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Post by ogoogo on Feb 19, 2014 14:43:09 GMT
Obviously there is no general agreement on when Jesus was born. However, the gospels provide some information but, unfortunately, the information leads to conflicting dates.
For example, Matthew says Jesus was born while Herod the Great was still alive. Therefore, as Herod is known to have died in 4BC, Jesus must have born in 4BC or even a little earlier.
Luke's gospel says Jesus was born when a census of population was being carried out in Judea. This census cannot have been earlier than 6AD as that is when Quirinius became governor when the Romans had to resort to 'direct rule', as it would be known nowadays.
So, there is at least a 10 year discrepancy in the dates when Jesus was born, according to the only two gospels which provide some account of his birth.
Does anyone know any better way of narrowing down the likeliest date when Jesus was born?
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 19, 2014 15:24:58 GMT
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Post by timoneill on Feb 19, 2014 18:47:52 GMT
Obviously there is no general agreement on when Jesus was born. However, the gospels provide some information but, unfortunately, the information leads to conflicting dates. For example, Matthew says Jesus was born while Herod the Great was still alive. Therefore, as Herod is known to have died in 4BC, Jesus must have born in 4BC or even a little earlier. Luke's gospel says Jesus was born when a census of population was being carried out in Judea. This census cannot have been earlier than 6AD as that is when Quirinius became governor when the Romans had to resort to 'direct rule', as it would be known nowadays. So, there is at least a 10 year discrepancy in the dates when Jesus was born, according to the only two gospels which provide some account of his birth. Does anyone know any better way of narrowing down the likeliest date when Jesus was born? There isn't one. The only information we have on his birth is from the "infancy narratives" in gLuke and gMatt. But these are largely written to make theological points and are of dubious and probable minimal historical value. Conservative Christians try to find ways to reconcile them or at least winnow out some history from the stories and Biblical literalists go to absurd lengths to harmonise them, doing violence to history and common sense in the process. The fact is, we can't determine what history, if any at all, is in these stories and we thus have very little idea of when he was born.
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 19, 2014 23:24:43 GMT
The fact is, we can't determine what history, if any at all, is in these stories and we thus have very little idea of when he was born.Not entirely so. www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/what-year-was-jesus-born-the-answer-may-surprise-you John the Baptist began his ministry in "the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar" (Luke 3:1).
The fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar would correspond to A.D. 29. Jesus began his ministry about the same time.
Jesus was "about thirty years of age" when he began his ministry (Luke 3:23).
2-3 B.C. is a reasonable estimate.
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Post by unkleE on Feb 20, 2014 3:51:32 GMT
Scholars say that in ancient biography (which most believe is the genre closest to the gospels), birth stories tend to have the purpose of setting the scene for how important this character is going to be, and thus they are not necessarily historical, or at least 100% historical.
So we don't really know what Matthew & Luke were doing, and how much they thought they were writing history. This doesn't mean that some or all of the accounts aren't historical, only that we don't know, and that there seem to be problems.
I have read scholars who consider them totally unhistorical (evangelical scholar Craig Keener, in his massive book The Historical Jesus of the Gospels doesn't even discuss the birth narratives!), others that consider them historical and find ways to harmonise the apparent discrepancies, and some that opt for Matthew being more accurate, and even a few that opt for Luke being more accurate, on the reasonable grounds that Luke shows himself in other places to be a good historian using good historical method and a good writing style. On this argument, Matthew is fanciful by our standards (e.g. he uses more Jewish pesher and Midrashic exegesis of OT texts in other places) and Luke has got it right, and Jesus was born later than most scholars think.
I have also seen some suggestions that the Qurinius census problem can be resolved by either (1) arguing there was also an earlier census than the on in 6 CE (perhaps a bit of a stretch) or (2) that a different translation of what Luke has written (from memory, that it was a census before he was Governor, or something) can resolve it.
But most scholars who are not inerrantists don't buy these "explanations", and we are left where Tim said, we know he was born, we can assume the info about Joseph & Mary being his parents is accurate, and we don't know much more for sure.
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Post by ogoogo on Feb 20, 2014 14:37:19 GMT
The fact is, we can't determine what history, if any at all, is in these stories and we thus have very little idea of when he was born.Not entirely so. www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/what-year-was-jesus-born-the-answer-may-surprise-you John the Baptist began his ministry in "the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar" (Luke 3:1).
The fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar would correspond to A.D. 29. Jesus began his ministry about the same time.
Jesus was "about thirty years of age" when he began his ministry (Luke 3:23).
2-3 B.C. is a reasonable estimate.Thank you, sandwiches. Your post was very useful as I had forgotten that reference by Luke to "the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar". This suggests obviously that the earlier birth date of 4 BC or thereabouts is more likely to be accurate than the 6 AD date suggested by the date of the census.
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