Chronology of Jesus

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Template:Gospel Jesus The chronology of Jesus depicts the traditional chronology established for the events of the life of Jesus by the four canonical gospels (which allude to various dates for several events). Among historians who are Christian Biblical scholars, the literature suggests the following detailed timeline for Jesus. The timeline records Jesus as Christ and Messiah from biblical and historical accounts of his life.

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Biblical Timeline 3 Birth 3.1 Year of birth 3.2 Day of birth 4 Death 4.1 Year of death 4.2 Day of death 5 See also 6 External links

Introduction

The chronology of Jesus is heavily contested and some state that it would be impossible to ascertain, even approximately. The four canonical gospels provide no clear dates for any event — not even the year of Jesus's birth or death, or his age at death. (Dates for rulers and high priests are known from other sources). Moreover, the gospels appear to disagree with one another as to the sequence of various events which they describe (though many have attempted to harmonize them), and are considered by some commentators to be unreliable in any case (see Historicity of Jesus). Yet without them, we are left with almost nothing to organize into a chronology.

One crucial issue is that of whether the three synoptic gospels were composed to follow the liturgical calendar — in other words, intended to be read aloud section-by-section throughout the church year, with each section illuminating a theme found in the Torah readings for that day. (Church lectionaries follow the same principle.) If so, then any attempt to tease out a chronology would be fundamentally misguided, as episodes from Jesus's life and teachings would have been re-arranged to fit a one-year period.

In brief, the primary events in Jesus' life are believed to have occurred around these times:

c. 6 BC – Suggested birth (earliest)

c. 5 BC – Herod the Great's death (earliest)

c. 1 BC – Herod the Great's death (latest)

c. AD 6 – Suggested birth (latest), Quirinius census

c. AD 26/27 – Pontius Pilate appointed governor of Judea

c. AD 27 – Suggested death (earliest)

c. AD 36 – Suggested death (latest)

c. AD 36/37 – Pilate removed from office

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Birth

Year of birth

Our only sources of information on Jesus' birth are the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew describes a "Massacre of the Innocents" under Herod the Great, which Jesus's parents avoid through a Flight into Egypt. Luke dates the event according to a pan-Roman census supposedly organized during the reign of Quirinius, in which tax-payers had to return to their ancestral regions. Neither event is known outside the gospels, and both have been challenged as intrinsically unlikely — and this is not even considering the addition of angels, Magi, and the Star of Bethlehem.

Furthermore, the accounts of Matthew and Luke are difficult to reconcile with one another. The Gospel of Matthew states that Jesus was born while Herod the Great was still alive, and that Herod ordered the slaughter of infants that were two years old and younger (Matt. 2:16). However, the Jewish historian Josephus reports a lunar eclipse shortly before the death of Herod. Astronomers have pinpointed that eclipse to the year 4 BC, which would imply that Herod died in that year as well (contra Dionysius Exiguus). Thus, many chronologists conclude that the year 6 BC is the most likely year of Jesus' birth. Consequently, Jesus would have been about four to six years old in the year AD 1.

On the other hand, Luke's account places Jesus' birth during a census conducted under the governorship of Quirinius, who, according to Josephus, conducted the census in AD 6. In order to reconcile the two Gospel accounts, some have suggested that Josephus was mistaken, that Quirinius had a separate period of rule under Herod (see evidence [2]), or that Josephus reported the date of the completion of the census rather than of the entire duration of it. Others have suggested a different reading of Luke's text which should rather refer to a census taken not under Qurinius but "before the census taken when Quirinius was governor" [3].

Numerous commentators have attempted to identify the Star of Bethlehem with some known astronomical object, thereby providing a clear date. There are, however, too many possible phenomena — including astrological conjunctions — to single out one of them with certainty.

In the 6th century, Dionysius Exiguus made the birth date of Jesus the basis for his chart of Easter dates. However, he miscalculated the death of Herod by several years. Years reckoned by Dionysius' system are labeled "BC" and "AD", which stand for Before Christ and Anno Domini (meaning "in the year of the Lord" in Latin).

Day of birth

Determining the exact day of Jesus' birth is even more problematic than the year. Some say that the birth could not have happened in the deep winter, because the Bible says that shepherds spent the night outdoors with their flocks when Jesus was born (Luke 2:8). Mediterranean climates such as Judea's (like Southern California's) have mild winters reaching their coolest in late February. Thus December nights can be quite balmy and warm enough to graze sheep. Moreover, December/January would have been an ideal time to graze sheep to take advantage of the winter rains. During the hot months, conditions can be quite barren and the grasses dry. But the end of December was the time when the perennial grasses began to turn green again and the annual grasses had sprouted anew. Thus climatically, the ecclesiastical practice of placing Christ's birth between December 25 and January 6 is certainly plausible. Controversy over whether Christmas ought to be celebrated on December 25 or January 6 underscores the perceived importance of the day of Christ's birth and the determination of church fathers to be accurate.

It is assumed that Christmas' date was chosen to take advantage of the imperial holiday of the birth of the Sun God Mithras, which coincided with the "return of the sun" after the shortest day of the year. According to this theory, the reason was to replace the popular pagan holiday with a Christian celebration of holy communion.

According to one tradition, Jesus was born during Hanukkah (25 Kislev into the beginning of Tevet). Under the old Julian calendar, the popular choice of 5 BC for the year of Jesus' birth would place 25 Kislev at November 25.

Early Christians sought to calculate the date of Christ's birth based on the idea that Old Testament prophets died either on an anniversary of their birth or of their conception. They reasoned that Jesus died on an anniversary of his conception, so the date of his birth was nine months after the date of Good Friday, either December 25 or January 6. Additional calculations are made based on the six-year almanac of priestly rotations, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some believe that this almanac lists the week when John the Baptist's father served as a high priest. As it is implied that John the Baptist could only have been conceived during that particular week, and as his conception is believed to be tied to that of Jesus, it is claimed that an approximate date of December 25 can be arrived at for the birth of Jesus. However, most scholars (e.g. Catholic Encyclopedia in sources) believe this calculation to be unreliable as it is based on a string of assumptions.

The apparition of the angel Gabriel to Zechariah, announcing that he was to be the father of John the Baptist, was believed to have occurred on Yom Kippur. This was due to a belief (not included in the Gospel account) that Zechariah was a high priest and that his vision occurred during the high priest's annual entry into the Holy of Holies. If John's conception occurred on Yom Kippur in late September, then his birth would have been in late June (the traditional date is June 24). If John's birth was on June 24, then the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, said by the Gospel account to have occurred three month's before John's birth, would have been in late March. (Tradition fixed it on March 25.) The birth of Jesus would then have been on December 25, nine months after his conception. As with the previous theory, proponents of this theory hold that Christmas was a date of significance to Christians before it was a date of significance to pagans.

At least as early as A.D. 354, Jesus' birth was celebrated on December 25 in Rome. Other cities had other traditional dates. The history of Christmas is closely associated with that of the Epiphany. If the currently prevailing opinion about the compilation of the gospels is accepted, the earliest body of gospel tradition, represented by Mark no less than by the primitive non-Marcan document (Q document) embodied in the first and third gospels, begins, not with the birth and childhood of Jesus, but with His baptism; and this order of accretion of gospel matter is faithfully reflected in the time order of the invention-of feasts. The church in general adopted Christmas much later than Epiphany, and before the 5th century there was no consensus as to when it should come in the calendar, whether on January 6 or December 25.

The earliest identification of the 25th of December with the birthday of Jesus is in a passage, otherwise unknown and probably spurious, of Theophilus of Antioch (171-183), preserved in Latin by the Magdeburg centuriators, to the effect that the Gauls contended that as they celebrated the birth of the Lord on the December 25, whatever day of the week it might be, so they ought to celebrate Easter on the 25th of March when the resurrection occurred.

The next surviving mention of December 25 is in Hippolytus' (c. 202) commentary on Daniel. Jesus, he says, was born at Bethlehem on December 25, a Wednesday, in the forty-second year of Augustus. This passage also is almost certainly interpolated. In any case he mentions no feast, nor was such a feast congruous with the orthodox ideas of that age. As late as 245, Origen, in his eighth homily on Leviticus, repudiates as sinful the very idea of keeping the birthday of Jesus "as if he were a king Pharaoh." Thus it was important to the early Christians not to have indecorous parties on that day, but to keep it a time of devotion, reflection, and communion.

The first unchallenged, early mention of December 25 is in a Latin chronographer of A.D. 354, first published in complete form by Mommsen. It runs thus in English: "Year I after Christ, in the consulate of Augustus Caesar and Paulus, the Lord Jesus Christ was born on the 25th of December, a Friday and 15th day of the new moon." Here again no feastal celebration of the day is attested.

There were, however, many speculations in the 2nd century about the date of Jesus' birth. Clement of Alexandria, towards its close, mentions several such, and condemns them as superstitions. Some chronologists, he says, alleged the birth to have occurred in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus, on the 25th of Pachon, the Egyptian month (May 20). These were probably the Basilidian gnostics. Others set it on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi (19th or 20th of April). Clement himself sets it on November 17, 3 B.C.

The same symbolic reasoning led Polycarp (before 160) to set his birth on Sunday, when the world's creation began, but his baptism on Wednesday, for it was the analogue of the sun's creation. On such grounds certain Latins as early as 354 may have transferred the human birthday from January 6 to December 25 and is by the chronographer above referred to, but in another part of his compilation, termed Natalis invicti solis, or birthday of the unconquered Sun. (Under the Julian Calendar, the winter solstice occurs on December 24, so starting with December 25, the days begin to get longer again.) Cyprian invokes Christus Sol verus, Ambrose Sol novus noster, and such rhetoric was widespread. The Syrians and Armenians, who clung to January 6, accused the Romans of sun-worship and idolatry, contending with great probability that the feast of the 25th of December had been invented by disciples of Cerinthus and its readings by Artemon to commemorate the natural birth of Jesus. Ambrose, On Virgins, writing to his sister, implies that as late as the papacy of Liberius 352 - 356, the Birth from the Virgin was feasted together with the Marriage of Cana and the Feeding of the 4000, which were never celebrated on any other day but January 6.

Chrysostom, in a sermon preached at Antioch on December 20, 386 or 388, says that some held the feast of December 25 to have been held in the West, from Thrace as far as Cádiz, from the beginning. It certainly originated in the West, but spread quickly eastwards. In 353 - 361 it was observed at the court of Constantius II. Basil of Caesarea (died 379) adopted it. Honorius, emperor (395 - 423) in the West, informed his mother and brother Arcadius (395 - 408) in Byzantium of how the new feast was kept in Rome, separate from January 6, with its own troparia and sticharia. They adopted it, and recommended it to Chrysostom, who had long been in favour of it. Epiphanius of Crete was won over to it, as were also the other three patriarchs, Theophilus of Alexandria, John II of Jerusalem, Flavian I of Antioch. This was under Pope Anastasius I, 398 - 400.

John or Wahan of Nice, in a letter printed by François Combefis in his Historia monoizeii tarurn, affords the above details. The new feast was communicated by Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople (434 - 446), to Sahak, Catholicos of Armenia, about 440. The letter was betrayed to the Persian king, who accused Sahak of Greek intrigues, and deposed him. However, the Armenians, at least those within the Byzantine pale, adopted it for about thirty years, but finally abandoned it together with the decrees of Chalcedon early in the 8th century. Many writers of the period 375 - 450, e.g. Epiphanius, Cassian, Asterius, Basil, Chrysostom and Jerome, contrast the new feast with that of the Baptism as that of the birth after the flesh, from which we infer that the latter was generally regarded as a birth accoding to the Spirit. Instructive as showing that the new feast travelled from West eastwards is the fact (noticed by Usener) that in 387 the new feast was reckoned according to the Julian calendar by writers of the province of Asia, who in referring to other feasts use the reckoning of their local calendars. As early as 400 in Rome an imperial rescript includes Christmas among the three feasts (the others are Easter and Epiphany) on which theatres must be closed.

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Death

Year of death

The understanding of the Gospels is difficult to reconcile with the tradition that holds the Last Supper took place on the first night of Passover, which is defined in the Torah as occurring on the 14th of Nisan. Furthermore, at that time, the date of Passover was set by the court in Jerusalem based upon testimony of witnesses. It was not until AD 500 that the calendar was changed to base the holiday's date on calculation. Therefore, it is not possible to state on which day of the week the 14 of Nisan occurred for any year before 500 without historical documents that attest to a particular day of the week.

Assuming the validity of the chronology of John, the most important information attested to in all the Gospels is that Jesus' death occurred under the administration of Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate held his position from 26–36, and the only years in which Nisan 14 fell on a Friday are 27, 33 and 36, and possibly in 30, depending on when the new moon would have been visible in Jerusalem. Different scholars have defended all of these dates.

The most commonly cited dates are April 7, 30 and April 3, 33. In the Gospel of Luke, it is stated that Jesus was about 30 years old when he started his public ministry, which would seem to support one of these dates. However, if Jesus' birth was in 6 BC, then this points to the beginning of the public ministry some time around AD 26.

Another fact to be considered is Luke's statement that John the Baptist's ministry began in the fifteenth year of the reign of emperor Tiberius. Tiberius' reign began on Augustus' death on August 19, 14 AD, placing John's appearance in 29 by official Roman reckoning (counting 14 as an accession year and 15 as the first full year), too late for the beginning of Jesus's ministry as calculated above. On the other hand, Tertullian writes in his Adversus Marcionem of a Roman tradition that placed the crucifixion in the twelfth year of Tiberus' rule.

Evidence in the Gospel of John points to three separate Passovers during Jesus' ministry, which would tip the scales toward 33. This is strengthened by details of the reign of Sejanus in Rome. Sejanus had ordered the suppression of the Jews throughout the empire, and after his death in 32, Tiberius had repealed those laws. This would fit with the Gospel accounts that seem to indicate that Pilate did not want to crucify Jesus, but was forced into it by the Jewish leaders.

Nonetheless, proponents of the year 30 point out that Tiberius was already co-regent emperor several years before the death of Augustus, making it possible that the beginning of his reign would be counted from 11 or 12, which would put the beginning of John's ministry in about AD 26. This is consistent with the "thirty years old" statement in the Gospel of Luke as well.

Day of death

Image:Michelangelo Petersdom Pieta.JPG

All Gospels agree that Jesus died and was taken off the cross on the day before the Jewish sabbath (Friday before sunset), around the time of Passover - a Jewish holy day that is celebrated starting at sunset on the 15th of the Jewish month Nisan (the Jewish calendar counts the day as beginning with the evening). In order to determine Gregorian date of Jesus' death, one needs to know the year, because the 15th of Nisan - corresponding to one of the first two full moons after Vernal Equinox - can occur on any date in late March or April.

More precise calculation of Jesus' date of death is complicated by apparent inconsistencies in the reports in the Synoptic Gospels as compared to the Gospel of John. In the Synoptic Gospels, the Last Supper is clearly a Passover meal, and appears to have taken place on Thursday after sunset, making it the 15th of Nisan, with the crucifixion on the next day, Friday, still the 15th of Nisan. In this case Passover would have started on Thursday night.

According to John, however, the Passover meal was to be eaten on the last evening before Jesus was crucified, so that the Last Supper was eaten on the evening of 14th of Nisan and the crucifixion was on the 14th, at the same time that the lambs for the Passover were being slaughtered in Herod's Temple of Jerusalem, so that the Jews could celebrate the Passover that evening (starting Friday night). Various attempts have been made to harmonize the two reports. Perhaps the most likely theory is that Jesus, knowing he was to be dead at the appointed time for the Passover meal, chose to hold the Passover meal with his disciples a day early, thus holding to the account of John. Some scholars have recently suggested rejecting Thursday as the day of the Last Supper and support a non-Passover Last Supper on Tuesday or Wednesday, thus providing more time for the events that occurred between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.

See also

• Jesus in the Christian Bible
• Historical Jesus
• Detailed Christian timeline

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Chronology of the Life of Jesus Christno:Tidspunktet for Jesu Kristi fødsel