So when did they figure out something was off?

[ChristsSoldier115]

So I am noticing in a lot of commentaries and survey books that they tend to place Christ's life on earth between 4 B.C.-29 A.D.

Shouldn't it be 0-33 A.D. Or 1-34 A.D.?

 

[miamited]

Hi CS,

Well, that depends on whether the calendar that we now use was actually set to have begun in the year of Jesus' birth. The gregorian calendar that is now in use didn't come into being until the 1500's. A man by the name of Dionysius Exiguus chose the starting year of the calendar by his reckoning of when Jesus was born. However, he chose this date based on Luke's account that Jesus was 'about' 30 years old shortly after the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Matthew's gospel tells us that Jesus was born while Herod the great reigned. It is believed that Herod the Great died in 4BC so, if this is correct, then Jesus had to be born 4BC or earlier.

So, the truth is that we don't any of us know when Jesus was born as far as an exact day or year. The best we can do is approximate it sometime within a 5-6 year time span. BTW, there is no year 0. The first year of any calendar is the 'first' year.

Keep in mind that in Jesus' day years weren't counted as we count them today. Time was established as being the 'year of so-and-so's reign. This is important because we can't today establish with any certainty that Herod's death occurred in the year that we account as 4 BC. Here's a study that shows some of the difficulty in our ability to establish such dates:

Did Herod the "Great" Really Die In 4 B.C.?

When one begins to understand what is required for modern day calendars to give dates in the days before and during the life of Jesus, there are loads of assumptions that are found to be taken.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

Hi CS,

Well, that depends on whether the calendar that we now use was actually set to have begun in the year of Jesus' birth. The gregorian calendar that is now in use didn't come into being until the 1500's. A man by the name of Dionysius Exiguus chose the starting year of the calendar by his reckoning of when Jesus was born. However, he chose this date based on Luke's account that Jesus was 'about' 30 years old shortly after the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Matthew's gospel tells us that Jesus was born while Herod the great reigned. It is believed that Herod the Great died in 4BC so, if this is correct, then Jesus had to be born 4BC or earlier.

So, the truth is that we don't any of us know when Jesus was born as far as an exact day or year. The best we can do is approximate it sometime within a 5-6 year time span. BTW, there is no year 0. The first year of any calendar is the 'first' year.

Keep in mind that in Jesus' day years weren't counted as we count them today. Time was established as being the 'year of so-and-so's reign. This is important because we can't today establish with any certainty that Herod's death occurred in the year that we account as 4 BC. Here's a study that shows some of the difficulty in our ability to establish such dates:

Did Herod the "Great" Really Die In 4 B.C.?

When one begins to understand what is required for modern day calendars to give dates in the days before and during the life of Jesus, there are loads of assumptions that are found to be taken.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Well that makes sense. thanks.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Soldier, your thread title asks "When did they figure...?"

As far as I can figure, somewhere in the late 16th Century.

The commonly used calendar in Western Civilization was the Julian calendar. So named because Julius Cesar gets the credit for updating and correcting the prior Roman calendar. The Julian calendar did in fact keep track of time better than the older calendar. But it wasn't quite right; the calendar year was a bit shorter than the astronomical year.

A calendar has to always, always always keep in sync with the seasons. Otherwise, sooner or later, winter starts in August or something of that nature.

In 1583 Pope Gregory XIII ordered an update. This resulted in the - wait for it - Gregorian Calendar. However, the Gregorian calendar wasn't adopted by a number of countries until much later. Mostly Protestant countries ("Not having nothing to do with that Papist plot!"). The British Empire finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The change in calendar removed ten or eleven days, effectively changing the current date. (This is why George Washington was born on 11 February, but his birthday is celebrated as 22 February.) There was a good deal of unrest among regular folks who somehow thought ten or eleven days of their lives were confiscated.

So, to answer your question about when. It was the update of Pope Gregory that encouraged people to start 'counting back' for many reasons. Not the least of reasons was to determine when Jesus was actually born. Since then, any number of historians, archeologists, conspiracy theorists and other interested parties have 'counted back'.

So it has to be after 1583, I should think.

 

[Albion]

So I am noticing in a lot of commentaries and survey books that they tend to place Christ's life on earth between 4 B.C.-29 A.D.

Shouldn't it be 0-33 A.D. Or 1-34 A.D.?

As has already been said, there is no year O. But the main reason for doubt is that our calendar--based upon the presumed life of Christ--was only devised several hundred years after Christ. And it was then necessary to count back and reconstruct events in order to come up with what would be year 1. It is entirely possible that a mistake was made at that time.

And we have hints in Scripture to guide us. For one, Herod died in 4 BC after already ordering the killing of all male children under age 2. And we know when Pontius Pilate was in charge in Palestine. So, for such reasons (and a number others) we guess that Jesus lived from about 4 BC to about AD 33. Some place his birth as recent as 1 BC and others as far back as 8 or so BC. The most common dates given by the "experts" for his death are AD 31 and AD 33.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century as an attempt to standardize the Paschal Table (how to calculate Easter) came up with a system of numbering years using the birth of Christ as the calendar event. Previously Christians used the civil calendars available, and generally that meant the Roman method of calendar keeping which marked years based on the reigning emperor. So one would note an event as having been in the Nth year of the reign of So-and-so. More rarely events were chronicled using the founding of the city of Rome, Ab urbe condita (On the founding of the City) or AUC.

Exiguus' calculations were off, but that's a detail that largely became evident later on in history, well after most of the Christian world had adopted his calendar system (not all Christians historically have used Exiguus' system, the Coptic Church has its own calendar method for example). When exactly Exiguus' calculation error was first noted I'm not sure. But he is the one that came up with the system of Anno domini nostri Iesu Christi (AD), as it became the standard calculating the years before Christ (BC), Ante Christum natum (before the birth of Christ).

The exact year of Christ's birth remains somewhat disputed, but the general consensus is usually either 6 or 4 BC. Somewhat ironically.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[pshun2404]

So I am noticing in a lot of commentaries and survey books that they tend to place Christ's life on earth between 4 B.C.-29 A.D.

Shouldn't it be 0-33 A.D. Or 1-34 A.D.?

Actually Tiberius won this incredible battle as a General in 10 A.D. and when he returned to Rome people had already placed their faith and hope in him and looked toward him for leadership, by 12 or 13 A.D. he was in effect the Emperor equal to or over Augustus who was now “emperor” in title only. At that time (depending which camp you were in), though Augustus still held the official place, many people counted Tiberius’ as presently reigning (and why not, the people all followed him not Augustus). So if 12 or 13 A.D. is being considered by Luke as when he began to reign (which it was only not officially until 14 A.D.) and 12 or 13 being year one in his reckoning, then the 15th year of his reign would be around 27 to n28 A.D.!

Then it says that Jesus “began to be about thirty years of age”! So it is not specific that He indeed was 30 but began to be about 30. This vagueness is because the Jewish people did not keep birth records or concern themselves with “Birthdays” because they saw them as bordering on idolatry (making a person special just because they were born….which was a western pagan notion). Secondly there was a cross over regarding months between the Hebrew calendar and the Roman calendar. Nisan (the first month of the Lord’s year) is March/April of the Roman calendar and Tishri (the first month of the civil year) was Sept/Oct of the Roman calendar.

Therefore based on these truths, IF Jesus was indeed “about” (or around) 30 according to the Hebrew reckoning, the Roman calendar dating would be off and may have seen to calculate dates as a year ahead or a year behind. 4 B.C. according to the Roman, when Herod died may have been a little into the previous or a little into the following year according to the Hebrew calendar. Even by the first paragraph one can see 30 years to 27 A.D. makes His birth no later than 3 B.C. but this does not prove anything. The beginning of 4 B.C. for Rome would have been January and Jesus could have easily have been born between Tishri and Kislev without causing any contradiction between the two accounts.

Sir William Ramsey confirmed the likelihood of the 4 B.C. dating when as an atheist he went on his hard line fact seeking journey to once and for all (via history and archaeology) disprove the allegedly mythical book of Luke Acts. By the end of his efforts (10 years later) he fell on his knees and accepted Christ calling Luke one of the greatest historians of all times.

Paul