Dating the birth of Christ
Matthew2:1 states that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great. The traditional position is that Herod died in 4 BCE [ch]. However, this has been challenged in recent times. Murrell Selden writes:
"Based upon the writings of Josephus (which appear to be mostly accurate), the anchor date of the war between Antony and Octavius Caesar, and calculations of relevant lunar events, it appears that Herod the Great died in 1 BCE (not 4 BCE) Though 4 BCE. has been favored, because it has a lunar eclipse on a fast day. But, an analysis of what Josephus said about Herod’s kingships... indicates the error in the thinking." [ms]
In summary, tradition would have it that Jesus was born before 4 BCE; but it is possible to reconcile the New Testament accounts with a birth date of 1 CE at the latest.
Suffice to say, the New Testament's description of the "virgin birth" itself is impossible to prove. The apologetic website Tektonics, however, expresses a rather hopeful view:
"Objections against the validity of the virgin birth are based mostly on preconcieved notions - in the main, that the miraculous is impossible. There is no reason, other than pre-conceived bias, to reject it as historical; and to be fair, no reason other than faith to accept it as such. It simply depends on our starting point." [tv]
Certainly an all-powerful God could have impregnated Mary (and certainly, the Homeric Gods were always at such things...). However, there would be no way to prove that this had occurred, other than accepting the literal words of the Bible. On the other hand, the lack of claimed corroboration from Old Testament prophesy, the apparent unreliability of the Gospels in reporting "miraculous" events and the commonality of virgin births amongst mythological god-men, give good reason - without Tektonics' need for "faith" - to doubt that the virgin birth occurred.
Susan S. Carroll provides a discussion of likely historical candidates for the "Star Of Bethlehem", and gives the following as the most likely explanation:
"In conclusion, it was the first Jupiter/Venus conjunction of August 12, 3 BC in the constellation Cancer that alerted the Magi to look for further signs. They found them - in the triple conjunction of Jupiter in Regulus in the constellation Leo. But it was the second conjunction, on June 17, 2 BC, in the evening, of Jupiter and Venus, in the constellation Leo, that started the Magi on their way west. Although the Magi probably had predicted these celestial events in advance, they wanted confirmation that their predictions would come to pass. The 'star' they followed was the planet Jupiter, the King Planet, which, having gone through its retrograde motion, appeared to stand still on precisely December 25, 2 BC in the southern sky - and from Jerusalem it would appear that Jupiter had come to rest directly over Bethlehem. It remained stationary for 6 days, and to add to the symbolic significance, it was stationary in the center, or perhaps 'womb', of the constellation Virgo." [sc]
However, this hopeful conclusion is not shared by all astronomers:
"There is no indication in the text that any other person actually saw the star. The shepherds in the field did not see the star, Herod did not see the star, Mary and Joseph did not see the star, and there is no contemporary record of a big star. Mark, Luke, and John do not record a big star. Astronomers running their planetariums backwards through time are not unanimous about it, and scholars trying to date the birth of Christ with its appearance have been confounded. Possible candidates for the star simply do not match the gospel’s chronology and dating. The reason for this is that Matthew never alleged a conspicuous star." [kc]
"The description of the 'star' in the Gospel of Matthew (the only mention of the star in the Gospels) is too ambiguous to make possible a definitive identification with known astronomical phenomena of that era. Astronomers have proposed conjunctions of some of the planets as a likely explanation of the 'star.' Possible conjunctions involve Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC; Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars in 6 BC; and Jupiter and Venus in 3 BC. Other possibilities are appearances of comets in 5 BC and 4 BC, and a nova (exploding star) in 5 BC. Alternatively, there may have been a sighting of the then unknown planet Uranus, which, though faintly visible to the naked eye, was not discovered until AD 1781. If the appearance of the 'star' was a miracle or a myth, astronomical explanations are unnecessary and invalid." [us]
3 BCE may be a possible date for the "Star of Bethlehem" as a planetary conjunction.
The main problem here is that Josephus dates the very specific census described here to 6 CE. All attempts by Christian apologists to find an earlier census have failed. A further - major - difficulty is Luke's statement that the census required everyone to return to the town of their birth... This requirement would be a first in all recorded history, and seems little more than an attempt to make the birth of Jesus fit Old Testament prophesy [rc]. Since the census is only mentioned by Luke, it seems sensible to discount it from the story of Jesus's life, and to prefer the accounts given in the other "Gospels".
(John Mosley, past Program Supervisor of the Griffith Observatory, argued that the "census" refers to an oath of allegiance required on the coronation of the Emporer Augusts in 2 or 3 BCE [jm]. However, there is no other indication that anyone else across the Roman Empire was required to travel to their town of birth to take this oath - and, more importantly, this quite clearly is not the "census of Quirinius" mentioned by Luke).
"The slaughter of the Innocents squares perfectly with what history relates of him, and St. Matthew's positive statement is not contradicted by the mere silence of Josephus..." [ch]
However, no other contemporary account mentions the "slaughter", and given Matthew's apparent unreliability (see the discussion of the Resurrection below) it is reasonable to conclude that this account is mere gloss on the life of Jesus.
An interesting point is that Josephus appears to have dated the death of John the Baptist specifically to 36 CE - after the supposed date of the death of Jesus. (This issue is discussed in my web page Did John the Baptist die after Jesus?) [jb].
Further difficulties arise with Josephus's date of 36 CE for the death of John the Baptist [jb]; and the account of the early Christian writer St. Irenaeus (c. 125-191 CE), citing apostlistic tradition, that Jesus was around fifty when he died [ir].
If correct, this would indicate that Jesus was alive after the time of Pilate - and even until the time of Paul. Either Irenaeus was wrong, or Jesus was born - if at all - well before 1 CE.
Some "minor" issues with the conflicting Gospel accounts of the resurrection are discussed in the Appendix to this article.
The Resurrection is central to the story of Christianity. The event is, of course, not recorded by any external contemporary sources. Even the Gospel accounts are contradictory, although they can be read as different second-hand accounts of the same basic events [rr].
One story associated with the Resurrection stands out:
"And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God." [Matthew 27:51-54]
(You may remember John Wayne uttering those final immortal words ;>)
In 1 Corinthians15:3-8, Paul tells of "500 witnesses" to the risen Christ. However, no further details are given; there are no other contemporary accounts of the stories of these 500; and the book of Acts alone gives three different accounts of Paul's own "vision" of Christ (9:7, 22:9 and 26:14) [pc].
Given the magnitude of these claims, it is reasonable to expect extraordinary evidence to support them. In fact, there is no accepted evidence for any part of the Resurrection accounts or the miraculous events recorded in Matthew (even from Josephus and Tacitus, who arguably referred to Christ being crucified). [gs] [eb]
Treating the Bible as any other historical text, the only reasonable conclusion is the Resurrection must either be a myth, or must have happened in some other way. Alternative theories include Christ being alive when he was placed in the tomb, or the crucifixion not taking place as the Bible reports. Without further evidence, it is impossible to be certain as to what actually occurred.
Another issue which Christianity is incapable of discussing objectively is the obvious parallels between pagan myths and many of the events recounted in the New Testament [rp]. This issue is discussed in my web page Pagan influences on Christianity.
The Catholic Encyclopedia discusses the Last Supper at length [ce]. It examines the apparently contradictory text, and the attempts by Biblical literalists to reconcile them. It notes that the Jews may have delayed passover that year; or that Jesus may have celebrated the feast early. I've seen no evidence in support either proposition). Either way, the Biblical texts are clearly contradictory, and can be "reconciled" only by a rather tortuous reading of the various texts [tk].
In a post to the Evidence.info weblog in April 2002 [p1], I discussed the following assertion by the apologetic website Tektonics:
"Contradiction is sometimes alleged in that Mark reports the crucifixion at the third hour (Mark 15:25) while John says the sixth. The basic reply is that Mark and the other synoptics are using Jewish time (sunset to sunset; third hour = 9 AM); John is using Roman time, which is like ours (sixth hour = 6 AM - note that John says about the sixth hour; he's estimating). (The former method is still used in the Middle East, and we and other Western nations use the latter.) We know from the Synoptics that the crucifixion took over 6 hours. If John's sixth hour is really the Jewish sixth hour - noon, as unfortunately, even the Living Bible says - then the crucifixion lasted past the time when the Sabbath started. John 19:31 says that the Jews didn't want the bodies left up over the Sabbath, which obviously means that the Sabbath hadn't started yet. So either John is giving us an extraordinarily short crucifixion, or he is giving us the time in Roman. Since crucifixions were usually extended affairs, the latter assumption is more valid." [tk]
In summary, if by "the sixth hour" John meant Midday, then his account is not credible. (And saying "about nine o'clock" is surely not the same as saying "about twelve o'clock"... The trouble is, the Romans did not tell the time as we do today... the sixth hour to the Romans was midday. [mo] [wh]. There appears to be, therefore, a glaring contradiction between John and the synoptic gospels.
Since that post, Tektonics have updated their webpage. They say:
"We were recently alerted to a comment by a critic (who did not write to us) that the Romans actually used the same sort of time as the Jews, that is, sunset to sunset. This is not entirely true. Many Romans did use this sort of time, but others did not. The time like ours (midnight to midnight) was known to be used in legal matters, and there is some evidence from martyrdom accounts in the area that this sort of time was used in Asia Minor, where John did his evangeslism. Pliny the Elder also notes that various professions varied in their reckoning of time. It is our contention that the evidence does point to John using the 'midnight to midnight' model." [tk]
They provide no references for their assertion about the Roman's "legal" use of time, which would seem surprising in a culture which generally measured time with the use of sundials. (Update: I am thankful to Tektonics for pointing out that the Romans also used waterclocks. However, these were luxury items used for such things as timing senate speeches or chariot races [mo]).
In any event, such a measurement would time John's account of the crucifixion to 6am, much early than the Synoptic accounts. Tektonics accept this, but argue that the general reliability of John means that this difference in time is not important [tk].
However, the fact is that Bible translators are all but universal in their translation of the time given by John as being noon. Further, however:
"Some apologists argue that the seven translators above who said that John's hektos hora meant "noon" are all mistaken. They claim that John actually counted hours relative to midnight, which means that John's Jesus was sentenced at about 6:00 AM, or sunrise, which would have allowed Jesus to be on the cross at the 9:00 AM crucifixion time claimed by Mark."
"But, does there exist any evidence that John reckoned time relative to midnight? I believe the answer to that question is no, and there is significant textual evidence that John measured time relative to sunrise according to the Jewish and Roman practice, just as the other gospel writers did. There is evidence in at least two other passages that John counted hours relative to sunrise." [ja]
