The view here advocated is strengthened by astronomical calculation, which shows that in a.d. 30 the probable year of the crucifixion, the 15th of Nisan actually fell on a Friday (April 7);and this was the case only once more between the years a.d. 28 and 36, except perhaps also in 33. Consequently Christ must have been Crucified a.d. 30. [161]
To sum up the results, the following appear to us the most probable dates in the earthly life of our Lord:
Birth a.u. 750 (Jan.?) or 749 (Dec.?) b.c. 4 or 5.
Baptism a.u. 780 (Jan.?) a.d. 27.
Length of Public Ministry
(three years and three or
four months) a.u. 780-783 a.d. 27-30.
Crucifixion a.u. 783 (15th of Nisan) a.d. 30 (April 7)
[104] The fathers distinguish between the Nativity (genesis, Matt. 1:18) and the Incarnation (sarkosis) and identify the Incarnation with the Conception or Annunciation. Since the time of Charlemagne the two terms seem to have been used synonymously. See Ideler, Chronol., ii. 383, and Gieseler, i. 70 (4th Germ. ed.).
[105] Jos., Antiqu., xvii. 8,1: "Herod died ... having reigned since he had procured Antigonus to be slain [a.u. 717, or B.C. 37], thirty-four years, but since he had been declared king by the Romans [a.u. 714, or B.C. 40], thirty-seven." Comp. the same statement in Bell. Jud., i. 33, 8, and other passages.
[106] According to Josephus, Antiqu. xvii. 6, 4: "And that night there was an eclipse of the moon." It is worthy of note that Josephus mentions no other eclipse in any of his works.
[107] Matt. 2:16: pantas tous paidos ... apodietous kai katotero kata ton` chronon hon ekribosen para ton magon.
[108] Tradition has here most absurdly swelled the number of Innocents to 20,000, as indicated on the massive column, which marks the spot of their supposed martyrdom in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. XX M[artyres], i.e. martyrs, have become XX M[ilia], i.e. twenty thousands.
[109] Macrob., Sat., ii 4: "Augustus, cum audisset, inter pueros, quos in Syria Herodes, rex Judaeorum, intra bimatum [perhaps taken from Matt. 2:16, Vulg.: a bimatu et infra]jussit interfici, filium quoque eius occisum, ait: melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium." It is a pun on the similar sounding Greek terms for sow and son (hus and huios). Kepler already quoted thispassage in confirmation of Matthew.
[110] Tacitus (Hist., v. 13) and Suetonius (Vespas., c. 4) speak of a widespread expectation of that kind at the time of the Jewish war and before (Suetonius calls it a vetus et constans opinio), but falsely refer it to the Roman emperors Vespasianus and Titus. In this the heathen historians followed Josephus, who well knew and believed the Messianic hopes of his people (comp. Ant., iv. 6, 5; x. 10, 4; 11, 7), and yet was not ashamed basely to betray and pervert them, saying (Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 4): "What did the most to elevate the Jews in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was found also in their sacred writings, how 'about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.' The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle certainly denoted the goverment of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judaea." Comp. Hausrath, N.T. Ztgesch., I. 173. The Messianic hopes continued long after the destruction of Jerusalem. The false Messiah, who led the rebellion under the reign of Hadrian (a.d. 135), called himself Bar-Cochba, i.e. "Son of the Star," and issued coins with a star, in allusion probably to Num. 24:17. When his real character was revealed, his name was turned into Bar-Cosiba, "Son of Falsehood."
[111] In the beginning of his Bericht vom Geburtsjahr Christi (Opera, IV. 204) he describes this new star in these words: "Einungewöhnlicher, sehr heller und schöner Stern ... der wie die schönste, herrlichste Fackel so jemahl mit Augen gesehen worden, wenn sie von einem starken Wind getrieben wird, geflammet und gefunkelt, gerad neben den drey höchsten Planeten Saturno, Jove und Marte." He calls this phenomenon "ein überaus grosses Wunderwerk Gottes." A fuller description of the whole phenomenon he gives in his work De Stella Nova (Opera, II. 575 sqq. and 801 sqq., ed. Frisch). Upham (The Wise Men, N. Y. 1869, p. 145) says: "Tycho de Brahe had observed a similar wonder in the constellation Cassiopeia, on the night of the 11th of October, in the year 1572. These were not luminous bodies within our atmosphere; were not within, or near, the solar system; they were in the region of the fixed stars. Each grew more and more brilliant, till it shone like a planet. Then its lustre waned until it ceased to be visible,--the one in March, 1574, the other in February, 1606. The light was white, then yellow, then red, then dull, and so went out." On temporary stars, see Herschel's Astronomy, Chap. XII.
[112] The learned Jewish Rabbi Abarbanel, in his Commentary on Daniel (called Ma'jne hajeshuah, i.e."Wells of Salvation,"Isa. 12:3), which was published 1547, more than fifty years before Kepler's calculation, says that such a conjunction took place three years before the birth of Moses (a.m. 2365), and would reappear before the birth of the Messiah, a.m. 5224 (or a.d. 1463). Ideler and Wieseler conjecture that this astrological belief existed among the Jews already at the time of Christ.
[113] It has been so accepted by Dean Alford and others. See the note in 6th ed. of his Com. on Matt. 2:2 (1868), with the corrections furnished by Rev. C. Pritchard. McClellan (New Test., I, 402) assumes that the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was premonitory and coincided with the conception of the birth of John the Baptist, Oct. 748, and that Kepler's new star was Messiah's star appearing a year later.
[114] Comp. Num. 4:3, 35, 39, 43, 47.
[115] In the new revision the passage, Luke 3:1, 2, is thus translated: "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign (hegemonias) of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor (hegemoneuontos) of Judaea, 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 unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness." The statement must have been quite intelligible to the educated readers of that time.
[116] The different interpretations of autos hen archomenos hosei eton triakonta do not alter the result much, but the hosei leaves a margin for a few months more or less. Comp. McClellan, I. 404.
[117] He uses the same term of Pontius Pilate (hegemoneuontos). Zumpt, l.c. p. 296, says: "Eigentlich verstanden, bezeichnet hegemonia die Würde des militärischen Befehlshabers und des Regenten über die Provinzen. Hätte Lucas 'Augustus Kaiser' (autokrator) oder auch nur 'Herrscher' (archon) gesagt, so würde man an eine Zählung von Tiberius' Provincialverwaltung weniger denken können .
[118] Different modes of counting were not unusual, regarding the early Roman emperors, and Herod I. See above, p. 112, Zumpt, l. c. 282 sqq., and Andrews, p. 27. Suetonius (Tib., 33) and Tacitus (Annal., vi. 51) say that Tiberius died in the 23d year of his reign, meaning his sole reign; but there are indications also of the other counting, at least in Egypt and the provinces, where the authority of Tiberius as the active emperor was more felt than in Rome. There are coins from Antioch in Syria of the date a.u. 765, with the head of Tiberius and the inscription, Kaisar. Sebastos (Augustus). In favor of the computation from the colleagueship are Ussher, Bengel, Lardner, Greswell, Andrews, Zumpt, Wieseler, McClellan; in favor of the computation from the sole reign are Lightfoot, Ewald. Browne. Wieseler formerly held that Luke refers to the imprisonment, and not the beginning of the ministry, of John, but he changed his view; see his art. in Herzog's " Encykl.,"xxi. 547.
[119] Andrews,l. c. p. 28, thus sums up his investigations upon this point: "We find three solutions of the chronological difficulties which the statements of Luke present: 1st. That the 15th year of Tiberius is to be reckoned from the death ot Augustus, and extends from August, 781, to August, 782. In this year the Baptist, whose labors began some time previous, was imprisoned; but the Lord's ministry began in 780, before this imprisonment, and when he was about thirty years of age. 2d. That the 15th year is to be reckoned from the death of Augustus, but that the statement, the Lord was about thirty years of age, is to be taken in a large sense, and that he may have been of any age from thirty to thirty-five when he began he labors. 3d. That the 15th year is to be reckoned from the year when Tiberius was associated with Augustus in the empire, and is therefore the year 779. In this case the language, 'he was about thirty,' may be strictly taken, and the statement, 'the word of God came unto John,' may be referred to the beginning of his ministry."
[120] Hase (Gesch. Jesu, p. 209) strangely defends the Dionysian era, but sacrifices the date of Matthew, together with the whole history of the childhood of Jesus. Against the view of Keim see Schürer, p. 242.
[121] See the literature till 1874 in Schürer, p. 262, who devotes 24 pages to this subject. The most important writers on the census of Quirinius are Huschke (a learned jurist, in 2 treatises, 1840 and 1847), Wieseler (1843 and 1869), and Zumpt (1854 and 1869). Comp, also the article "Taxing," by Dr. Plumptre, supplemented by Dr. Woolsey, in Smith's "Bible Dictionary" (Hackett and Abbot's ed.), IV. 3185, and J. B. McClellan, New Test., I. 392.
[122] This is the proper meaning of the original (according to the last text of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, who with B D omit the article he) aute apographe prote egeneto hegemoneuontos tes Surias Kureniou-b.-b Vulg.:Haec descriptio prima facta est a praeside Syriae Cyrino.The English version, " this taxing was first made when,"is ungrammatical, and would require proton, or, prota instead of prote. Luke either meant to say that there was no previous enrolment in Judea, or, more probably had in his mind a second enrolment made under Quirinius at his second governorship, which is noticed by him in Acts 5:37, and was well known to his readers. See below. Quirinius (Kurenios) is the proper spelling (Strabo, Josephus, Tacitus, Justin M)--not Quirinus, which was also a Roman name; hence the confusion. (See Weiss, in the 6th ed. of Meyer on Luke, p. 286.) His full name was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (Tacitus, Annal., iii 48; Suetonius, Tiber., 49). He was consul a.u. 742, at the head of an army in Africa, 747, and died in Rome, a.d. 21. Josephus speaks of him at the beginning of the 18th book of his Archael. See, a full account of him in Zumpt, pp. 43-71.
[123] Ulpian, quoted by Zumpt, Geburtsjahr Christi, p. 203 sq.
[124] Josephus, Antiqu., xvii. 13, 5; xviii. 1, 1. The census here referred to is evidently the same which Luke means in Acts 5:37: "After this man arose Judas the Galilaean in the days of the enrolment." Josephus calls him "Judas, a Gaulanite," because he was of Gamala in lower Gaulanitis; but in Ant., xx. 5, 2, and Bell. Jud., ii. 8, 1, he calls him likewise a Galilaean. In this case, then, Luke is entirely correct, and it is extremely improbable that a writer otherwise so well informed as Luke should have confounded two enrolments which were ten years apart.
[125] The usual solution of the difficulty is to give prote the sense of protera before Quirinius was governor; as protos tinos is used (though not in connection with a participle) in the sense of prior to, John 1:15, 30; 15:18. So Ussher, Huschke, Tholuck, Wieseler, Caspari, Ewald. But this would have been more naturally and clearly expressed by prin or pro tou hegemeneuein (as in Luke 2:21; 12:15; Acts 23:15). Paulus, Ebrard, Lange, Godet, and others accentuate aute (ipsa) and explain: The decree of the census was issued at the time of Christ's birth, but the so-called first census itself did not take place till the governorship of Quirinius (ten years later). Impossible on account of Lk 2:3, which reports the execution of the decree, Lk 2:1. Browne (p. 46) and others understand hegemoneuein in a wider sense, so as to include an extraordinary commission of Quirinius as legatus Caesaris.