Birth of Jesus: The When

Intro

After talking about why God chose the time He did for the birth of Jesus, I now wish to talk about the actual timing of His birth. There has been a common assumption that Jesus was born between 4-7 BC because of the prevailing belief that Herod died in 4 BC. However, I aim to demonstrate how that doesn’t actually fit the evidence. And you may ask, why talk about this? Well, it adds more evidence to the inerrancy of the Bible and shows how and where it fits in recorded history. This builds our faith in it and in everything else the Bible has to say about God and who He is.

Roadmap

In this post, I’m going to talk about the biggest clues to the year of Jesus’ birth. This includes the death of Herod the Great and the time that Luke says Jesus started His ministry. Another strong indicator of the timing is when the early church fathers claimed when Jesus was born. Finally, I will also mention the census that Luke talked about in order to clear up any concerns that he contradicts himself in dating Jesus’ birth.

Early Church Fathers

We have a lot of writings from the early church. Among those writings are a lot of claims on the year of Jesus’ birth. I’m honestly a bit impressed at the consensus among the writings. I shouldn’t be. After all they lived closer to the events and knew better when the different people reigned and occurrences of other significant events. Here’s a table adapted from Handbook of Biblical Chronology by Jack Finegan.

Time of Writings	Writer(s)	Year of Jesus’ Birth
Late 100s/Early 200s	St. Irenaeus of Lyon	2 BC or 3 BC
Late 100s/Early 200s	St. Clement of Alexandria	2 BC or 3 BC
Late 100s/Early 200s	Tertullian of Carthage	2 BC or 3 BC
Late 100s/Early 200s	Julius Africanus	2 BC or 3 BC
Late 100s/Early 200s	St. Hippolytus of Rome	2 BC or 3 BC
Late 100s/Early 200s	Origen of Alexandria	2 BC or 3 BC
200s	The Alogoi	4 BC or AD 9
Late 200s/Early 300s	Eusebius of Caesarea	2 BC or 3 BC
300s	Epiphanius of Salamis	2 BC or 3 BC
354	The Chronographer of the Year 354	AD 1
400s	Orosius	2 BC
Late 400s/Early 500s	Dionysius Exiguus	1 BC
500s	Cassiodorus Senator	3 BC
Late 600s/Early 700s	“Hippolytus of Thebes”	2 BC or 3 BC

From this table, it’s pretty easy to see that the majority of early church writers believed Jesus’ birth to be 2-3 BC. There are a few outliers, but for the most part, they all agree.

So, if the early church writers retained that date of 2-3 BC, what about the death of Herod in 4 BC? Let’s take a look.

Herod’s Death

The gospel of Matthew indicates that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. Consequently, the timing of his death has been used to determine when Jesus was born. Makes sense since He would have to have been born before Herod died. We get the year 4 BC from a German scholar in the late 1800s, which caught on and went largely unchallenged since. The fact that Herod slaughtered children two years and younger means that Jesus was born no earlier than 6-7 BC. Logical, right? It is, if that date of 4 BC were correct. But before I demonstrate why that date is wrong, I’m first going to explain where it came from.

The Reasons for 4 BC

Advocates of the year 4 BC list several reasons why that year is correct.

• Statements from the Jewish historian Josephus say that Herod was appointed king in 40 BC and reigned for 36 years. Simple math says 40-36=4, so he died in 4 BC.
• Also from Josephus, Herod conquered Jerusalem in 37 BC and reigned there for 33 years. Again, this leads to 4 BC (37-33=4).
• Once more from Josephus, Herod died between a lunar eclipse and Passover. In 4 BC there was a partial lunar eclipse 29 days before Passover.
• Various lines of evidence suggest that Herod’s sons took over in 4 BC.

Well, there you have it right? Herod had to have died in 4 BC based on this mountain of evidence. The fact that I already stated that 4 BC is wrong should tell you that last sentence reeked of sarcasm. Too bad I can’t make it audible, that would be fun.

So, if Herod didn’t die in 4 BC, yet all this evidence suggests he did, then there must be some explanation for why the evidence says he did. And you’re right, there is. Let’s take a look at why these four arguments don’t hold up.

Herod’s Appointment

Statements made by Josephus point to Herod’s appointment in 40 BC. However, the BC/AD system hadn’t been invented so Josephus actually used other methods of dating. One of those methods was an Olympiad – a four-year period during which the Olympic Games ran. According to Josephus, Herod’s appointed occurred during the 184th Olympiad, which ran from July 1, 44 BC to June 30, 40 BC.

However, he also states that Herod’s appointment came during the consulship of Calvinus and Pollio. These two guys began their consulship after October 2, 40 BC. That’s after the 184th Olympiad ended. In fact, that would be in the 185th Olympiad. So, what gives, Josephus? That’s not possible. One of the two statements by Josephus have to be wrong, but not necessarily both of them. Luckily, we have another source on this: the Roman historians Appian and Dio Cassius. According to them, Herod’s appointment occurred in 39 BC rather than 40 BC. This puts his appointment squarely in line with consulship of Calvinus and Pollio – just like Josephus said. If you take the aforementioned 36-year reign and do the math, you get 3 BC rather than 4 BC.

However, Josephus would not have counted 39 BC as a full year of Herod’s reign because Josephus never counted partial first years for anyone else (political rulers, high priests, etc.). So, you’d have to count from 38 BC – which gives you 2 BC. One more thing, in a different quote from Josephus when describing Herod’s death, he claims his death was 37 years from his appointment. If you do the math here, you get 1 BC for the death of Herod.

If you want to keep track, we now have 2 or 1 BC as strong candidates for Herod’s death.

Jerusalem Conquered

The second popular piece of evidence comes from Herod conquering Jerusalem in 37 BC and reigning there for 33 years. Again, going back to Josephus’s dating methods, he said it occurred in the 185th Olympiad during the consulship of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus. This strongly points to 37 BC. However, he also says that it occurred 27 years after Jerusalem fell to the Roman general Pompey. Unfortunately, that occurred in 63 BC and 27 years after that would’ve been 36 BC, not 37 BC. Furthermore, Josephus says elsewhere that Herod conquered it after it was held by the Hasmoneans for 126 years. And both the First Book of Maccabees (a historical record of the Jewish revolt against the Syrians) and Josephus say that the Hasmoneans started ruling Jerusalem in 162 BC (162-126=36). So, Josephus has another inconsistency.

Josephus also states that Herod died 34 years after beginning his reign in Jerusalem. So, using the two dates (37/36) and keeping in mind that he did not count partial first years (which gives us 36/35), we get the dates 2 and 1 BC (36-34=2 and 35-34=1).

Looks like we have yet even more evidence to back up a date of either 2 or 1 BC. Let’s keep going. It gets better.

The Lunar Eclipse

Josephus declares that Herod died between a lunar eclipse and the Passover. In 4 BC a lunar eclipse occurred 29 days before Passover. Slam dunk? I don’t think so. In 1 BC another lunar eclipse occurred 89 days before Passover. So, which one? There’s two major pieces of evidence that suggests the one in 1 BC is more likely.

• The one in 4 BC was a partial eclipse while the one in 1 BC was a total eclipse. And Josephus’s description of the eclipse lends itself to being a full eclipse.
• Herod did a lot of things after the eclipse and before his death that required significant travel time. Andrew E. Steinmann in his book From Abraham To Paul calculates that the minimum amount of time for everything Herod did, would be 40 days. But more likely 60-90.

Based on that second reason alone, I’m convinced that the lunar eclipse in 1 BC was the one Josephus records.

The evidence for Herod’s death in 1 BC has grown while 2 BC falls a bit behind (there was no lunar eclipse in 2 BC). At this point, 4 BC is on its deathbed.

The Reigns of Herod’s Sons

The last argument for 4 BC is that we have evidence that Herod’s sons began to rule in 4 BC. And this is all true. They did. However, this argument is perhaps the weakest. Ancient rulers frequently brought in their heirs to rule alongside them as co-regents when these rulers were aging. They knew their time of death was growing near and wanted a smooth transition of power. So, they brought in their heirs to rule with them. So, yes, Herod’s sons did begin reigning in 4 BC – alongside their still-living father.

I now declare a year of 4 BC for the death of Herod to be dead in and of itself. RIP, you will not be missed. All hail the correct year based on the above evidence: 1 BC!

In all seriousness, now that I’ve established the year of Herod’s death, in what year did Jesus’ birth occur?

The Start of Jesus’ Ministry

We can actually get a couple of strong contender years for the birth of Jesus based on Luke’s record of when Jesus started His ministry.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar – when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Phillip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene – during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Luke 3:1-2 (NIV)

Continuing from here, you get to the story of Jesus’ baptism, after which he goes into the wilderness for 40 days and when He comes back, He starts His ministry. The fifteenth year of Tiberius is roughly AD 28/29. So, backing up 30 years (remember no year 0!) we get a year of 2/3 BC for Jesus’ birth. If you recall, these are the same dates overwhelmingly supported by early church writings. But can we get more specific than that? Actually, we can. But before I get to that, I wish to address something that people have claimed as a contradiction in Luke’s gospel as to the timing of Jesus’ birth.

Luke’s Contradiction?

Luke opens up his second chapter with an interesting bit of history.

In those days Caesar Agustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) Luke 2:1-2 (NIV)

There’s a bit of a problem here. Quirinius didn’t become governor of Syria until AD 6 after the son of Herod the Great, Archelaus, is removed as ruler of Judea. And Luke had already established that Jesus was born during the rule of Herod the Great (Luke 1:5). Scholars long looked for a solution to this apparent contradiction. And behold! A solution was found. To quote Anglican bishop N. T Wright:

“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.”

Wright gives a couple of examples of where ‘protos’ is translated as ‘before’ in John 1:15 and 1:30.

Wright then goes on to say that:

“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.’”

Why Bring it Up?

Of course, the question is, why did Luke bring it up at all? There are at least three good reasons why.

• The first I already mentioned, Luke later associates the start of Jesus ministry with the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius. Anyone at that time could do the math and figure it out. So, Luke wanted to be sure that there was no confusion.
• Reason two was probably to avoid confusion of which census. The census of Quirinius was famous and Luke would’ve wanted his audience to know that was not the census he’s referring to. It was a different one that we don’t have historical records for unfortunately.
• Lastly, Luke already established that Jesus’ birth occurred during the reign of Herod the Great, so (again) he wanted to prevent confusion among his readers.

Given all that, I think we can all agree that rather than contradicting himself, Luke was taking extra care to eliminate any confusion about the timing of Jesus’ birth.

Now we’re back to 2 BC vs 3 BC. We’ve seen lots of evidence that these two years are the best candidates. But there is one final piece of evidence that I neglected to mention I’d be covering. And I think this one nails down the year perfectly.

Daniel’s Prophecy

This last bit of evidence to nail down the birth of Jesus is the prophecy of Daniel mentioned in my last post (take a look here!). Though in that post, I used it in conjunction with the general idea of Him being on Earth during this timeframe. However, it can also be used to date the birth of Jesus.

In that post, I mentioned that Daniel’s prophecy of the 69 weeks ended just days before the death of Jesus. The most accurate calculations of the year of Jesus’ death using that prophecy come out to spring of AD 33. (Jesus died during Passover, which is springtime.) And we know that Jesus’ ministry lasted roughly 3.5 years. So, if Jesus were 33.5 when he died, and keeping in mind there’s no year 0, we end up with the fall of 2 BC. Doing the math 33-33=0, but there’s no year 0, so 1 BC (the year of Herod’s death – incidentally shortly before Passover), then back up 6 months and you get 2 BC – since Jesus died in the spring (Passover), going back 6 months puts you in the fall of the previous year.

Therefore, I declare that between the years 2 and 3 BC for Jesus’ birth, 2 BC has the better evidence. This puts Jesus’ time on Earth from 2 BC – AD 33.

Wrapping Up

Even though something like this isn’t necessary to fully understand to be a good Christian, it can be beneficial to demonstrate how much evidence there really is and how specific we can get with pinpointing the day of His birth. It makes the Bible more real and alive.

I wish to give credit to where credit is due, most of my research here comes from four articles which I link here. If you choose to read them for the additional information given, read them in the order I have them linked. A lot of what I wrote is based on these, though in a more concise way.

• Article 1
• Article 2
• Article 3
• Article 4

Final note: I do plan on releasing a post around Christmas. Rather than on Christmas day, it might be on Christmas Eve. Not sure yet but stay tuned! Merry Christmas one and all!