PREPRINT: A Revised Timeline for the Birth of Jesus: August 1 BCE

Reformed Theological Review, 2014

Dating the birth of Jesus brings one directly to the issue of the accuracy and historical integrity of the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke themselves. For decades, scholars have wrestled over a precise year as a date. That is because the main difficulty that arises when one investigates Matthew and Luke is their trustworthiness, at least in their well-known common English translations. This article bridges gaps in thinking about this issue, and points the way forward not merely to add just another new theory to the scholarly milieu, but to accurately pinpoint a precise year in history that seeks widespread thoughtful consensus.

...a consideration of the historicity and significance of Jesus’ life from a chronological perspective. Jesus is most commonly thought to have ministered either from c. 27 to 30 AD or from 29 to 33 AD. Both suggestions are broadly compatible with the relevant Biblical data, but require us to discard a large amount of extra-Biblical data. They also (in some of their forms) necessitate a less-than-straightforward interpretation of: a] the flow of events in the Gospels, and b] the time-indicators implicit in John 2.20 and Gal. 1.15-20. In the present paper, I propose an alternative: a Jan. 26 to Apr. 28 AD ministry. Those who believe Jesus to have been crucified on Friday 15th Nisan (as I do) are commonly attracted to a 30 or 33 AD crucifixion date on the basis of astronomical considerations. But, despite many assertions to the contrary, it is possible for the Passover to have fallen on a Friday in 28 AD (once intercalation is correctly handled), which enables the relevant Biblical data to be treated more soundly and the relevant extra-Biblical data to be given its full weight. As for the apparent conflict between the Synoptic and Johannine accounts of the Passion week, I here proffer a version of Jaubert’s 364-day-year hypothesis, which turns out to be particularly amenable to a 28 AD crucifixion. If my claims are correct--i.e., if Jesus ate his last supper within a community where the 364-day-year calendar was observed--, then Jesus’ last supper should be seen not as a fulfilment of the Mosaic law’s requirements, but as a prophetic enactment of the events to come (akin to Jesus’ coronation at Bethany and the ‘signs’ acted out by Israel’s prophets). A community where the 364-day-year calendar was observed merely provided a convenient and appropriate environment. As such, the present paper undercuts two frequently-made claims about the Gospels: a] that they cannot fruitfully be treated as credible historical documents; and b] that their account of Jesus’ last days contains an irreconciable (in Ehrman’s words, “impossible”) contradiction. It also sheds light on the significance of Jesus’ ministry. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says, “Some of Judaism’s most profound truths are to be found not in texts, but in time--in the Jewish calendar itself”.

New Chronology of Jesus Christ and King Herod by Jan Pouč and others., 2019

In the days of Emperor Rudolph II, Prague was home to the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler. While observing the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, he calculated the planets' previous conjunctions in history and conjectured that its occurrence in 7 BC may have been the much desired star that led the wise men from the East to Bethlehem to bow before the newborn King of the Jews. This conjecture was gradually accepted as fact. Various writers then surmised that if Jesus was born before 7 BC, King Herod the Great died in 4 BC – and this date became a fixed point from which all of the other related events were calculated. These writers allowed John the Baptist four months in AD 27 to travel the whole of Jordan and to induce the whole of Judea and Jerusalem to seek him out. Then he baptised a 34-year-old Jesus, which apparently fits St Luke's description of " about thirty years of age ". Jesus was supposed to have celebrated Passover in Jerusalem in AD 28, 29, and 30, when he was to be crucified at the age of 37. For the erudite writers, well versed in many books, the technicalities are uninteresting, full of numbers – that is for the experts, whose verdicts these men of letters have assessed, compared, and from which they have surmised that all " agree that Dionysius made a mistake when calculating the beginning of our era from the birth of Jesus Christ. " 1 They do not know what the mistake was, but if Jesus was born earlier then Dionysius must have made a mistake. The era " Anno Domini " (the year of the Lord) was changed to the " common " era. This claim is still being repeated by those who have not read the research that proves that the mistake was not made by Dionysius but by the person who claimed that Jesus was born in 7 BC and that Herod died in 4 BC. The Common Era is thus also, correctly, the " Anno Domini " Era, as Jesus was born on Saturday 25 December 1 BC and King Herod died three months later, before Passover AD 1. How was this discovered? By a new and meticulous study of the writings of the Antiquities of the Jews, 2 in the mid-twentieth century the chronologist Jan Pouč (1874–1962) uncovered the unadulterated testimony of the Jewish priest and historian Flavius Josephus (37–100), cleared of the erroneous interpretation of certain dates. He pinpointed the dates of the events and their relative position in history according to their description 3 in the Antiquities of Flavius Josephus. Pouč found that from Pompey's conquest of Jerusalem in September 63 BC, Hyrcanus II ruled until his capture by the Parthians at Pentecost in 38 BC, when Herod travelled to Rome and was then appointed king in December 38 BC. But he did not rule in Jerusalem until from September 35 BC. The given duration of King Herod's reign 4 until his death – 37 years from his appointment as king and 34 years from when he took control of Jerusalem places the death of King Herod before Passover in AD 1, as his son Archelaus was already in power by Passover that year. Pouč gleaned further testimony from the Gospels and other ancient sources, which corroborate and confirm the facts. In 1990 the astronomer John P. Pratt 6 announced that on Wednesday 29 December 1 BC, an eclipse of the moon had been visible in Jerusalem – the eclipse mentioned by Josephus as having occurred shortly after a day of fasting and several months before the death of King Herod.

After discussing the scholarly preference for dating Jesus' crucifixion to 7th April 30 CE, this article argues that the precise date can no longer be recovered. All we can claim with any degree of historical certainty is that Jesus died some time around Passover (perhaps a week or so before the feast) between 29 and 34 CE. The emergence of the Johannine tradition (in which Jesus died on the day of Preparation) and the Markan tradition (in which Jesus dies on the Passover itself) are explored through the lens of social/collective memory.

2025

The Star that Revealed the King: Astronomical, Prophetic and Historical Synchrony of Christ's Birth (August 20-21, 1 BC). This study proposes a new astronomical and historical reconstruction of the Star of Bethlehem, centred on the hypothesis that a sequence of planetary conjunctions (Jupiter and Venus from 3 BC to 1 BC)—and particularly the exceptionally close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in the constellation Virgo on 20–21 August 1 BC—marks the exact date of Christ’s birth. The analysis integrates astronomical simulations, biblical texts, data from the Second Temple priestly calendar, and historical records from Flavius Josephus. It argues that the celestial events would have been interpreted by Chaldean astronomers as progressive signs of a royal birth, culminating in the reappearance of the "star" as the Magi approached Bethlehem. This timeline aligns precisely with the biblical account of John the Baptist’s birth, the prophetic symbolism of Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 7:14, and Revelation 12:1–2, and a re-evaluated date for the death of Herod the Great following the lunar eclipse of 29 December 1 BC. The research presents a coherent chronology that challenges conventional datings and highlights the interdisciplinary convergence of astronomy, ancient prophecy, and Roman political context.

This PDF is based on a presentation given at the 2019 Near East Archaeological Society annual meeting in San Diego, CA. It ties together the pattern of priestly cycles given in the Old Testament; the nine-month cycle of human gestation; and the impact of the seasons on Mary's visit to Elizabeth. Adding to these some insights drawn from Josephus' Antiquities, other ancient histories, and archaeology, a multidisciplinary case is made that Christ was born on Nisan 1, 6 BC.

The New Testament does not specify when Jesus was born, and the currently accepted year is unlikely to be correct. Only two gospels --Matthew and Luke-- mention Jesus' birth. Being driven primarily by theological considerations rather than by a concern with historical accuracy, the infancy narratives contained in these two gospels not only contradict one another in almost every detail; they also run counter to logic and are completely unsupported by the historical evidence.

When exactly was Jesus born? This also raises the question of when he died. There are different views on this. The answer is also linked to the question of when Herod, the “infanticide of Bethlehem” (cf. Mt 2:1ff.), died, especially since, as Mt 2:13ff. shows, Jesus was born some time before his death. Herod's death is generally dated to March 4 BC. However, the assumption that Herod died in 1 BC and that Jesus was born around 3/2 BC seems to have gained in popularity recently. Accordingly, Jesus' death is then not dated to 30 AD, but to 33 AD. It should be noted that the year 0 does not exist and that our current “Christian calendar” starts too late. In the New Testament, individual dates are handed down to us in the context of Jesus' life and ministry (cf. e.g. Luke 3:1; John 2:20), in the sense of a “relative chronology”, i.e. they are indications of the time span between certain historical events. On the other hand, according to Luke 3:23, Jesus was “about 30 years old” when he “appeared” (after his baptism), i.e. when he began his public ministry. How we classify these dates in the “absolute chronology” (according to our chronology) depends, among other things, on how we date the death of Herod. In the following explanations, the discussion will be placed on a broader basis, particularly on the basis of various statements by the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius (37/8 to approx. 100 AD) and individual statements by the early church fathers. As a matter of principle, references to secondary literature will be avoided. Such references can be found in the above-mentioned publications of mine.

Within the canonical gospel literature the the nativity of Jesus is only recounted in Matthew and Luke, and in very different ways. The Matthew text is generally assumed to be older, and known to the author of the Luke text. Why did Luke feel he needed to substantially add to, or modify, the account already given in Matthew? We shall try to provide an answer to that question, and argue that the information in the two complementary nativity accounts provides sufficient elements for the precise astronomical dating of the narrated events.