IN WHAT DATES DID JESUS CHRIST BE BORN, DID HE LIVE, DID HE DIE AND DID HE RISE AGAIN?
The following considerations
are graphically shown
in a time line
Observations or questions?
1) Reference point
We count the years beginning from the birth of Jesus Christ.
The years before his birth are called "before Christ" (BC) and the ones after his birth are called Anni Domini (AD).
The birth of Jesus marks the point zeroof the Christian era, the moment in which the year 1 BC ends and the year 1 AD begins.
Counting the years, beginning from any event, there is not place for an entire "year zero", because the whole history should be filled by years not counted. We are forced to count the first year that spends as year 1, starting from a "point zero" of the time, what the event itself is.
It is almost impossible to mistake the calculation of the years of the Christian era, also of the BC ones, because all it takes is departing today and returning back counting the cycles of the sun. This is the surest reference.
The years were counted, at the Jesus' time, in different ways.
— In Palestine: from the beginning of the reign of Herod in Jerusalem, or according to the Jewish calendar, or from the beginning of the restorations of the Temple...
— By the Greek historians: according to the Olympiads that happened every four year in the summer, from BC 776 (773) up to the 293rd.
— To Rome: according to the reigning consuls, according to the reigns of the emperors, or from the foundation of Rome (AUC = ab Urbe condita).
The correspondence between the Olympiads and the years From the Rome Foundation (AUC) was fixed by Marcus Terentius Varro, that put the Rome foundation on the 21st of April of the 2nd year after the 6th Olympiad, 709 years before the killing of Julius Caesar, his contemporary. But his writings on the matter are not reached there. A sentence of Censorinus, that in AD 238 published the «De die natali liber», testify this correspondence: «This year is the 1014th from the first Olympiad. From the foundation of Rome, instead, it is the 991st». The first one began on the 1st of July; but the second one began on the 21st of April, still in the year 1013 of the Olympiads.
As it regards the correspondence between the years AUC and the ours ones, there are two data furnished by Beda the Venerable (AD 673-735), that for first used the dating of the Christian era, fixed by Dionisius Exiguus (dead in 526):
— the 693 AUC, correspondent to BC 60, in which Julius Caesar became consul;
— the 4th year of Claudius, AUC 798, corresponding to the AD 46.
Beda has so placed the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December AUC 752.
2) But is this "point zero" historically exact?
We specify that here we don't worry about to know the exact day of the Jesus' birth, that the Evangelists have not reported. Instead we want to discover if what is written in the Gospels is historically exact. Also on the exact day of the Nativity we can reason, but it is not decisive.
The present search already has his history. Confiding on the contribution of some researchers ones, I have departed sure to succeed in combining together the different historical data that we have about the period of Jesus, moving forward 6 years the death of Herod and the end of his reign.
But a reader, tenacious and meticulous, has made me to notice different passages to correct, until he has reminded me how many references Flavius Josephus offers about the beginning of the reign of Herod.
The following contribution of another person has remembered me that, after the death of Herod, his sons went to Rome to ask to Augustus to resolve some matters concerning the will. The emperor gathered a council of prominent men among the Romans and, before, set to preside it the adoptive son Gaius, then he gave the word to the contenders. Now Gaius was present for few time in Rome and we have been forced to find a period in which he could be there, in enough adult age to have authority on the notable Romans.
At this point the matter is set this way:
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the chronological view furnished by Josephus, for the period that goes from BC 63 to AD 33-34, appears reliable and enough precise: it would induce us to conclude that the reign of Herod ended in BC 4-3;
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on the other hand the historical data introduced by the Gospels, included the date of the Census, are coherent among them and they require the presence of Herod for 3 or 4 years later.
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besides it is had to keep in mind the moment in which Gaius Caesar could preside the council for the matter about the will of Herod.
Let's examine every thing in detail.
3) The different data allow a clear answer
1 - The data of Flavius Josephus:
- Herodwas named king by the Senate of Rome, on request of Marcus Antonius and Caesar Octavian, in the 184th Olympiad (between 44 and 40 BC), being consuls Gneus Domitius Calvinus, for the second time, and Gaius Asinius Pollio (Jewish Antiquities, XIV,389); these consuls are precisely the ones of BC 40;
- he actually taken possession of the kingdom in Jerusalem in the 185th Olympiad (Jewish Antiquities, XIV,487-488), 27 years (in reality 26) after «the bad luck that happened on the Jews to the time of Pompeius», being consuls Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus (consuls in BC 37);
- Herod reigned 37 years from the nomination and 34 from the installation to Jerusalem (Jewish War, I,665: «... he died after having reigned...»; Jewish Antiquities, XVII,191: «He Reigned for 34 years from the time when he put to dead Antigonos and for 37 years from the time when he had been declared king from the Romans»).
- in the 187th Olympiad (between the 1st of July BC 32 and the 1st of July BC 28), 7th year of Herod in Jerusalem on the 2nd of September (Dio Cassius, Roman History, LI,1,1), the battle of Atium occurred, with the defeat of Antonius and the victory of Caesar Octavian (Jewish War, I,370; Jewish Antiquities, XV,109.121);
- the 28th year of Herod fell in the 192nd Olympiad (between July BC 12 and July BC 8) (Jewish Antiquities, XV,341; XVI,136);
- subsequently Phillip, son of Herod, died after 37 years of reign in the 20th year of Tiberius, or rather AD 33-34; adding the two reigns we get 74 (or 72, if we count the years according to the way of the Romans) years, just the ones between BC 40 (or BC 38) and AD 34 (F. Josephus himself seems to connect the years of Tiberius with the beginning of the reign of Herod).
About all these facts, however, F. Josephus was not in any way witness, because he was born AD 37.
He copied all from Nicolas of Damask, from Strabo and from other historians. This way we can say that Josephus agrees with the other historians and we doesn't need further investigations in this sense.
These dates appear very detailed, with references to the Olympiads, to the consuls of Rome and with the times spent between a fact and another, etc.
Accordingly the historians set the death of Herod in BC 4. All seems to converge on this date.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke affirm that Jesus Christ was born under the reign of Herod and that the king ordered to kill the children of Bethlehem less than two years olds, wanting to also strike Jesus.
Therefore Jesus Christ should be been born at least in BC 6, not around the "point zero."
2 - The data from the Gospels and from other sources, in themselves coherent, place the birth of Jesus later around 4 years.
The Gospel of Luke reports:
— the 15th year of Tiberius, between July AD 28 and July AD 29, when John the Baptist began his ministry (Luke 3,1);
— the beginning of the public life of Jesus when «he was just thirty years old» (Luke 3,23).
For Luke it was easy to know how many years was Jesus old when he started, and still in that time the historians used to refer a precise years of the personages; so the evangelist wanted to say that Jesus began really around the date in which he was 30 years old. If he has written that the prophetess Hanna was 84 years old (Luke 2,37), how could he be uncertain on the exact age of Jesus?
These 30 years were entirely spent. Luke, although he wrote for the Romans, had gotten used to count to the way of the Greeks.
— the first Census that was made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
The historians, having established, beginning from the reports of Flavius Josephus, Strabo and Tacitus, that Herod died in BC 4 (750 AUC), don't succeed in connecting the Census remembered by Luke, when Jesus was born, with the periods in which really Quirinius was present in Syria-Palestine
Let's examine the life of Quirinius
A Roman general and administrator; born at Lanuvium (c. 20 m. s. of Rome); died in Rome 21 AD As a reward for military and administrative services he was raised by Augustus to the office of consul in the year 12 BC Later he waged successful war against the Homonadenses in Cilicia, and was granted the honour of a triumph. He was assigned as adviser to Caius Caesar when this youth, a nephew and adopted son of the emperor, was engaged in the reduction of Armenia to order. He secretly paid court to Tiberius, who at the time was but a prince living in retirement on the island of Rhodes. From 6-9 AD he was legatus Augusti, that is governor, in Syria.
At his death the Emperor Tiberius wrote to the senate asking that a public funeral be decreed. In this letter the emperor recalled the attentions paid to him by Quirinius at Rhodes and praised him for his good offices, apparently in preventing at that time misunderstandings between Tiberius and Caius Caesar.
But to the people generally the memory of Quirinius was by no means dear, because of his persistence in the trial of his wife Lepida, whose conviction he secured on the charges of adultery, attempted poisoning, and treasonable dealing, but who had the sympathy of the people; and also because of his sordid avarice even in his old age (Tacitus, Annales, III. 48; Strabo, XII,6,3, and 5; Josephus, Ant., XVII, 355, XVIII,1.26).
As a necessary conclusion from the facts recited by Tacitus, and in view of Roman governmental principles, it is inferred that Quirinius was governor of Syria, not only 6-9 AD, but also at the time of the war in Cilicia, probably during 3-2 BC, in succession to Varus (Zumpt, Mommsen, Schlier).
Ramsay dates this earlier Syrian administration-not a governorship, however-and the conquest of the Homonadenses in 4-3 BC at the latest, but perhaps earlier; and Quirinius' proconsulship of the province Asia (attested, he believes, by the Tivoli inscription) at latest 3-2 BC
(from Christian Classics Ethereal Library - http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc09/htm/iv.vi.xii.htm)
Josephus writes (Jewish Antiquities, XVII,89): «...Quintilius Varus, that in Syria had been sent for succeed to Saturnine as governor of Syria...».
Saturninus and Volumnius as governors of Syria, are remembered for the first time by Joseph some after the 28th year of Herod, around the time when Aretas became king of the Arabs (Nabataeos), or rather in BC 9-8. Then to Saturninus, not anymore upheld by Volumnius, succeeded Varus. Josephus doesn't report other names of governors of Syria up to Quirinius in AD 6.
Let's try to reconstruct the succession of the personages that governed the province of Syria - Palestine in that years:
- to Saturninus, not anymore upheld by Volumnius, Varus was combined in BC 5-3 (see later for the 1 year move);
- Saturninus was replaced by Quirinius in BC 3, in consequence of the victory on the Homonadenses and for how much is said above;
- subsequently Varus returned (and again Saturninus);
- then Quirinius and Caponius arrived..
«When there are imperial legates in the East, the procurators of Syria become simple governors and they cannot mint coin anymore. Even if in exile, we know that Tiberius was imperial legate to Rhodes (Livia Drusilla wanted it to avoid him the ridicule). He immediately got not the title, but after her insistences (Tiberius goes to Rhodes in BC 6 and I hypothesize that he has gotten the title in BC 4). That's why coins of Varus (Procurator of Syria) exist of BC 6 and 4; and of Volusius Saturninus (consul suffectus of Quirinius in BC 12) of AD 4 and 5. And there are no coins between BC 4 to AD 4 of any Procurator of Syria».
(Giorgio Faro)
In the shortage of news it emerges however that Quirinius was in the East on several occasions . In BC 4-3, to fight in Cylicia, in BC 3-2, as governor of Syria, in AD 1-4 as advisor of Gaius Caesar and in AD 6- 9 again as governor.
The news of the first census and of the first governorship of Quirinius in Syria are origin with precision only from Luke. His testimony is to hold sure, but alone it helps us few to establish the year of birth of Jesus Christ, rather we would not know in what years to put it.
Luke tell about a first census, of the population, decreed by Augustus, that was held «all over the inhabited world», under Quirinius (Luke 2,2), and about a census (of the properties) that happened only in Palestine, because it provoked the rebellion of Judah (Act 5,37). The last one is what is remembered by F. Josephus, called by Quirinius, too late to have happened to the time of the birth of Jesus. In fact it is situated by Josephus in the 37th year from the defeat of Actium (Jewish Antiquities, XVIII,3-4.26), or rather AD 6 (or AD 9: see later).
The Gospel of Matthewtells about the Magi, come to Jerusalem to look for «the king of the Jews that is born» around two years after his birth, having seen his star in the East (Matthew 2,1-2.7.16). Herod was alive and he asked the Magi for accurate information.
The "star" that guided the Magi
An explanation of this "star" can be tried, admitting that they were two different stars.
The Magi said: «We have seen his star in the East». They had seen her, but it didn't move so that to point out the road.
The Magi, personages of Persia, knew that the Hebrews, that were among them, attended the King of the Jews. Therefore they went to look for him in the capital of Judea. The "star", in the meantime, had disappeared.
To understand what star could be, it comes us in help the comet Hale-Bopp, visible in 1997.
It has had origin 5000 years ago almost, to the limits of the Solar System, and it will return in 4102. If the star of the Magi had been a comet of this type too, some less visible of Hale-Bopp, it is possible that nobody has left writing to have seen it. Only the birth of Jesus has made it important.
If it has entered a solar orbit, it can be seen again when it will draw near again to the Sun, but it could have abandoned forever the Solar System.
The Magi saw again the "star" going out of Jerusalem, but it was not the same star anymore. It preceded them guiding them for about a hour, how much the necessary time was for going from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, then it stopped so that to point out the place where the Jesus child was.
In reality, however, I have noticed that Herod could not know from his scribes and priests when the star had appeared, but had to ask it to the Magi: these had seen it in Persia, but nobody had seen it in Jerusalem. The distance between the two places is of a thousand of kilometres, irrelevant as point of view toward the sky. The Chinese annals don't even talk about some star seen in the BC 3-1, while they are remembering the conjunction Jupiter-Saturn in BC 7. This was also visible in Persia and in Jerusalem. The star of the Magi was seen only perhaps by them, it was a sign that brought them to the King of the Jews. And it was an unusual sign, appeared twice.
I don't know if the astronomers can explain a similar phenomenon, but the Heaven can do this and more. The comet Hale-Bopp is just an example of it; in fact it appeared in its greater brightness some after its perihelion (1st of April), during the week after Easter, in the night between the 4th and the 5th of April, exactly in the anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus (as it is explained subsequently).
The Gospel of Johnrelates the 46 years from the beginning of the restoration of the Temple (John 2,20), when Jesus had just begun his public life.
The 46th year of the Temple, in the 15th year of Tiberius, when Jesus was 30 years old, don't seem to be compatible among them, if we keep in mind what reports F. Josephus.
Besides Josephus, in Jewish War, I,401, writes that Herod had begun the restoration of the Temple in his «15th year»; in Jewish Antiquities, XV,380, he corrects himself and he writes «18th year».
Let's remember that Luke and John were witnesses or they had nearby the witnesses of what they wrote, so they are very reliable.
3 - How to find the accord among the different data?
Giorgio Faro has made me notice that Herod king could not be named by Marcus Antonius and Caesar Octavian, together, in the 184th Olympiad 184.
The Olympiad finished in July BC 40 and at that time Antonius was in the East.
He has remembered me too that Augustus became a consul in BC 43.
In fact at that time he was to the eve of his 20th birthday and the Roman historians seem in agreement in to say that he died when he was almost 76 years old, in AD 14.
From AD 14, returning back 56 years, we reach the BC 43.
But, while we were making the searches on Gaius Caesar, adoptive son of Augustus, we have noticed with surprise that the historian Caius Velleius Paterculus has combined the year 754 from the Rome foundation to the consuls of AD 4.
Velleius places in AUC 754 the consuls E. Cato and C. Sentius.
Tacitus (witness of the fact) and Dio Cassius say that the year 800 AUC was celebrated under the consuls Germanicus Augustus Claudius Caesar IV, Lucius Vitellius III.
Now, between 754 and 800 they spent 46 years, while in the list of the consuls only 43 years result.
It is an unexpected point of view, the point of view of one of the little few historians witnesses of that years, and it changes many aspects of the universal chronology.
Velleius lived really in the years of Jesus and He is a precious witness of the Roman things in that time. From him it is logical to take away in the searches.
He wrote his Roman History in AD 30.
Indeed, before him nobody has been able to write the events of the period of Jesus Christ, while the following historians, not being direct witnesses, kept in mind his data.
ometimes they integrated them with searches of archive, they amiss interpreted sometimes them, other times they skipped them, because just in the period in which he wrote Tiberius disarranged the annual succession of the consuls up to lose the nominations of 3 years.
First of all: Has Velleius written in AD 30 really?
a) The astronomic reference is important, directly to be linked to the years of the Christian era, on which we have immediate control.
As we will see, Herod the Great died after an eclipse of moon and before the following Passover. The eclipse could be only that of the 7-8th of January BC 1.
In the months just following the sons of Herod went at Rome to Augustus to define the matter of the will. Gaius Caesar, adoptive son of the emperor, was present.
This could happen only in the first months of the 13th consulship of Augustus, because Velleius has written (Roman History, II,101) that during that year Gaius Caesar departed for the East, from where he didn't return.
Velleius has also remembered (R. H., II,100) that, while he was writing, 30 years had passed from when Augustus was become consul (for the thirteenth time), that is from BC 1, corresponding to the year of the death of Herod. Counting the first one and the last year, Velleius could have written in AD 29. But in that case Augustus would be dead in AD 13 and he would have reigned only 54 years around, one less than we will verify subsequently. In fact Velleius tells (S. R., II,126): «the work (of Tiberius) of these sixteen years...».
When then Velleius has wanted to be more precise, has written (R. H., II,100) that from that moment "27" (26) years were passed from AUC 754, when E. Cato and C. Sentius were consuls, that is from AD 4.
Gaius and Lucius Caesars weres dead, to distance of 18 months the one from the other (Svetonius, Life of Augustus, LXV).
Before their death, in AD 2, P. Vinicius, (S. R., II,103), with Publius Alfenus Varus were consuls.
In AD 1 Gaius Caesar, with Lucius Aemilius Paulus, were consuls.
As we will see, there was not another middle consulship (R. H., 65.103.123; Svetonius, Life of Augustus, XXVI) and, in BC 1, they were consuls Octavianus Augustus (13th) and Gallus Caninius (R. H., II,100).
From BC 1 they were spent 30 whole years according to our way of counting.
Velleius has written in AD 30.
The consuls mentioned by Velleius, between AD 1 and 30, are to the same place also in the traditional list. All the data furnished by this historian as regards the first 30 years of the 1st century are substantially coherent among them.
Augustus, Antonius, Herod
Velleius remembers different consular years and often precise also the distance from AD 30. So we can see that the list of the Roman consuls is not regular. Often the ones BC appear moved toward the past 3 year or 2, for the most part 1.
On the other hand Censorinus, that wrote in III century AD, points out the year AUC, that of the Olympiads ones, that Julian ones and that of Augustus ones. If however we compare everything with what Velleius says, the consuls are moved 1 or 3 years toward the past, except the ones between AD 1 and 30.
It is permissible to think that the years of the Olympiads and the AUC ones are the same for Velleius and for Censorinus, witnesses of their respective time. Whay, then, does the list of the consuls seem to leave only to their place the ones of the time of Velleius, and to move back 1 or 3 years the others?
Particularly, the first consulship of Augustus is moved only 1 year, in 709 AUC, 72 years from AD 30 (counting the year of beginning and the final one), or rather BC 42.
It would seem impossible to reconcile this with the death of the emperor in AD 14, but Velleius says that Augustus died in his 76th year and Svetonius says that he died "in his 76th year, less 35 days". It signify that for 35 days he didn't reach the 76th year, that is he didn't reach his 75th birthday. Subsequently Cassius Dio, wanting to specify, added to him in reality one year: 75 years, 10 months and 26 days, perhaps interpreting the Roman calculation in the Greek way, because in this language he has written.
To these conditions, while Augustus is become a consul in BC 42, the nomination of Herod by Antonius and Augustus together is possible in the 184th Olympiad, because we must move 3 years before the Olympiad.
It it is necessary to still notice a detail. In the list of the Roman consuls, to fill the year added by the Latin historians to the life of Augustus, also 1 consular year was added after the 13th consulship of this first emperor.
The 3 consular years, that miss after the time of Velleius, are the result of the flickleness of Tiberius in the nomination of the consuls. He dismissed some of them before the expiration of their mandate, but he left others in their office more than one year. Accordingly it is also thought that Tiberius had reigned for 3 years together with Augustus.
In reality, until AD 34 the nominations of the consuls were substantially maintained regular. But the consuls of 34, Paulus Fabius Persicus and Lucius Vitellius celebrated the twentieth year of kingdom of Tiberius (14-34 AD) and then they were reigning up to the 36 spring. At that time Tiberius sent Vitellius in Syria-Palestine with the order to dismiss the high priest Caiphas and to make to return to Rome Pontius Pilatus. A particular sign confirms it. The historianTacitus reports that, under the consulship of Paulus Fabius Persicus and Lucius Vitellius, the Phoenix was seen in Egypt. Instead Cassius Dio says that it appeared during the consulate of Sextus Papinius Allenius and Quintus Plautius, that we find in the year 36 in the list. Tacitus followed how what was written in the Annales of Rome, because the two consuls had been reigning since 34 to 36. Dio used as reference instead the Olympiads and other oriental chronologies and it resulted him that the year was the our AD 36, but, counting the consuls, there were not two nominations. Another there was not between AD 36 and 40, when Tiberius deed.
The consuls' list attributed to the Bishop Hydatius (around 400 - 469 AD) doesn't us help a lot, because in reality it is very later. It comprises in fact some data in discordance among them, particularly the beginning of the Christian era in 754 AUC (as established by Dionisius Exiguus in AD 525) and Jesus' birth on the 25th of December 752 AUC (as written by Bede the Venerable in the eighth century, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People).
Therefore the consuls reported by F. Josephus, that wrote around AD 90, appear to us moved of 2 years toward the antiquity.
The war of Philippi happened in BC 41, Herod was named king in BC 38.
Let's count therefore from here his 37 years of reign from the nomination and, accordingly, the 34 affective in Jerusalem.
Herod died in the first months of BC 1. Two reasons pointed out by Giorgio Faro confirm it:
a) The eclipse of moon (Jewish Antiquities, XVII,167) in the night between the 10th and the 11th of March BC 4 was partial and too much near to Passover, that was celebrated after one lunar month, so that in the meantime all what Josephus writes can have happened.
Instead a spectacular eclipse could be observed the night between the 7th and the 8th of January BC 1, at five past one. Between this astronomic event and the death of Herod 3 lunar months passed, in which it enter both the facts told by Josephus and the ones remembered by the Gospel of Matthew.
In fact Herod, after the eclipse, remained sometime in Jerusalem. Meanwhile it tried all the cures suggested by the physicians. Then, hoping to be able to still recover, he went beyond the Dead Sea to the sources of Calliroe, where the physicians decided to heat his body dipping him in oil. Then he moved to Jericho and here he quickly came up to the end. He made the notable Hebrews assembled and he made them confine in the racecourse. He received from Augustus a letter that left to him the decision to exile or to kill his son Antipater. He decided to make him killed. Five days passed and he also died. His son Archelaos freed the notable ones from the racecourse, he predisposed the funeral of his father and he observed the grief of seven days. Archelaos began so his reign, immediately raising the malcontent of the people and without succeeding in soothing it. After all this the moment of the Passover of the Jews came.
The meeting with the Magi and the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem were happened before the eclipse.
There was also another eclipse, the 29th of December of the same year, BC 1, but it was partial and at 25 past 4 PM, not at night, as Josephus asserts.
a) Second reason is this. We have remembered that to the contention in Rome among the sons of Herod, for the will, Gaius Caesar was present, nephew of Augustus and adopted by him as son together with Lucius.
Gaius, in BC 4, was 16 years old and he could not be considered so authoritative to preside the council of notable Romans, that Augustus gathered for examining the matter of the will of Herod.
Gaius had been designate consul to 15, but then he had had the command of the legions quartered on the Danube to learn the military art.
Augustus, during his 13th consulship (Velleius, Roman History, II,100-101), what now we have to place in BC 1, after having expelled his daughter Julia from Rome, made Claudia Livilla to get married to Gaius, gave to him proconsular power and sent him in the East to treat with the Parthians, accompanied by some advisers among which Velleius himself.
But before departing, in May or June of that same year, Gaius had the time and the necessary dignity to participate in the council of the authoritative Roman people, gathered by Augustus.
Gaius Become real consul in AD 1 (he had been designate to this office in BC 5), he went down in Egypt, he passed through the Palestine without staying in Jerusalem and he conquered Sefforis, to gratify Varus his friend. Then he pushed up to Arabia (G. Faro mentions that it is said by Plinius Maior, in Natural History, XII, 55-56, and that the inscription in Pisa adds "as consul", or rather: this happened as soon as after the last consulship of Augustus, in AD 1), seeing a following conquest, that could never happen.
When the Armenians were lifted against Rome, Augustus chose Gaius Caesar to face them.
The war against them began in AD 2, when Publius Vinicius and Publius Varus were consuls.
Still in that year Gaius was hurt and he died in AD 4, without going back to Rome.
Herod and his sons
F. Josephus, in Jewish Antiquities, XVIII,32, has added 3 years to the reign of August (57 years, 6 months, 2 days) and around 3 years to the whole life of the emperor (77 years).
This is due to that 3 consular years lacking in the reign of Tiberius, that from the point of view of Josephus moved the death of August from AUC 764 to 767 (767 - 709 = 58 years around).
Then, also when he remembers that Archelaos, son of Herod, was sent in exile after 10 years of reign (J. A., XVIII,342-348), it means that in reality this happened after 7 years of reign, in AD 6, and that he had received the power in BJC 1, that is to the death of his father.
All the more that Joseph tells a dream of Archelaos, in which 10 ears mature of wheat were devoured by oxen, dream that seemed important; it is probable that to strike has been the parallelism with the dream of the Pharao in Genesis 41,18-24, where the ears were 7 and not 10.
Sulpicius Severus ( AD 360-425) points out in 37 years the reign of Herod, but in alone 8 years the reign of Archelaos (G. Faro).
And when Josephus says that another son of Herod, Phillip, died in the year 20th of Tiberius, after 37 years of reign (J. A., XVIII,106), it means that in reality he died in the 20th of Tiberius, after 34 years of reign, in AD 33; he had also received the power in BC 1, to the death of his father.
We can conclude that Herod died three months later the only possible eclipse of moon, that in the night between 7th and the 8th of January BC 1 and that in that year it began the kingdom of the three sons.
This confirm the possibility that Jesus Christ was born between the end of BC 3 and the beginning of BC 2.
4 - Concluding
Herod died between BC 1 and AD 1 and the first Census in Palestine finds a place while the king was still alive too, in the first mandate of Quirinius in Syria Palestine, in BC 3.
This way we can also insert perfectly in the historical picture the data of the Gospels.
We have to notice that the phrase of the Gospel of Matthew "Herod... sent to kill in Bethlehem and his territory all the children aged from 2 downward, corresponding to the time on which he had been informed by the Magi" is not to interpret in today's way, but "aged from the beginning of the 2nd year downward", or rather "aged from 1 complete year downward". Matthew was used to count to the way of the Romans, practicing the profession of tax collector for them.
It seems me therefore possible that Jesus was born about two years before the "point zero of the Christian era".
4) How the "point zero" has been calculated?
The beginning of the Christian erawas calculated and concretely fixed by the monk Dionisius Exiguus, that wrote in the Letter to Petronius:
«St. Kyrill made his cycle begin from the 153rd year of Diocletianus and made it finish in the 247th year. Us instead, also having been beginning from the 248th year of the same tyrant - rather than prince -, have not wanted to connect our cycles (Easter) to the memory of a impious man and persecutor. We have chosen instead to marking the succession of the years beginning from the incarnation of Jesus Christ our Lord, so that the debut of our hope was to us more evident and so that the source of the human ransom, that is the Redeemer's passion, was resplendent».
Accordingly, on his tables of the Easter he wrote: «Our Lord's Jesus Christ years 532-627».
Dionisius has calculated the 532 years following the list of the consuls and the years of the emperors.
It seems has referred to Tertullianus, that has placed the birth of Jesus (to the beginning of the year, perhaps on the 6th of January) in the year 41st of August, 28 years after the death of Cleopatra, that corresponds to the year preceding the 13th consulship of August.
He counted 3 years in less than the real ones, because the lack of the 3 consular years during the period of Tiberius had not been pointed out yet.
Even less 1 consular year had been noticed in more after the 13th consulship of August, so that the year AD 1 result moved before of 2 years only. We notice that by now the Church established, in the Council of Nicea, to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December, therefore Dionisius considered that the birth of Jesus had happened the 25th of December AD 1.
If we keep in mind this, Dionisius has performed exact calculations.
He could refer to Luke 3,1: «In the year fifteenth of Tiberius Caesar ... a word of God went down on John...». They spent some months and also Jesus began his office. Even the Gospel of Luke says: «Jesus, when he began his ministry, was (just) around thirty years old»«Kai autoV hn IesouV arcomenoV wsei etwn triakonta» (Luke 3,23).
AD 532 corresponds to AUC 1282, because Velleius testifies that AD 1, with the eclipse of moon of F. Josephus, corresponds to AUC 750.
The year AD 1 coincide with AUC 751.
5) Correction of the "point zero"
Therefore ours "point zero" is moved before of two years in comparison to that real one.
Bede, with the AUC 693 in AD 60, testifies that Dionisius saw the years of Rome moved back of 2 years.
With the 4th of Claudius, in the 46th of the Lord, he testifies instead that Dionisius was gone back to the consulships of August, counting according to the years of the emperors and the consuls, and he had departed then from August counting the rest. Therefore the 15th of Tiberius resulted him in AD 30-31. We notice besides that Bede has fixed the year BC 1 in AUC 752 and AD 1 in AUC 753.
In conclusion we will have to move before of 3 years all the events happened after the reign of Tiberius.
The years of the emperors and the consuls are to the correct place, from AD 284 to 532.
They are also to the correct place in the first 30 AD years.
However Tacitus, Dio and Censorinus testify a "hole" of 3 years until at least to AD 241, or rather 238 consular years instead of 241.
Yet, today, in the list we find all the 532 consular years.
So, after Dionisius and Bede, someone has added 3 consular years between AD 241 and 284, and AD 241 has been moved back and it is become 238.
It will be necessary to individualize and to eliminate the 3 years (consular, of the emperors, AUC and Olympic), existed never, between AD 241 and 284, so that the whole chronology is continuous.
There are for instance doubts on the duration of the reign of Publius Licinius Valerianus (from AD 253 to 258 or to 260), and on the year of birth of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Claudius the Gothic (Sirmia, 10th of May AD 213, or 214 - Rome, January 270).
The In reality the years from the foundation of Rome were correctly counted still, as to the time of Velleius, so that the AUC 800 corresponded to AD 50 and the 1000 corresponded to AD 250.
Particularly, the celebration of the millennium of Rome is considered happened in AD 248, under the emperor Marcus Julius Philippus, while it is held that the 800th was celebrated in AD 47. So why the 1000th would not have been celebrated in AD 247? Just because it is thought that the emperor Claudius the Gothic was born 1 year before the real one.
In reality the years from the foundation of Rome were correctly counted still, as to the time of Velleius, so that AUC 800 corresponded to AD 50 and 1000 corresponded to AD 250.
But, adding 2 years to the life Licinius Valerianus, it is gotten to place 3 years early the celebration of the 800th and the 1000th celebration 2 year early.
Did Jesus begin his public life to which age therefore?
Luke, saying that Jesus was "around 30 years old" when he began his ministry, didn't intend an approximation of years, but of few days.
Jesus turned 30 just in that days.
On which days he began?
Five elements contribute to define the precise moment.
1) As we have remembered, the Gospel of Luke tells that John Baptist went to Jordan river to baptize in the 15th year of Tiberius,
after halves AD 28.
As Luke offers this principal reference, it means that Jesus made to baptize him from John within a brief time.
2) The Gospel of John informs us that Jesus, not a lot of time after the baptism, went to Jerusalem for Passover.
For the different reasons here expounded, that year was AD 29 and Passover, according to the astronomic calculation, was celebrated on the 17th of April.
The Temple restauration was initiated in the 18th year of reign of Herod (F. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XV,380), that is in the winter between AD 18 and the 17.
During Passover AD 29 (second halves of the 15th year of Tiberius) the jobs of restauration had reached the 46th year; not 46 complete years.
3) Combining together the Gospels of Luke and John, we can calculate how much time before that Passover Jesus had been baptized by the Baptist:
— after the baptism, Jesus retired 40 days in the desert;
— he went back to the Jordan and after 7 days he went to Cana,
— where he remained around other 7 days for the wedding reception;
— he spent only some days to Capharnaum, we can imagine around two weeks;
— then he departed toward Jerusalem for the pilgrimage of Passover.
In all, around 75 days.
Having departed since the 17th of April we go back at the end of January.
4) Still from the narration of these two Gospels it results that the public life of Jesus lasted around 4 years and 3 months.
— We first of all count the 75 days from the baptism to the first feast of pilgrimage, Passover that year;
— 10 months later: "four months to the reaping" (John 4,35) after this Passover, when Jesus was among the Samaritans;
— around 1 year: a long period of preaching follows (the «year of grace»), before the call of the 4 fishermen, and summer of the following year comes, when the disciples picked up the ears (Lc 6,1), then Jesus goes to Jerusalem in pilgrimage for the Feast of the Huts;
— 3rd year: few before Passover, Jesus is to east of the Lake of Tiberiades and he multiply the breads and the fishes, he determines then a symbol for its vexillum (Luke 9,51), 40 months (3 years and 3 months) after the baptism, and he goes in pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Pentecost. He now goes there for all the feasts: that of the Huts one and that of the Dedication.
— 4th year: the public life of Jesus ends during the fifth Passover with his passion, death and resurrection.
5) Jesus was crucified on the day before the great feast of Passover, that in that year fell on Saturday.
But Passover on Saturday, in the period that we can consider, was celebrated only on the 4th of April AD 33 (perhaps also AD 30, but the different times would not square any more).
Since the Hebrews celebrate Passover in the spring's full moon, the astronomic calculation shows that this full moon on Saturday was on the 4th of April AD 33.
In AD 27 the full moon was on Wednesdays 9th of April, six hours and thirty-two minutes before midnight; in AD 30 between Thursday 6th and Friday 7th of April, two hours and one minute before midnight; in AD 33 between Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th of April, three hours and twenty-one minutes and a half before midnight (G. Massaro).
What year was it?
From AD 33, 4 years and 3 months lead the beginning of the ministry of Jesus at the end of January AD 29, in the 15th year of Tiberius.
Reckoning from here, in which year and in which days Jesus had been born?
He had been born 30 years before, to the beginnings of BC 2, in the 33rd year of Herod in Jerusalem, in the 40th year of Augustus, in the 3rd year of the 193rd Olympiad, in AUC 748. He could also have been born around the 25th of December BC 3, still a.U.c 748 (it finished on the 20th of April).
It allows to make to re-enter in the time of Herod the birth of the King of the Jews and the other events narrated by the Gospel of Matthew.
Was Jesus born really on the 25th of December?
In the first times the Christians of Egypt celebrated Christmas on the 6th of January, then at the time of the Council of Nicea it was established that Christmas was celebrated on the 25th of December.
Already a testimony of St. Hippolytus martyr remembers the date of the 25th of December in his Comment to the book of Daniel, that has been written around AD 204, therefore 171 years around after the death of Christ.
It appears unlikely that Jesus was born (25th of December) exactly nine months, of ours, after the Annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary (25th of March). But it is logical that the Church celebrates the two recurrences in this way.
We can affirm however that the day of the birth of Jesus is to place really in that days. In addition to the reasons only just shown, here are others.
— Luke reports that, the night when Jesus was born, «in that same zone there were some shepherds that remained in the country and that performed the watches of the night to their flock» (Luke 2,8). In Bethlehem, is said, in the nights of December or January, there is such a prickly cold that is unthinkable to remain with the flock in the open. But it belongs to the work of the shepherds itself to be in the country, and around Bethlehem there is country. Perhaps for the night the shepherds looked for a shelter, but the flock could remain out. If the evangelical report makes to notice these details it is because that was not the moment to remain in country, in the open, with the flock. In the Greek text, that is original, the use of the present participle (agraulountes kai phylassontes) shows that that group of shepherds, with the only flock, continually remained in the country; while the other shepherds, as many continually, were retired in village. We also notice that, if there was need to do more night time watches, the nights were long. Therefore it was really the coldest period of the year
— To this we can add another evidence that comes from the day when Zachariah officiated to the Temple, according to the turn of the class of Abiah (Luke 1,8). As it can be inferred by the manuscripts of Qumran, this turn fell twice a year: from the 8th to the 14th of the 3rd Jewish (solar) month and from 24th to the 30th of the 8th month. If we admit that the turn has been that one of the 8th month (last decade of September) and that John have been conceived about a month later, the birth of Jesus, happened after 14-15 Jewish months (the Jewish months are lunar; the "sixth month" of Elizabeth lasted from 5 to 6 months, to which are had to add 9 months of gestation of Mary), is to set in December. For what said above the other turn, that would bring the birth in full summer, is excluded.
— In the East, because of the Julian calendar, the 25th of December is moved and it corresponds today to our 7yh of January.
Numerous Christian authors, in reality, point out in BC 2 the Jesus' birth, considering it happened on the 6th of January; or they move it in BC 3, considering it happened on the 25th of December.
We reach this conclusion, if we keep in mind that Augustus dated his principality from the victory to Modena in BC 43 (according to the current dating); that someone dated it from the death of his predecessor, Julius Caesar, in BC 44; that the birth of Rome is set by many in BC 754, by others in 753; and that in the ancient chronology the zero didn't exist.
All is conditioned by that 2 (3 -1) years that miss in the chronology..
Ireneos of Lyon points out the 41st year of principality of Augustus. 43-41 = 2 BC.
Clement of Alexandria: 194 years before the death of Commodus (deceased AD 192). Therefore: 192-194 = 2 BC.
Hippolytus of Rome: 752 from the birth of Rome.
Tertullianus: 41st of Augustus and 28 years after the death of Cleopatra (BC 30), or 30-28 = 2 BC.
Origenes: 41st of Augustus and 15 years before the death of Augustus, that is before AD 14.
Eusebios of Caesarea: 42nd year of Augustus, but, following F. Josephus, he starts from BC 44. He also says: 28 years after the death of Cleopatra.
Epiphanes: Augustus and Silvanus consuls, or BC 2.
Hieronymus: 41st of Augustus and 28th year of his empire, started in BC 30.
Paulus Orosius: 752nd year from the Rome foundation.
Cassiodorus (after the Council of Nicaea that established the date of birth of Jesus to the 25th of December): consulship of C. Lentulus and M. Messalla (consuls in BC 3).
Giorgio Faro
6) The date of the death and resurrection of Jesus
So also the date of the death and resurrection of Jesus can establish with precision. Different data can be compared and it results that Jesus is dead in cross on the 3rd of April year 33 and on the 5th of April he was risen.
To such intention it is to remember well that the King Gesù was independent from the Pharisees and from the Sadducees, from the Essenes and from the Zealots, from the Jews and from the Romans: otherwise he would not have been arrested neither crucifix (John 18,36).
Therefore he celebrated Passover in the day of full moon and without moves of days.
The Hebrews celebrate this feast on the 15th of Nissan, that is in the full moon of spring. It was easy to observe the moon on the mountains of Jerusalem and it was difficult to mistake day, because all it took is individualizing the exact day of the new moon and to count 15 days.
The moon is new when the circle of "earthlight" can be observed to the same height of the sun on the horizon. Or the schedules are observed in which the thin arc of the moon appears, when it is only some under or some over the horizon in comparison to the sun, to evening or to morning.
In short the day could not be mistaken.
Between AD 27 and 35 the only year in which the full moon was on Saturday it was 33.
Also that year, following the prescriptions of Moses, he ate Passover after the sunset of the 14th of Nisan, that, according to the custom of "his" Galilee, began just to the sunset of "Thursday" and it ended to the sunset of "Friday". He could not eat Passover after the sunset of "Friday".
John attributes to the requirements of the Paraskeues of the Jews the fact that Jesus has been buried before the evening of "Friday". He dodges so to say that himself and the women of Galilee had asked to begin the rest of Saturday to the sunset of the sun.
Therefore the burial happened when it was getting dark, that is in time to avoid the Saturday of the Jews and some less to avoid that one of the disciples of Jesus. But the disciples of Galilee didn't bury him, but the ones of Judea; and the women of Galilee were to look, they returned back then and they prepared aromas to embalm the body, others of it they purchased at daybreak of the day after Saturday.
The Gospels themselves reveal that the day of the Jews began to a different hour than that of the Galileans one.
The evangelist John, that addressed people of the parts of Galilee, has written (John 20,1): «The day after Saturday Mary from Magdala goes very early to the sepulchre, when it is still dark».
Matthew, that addressed the Jews, reports the same episode so (Matthew 28,1): «Saturday late, in the time that leans out on the first day after the Saturday, Mary from Magdala and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre». "Saturday late" of Matthew corresponds to the "day after Saturday", "very early", of John.
For this the Jews ate Passover in the evening of "Friday."
It doesn't create problems the prophecy of the three days of Jonah (Matthew 12,39-40), because the prophecies were not interpreted literally; in effect Jesus remained in the sepulchre for at least a part of three days: "Friday", Saturday and "Sunday."
Jesus died, according unanimous testimony of the four Gospels (Matthew 27,62; Mark 15,42; Luke 23,54; John 19,14.31.42), the day of the Paraskeues, that is the day that preceded Passover. And the great fest of Passover, that year, fell in Saturday.
Jesus therefore died on "Friday" 3rd of April AD 33 and he rose again on "Sunday" 5th of April.
7) Historical value of the news that we possess
Concluding, there are the elements to sustain that the life of Jesus Christ can be placed with precision in the historical moments and situations.
Combining together the Gospel of Luke and that one of John, we can also establish dates, approximate to less than one month, for all the events of the public life of Jesus.
Since the historical testimonies on that unique facts are remarkable, what Jesus Christ has done for us is very clear and concrete.
Giovanni Conforti
with the collaboration of Giovanni Massaro
and Giorgio Faro
Updated on the 25th of January 2010.
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