2. Luke's date, " Ihth of Tiberius" (iii, 1\ interpret- ed by the rule of the imperial annals (and also of the canon), would denote the year beginning August A.D.
28, and ending in the same month of A.D. 29. Be- ferred to the current consular year, it might mean either A.D. 28 or 29. Taken in the Jewish sense, it might be the year beginning either 1 Nisan or 1 Tisii A.D. 28, or even 1 Tisri A.D. 27. The hypothesis of a dating of the years of Tiberius from an epoch earlier by three years than the death of Augustus has, how- ever, been generally adopted from the 16th century downward, and is demanded (see Strong's Gr. ffarmo- nyj p. 842 sq.) by the age of Jesus at his baptism (80 years), added to the length of his ministry (8 years), as oomptfed with the date of the Crucifixion (see below). In A.D. 11, Tiberius appears to have assumed the gov- ernment of the provinces, and from this time his reign would naturally be reckoned by the Jews (see Jarvis, Introd, p. 229 sq.). This would give Luke's date of John's mission B.C. 27. See Tiberius.
8. The note of time (John ii, 10) connected with the Pcutooer after ihe Baj^ism points, if the " forty and six years'* are reckoned from Herod's announcement of his purpose in his eighteenth year {Ant, xv, 11, 1) to A.D. 27 ; if from the actual commencement, after all the ma- terials were provided, it may denote either A.D. 28, or
29, or 80, according to the length of time supposed to be spent in preparation. But here, again, besides dis- crepant statements in Josephus as to the epoch of Herod's reign, it chances that the earlier account of the same pro6eedings {War, i, 21, 1) dates this under- taking of Herod in his^teenth year. It does indeed admit of proof, even from the context, that the 15th year is too early; but it may, plausibly enou^, be urged by those who wish to do so, that, if Josephus is wrong in the one statement, he is just as likely not to be right in the other. See Temple.
4. The Crucifixion (q. v.) certainly cannot be placed :
earlier than A.D. 28, in which year the 15ih of Hbe- jius began, and it has never been proposed by inqu. rers of any note to place it later than A.D. 33. The astronomical element of the question — namely, that in the year of the Passion the 14th of Nisan fell on a Friday — ^if it be rigorously applied, i. e. according to a definite rule of Jewish usage and the results of strict lunar calculation, indicates only one of the six yean mentioned, vis. A.D. 29, in which 14 Nisan was 18th March and Friday. If a certain laxity as to the role be allowed, the 14th Nisan may posmbbf have fallen oo 8d April, Friday, in A.D. 88. But ii; in compIiaDce with the apparent import of the first three Gospek, without explanation from the fourth, it is oootended that the Crucifixion took place on the day after the Passover, the year may have been A.D. 80, in vfai«^ the 15th Nisan fell on Friday, 7th April, or A.D. 88, vs. which it was (in strictness) Friday, 8d ApriL Lastly, if it be maintained that the Jewish Passover-day was regulated, not by actual observation of the moon's phases, but b}' cycles more or less fiiulty, any year whatever of the series may be available in one form or other of the hypothesis. See Passoveb.
Ancient testimony, if that is to have weight in this question on the supposition that the year was known, either hj traditioii or by access to public records (the Acta PUati, to which the ancients so confidently ap- peal), certainly designates the Passover of the year 29, eoss, duobus Geminis, the 15th proper year of Tiberius. In the Western Church the consent to this year is all but general ; in the Eastern, the same year is either named or implied in the two earliest extant testimo- nies, Clem. Alex. {Strom, i, 21, § 101-143; see Jovu. of Class, and Sacr, PkUol, u, «.) and Julius Afiicanos. See Jesus.
6. In the Acts, the mention of ike death <f Herod Agrippa (xii, 28), interposed between an arrival of Paul at Jerusalem and his return thence to Antiodi (xi, 80 ; xii, 25), would yield a firm resting-point for that portion of the narrative, vis. Easter, A.D. 44 (Jo- sephus, Ant, xviii, 8, 2; comp. xix, 5, 1; War, ii, U, 6), could we be certain that the death of Agrippa took place soon after, or even in the same year with the Easter mentioned xii, 8, 4. (The time of Agrippa*s death is determinable with high probability to the be- ginning of August of that year.) But as it is possible that the writer, after his narrative of the acts of this king, thought fit to finish ofiT all that he had to say about him before going on with the narrative about Paul and Barnabas, it may be that their mission to Je- rusalem, and return, after the martyrdom of James and deliverance of Peter, took place before the year 44. It might even be inferred frx)m xi, 26 (t/nc iykviro imi KXavSiov), that the prophecy of Agabus was delivoed before, or quite in the beginning of A.D. 41, as the fiunine is known to have prevailed at Borne during the first two years of Claudius (A.D. 41, 42; IHon Cass. Ix, 11), but that it appears not to have been felt in Judaea till after the detik of Agrippa, in the pixKa- ratorship of Cuspius Fadus and Tiberius Alexander (A. D. 45-47 ; Josephus, Ant, xx, 2, 5 ; 5, 2). Condosive reasons for assigning this second visit of Paul to Jeru- ^em to the year 44 must be sought elsewhere. (See Lehmann, in the Stud, u. Krii, 1858, ii) See Aqbippa.