.

Thus . . .

2-3 B.C.?

This date would be indicated if we start with Herod’s death in 1 B.C. and then, taking into account the factors named above, backed up only one year, suggesting 2 B.C. Then, if we back up another year to allow for the fact Herod didn’t die immediately, that would suggest 3 B.C. So, sometime between 2-3 B.C. would be reasonable, based on what we read in Matthew.

Do we have other evidence suggesting this date?

We do, both inside and outside the Bible.

The Gospel of Luke

Although Luke offers some helpful clues about the timing of Jesus’ birth, we don’t know enough to make full use of them. The date of the enrollment ordered by Augustus is notoriously controversial, for example, and too complex to go into here. However, later indications he gives in his gospel are quite interesting.

He records, for example, that John the Baptist began his ministry in “the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar” (3:1). Tiberius became emperor after Augustus died in August of A.D. 14. Roman historians (e.g., Tacitus, Suetonius), however, tended to skip part years and begin counting an emperor’s reign with the first January 1 after they took office. On that reckoning, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar would correspond to what we call A.D. 29. (Remember, the 15th year is the time between the completion of the 14th year and the completion of the 15th year, the same way a child’s first year is the time between his birth and his first birthday.)

Jesus’ ministry starts somewhat after John’s, but it doesn’t appear to be very long. Perhaps only a few weeks or months. If so, Jesus’ ministry also likely started in A.D. 29.

That’s important, because Luke gives us a second clue: He says Jesus was “about thirty years of age” when he began his ministry (Lk 3:23). So, if you take A.D. 29 and back up thirty years, when does that land you? You might think in 1 B.C., but remember that there’s no Year Zero, so it would actually be 2 B.C. or the end of 3 B.C. if Luke was counting Tiberius’s reign from when he became emperor rather than from the next January 1.

Thus: 2-3 B.C. is a reasonable estimate.

That’s still only an estimate, though, because Jesus could have been a little less or a little more than thirty.

(For purposes of comparison, note that when Luke describes the age of Jairus’s daughter, he says she was “about twelve” (Lk 8:42). So Luke doesn’t seem to go in for rounding things to the nearest 5 years; he tries to be more precise than that. When Luke says Jesus was “about thirty,” he’s probably not envisioning anything between 25 and 35 but a range narrower than that.)

To confirm our estimate, it would be nice if we had an exact naming of the year Jesus was born, and in fact we do . . .

The Fathers Know Best

There is a startling consensus among early Christian sources about the year of Jesus’ birth.

Here is a table adapted from Jack Finegan’s excellent Handbook of Biblical Chronology (p. 291) giving the dates proposed by different sources:

 
As you can see, except for a few outliers (including our influential friend, Dionysius Exiguus), there is strong support for Jesus being born in either 3 or 2 B.C.

Note that some of the sources in this table are quite ancient. Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, and Hippolytus of Rome all wrote in the late 100s or early 200s.

We thus have strong indication–from a careful reading of Matthew, from Luke, and from the Church Fathers–that Jesus was born in 3 or 2 B.C.
 
 
 
PS. If you like the information I've presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club. If you're not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email. I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with theology, science, history, and more.

Just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

If you have any difficulty, email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.

Originally posted at JimmyAkin.com. Used with permission.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus Christ was born in the final years of the tyrant known as Herod the Great. He tells us that when Jesus was born, Herod panicked and had all the baby boys in Bethlehem killed. Fortunately, the Jesus' family escaped to Egypt and remained there until Herod was dead.

They didn't have to stay long, though. Here's when Herod the Great actually died . . .
 

Setting Aside a Common Mistake

 
For just over a hundred years, the question of when Herod the Great died has been dominated by a proposal by the German scholar Emil Schurer. He suggested that Herod died in 4 B.C., and this view took off in scholarly circles. But in recent decades, it's been challenged and, as we saw in a previous post, the arguments for this position are exceptionally weak.

So when did Herod actually die?
 

The Length of Herod's Reign

 
Here is how the Jewish historian Josephus describes the timing of Herod's death:

"So Herod, having survived the slaughter of his son [Antipater] five days, died, having reigned thirty-four years, since he had caused Antigonus to be slain, and obtained his kingdom; but thirty-seven years since he had been made king by the Romans."  [War of the Jews, 1:33:8 (665); cf. Antiquities of the Jews 17:8:1 (191)]

In this place, Josephus dates Herod's death by three events:

1. Five days after the execution of his son Antipater.
2. Thirty-four years after he "obtained his kingdom" (i.e., conquered Jerusalem and had its Hasmonean king, Antigonus, killed).
3. Thirty-seven years after "he had been made king by the Romans."

The death of Antipater isn't a particularly helpful clue, but the two ways of reckoning the length of his reign are.

First, though, we need to answer one question . . .
 

How Is Josephus Counting Years?

 
Kings don't tend to come into office on New Year's Day, and so they often serve a partial year before the next calendar year begins (regardless of which calendar is used). They also don't die on the last day of the year, typically, so they also serve a partial year at the end of their reigns. This creates complications for historians, because ancient authors sometimes count these additional part-years (especially the one at the beginning of the reign) as a full year. Or they ignore the calendar year and treat the time that a king came into office as a kind of birthday and reckon his reign in years from that point.

What scheme was Josephus using?

Advocates of the idea that Herod died in 4 B.C. argue that he was named king in 40 B.C. To square that with a 37-year reign ending in 4. B.C., they must count the part year at the beginning of his reign and the part year at the end of it as years. That's the only way the math will work out.

The problem is that this is not how Josephus would have reckoned the years. Biblical chronology scholar Andrew E. Steinmann comments:

"[T]here is no evidence for this [inclusive way of reckoning the partial years]--and every other reign in this period, including those of the Jewish high priests, are reckoned non-inclusively by Josephus." (From Abraham to Paul, 223)

In other words, Josephus does not count the partial first year when dating reigns in this period.

Knowing that, what would we make of Josephus's two ways of dating Herod's reign?
 

Herod Appointed King

 
As we saw in the previous post, Josephus gave an impossible date (one that did not exist) for Herod's appointment as king. He said it was in the 184th Olympiad, which ended in midyear 40 B.C. and that it was in the consulship of Calvinus and Pollio, which began in late 40 and extended into 39. Those can't both be right, but one of them could be.

Which one? The evidence points to 39 B.C., because we have another source on this: the Roman historians Appian and Dio Cassius. Appian wrote a history of the Roman civil wars in which he discusses the appointment of Herod in the midst of other events. By comparing this set of events to how they are dated in Dio Cassius's Roman History, it can be shown that the events in question--including the appointment of Herod--took place in 39 B.C.

Given how Josephus dates reigns in this period, he would not have counted Herod's partial first year in 39 B.C. but would have started his count with 38 B.C.

Count 37 years forward from that and you have 1 B.C.
 

Herod Conquers Jerusalem

 
As we saw in the previous post, Josephus gives contradictory dating information for Herod's conquest of Jerusalem. Some of the dating information he provides points to 37 B.C. and some points to 36 B.C. Josephus said Herod died 34 years after the event.

Bearing in mind that Josephus wasn't counting partial first years, that would put Herod's death either in 2 B.C. (if he conquered Jerusalem in 37) or in 1 B.C. (if he conquered the city in 36).

There are various ways to try to resolve which, but some are rather complex.

At least one, however, is quite straightforward . . .
 

Herod's Lunar Eclipse

 
We saw in the previous post that Josephus said Herod died between a lunar eclipse and Passover. While there was a partial lunar eclipsed before Passover in 4 B.C. there was a total lunar eclipse before Passover in 1 B.C. Further, the lunar eclipse in 1 B.C. better fits the situation Josephus describes (see the previous post for details).

Since 4 B.C. is outside the range indicated above, and since the 1 B.C. lunar eclipse fits the situation better, that lets us decide between 2 B.C. and 1 B.C. in favor of the latter. There was no lunar eclipse in 2 B.C., pointing us toward 1 B.C.
 

Final Answer?

 
Putting together the pieces above, we have:

• Reason to think Herod died in 1 B.C. based on the amount of time he served after being appointed king by the Romans.
• Reason to think Herod died in either 2 or 1 B.C. based on the amount of time he served after conquering Jerusalem.
• Reason to think Herod died in 1 B.C. because of the lunar eclipse that occurred before Passover.

More specifically, he would have died between January 10, 1 B.C. (the date of the lunar eclipse) and April 11, 1 B.C. (the date of Passover).

Most likely, it was closer to the latter date, since Josephus records a bunch of things Herod did after the eclipse and before his death, some of which required significant travel time.

There is also one more reason that we should reject the death of Herod in 4 B.C. in favor of a 1 B.C. date . . .
 

We Know When Jesus Was Born

 
We don't have to restrict our knowledge of when Herod died to the sources and events mentioned above. We can also date his death relative to the birth of Christ. For some reason, moderns seem to think that the dating of Herod's death should govern when Jesus was born, but the logic works both ways: if we know when Jesus was born, that tells us something about when Herod died.

And we, in fact, have quite good information about the year in which Jesus was born.

It was after 4 B.C., ruling out that date.

So . . . what year was Jesus born?

Stay tuned for my post tomorrow on Christmas Day. . . 
 
 
 
PS. If you like the information I've presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club. If you're not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email. I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with theology, science, history, and more.

Just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

If you have any difficulty, email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.
 
 
Originally posted at National Catholic Register. Used with permission.

What do atheist skeptics and liberal Scripture scholars have in common? They both love to find alleged “contradictions” in Scripture. Though there are many of these alleged “contradictions,” one of the favorites of both of these camps is one that you can expect to find being re-hashed again and again on the Internet:—especially now that we are approaching Christmas—the “contradictions” found in what are commonly referred to as “the infancy narratives” of St. Matthew and St. Luke.

The late Fr. Raymond Brown, S.S., for example, who definitely made positive contributions to biblical study in the Church, also made some not-so-good contributions. In his book, The Birth of the Messiah, p. 46, for example, he flatly declares the two infancy narratives “are contrary to each other.”

Oy vey!

So What Gives?

The two “infancy narratives” are found in Luke 2:1-39 and Matthew 1:18-2:23. We’ll use St. Luke’s account as our beginning point of reference and from there we’ll move forward inserting the alleged “contradictions” as we go.

I’ll give you a very important pointer here at the outset for clarity’s sake: keep your eyes on the words I put in bold print as I lay out the narrative for St. Matthew and St. Luke's Gospels. These are the problem areas. And also keep in mind that these problems are not created by the texts of Scripture. They are created in the imaginations of those creating the so-called “contradictions.” Here we go:

According to St. Luke’s account, Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem because of the census called for by Caesar Augustus. It would be there that Mary “gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger…” (2:1-7) Are we good, so far?

Well, maybe not!

According to St. Matthew’s Gospel, there is no account of a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And this is true. But skeptics claim St. Matthew portrays the Holy Family to have been living in Bethlehem, not Nazareth. There would have been no way for there to have even been a journey to Bethlehem if Matthew’s scenario were true. The Holy Family was already there!

Moreover, Jesus is not found in St. Luke’s “manger,” but Matthew 2:11 says the Wise Men found him in a “house” in Bethlehem where the Holy Family was not staying in the Inn—or more precisely, the manger attached to an Inn—that we find in Luke’s Gospel. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is depicted as being born in the family home of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem where they had lived all along, contradicting St. Luke’s account. Herein we find the first of these narratives’ supposed irreconcilable contradictions.

A Biblical Response:

There are two crucial assumptions made here that have nothing to do with the actual text of Scripture.

1. Because there is “no account of a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem” in St. Matthew’s Gospel, this does not mean St. Matthew’s Gospel excludes it as a possibility. It doesn’t. It just means St. Matthew chose not to mention it.

2. And this is the most crucial error that, when understood properly, will end up dispelling most of the misconstrued contradictions we find out and about in cyberspace. The assumption is made that St. Matthew’s recording of the Wise Men following the star leads them to the Holy Family at the time of Jesus’ actual birth, and in Bethlehem. But the text does not actually say this.

Let me explain.

First, let’s look at Matthew 2:1:

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Wise Men from the East came to Jerusalem…"

Critics nearly unanimously interpret this to mean that St. Matthew is claiming the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem at the time Christ was born. The truth is: it doesn’t say that. It simply says Christ was born during the days of King Herod and that the Wise Men came in those days to see—as they themselves asked upon their arrival in Jerusalem—where they could find “he who has been born king of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2).Matthew 2:1-2 does not specify how much time had transpired since the actual birth of Jesus.

However, having said that, though Matthew 2:1-2 doesn’t specify the time of Christ’s birth, we do have clues elsewhere that indicate the Wise Men did not arrive at the time Christ was actually born; rather, one to as much as two years later.

Little Drummer Boy History

I know what you’re thinking. Or, at least, what you should be thinking. I love “The Little Drummer Boy,” too! (Yes, that was said “tongue and cheek,” folks!) My family and I watch it every year at Christmas! And multiple times (we have the DVD).

(It's great having young children in the house. It gives me an excuse to watch all those kid-oriented Christmas specials!)

But unfortunately, “The Little Drummer Boy,” as well as a whole slew of atheists and liberal theologians, has his (and their) time-line all wrong here. Perhaps there is a lesson here about getting one’s theology, or history, through children’s Claymation television shows?

At any rate, the Nativity is commonly portrayed with Magi, Shepherds, and yes, maybe even the little drummer boy, all together at the manger with the Holy Family and the new-born baby Jesus. But that is not the way the Bible portrays it.

First of all, when the Magi “saw his star” in the East that indicated the birth of the “king of the Jews,” it was only then that they began their journey to Israel, according to Matthew 2:2. And remember, this was before you could jump on a commuter jet. Coming from Persia, most likely, they would have had to travel around 970 miles to get to Jerusalem. At least, that’s the distance from modern Tehran, anyway. Even if you move eastward as far as modern Bagdad as their starting point, they would have still had to travel at least 500 miles.

Why is this significant?

Matthew 2:3-7 tells us that after the Wise Men arrived in Jerusalem and began asking about the location of  “he who has been born king of the Jews” (notice, they did not say “new-born king” as many assume, they said, “he who has been born king of the Jews…”), Herod was troubled, for obvious reasons. He was corrupt and didn’t want another “king” to threaten his position of power. So, after “assembling all of the chief priests, and scribes” (v. 4), and asking them where the Messiah was to be born, they informed him of Micah’s prophecy (Micah 5:2) that foretold Bethlehem as the birthplace of the coming king. Herod then decided to pretend he was interested in welcoming, and worshipping, this new “king of Israel” just as the Magi were. He really wanted to find out precisely where this king was located, so he could eliminate the threat… permanently.

But notice what Matthew 2:7 says:

"Then Herod summoned the Wise Men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared, and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”"

Herod wanted to know “when the star appeared” so he could know the approximate age of the child. This indicates that the star appeared to the Magi when Jesus was born, before their journey to Israel. This eliminates the possibility of the Magi meeting the shepherds and the Holy Family at the manger.

Moreover, after God warned the Magi “not to return to Herod” in Matthew 2:12, and Herod later realizes they were not coming back to give him his desired information about the location of Jesus, in 2:16, “in a rage” he determined to “kill all of the children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the Wise Men" (emphasis added).

Thus, if we allow for Herod hedging his bet to make sure he kills the right child, the information he garnered from the Magi would probably have placed the birth of Christ at about a year or so before the Magi’s arrival. Herod would probably want a cushion on each side of the approximate time of Christ’s birth.

Most importantly, this would indicate Christ would have been 1 to at most 2 years-old (though I would again say it would be unlikely Christ would have been a full two years-old) at the time the Wise Men arrived in Jerusalem to find the Christ-child. This would have been 1 to 2 years after the nativity of St. Luke’s Gospel.

Many will say at this point that a journey of 500 to 1,000 miles would not take that long. If you say the caravan of the Wise Men could travel about 5 to 10 miles per day, it would have taken anywhere from two to seven months of travel. This is true, but this does not take into account many variables. You didn’t just jump into a car or airplane and go. It would have taken time to plan the trip, gather supplies, security, etc. These and more contingencies are simply not revealed to us in the text. But we do get hints here about what Herod concluded from his personal interview of the Magi themselves. The text of Scripture indicates it was the Magi that revealed the time of Christ's birth to have been long before the Magi's arrival in Nazareth.

Check Your Assumptions at the Door

Once we get the above timeline right, the “contradictions” between “infancy narratives” are not so contradictory any longer. We are not going to get to all of the “contradictions” claimed, but as one other example, the claim is also made that when the Wise Men were sent to Bethlehem by Herod, then that would naturally have been where they ended up finding the Holy Family when they arrive at the place “where the child was” in Matthew 2:9. This is the foundation for the “contradiction” between St. Luke’s “manger” and St. Matthew’s “house,” and more. The problem is: the text doesn’t say the Wise Men actually found the Christ-child in Bethlehem. This is another non-biblical assumption.

In fact, Matthew 2:9 tells us that after Herod ordered the Magi to go to Bethlehem, it would be the miraculous star that would actually guide them to Christ. The text doesn’t explicitly say this, but we can reasonably assume the star would not lead them to the wrong location! If the Wise Men would have then headed to Bethlehem, the Holy Family would have been long gone. The star would have led them to Nazareth, where, St. Luke tells us, in 2:39, “[the Holy Family] returned,” but only after “they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord.”

Back to St. Luke’s Gospel

It is crucial to understand that other than the mention of Christ’s actual birth in Matthew 2:1, there is no overlap with Luke’s infancy narrative and Matthew’s. Here’s a time-line:

Matthew 2:1 mentions Christ’s actual birth in Bethlehem. This sole overlap parallels Luke 2:6-7.

But because we know St. Matthew’s Gospel then leaps forward to the story of the Magi, one to at most two years after Christ’s birth, the story of the shepherd and the angels finding Christ in Bethlehem in Luke 2:8-20, the circumcision of Christ while the Holy Family was still in Bethlehem in Luke 2:21, the “Presentation of the Lord” in the temple of Luke 2:22-36 (a six-mile trip that would take the better part of a day to walk), and the “return to Nazareth” of Luke 2:39, all happen within about 40 or so days after Christ’s birth, and long before the Magi arrive at Nazareth in search of the “king of Israel.”

With this in mind, we can now eliminate the above-mentioned “contradictions” quite easily:

1. The “home” in Matthew 2:11 does not conflict with the “manger” in Luke 2:7. The “home” was in Nazareth where the Holy Family had traveled well over a year before the coming of the Magi.

2. Matthew’s Gospel never actually says the “home” mentioned in 2:11 was in Bethlehem.

3. The Wise Men were “sent” to Bethlehem by Herod, but the text never says that is where they ended up. We know, in fact, they would have ended up in Nazareth where Christ actually was, not Bethlehem.

Another Assumption Exploded

As I said above, in this brief post, we are not going to eliminate all of the errors that are out there claiming contradictions between the infancy narratives. In fact, there are some who argue for contradictions even within the narratives themselves. But if you keep in mind the historical timeline laid out here, you can deal with most of the claimed anomalies.

Here is one final example:

Matthew 2:23 tells us the Holy Family never went to live in Nazareth until after the coming of the Magi and the flight into Egypt. It was only then, the text says, “[Joseph and the Holy Family] went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.” Yet, St. Luke says, it was after the 40 days of purification after the birth of Christ that “[the Holy Family] returned into Galilee, to… Nazareth.”

Actually, Matthew 2:23 does not say the Holy Family “first” went to Nazareth after the flight into Egypt. That is another unbiblical assumption. After being warned by God to flee Herod’s wrath and travel to Egypt in Matthew 2:13-14, and then after being told by an angel of the Lord to return to Israel, in Matthew 2:20, it appears St. Joseph’s desire was to go back to his family’s native Bethlehem in Judea, but because Herod’s son, Archela’us, was reigning there, “he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream” he went to Nazareth instead (Matthew 2:22-23).

We have to remember that the inspired authors place emphases on particular aspects of the life of Christ and the Holy Family for particular theological reasons. St. Matthew is writing to a Jewish Christian community; thus, he emphasizes both Christ’s birth in Bethlehem to fulfill the Old Testament prophecy of Micah 5:2 (Matthew 2:5-6), and the fulfillment of the Oral Tradition, or word “spoken by the prophets,” that Christ would be “called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2:23). St. Luke, the only inspired Evangelist who was also a Gentile, did not seem as interested in pointing those things out.

For St. Matthew’s purpose, it would not suffice for him to simply mention Jesus' brief sojourn in Bethlehem as an infant and toddler; he had to be raised in Nazareth in order to be “called a Nazarene.” Thus, the emphasis of St. Matthew is on Christ and the Holy Family coming to Nazareth where Christ would be raised in order to fulfill the prophecy “spoken by the prophets” (Matthew 2:23). But he never says this was the “first” time they had been there.

Final Thought

There is much more to be done here—multiple alleged “contradictions” to clear up. But to do that, we must establish a true context for Scripture free from assumptions that don’t jive with the entirety of the text.
 
 
Originally appeared at Catholic Answers. Used with permission.
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

St. Luke begins the second chapter of his Gospel with a chronological note about when Jesus was born, writing:

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria." (Luke 2:1-2)

This passage has been subject to a lot of criticism, because Luke has already linked the birth of Jesus to reign of Herod the Great (Luke 1:5), and Quirinius did not become governor of Syria until years afterwards.

What Happened When?

Precisely when Herod’s reign ended is a matter of dispute. Historically, the most common view—which is also in accordance with the Church Fathers—is that Herod died in 1 B.C.

Just over a hundred years ago, however, a German scholar named Emil Schürer argued that Herod died in 4 B.C., and this became the most popular view in the 20^th century. More recent scholarship, however, has supported the idea that Schürer was wrong and that the traditional date of 1 B.C. is correct.

After Herod’s death, his kingdom was divided, and his son Archelaus became the ruler of Judaea (Matt. 2:22). Archelaus, however, was a terrible ruler, and in A.D. 6 he was removed from office by the Romans and banished to what is now France. In his place, a Roman prefect was appointed to govern the province, which is why Pontius Pilate—rather than one of the descendants of Herod the Great—was ruling Judaea at the time of Jesus’ adult ministry.

According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Quirinius (aka Cyrenius) was sent to govern Syria after the banishment of Archelaus. He also took a tax census of Judaea at this time and made an accounting of Archelaus’s finances (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18:1:1).

The Sequence

From the above, the overall sequence of events is clear:

1. Herod the Great dies (1 B.C. or 4 B.C.)
2. Archelaus becomes his successor in Judaea
3. Archelaus is deposed
4. Quirinius does his census (A.D. 6)

Given that sequence, if Luke identified Jesus’ birth with a census conducted in A.D. 6 then we would have an implicit contradiction with Luke 1, which links Jesus’ birth to the reign of Herod the Great, and an even clearer contradiction with Matthew 2, which is explicit about the fact that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great.

Finding a Solution

Scholars have proposed a number of solutions to this. There isn’t space to review them all here, but I’d like to look at one of them. In his book Who Was Jesus? the former Anglican bishop N. T Wright states:

"The question of Quirinius and his census is an old chestnut, requiring a good knowledge of Greek. It depends on the meaning of the word protos, which usually means ‘first’.
 
Thus most translations of Luke 2:2 read ‘this was the first [protos] census, when Quirinius was governor of Syria’, or something like that.
 
But in the Greek of the time, as the standard major Greek lexicons point out, the word protos came sometimes to be used to mean ‘before’, when followed (as this is) by the genitive case." (p. 89)

The genitive case is a grammatical feature in Greek. It is often used to indicate possession (as in “Jesus’ disciples”) or origin (as in “Jesus of Nazareth”). Wright, however, is pointing to a special use of the genitive when it follows the word protos and protos ends up meaning “before.” He writes:

"A good example is in John 1:15, where John the Baptist says of Jesus ‘he was before me’, with the Greek being again protos followed by the genitive of ‘me’."

In a footnote, Wright continues:

"The phrase is repeated in John 1:30; compare also 15:18, where Jesus says ‘the world hated me before [it hated] you’, where again the Greek is protos with the genitive.
 
Other references, in biblical and non-biblical literature of the period, may be found in the Greek Lexicon of Liddell and Scott (Oxford: OUP, 1940), p. 1535, and the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament of W . Bauer, revised and edited by Arndt, Gingrich and Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 725f. 19.
 
This solution has been advanced by various scholars, including, interestingly, William Temple in his Readings in St John’s Gospel (London: Macmillan, 1945), p. 17; cf. most recently John Nolland, Luke 1–9: 20 (Dallas: Word Books, 1989), pp. 101f."

Wright’s Solution

Wright then explains how this can relate to the enrollment of Quirinius:

"I suggest, therefore, that actually the most natural reading of the verse is: 'This census took place before the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria.'"

He also notes:

"This solves an otherwise odd problem: why should Luke say that Quirinius’ census was the first? Which later ones was he thinking of?
 
This reading, of course, does not resolve all the difficulties. We don’t know, from other sources, of a census earlier than Quirinius’. But there are a great many things that we don’t know in ancient history.
 
There are huge gaps in our records all over the place. Only those who imagine that one can study history by looking up back copies of the London Times or the Washington Post in a convenient library can make the mistake of arguing from silence in matters relating to the first century.
 
My guess is that Luke knew a tradition in which Jesus was born during some sort of census, and that Luke knew as well as we do that it couldn’t have been the one conducted under Quirinius, because by then Jesus was about ten years old. That is why he wrote that the census was the one before that conducted by Quirinius."

An Objection

An objection that some have raised about this solution is why, on this theory, Luke would bother mentioning Quirinius’s census.
 
Think about it for a moment: It can sound a little strange to say, “This census took place before the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

Why would Luke do that?

There are at least three reasons . . .

Avoiding Confusion

The census of Quirinius was famous enough that Luke’s audience would have heard of it—otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it.
 
Given that it was well known, Luke would have wanted to avoid people confusing it with the enrollment during which Jesus was born.
 
He would especially want to avoid confusion in light of what he had established about King Herod...

Herod’s Death

Previously, in Luke 1:5, the Evangelist established that John the Baptist was conceived by his mother Elizabeth during the reign of Herod the Great.

Then, in 1:26 and 36, he established that Gabriel announced the conception of Jesus “in the sixth month” (i.e., what we would call the fifth month) of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. This means that Jesus would have been conceived much too early to have been born during Quirinius’s census.

Since Luke has already established this, it gives him a reason—when he records the fact that Jesus was born in connection with an enrollment—that it was not the famous census of Quirinius. It was an earlier one, in keeping with the timeframe Luke has already established.

But there is another reason why Luke would want to point this out...

In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Caesar

Luke 2 begins with a time cue that connects the birth of Jesus to the reign of Augustus Caesar. Luke 3 begins with an even more elaborate time cue linking the beginning of Jesus’ adult ministry to the reign of Augustus’s successor, Tiberius.

Luke writes:

"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness." (Luke 3:1-2)

The fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar is what we would call A.D. 28/29.

After John’s ministry begins, Jesus quickly comes and is baptized, thus beginning his own ministry. When that happens, Luke informs us:

"Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age." (Luke 3:23)

If you back up 30 years from A.D. 28/29 (remembering that there is no “year 0” so you skip from A.D. 1 directly to 1 B.C.), you land in 2/3 B.C., which is the year that the early Church Fathers overwhelmingly assign Jesus’ birth to.

People back then knew when Tiberius reigned, and they could do the math as well as we. In fact, since they were used to dating years in terms of the emperor’s reign, they would realize even more quickly than we the year in which Luke 3 indicates Jesus was born.

Thus, on Wright’s theory, Luke would have an additional motive to make sure there was no confusion about Jesus being born during the famous census of Quirinius.

Think about it from Luke’s point of view: After years of gathering his research, he’s now drafting his Gospel, and, when he reaches Luke 2, he includes a time cue for the birth of Jesus during an enrollment ordered by Augustus. He already knows, however, that he is planning on beginning Luke 3 with a time due identifying the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry and that he’s going to give Jesus’ approximate age at the time of his own ministry’s commencement.

Since the later time cues he’s planning to give point to a date earlier than the famous census of Quirinius, Luke would want to head off any potential confusion by stressing that this happened before that census, in keeping with the implications of Luke 3.
 
 
 
PS. If you like the information I've presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club. If you're not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email. I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with theology, science, history, and more.

Just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

If you have any difficulty, email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.

Originally posted at Catholic Answers. Used with permission.
 
 
(Image credit: Wikipedia)

You know how people often say that Jesus was born in 4 B.C., 6 B.C., 7 B.C., or a time earlier still? The calculations that lead to these dates are all based on a proposal that was made just over a hundred years ago.

But now scholars are challenging this proposal, because it looks like it's wrong. And it's been distorting our understanding of when Jesus was born for over a hundred years.

Here's the story. . . .

When Herod Died

 
The Gospel of Matthew records that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. Luke doesn't say it explicitly, but he does indicate that the birth of John the Baptist was foretold during Herod's reign. If Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great then he must have been born before Herod died. (He wasn't a zombie king.)

Here's where the problematic proposal comes in: In the late 1800s, a German scholar named Emil Schurer proposed that Herod died earlier than previously thought.

Specifically, he claimed that Herod died in 4 B.C. This view caught on among scholars, and so now it's common for people to date the birth of Jesus no later than 4 B.C.

If a scholar takes seriously the account of the slaughter of the holy innocents then, since Herod killed all the baby boys two years old and under, that would push Jesus' birth up to two years earlier, landing us in 6 B.C.

And it could have happened even before that.

So that's why people often date Jesus' birth in this way, even though it is not when the Church Fathers indicated Jesus was born.

Why 4 B.C.?

 
Why do advocates of the Schurer view hold that Herod died in 4 B.C.? Here are several reasons:

1. Based on statements in the Jewish historian Josephus, Herod was first appointed king in 40 B.C. and then reigned for 36 years (so, he died in 4 B.C.).
2. Again based on Josephus, after Herod was appointed king, he conquered Jerusalem in 37 B.C. and reigned for 33 years (again, dying in 4 B.C.).
3. Again based on Josephus, Herod died between a lunar eclipse and Passover. In 4 B.C., there was a partial lunar eclipse 29 days before Passover.
4. We have various lines of evidence suggesting that Herod's sons took office in 4 B.C.

Sounds like a solid case, right?

Not exactly. It's shot through with problems.

Let's take a brief look at each of the four arguments . . .

1. When Herod Was Appointed King

 
Since the B.C./A.D. system of dates hadn't been invented yet, Josephus used ancient methods of dating that we no longer use.

One method was dating events in terms of which Olympiad they took place in. An Olympiad was a four-year period based on when the Olympic Games took place. (Yes, the ancients were huge sports fans.) Each Olympiad began in midyear and ran for four years.

Josephus says that Herod was appointed king during the 184th Olympiad, which ran from July 1, 44 B.C. to June 30, 40 B.C.

He also says that he was appointed during the consulship of Calvinus and Pollio. Consuls were Roman officials who reigned during specific years, and it was common to date events by the consuls who were in office at the time.

Calvinus and Pollio began their consulship after October 2, 40 B.C. That's in the 185th Olympiad.

See the problem?

The 184th Olympiad ended before Calvinus and Pollio were consuls. Josephus has given us an impossible date. He must be wrong on this one.

2. When Herod Conquered Jerusalem

 
Josephus says that Herod conquered Jerusalem in the 185th Olympiad during the consulship of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus. That does point to 37 B.C.

But Josephus also says that Herod conquered Jerusalem exactly 27 years--to the day--after it fell to the Roman general Pompey. But Pompey conquered Jersualem in 63 B.C., and 27 years later would be 36 B.C., not 37 B.C.

Furthermore, he says that the government of the Hasmoneans (who ruled Jerusalem prior to Herod conquering the city) for 126 years. According to 1 Maccabees and Josephus himself, they began ruling in 162 B.C., which would put the date of Herod's conquest in 36 B.C. (162 -126 =36).

So Josephus, again, gives contradictory information about when Herod conquered Jerusalem, indicating in some places that it was in 37 and in others that it was 36.

3. When the Lunar Eclipse Was

 
There was, indeed, a partial lunar eclipse in 4 B.C., which took place 29 days before Passover.

However, this was not the only lunar eclipse in the period. There was another lunar eclipse in 1 B.C., which was 89 days before Passover.

Now here's the thing:

1) Since there is more than one eclipse in this period, you can't cite the 4 B.C. eclipse as evidence supporting a 4 B.C. date in particular. You have to consider other eclipses in the right time frame and see which best fits the evidence.

2) The lunar eclipse in 4 B.C. was only partial, but the lunar eclipse in 1 B.C. was full. Josephus doesn't say it was a partial lunar eclipse. He says it was a lunar eclipse, and a full eclipse fits that description better.

3) The 4 B.C. span of 29 days between the eclipse and Passover is too short. Josephus doesn't just say that Herod died between the eclipse and Passover. He also names a bunch of things Herod did during that period, including trips that required travel time.

As contemporary biblical chronologer Andrew E. Steinmann points out:

"[A]ll of the events that happened between these two [the lunar eclipse and Passover] would have taken a minimum of 41 days had each one of them taken place as quickly as possible. A more reasonable estimate is between 60 and 90 days" (From Abraham to Paul, 231)

Thus, again, the 1 B.C. lunar eclipse--89 days before Passover--better fits what Josephus describes.

4. When Herod's Sons Began to Reign

 
It is true that we have multiple lines of evidence indicating that Herod's sons began to reign in 4 B.C.

That's doesn't mean Herod died then.

It was very common for aging rulers to take their successors as co-rulers during the latter part of their reign. This both took some of the pressure off the aging ruler and helped ensure a smooth succession when he died by lessening the chance of a power struggle after his death (people were already used to the new ruler, who was already in office).

That means that when you have ask whether a particular ruler's assumption of office was as co-ruler or as sole ruler. It could have been either one, so this argument does not prove that Herod died in 4 B.C.

Furthermore, we have evidence that Herod did start giving his sons governing authority before his death.

I'm trying to keep this post as short as possible though, so . . .

The Case for 4 B.C. Is Exceptionally Weak

 
All four of the main arguments proposed are problematic:

1. The first argument names an impossible date (one that did not exist) for the beginning of Herod's reign.
2. Josephus contradicts himself about when Herod conquered Jerusalem.
3. There is another lunar eclipse that fits what Josephus says even better.
4. We have evidence that Herod began giving his sons rulership roles before he died.

And there is much more that could be said (as there always is with biblical chronology). My favorite resources on this question are Jack Finegan's outstanding Handbook of Biblical Chronology (2nd ed.) and Andrew Steinmann's informative From Abraham to Paul. Both of those are hard to get and/or expensive, though.

Fortunately, if you'd like to tear into the evidence in mind-numbing depth, you can also read this paper by Steinmann for free.

This still leaves us with the big questions: When did Herod the Great actually die? And when was Jesus Christ born?

Stay tuned for my next post on Wednesday....
 
 
 
PS. If you like the information I've presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club. If you're not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email. I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with theology, science, history, and more.

Just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

If you have any difficulty, email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.
 
 
Originally posted at National Catholic Register. Used with permission.

As demonstrated in his encyclical God Is Love, and more recently at the Fifth World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Spain, Pope Benedict XVI, like John Paul II before him, is intent on helping the world see the connection between divine love (agape) and sexual love (eros). To help us reflect on these themes, I’d like to turn to what may seem an unlikely source: Bono, lead singer of U2, which I consider the biggest rock band in the world.

You’ve probably heard Bono sing about that “fever” he gets when he’s “beside her . . . desi-i-i-i-re, desi-i-i-i-re” (drums in the background: boom-badoom-badoom, badoom-doom). But he is no normal rock-n-roller glorifying lust. Bono may still not have found what he’s looking for, but this is a man on a sincere quest to integrate eros with agape.

In a book-long interview with Michka Assayas, Bono reflects at length on his unconventional Christian convictions. And Assayas simply cannot understand how the world’s biggest rock star could believe Jesus is the Son of God. Nor can he understand how Bono has remained faithful to his wife of 25 years.

In the portions of their dialogue that follow, Bono responds to his incredulous interviewer’s suggestion of “incarnating” lustful temptations by turning it on its head. Bono meets Assayas right where he is and, with a stroke of genius, directs the conversation towards a reflection on the relationship between eros, agape and the incarnation of God’s Son.
 

Assayas: “But you’re the singer and frontman in a band, and it’s not just any band. I’m sure you’ve been tempted. Don’t you ever feel that no matter what you have decided [about fidelity to your wife], love needs to be incarnated?...Think of groupies.”
 
Bono: “We never fostered that environment. If you mean groupie in the sense that I know it, which is sexual favors traded for proximity with the band...Taking advantage of a fan, sexual bullying is to be avoided, but the music is sexual...Sometimes...the erotic love [we sing about] can turn into something much higher, and bigger notions of love, and God, and family. It seems to segue very easily for me between those.”
 
Assayas: “I’m surprised at how easily religion comes up in your answers, whatever the question is. How come you’re always quoting from the Bible? Was it because it was taught at school? Or because your father or mother wanted you to read it?”
 
Bono: “Let me try to explain something to you, which I hope will make sense of the whole conversation...I remember coming back from a very long tour...On Christmas Eve I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral...It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story. The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty...a child, I just thought: ‘Wow!’ Just the poetry. Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was.
 
I was sitting there, and...tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this. Because that’s exactly what we were talking about earlier: love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It’s actually logical. It’s pure logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It’s inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh. Wasn’t that your point earlier?”

 
 
Originally printed as part series of "Body Language" series. Used with author's permission.