PROBING THE NEW TESTAMENT

ON JESUS’ AGE—ANOTHER ISSUE WHERE NOTHING FITS (Matthew 2:1-15) When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod . . . When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi . . . the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod. (NAB) (Luke 2:1-6) Now it happened in those days, that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment [census] made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to enroll themselves, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea . . . It happened, while they were there, that the day had come that she [Mary] should give birth. (WEB) (3:1,2) In the fifteenth year [AD 29] of Tiberius Caesar’s reign [AD 14-37] when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea . . . the word of God came to John son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. He went through the whole Jordan district proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (JB) 532 (3:19,20) But Herod the tetrarch, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, also added this above all, that he shut John up in prison. (NKJV) (3:21-23) Now it happened, when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized, and was praying. The sky was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.” Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli. (WEB) Salient facts in the above quotations: • Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. • He was born no more than two years before Herod’s death. • Jesus was born at the time of a census. • John the Baptist began his ministry in the year 29. • Jesus was about 30 years old when he was baptized by John. Traditional beliefs: • The Holy Family fled to Egypt, where they lived three and a half years. • Jesus died at age 33 in the year of AD 33. Contemporaries of Jesus: • King Herod the Great died in 4 BC. • Quirinius was appointed governor of Judaea in AD 6. • Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea from AD 26 to 36. • Herod Antipas, son of King Herod, was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. He married Herodias, wife of his half-brother Herod Philip (marriage date unknown). 533 At the end of 36 or very early in 37, Pilate was sent to Rome to answer before the emperor for atrocities in Samaria. Therefore, Jesus died no later than the end of 36. We have already discussed the possibility that Pontius Pilate was afraid that his friendship with Lucius Sejanus, who was put to death in the year 31, allied to any complaint made by the Jewish authorities to Rome around the time of Jesus’ trial, might jeopardize his career—thus, his hasty approval of the execution order for Jesus’s death without a seemingly valid reason for it. Were this to be true, crucifixion would have taken place between the years 32 and 37. Modern lunar cycle calculations have revealed that between 26 and 37, only in 30 and 33 did the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month (Nisan), the day enjoined by God to eat the Passover evening meal (Exodus 12:18 and Leviticus 23:5), fall on a Friday. Until an ancient manuscript comes to light to clarify this matter, AD 33 may well be the year Jesus was executed. Wave King Herod the Great died in 4 BC, and was succeeded by his son Archelaus in Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea. In AD 6, Archelaus was exiled to Gaul and all his territories became the Roman province of Judaea and Quirinus was appointed governor. As per Josephus (AJ 18,1,1), he was “to take an account of their substance, and to dispose of Archelaus's money.” In the beginning the Jews took this as an excuse to increase taxes and followed Judas of Galilee into a short-lived insurrection. Luke 2:1 states that Emperor Caesar Augustus had decreed a census of “the whole world,” that is, Rome and the rest of the empire. It is an historical fact that censuses were taken in 28 BC, 8 BC and AD 14. Then immediately after, at Luke 2:2, he emphasizes that such census, the “first,” had taken place when Quirinius was governor of Syria. This “first census” raises questions as to which census Luke was alluding. In fact, there does not seem to exist any reason for confusion at all, unless one 534 thinks of Quirinius as governor of Judea many years later. But Luke is very clear when he says that the first census had been taken when Quirinius was governor in Syria—that is, at the time of the census, the first, in 28 BC.