Smoodock's Blog

Matthew has Jesus born sometime prior to the death of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1), and Luke agrees (Luke 1:5, 26-38). Most scholars have Herod dying in BC 4. So, according to their analysis, Jesus had to have been born sometime prior to this, perhaps in BC 5 or 6. However, Luke makes an interesting statement in Luke 2:1-2. There, he claims that, at the time of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:6-7), the Emperor, Caesar Augustus, had decreed that the world should be taxed/registered (Luke 2:1), and this taxation/registration took place, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2).

This presents a problem, according to critical scholarship. Josephus records that Quirinius was governor of Syria, when Herod Archelaus was deposed and exiled by Rome, and this took place in the year AD 6. At that time a census was taken of the Jewish lands for the purpose of taxation. This presents a difference of about 11 to 12 years between the times Jesus was supposed to have been born. According to Matthew, it was about two years prior to Herod’s death (Matthew 2:1, 19-20). However, according to Luke it was during a census taken, when Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1-2). What can we say about these things?

First, let’s look at Herod’s death. The reason for the BC 4 date is that Josephus records a lunar eclipse had occurred some days/weeks prior to Herod’s death, and this is the only eclipse mentioned in Josephus’ works. Just prior to this eclipse, Herod had executed two popular rabbis and forty of their students[1] for destroying the golden eagle he had placed over the eastern gate of the Temple. A week or two later he had his son, Antipater, executed, and Herod died five days after that.[2] If we would examine the lunar eclipses that could be observed in and around Jerusalem during the last seven years of the first century BC, we would discover there were only five.

For various reasons we can eliminate all but one eclipse in the chart above.[3] However, concerning the scholars’ choice of March 13, BC 4, there simply would not have been enough time for Herod’s burial and the mourning period for kings to occur before the Feast of Passover that year. For example, the process of embalming took 40 days (Genesis 50:3) and afterward there was an additional 30-day public or national mourning period. This was followed by a week of private mourning done by the family (Genesis 50:10).[4] Add to this Herod’s funeral procession that would have taken at least 25 days, longer if they rested on the three Sabbaths that fell within the 25 days.[5] So, the scholars’ choice of March 13, BC 4 isn’t practical, and doesn’t take those things into consideration that needed to be done between the times of Herod’s death and burial, which were completed prior to the Passover of that year.

If Herod died in AD 1, as I presume he did from the available evidence (Matthew 2:19-20), his death would have occurred about two and a half weeks after the lunar eclipse on December 29, BC 1, which is the only eclipse that works. If all this is logical and accurate, Jesus’ birth had to have occurred in BC 3, given the ages of the babes Herod had executed in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16), just prior to his own death.

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[1] JOSEPHUS: Antiquities of the Jews 17.6.4.

[2] JOSEPHUS: Antiquities of the Jews 17.8.1 (191).

[3] See my previous studies in the Gospel of Luke: When Did Herod Die? and Josephuus’ Eclipse Showing Herod’s Death.

[4] See JOSEPHUS: Antiquities of the Jews, 17.8.4.

[5] See JOSEPHUS: Antiquities of the Jews, 17.8.3.