How the Passover Illuminates the Date of the Crucifixion
How Acts and Galatians Indicate the Date of the Crucifixion
Foundations: Studies in Bible Theology
Tiberius celebrated his triumph in October, AD 12. Co-princeps power was then granted him in the first half of AD 13; the census-taking and lustral ceremonies occupied the latter half of AD 13; then early AD 14 saw his trip to Illyricum, followed by a quick recall home for Augustus’ final illness. Highly-respected scholar Theodor Mommsen views the situation that way, noting in
A History of Rome under the Emperors (online at
https://web.archive.org/web/20110930110717/https://www.scribd.com/doc/42999229/A-History-of-Rome-Under-the-Emperors) that “Only months prior to the death of Augustus the same powers that were invested in the Emperor were conferred on him in all the provinces.” “Only months prior” implies less than a year, seemingly making AD 12 too. 12+15=29[30] early.
What was the “Fifteenth Year of Tiberius”?
1) Mark 14:12 and Luke 22:7 illuminate the dating of the crucifixion just fine, without all the speculative theological mess.
2) Neither Acts, nor Galatians, give any definitive dating criteria by which we can date the crucifixion.
3) What you've written here contradicts itself. You seem to be defending an early reign paradigm for Tiberius, but you quote/cite Mommsen, who confirms that Tiberius received the co-princeps months before the death of Augustus, which was in the fall of 14 CE.
Here's what I had to say about the earlier reign of Tiberius in my book. All the source material is included.
-----------
Now, one commonly expressed idea concerns an alleged earlier reckoning of Tiberius’ reign. Per the histories of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Velleius Paterculus, we know that Tiberius received, by vote of the Senate, an equal authority with Augustus over the provinces, essentially conferring on him a co-regency, or a “co-reign” as some are wont to suggest.[1] Chronologically speaking, scholars have long-since associated the granting of this co-regency with Tiberius’ triumphal celebration following his return from Germany in late 11 CE. Although none of the mentioned historians explicitly state that the Senate granted the co-regency at that time, there is, arguably, a chronological link between the events in Suetonius’ narrative.
[2] Thus, relative to the date of Tiberius’ triumph, the co-regency has been generally deduced to 12 CE.
[3] For those advocating an earlier starting point for Tiberius’ reign, this alternate reckoning effectively shifts Tiberius’ fifteenth year to 26 CE, which is in more ready alignment with Jesus’ thirtieth year according to the more popular 5 BCE nativity hypothesis. The matter-of-factness of the position is both casually and plainly stated by Edersheim.
“It was, according to St. Luke’s exact statement, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—reckoning, as provincials would do, from his co-regency with Augustus (which commenced two years before his sole reign), in the year 26 A.D. According to our former computation, Jesus would then be in His thirtieth year.”
[4]
However, as Harold Hoehner commented, “this method is to be rejected because there is no evidence, either from historical documents or coins, for its employment, whereas there is abundant evidence that Tiberius reckoned his first year after the death of Augustus. Any theory that has to distort the normal sense of the text is already suspect.”[5]
I have long since agreed with this point of view. The notion of an earlier reckoning for the reign of Tiberius is founded in the conspicuous need to bring Tiberius’ fifteenth year of reign into harmony with a thirty-year-old Jesus who was born in 5 BCE or earlier. Apart from this need, there would be no valid reason to shift Tiberius’ reign as described. We have no evidence of anyone counting the reign of Tiberius from his co-regency with Augustus, and no precedent to believe that Luke was using an alternative dating paradigm. Tiberius’ reign was counted from the death of Augustus, and differs in the particulars only as it concerns the geographical regions and cultures. Someone in Alexandria might count his reign from September of 14 CE. A Roman might count it from January of 15 CE. However, we have no evidence of any region, at any time, counting his reign from 12 CE as an offshoot of the standard reckoning.
To the contrary, all the evidence we have implies that the points of accession for the emperors, including that of Tiberius, were common knowledge throughout the empire and reckoned from the same points universally. Although this evidence has already been given [in a previous section of the same chapter not presented here], let me restate that we have numismatic evidence of coins found in the region of Judea that give us Tiberius’ first year of reign coincident to the 45th year of the Actian Era, and his third to the 47th year.[6] Tacitus puts his ninth year in the year of the consuls Gaius Asinius and Gaius Antistius, or 23 CE, while Suetonius reckons his twenty-third year to 37 CE, in the consulship of Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus and Gaius Pontius Nigrinus.
[7] There are also numerous examples in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri of creditor’s claims, complaints, leases, loans, tax collections, etc., all dated to the then-current Egyptian month, and the year of reign of the emperor in power, without additional criteria to clarify further, meaning that no clarification was necessary.
[8] We see the same in one of the papyri of the Wadi Murabba‘at collection, dated to the second year of Nero, with, again, no additional criteria for clarification.
[9]
In the case of Tiberius, it should also be noted that Josephus records that Tiberius reigned twenty-two years, whereas Philo remarks that Tiberius was emperor during three and twenty years.
[10] In the former case, Josephus is referring to his regnal years, from 14 CE through 36 CE, with his final year left incomplete. In the latter instance, Philo is commenting on inclusive Jewish calendar years from 14/15 CE through 36/37 CE. Thus, he reigned twenty-two regnal years over the span of twenty-three Jewish calendar years, the relevance here being that his reign in both testimonies ends with his death in 37 CE, demonstrating retrogressively a starting point of 14 CE, not 12 CE.
In all instances, whether it be Suetonius and Tacitus speaking as Romans, or Josephus and Philo speaking as Jews, the testimony is the same. Tiberius’ reign began with the death of Augustus in 14 CE, and differs from one region to the next only insomuch as the calendar and regnal systems each function in their own unique way.
Given the universal understanding of Tiberius’ reign throughout the empire, there is simply no precedent to believe that Luke, and Luke alone, is dating Tiberius’ reign according to an alternate dating paradigm. There’s no proof that he’s doing it, as there is no documentation of anyone else doing it. The idea is, in every way, a flight of fancy, and has no foundation in fact.
Furthermore, the argument itself hinges on the idea that the Senate voted Tiberius the co-regency in 12 CE, when in actual fact, we don’t know for certain when Tiberius actually received this honor.
[11] Velleius Paterculus and Tacitus both mention the event, but as part of a broad list of honors or accomplishments relating to Tiberius, and without any reference to a specific date or year.
[12] Dio Cassius doesn’t comment on the co-regency at all. The best pseudo-chronological information we have on the subject is Suetonius.
Seemingly in context of Tiberius’ return from Germany, Suetonius says that the consuls caused the law for his co-regency to be passed “soon after,” which is the foundation of the 12 CE deduction. If the consuls passed this law “soon after” he returned from Germany, then it is not unreasonable to argue that it occurred in the vicinity of 11 CE or 12 CE.
However, in its more direct and immediate context, Suetonius also said that Tiberius was given this joint authority so he could conduct the census with Augustus and have joint governance over the provinces. For this reason —
because the consuls caused this law to be passed granting him joint governance over the provinces — Tiberius set out for Illyricum following the census and its accompanying ceremonies.
[13] We have no other evidence of Tiberius attempting to exercise any such authority prior to this point. Based, therefore, on the motive behind the law, rather than an implied chronological relationship, the closest indication we have of the year he received the co-regency is 14 CE, coincident to the lustrum rather than his triumphal celebration two years earlier.
[14]
[1]. Suet.
Tib. 21; Tac.
Ann. 1.3; Vell. Pat. 2.121.1.
[2]. Suet.
Tib. 20-21.
[3]. Suet.
Tib. 20. The celebration of Tiberius’ triumph is properly in the context of 11 CE, not 12 CE (Mommsen,
Römisches Staatsrecht, 2.2, 1101, n. 2, 1877 edn.). Tiberius celebrated his triumph on October 23rd, prior to Germanicus’ consulship in 12 CE (Fasti Praenestini,
Inscr.
Ital. 13.2, 134-135; Dio Cass. 56.25.2, 56.26.1). Given the time of year, if the Senate voted him this authority in the vicinity of his triumph, it’s debatable whether it happened before the end of that current year, or whether it happened at the beginning of the new year, giving us the leeway of 11 CE or 12 CE for the granting of the co-regency under these suggested circumstances.
[4]. Edersheim,
Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 183.
[5]. Hoehner,
Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, 31-32.
[6]. McAlee 214; RPC I 4270, 4330; BMC Galatia 33, 150; SNG Cop 402. The specimens are respectively dated A / EM and Γ / ZM.
[7]. Tac.
Ann. 4.1; Suet.
Tib. 73.
[8].
P.
Oxy. 239-253. These are just a small sample. There are numerous examples of the same.
[9]. Mur 18, Harrington, “A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts.” Biblica et Orientalia 34. Pp. 136-137.
[10]. Joseph
AJ 18.177; Philo
Leg. 298.
[11]. Swan,
The Augustan Succession, 248; Finegan, §570, in
Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 330.
[12]. Tac.
Ann. 1.3; Vell. Pat. 2.121.1.
[13]. Suet.
Tib. 21.1.
[14]. Suet.
Tib. 21.1; Dio Cass. 56.29.2; Aug.
Res Ges. 8; Vell. Pat. 2.123.1-2.
