When Was Jesus Born?

      When was Jesus actually born? This is a question which comes up sooner or later around this time of year for obvious reasons. Traditionally, we celebrate His birth on December 25th, and believe our calendar was set to begin with the year of His birth.

     In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. He was born, and that is what matters. It changes nothing about who He is if His birth date wasn't 12/25/0001 (there is no year 0000). There are no major doctrines of the faith in jeopardy if He wasn't born at midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This being said, I'd like to offer up the fruits of my own study into this question.

      As a preliminary, while it is traditionally taken that the Herod mentioned during the nativity accounts in the Gospels was Herod the Great, it actually never says that. It only says "Herod." Now, "Herod" was a family name, not a given name. It was used much like "Caesar" was used. No one would have said "Caesar" during the reign of Augustus or Tiberius and meant "Julius Caesar" unless they were specifically talking about Julius Caesar. They would have meant the current "Caesar." The same is true for "Herod." Herod the Great was already dead by the time Jesus was born, and Herod Archelaus had been made king over the Kingdom of Judea by Caesar after his father's death.

      Now, first, the year of Jesus' birth. Luke's Gospel is actually very specific. He says that it was during the census when Quirinius was Governor, or Legate, of Syria. Quirinius was appointed Legate of Syria in 6 CE and his first act was to take a census of the new provinces which resulted from the breakup of the Kingdom of Judea. It was taken when Rome assumed direct governance over Judea after deposing Herod Archelaus for his brutality towards his own people. In short, like most of their client States, they had allowed Judea to govern itself with its own monarchy up from the time Pompey imposed order upon it until then. That changed when Herod Archelaus had been so brutal towards his own people that a delegation of Judeans went to Rome to beg Caesar to depose him. This wasn't the only problem Rome had with Judea governing itself, but it was the last straw for Caesar. Caesar Augustus removed Archelaus and sent him into exile. Then, Rome divided Judea into four provinces or districts and imposed direct rule through a procurator over the provinces of Iudaea, Samaria, and the Coastline leaving Galilee and Idumea to Herod Antipas and his family. The census was taken as a matter of course in the incorporation of the newly formed provinces for the Roman government. There is no other census recorded while Quirinius was Legate of Syria from 6 CE to 12 CE. So, the year Jesus was born was 6 CE.

     Now, for the month. Luke says that Gabriel told Mary about Jesus' birth in the sixth month. A reasonable assumption can be made that this is referring to the Jewish lunar calendar which is composed of months of 29 and 30 days on average. The sixth month in the Jewish calendar is Elul, which corresponds to roughly August/September. An average human gestation period is forty weeks or 280 days. Doing the math for that year on the Jewish Calendar would put his birth date around the middle of Iyar, possibly the 15th. On the Gregorian calendar, this would be right around the end of April or the beginning of May, roughly May 1st.

     So, a more likely date of birth for Jesus Christ would be approximately May 1st, 6 CE. The hard date for His crucifixion (for various reasons) is Friday, April 3rd, 33 CE. This would have put him at right around 27 give or take when He died and was resurrected. (Yes, Luke says He was about 30 when He began to preach, but "about" 30 could be anywhere from 25 to 34).