Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Christian Era

Part 2 of Daniel's Messianic Prophecy



When the sixth century abbot, Dionysius Exiguus, was calculating the date to begin the calendar based on the Christian Era, he determined that December 25, in the 753rd year since the founding of the city of Rome, was Christ’s date of birth. Because January 1 was celebrated as New Year’s Day in sixth century Rome, the abbot chose January 1, 754 A.U.C. (from the founding of Rome) as a suitable date to begin the Christian Era. Thus 754 A.U.C. became 1 AD, the year of our Lord.


Dionysius erred in his calculation of the year in which Christ was born. According to Matthew's Gospel, Jesus wasn’t born after the reign of Herod the Great but rather during the reign of that same Herod.


After Herod ascertained when and where the Messiah was born, he ordered the slaughter of all male babies in Bethlehem and its suburbs causing the flight of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus to Egypt. Upon Herod’s death, the holy trio returned to Palestine.


An eclipse of the moon occurred on March 13, 750 A.U.C. shortly before the death of Herod the Great. That was documented by Josephus in his Antiquities (17.6.4). Thus Christ was most likely born in 749 A.U.C., the year before Herod's death.


Nevertheless, 754 A.U.C. was designated 1 AD. The abbot’s system of numbering years did not allow for a year zero. When 1 BC ended, 1 AD began. Indeed, December 31, 1 BC was followed by January 1, 1 AD. Therefore, if we synchronize Christ’s actual birth to the abbot’s system of numbering years, He was born in 5 BC.

7 comments:

  1. Simply put: 754-749=5 years; if we go back 5 years before 1 AD, we arrive @ 5 BC.

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  2. I can see why many use the abbreviations BCE (before the Christian Era) & CE (the Christian Era). It may be confusing to some that Christ was born about 5 years before Christ.

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  3. Related articles: Type Christ’s Year of Birth into my search bar.

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  4. Antiquities 17.6.4: “But Herod deprived this Matthias of the high priesthood, and burnt the other Matthias, who had raised the sedition, with his companions, alive. And that very night there was an eclipse of the moon.” The date of March 13, 4 BC was calculated by the rules of astronomy.

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  5. Antiquities 17.8.1: "When Herod had done these things, he died, the fifth day after he caused Antipater to be slain; having reigned, since he procured Antigonus to be slain, thirty-four years; but since he had been declared king by the Romans, thirty-seven." In 63 BC, Rome captured Jerusalem to settle a quarrel between rival heirs to the Hasmonean throne. In 40 BC, Rome declared Herod the Great "King of the Jews." However, a Hasmonean named Antigonus II, backed by the Parthians, seized control of Jerusalem in 40 BC. It wasn't until 37 BC that Herod, with the aid of Rome, defeated Antigonus and claimed his throne. (34 years, from 37 BC to 4 BC inclusive; 37 years, from 40 BC to 4 BC inclusive)

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  6. Inclusive reckoning was the popular method of recording time in the first century AD when the Antiquities of the Jews was written by Josephus. Under that system, partial years were counted as complete years e.g. 40 BC, 37 BC, 4 BC re: Herod.

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  7. Herod died in 4 BC shortly after the March 13th eclipse of the moon and shortly before the Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3). That Passover occurred on April 11th according to astronomical data. Therefore, it’s unlikely that Christ was born in 4 BC, between January 1 & Herod's death. That wouldn’t have allowed enough time for the events which transpired in Matthew 2:1-18.

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