The Algorithm Key to Correct Dating

The key dates from which other events are calculated:

September 11, 2 B.C. Birth of Jesus, the Messiah
March 4, 33 A.D. Passover (always on the full moon)
March 5, 33 A.D. Crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem, Judea
March 8, 33 A.D. Resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem, Judea

For all the Ph.D. studies that have argued for different date estimates, it’s shocking that none have used this infallible source—the algorithms of the moon, the basis of the Jewish lunar calendar—to date these events.

The events of Jesus’s life correspond to the Biblical holidays which they fulfilled. Since each (except First Fruits) is dated in its lunar month, each can be dated by lunar algorithms, providing one has the right year. Jesus’s death was on the day of Passover and his resurrection on Feast of First Fruits. He seems to have been born on Sukkot, the Feast of Trumpets, and baptized on Shavu’ot, which we call Pentecost.

Dating the Crucifixion and Resurrection

Jesus died on the day following the Passover meal, but in Jewish terms he died on the same day. That’s because the Jewish day starts in the evening preceding its daylight hours. Thus, Nisan 15 always begins with the evening of a spring full moon and continues through the following day. However, Passover doesn’t always fall on the same date annually on our calendar because the Jewish calendar is lunar.

First of all, did Jesus die in 33 A.D.? Luke tells us that Jesus started his ministry at about thirty.1 However, Luke gives us a definite time for the beginning of John’s ministry, which was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius—August 20, 28 A.D. to August 19, 29 A.D. It would have also been in Pilate's third year as procurator of Judea. (He began his service in 26 A.D.) Thus, we again come to 29 A.D.

Though not dated, Jesus most likely was baptized shortly after John began. If on Shavu’ot, which we call Pentecost, it would place the crucifixion on Passover of 33 A.D.

In 33 A.D., only the full moon of March fits a Sunday resurrection. (In April, the full moon is on Friday; in May, on Saturday night.) Thus, the Passover meal would have been eaten on that Wednesday evening, March 4, and the crucifixion was on Thursday, March 5.

Of course, Church tradition has fixed these two events—not on the same day as in the Jewish calendar—but on two days, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. These were established by the Roman Church and have been followed unquestioningly by western Protestant. The record of when Good Friday actually became established is lost in the catacombs of the ancient Catholic edicts—if it exists at all. Friday as the day Jesus died as well as when western Christianity celebrates Easter is different from the practice of the early Jerusalem Church.

When these became the official view of the Church would have come after 150 A.D. As the Roman Church reflected its gentile culture and eradicated any Jewish influence, it established Good Friday and tied Easter to the spring equinox rather than Passover. As Roman power and influence grew in the Church, the initial conflict was an attempt to enforce conformity about when and how to the celebrate the resurrection. How much of the conflict was a drive for power and how much was honest conviction isn’t clear, but a power play seems to show through between the lines as we read the record.

The combatants divided over varying expressions of the same thing. It was east verses west; Jewish culture verses Roman; mandated conformity verses freedom of expression.

The conflict was in 155 A.D., between Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and Anicetus, Bishop of Rome. Though Rome’s dominance may have still been developing, it apparently existed since Polycarp went to Rome rather than Anicetus going to Smyrna. The churches of Asia Minor, led by Polycarp, argued that the resurrection should be celebrated on Nisan 18, its annual date on the Jewish calendar. This would connect it to Passover, as was the case when it occurred.

Polycarp further contended that this was the practice from the beginning and that he had learned it from “John the disciple of our Lord, and the rest of the apostles.”1 He further argued for a freedom of expression, since the eastern churches varied in some of the minutia of the celebration.

Anicetus argued for a stress on the day of the week—Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Thus, Rome argued for a separation of Easter from Passover, which was a significant separation of Christianity from its Jewish roots. Today, the stress on Maundy Thursday is not Jesus’s celebration of the Passover, but his washing the apostles’ feet.

More broadly, the Roman culture viewed Jewish traditions as barbaric and unworthy of any continuance because of circumcision. Thus, the early bishops set out, consciencely or unconsciously, to view Jewish use by God as having been replaced by the Church. Worse, they viewed their views as equal to those of the Apostles in their authority. Thus, later Church doctrine became paramount over the earlier Biblical texts.

Though Polycarp had the support of tradition, Anicetus held greater political power. Unable to agree, Polycarp returned to Smyrna with the contention unresolved. A strange thing happened shortly after Polycarp returned home, unwilling to submit to the Church of Rome’s demands. Under one of the most tolerant emperors, Antonius Pius, Polycarp was martyred.

It seems strange that the Christianity of Polycarp would concern the emperor at this late date. Polycarp was advanced in age and had been a church leader for decades. It also seems odd that the emperor would institute a time of persecution in distant Asia Minor and take no notice of Christians in his capital. One need not wonder whose accusation to the emperor brought Polycarp’s death.

The conflict continued to simmer between those who followed Polycarp and Anicetus. Forty years later, Victor, Bishop of Rome, sought to enforce uniformity by breaking off communion with the dissenting bishops and churches.

Eventually, with the Council of Nicaea, the date for Easter became separated from Passover and tied to the spring equinox. Because of the disagreement over when to celebrate the resurrection, little is recorded about the disagreement over the day of the week on which Jesus died, but the view that he died on Friday came then or later.

Dating the Birth of Jesus

Jesus’s date of birth as September 11, 2 B.C. is not given but is deduced from other factors. Humanly speaking, Luke has a much broader view than the other gospel writers and dates Jesus’s birth in relation to the rule of Caesar Augustus and his census of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, this census was while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Quirinius served twice in Syria in offices that we can correctly translate as “governor,” with a ten-year gap between them.

However, there was a registration required of everyone under Roman rule—not just those under the Syrian prasese or quaestor—which was Quirinius’ office in his initial service as governor. This earlier registration came in preparation for a Roman milestone that would be unique in history. It was the conjunction of Rome’s 750th year and the twenty-fifth year of Caesar Augustus. This twenty-fifth year of Augustus was 2 B.C. During this year, multiple celebrations were planned throughout the Roman Empire.

The emperor’s principal honor was to be that the people spontaneously declare him pater patriae, the Father of the Country. As we have seen in our age, spontaneous celebrations for despotic rulers require a great deal of organization and planning—thus the required registration and added taxation. If this is the registration to which Luke refers, we can narrow the birth of Jesus down to 2 B.C.

What then of the popular dating of Jesus’ birth in 4 B.C., based on the view that Herod died in that year? The problem is that Herod’s death was more likely in 1 B.C. than in 4 B.C. The question hinges on a report by Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian who lived from 37 A.D. to about 95 A.D.

Josephus tells us that Herod executed two rabbis for tearing down a Roman eagle over the Temple gate on the night of a lunar eclipse. Shortly thereafter, he died with his son assuming his throne just after that year’s Passover. The eclipse most often credited was a 40% partial eclipse that occurred on March 13, 4 B.C.

The problem with that date is that it occurred only twenty-nine days before Passover—the time of assumption to the throne by his son. Considering the extended ceremonies Herod had decreed to be observed upon his death, this was not enough time. For example, it took twenty-five days for soldiers to transport his body from Jerusalem to the Herodium where he was buried. They were required to march one mile a day, barefooted, for the twenty-five miles. He lived for at least five days after he returned from the baths at Jericho where he had gone as his condition worsened. Thus, you have too few days between this eclipse and Passover, when Herod Antipas succeeded him. Generally, it is believed that the whole process would have taken a minimum of ten weeks—not the twenty-nine days available in 4 B.C.

Where then shall we look for a more likely eclipse? On January 10, 1 B.C., there was a total eclipse visible in all of Palestine, which is just over 12 weeks before Passover. Again, we are forced back to the year of 2 B.C. in search of the year of Jesus’s birth.

When, then, in 2 B.C., did the birth most likely occur? It occurred at least six weeks prior to the arrival of the Magi because of the needed purification time for Mary following the birth. Dr. Craig Chester, while president of the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy, gave a persuasive argument for December 25, 2 B.C., as the date of the Magi’s visit.4 If the Maji arrived on December 25, Jesus would have had to been born by mid-November in order for Mary’s forty days of purification to have passed.

Moving back from that latest date to the next Biblical holiday, we come to Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah—Trumpets and The Feast of Tabernacles. Yom Kippur is a fast and doesn’t fit the celebrative mood we read about in the heavens upon Jesus’s birth. That leaves the Feast of Tabernacles commemorating God’s dwelling in man’s midst, literally Emanuel. If Jesus was then born on the first day of Tabernacles, 2 B.C., he was born on September 11, 2 B.C.

A birth on Sukkot, or in English, Tabernacles, would have supported why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, rather than at Mary and Joseph’s home in Nazareth—other than that prophecy had foretold it. The text gives the reason he went. Luke 2:1 says “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census would be taken of the entire Roman world.” If 2 B.C. is correct, this would have been the census in conjunction with the events of Caesar’s twenty-fifth year and Rome’s 750th birthday. Thus, it included the total Roman world and probably took the entire year.

Why then was Joseph there at that particular time during that year? The reason would not have been a Roman requirement, but a Hebrew one. All males were—if possible—to report to Jerusalem for three holidays, one of which was Sukkot. Thus, he could have returned to Bethlehem, which is just a short distance south of Jerusalem and taken care of two duties in one trip. He could have celebrated Sukkot, or Tabernacles, and registered for Rome in the same trip.

Footnotes

Luke 3:23
Luke 3:1
Eusebius; Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Popular Edition: Baker Book House, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1977, pgs 210-211.
Reprinted in Imprimis; Hillsdale College, Hillsdale Michigan, from Dr. Chester’s teaching series, “Man and Creation: Perspectives on Science and Religion,” Fall, 1992.