The Years of Jesus

The story of where He walked is The Road Jesus Walked. The last week, day by day, with the argument about Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, is The Week of the Cross. This lesson does not retell them. It says what year the books are willing to support, and where an outside date has been leaned on too hard.

The birth

Matthew's king is Herod. The child is born in Bethlehem, visited by magi, taken to Egypt, and brought back after those who sought his life have died. Joseph is afraid to return to Judea because Archelaus reigns in place of his father, and he withdraws to Galilee, to Nazareth. Matthew 2:1 Matthew 2:19 Matthew 2:22 Luke's account is a census of the inhabited world, under Quirinius, a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a manger, shepherds, and a presentation in the temple. Luke 2:1 Luke 2:7 The two tellings are not the same afternoon. A family can receive shepherds and, later, magi. The week-of-the-cross lesson's way with the Gospels applies here too. Difference of scene is not a denial.

Herod's death is not in the Bible. Josephus places it at a Passover, usually reckoned as 4 BC, with an eclipse before it. The birth is therefore before that Passover, and after the start of a rule that began in 37 BC. "About 6 to 4 BC" is the honest window. The BC itself is a later calendar oddity: the monk who set AD 1 missed the year, so the Lord was born before the year we call the year of the Lord. The timeline says "about," because the window depends on Josephus.

The census is the harder verse. Luke is not vague on purpose. He is the writer who says he investigated everything carefully. Luke 1:3 A difficulty in one verse is not a reason to drop the investigation.

At twelve, He is in the temple at Passover, in His Father's house, and then He goes home and is subject to them. Luke 2:49 Luke 2:51 If the birth is near 4 BC, this is about AD 8. The timeline does not print that as more than an estimate.

The fifteenth year

Luke dates the start of John's preaching with a stack no other Gospel attempts. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John. Luke 3:1 Jesus begins His work at about thirty. Luke 3:23

Tiberius succeeded Augustus in AD 14. His fifteenth year is about AD 28 or 29, depending on whether a scribe counts from the death, from the next new year, or from an earlier share in the rule. The timeline prints the window and calls it a record that lines up, because the reign is not in doubt and the Gospel names the year. It does not print a day.

Pilate's years as prefect are about AD 26 to 36. A stone found at Caesarea names Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea. It confirms the man and the title Luke and the other Gospels use. It does not date the baptism. An ossuary inscribed "Joseph son of Caiaphas" fits the high-priestly family. Annas and Caiaphas both appear because Annas still had the weight of the office after he was formally out of it, which is why Jesus is taken to Annas first and Caiaphas is called high priest in the same night. John 18:13 John 18:24 Two names are not two competing calendars.

John's Gospel marks time by Passovers. A first Passover, when He cleanses the temple. John 2:13 A feast later. A Passover when He feeds the five thousand. John 6:4 A last Passover, the hour. John 11:55 The public ministry runs about three years if those feasts are read in order. "About thirty" at the start and three years of work bring the cross to about AD 30 or, if the count of Tiberius is later and a feast is read differently, AD 33. The scroll is that argument. The week itself is already walked elsewhere.

The Gospels were written in the generation of the apostles. This timeline does not assign Mark to a year, or John to the nineties, as if the books had dated themselves. They dated the events. The writing is "the apostles' generation," and that is as tight as honesty gets without a guess.

Two dates on this road are argued. Luke places the birth at "the first census to take place while Quirinius was governor of Syria" (Luke 2:2). The well-known census under Quirinius was in AD 6, after Herod had died. It is a real difficulty, and it has more than one serious answer.

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The year of the cross is the other. Pilate governed from about AD 26 to 36, and John marks the Passovers. The two serious choices are AD 30 and AD 33. The weekday is a separate question, covered in The Week of the Cross.

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