The Birth Year of Messiah

The Birth Year of Messiah
How you can know the exact year Yeshua was born.
Going to the book of Luke we can definitely pinpoint the exact birth year of Yeshua. Looking at Luke
3:1-3 we read:
Luke 3:1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of
Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the
region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
Luke 3:2 Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of
Zacharias in the wilderness.
Luke 3:3 And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the
remission of sins;
This is telling us or pinpointing for us the time that Yohannon or John the Baptist was beginning his
ministry.
We use the terms B.C. and A.D. Today. For example this year is 2014 A.D. And that means the year of
our Lord. Now there's another expression we use and that is C.E. Meaning the Common Era and B.C.E.
Or Before the Common Era. B.C.E. Means the same as B.C. and C.E. Means the same as A.D. In terms
of time, the year.
So we have this system all worked out where we can call a certain year by a number. In the days of the
Bible, they didn't have that, they didn't number the years. They had to have another way to pinpoint
timing the correct year. Traditionally this has been done through what's called 'Regnal Years'. In other
words, the years were numbered according to the reign of whomever was in charge.
Now, what we have been able to do, is through various historical information, we go back and we
assign the correct year to these various regnal years and we have more information for some people
than we do for others, so we are more accurate with some people than we are with others. Lets apply
this now for Luke.
Luke first of all mentions the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius Caesar was the emperor
of the world. Do you think we're going to be able to nail down his 15th year? What we have for the
Caesars of course is coins, all kinds of various artifacts and so on. There is so much information about
the Caesars because they were considered the most important person in the world. So we can nail down
the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar very well. But Luke didn't stop with just giving us Caesar. He went on
mentioning Pontius Pilate being governor, Herod (that is the son Herod) being tetrarch of Galilee, his
brother Philip being tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis. He mentions Lysanias being the tetrarch of
Abilene. Then he mentions the high priesthood and who was in the high priesthood at the time. So we
have to find the year when all of these different reigns converged together. When we do that, then we
will know that we have the correct year in which this happened. It is amazing really how much
information Luke gives us to help us pinpoint the exact time. Now the most important piece of
information here is that it was in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar and then all the rest of this
is confirming of that information.
So lets see if we can figure out when the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar was because Luke is
saying that's the year in which Yochannon the Immerser (John the Baptist) began his ministry. Why do
you think that's important in terms of developing the birth year of Messiah? What is the connection
between Yochannon the Immerser and Messiah? We have a couple of verses, one is in Luke chapter 1,
verse 36 that says:
And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth
month with her, who was called barren.
So Elisheva (Elisabeth) was 6 months along when Merriam (Mary) conceived Messiah and we have
that confirmed for us in Scripture so we know there is a 6 month difference.
In Luke chapter three, we have some verses we can read, verses twenty-one and twenty-three:
Luke 3:21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized,
and praying, the heaven was opened,
Luke 3:22 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came
from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
Luke 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son
of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,
We can construct a certain picture here. We know that Yeshua, from a lot of other verses in the gospels,
we know that Yeshua was baptized by Yohannon and it tells us here that Yeshua was about 30 years old
when he began his ministry when he was baptized. So if he was just about 30 years old when he began
his ministry, then Yohannon being 6 months older was 30 years old. So he (Yohannon) would have
started 6 months earlier of the same year. So if we can pinpoint the year in which Yohannon the
Immerser began his ministry, and now we have this information that the Messiah was baptized by
Yohannon when he was 30 years old. This is the reason why the verses we just read are so important.
Because by pinpointing when Yohannon began his ministry, we're able to know when Yeshua the
Messiah began his ministry. If you know that happened when he was 30 years old, if you can fix that
date, all you have to do is count back 30 years right? It's simple math and then you're at his birth year.
This is very simple and we have all of this information presented to us by the physician Luke. Let's
take a look at this now and see how all this comes out.
This all hinges on the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. There really is no argument about that
date. People know the date when Tiberius Caesar began to reign as Caesar and that date is September
18th, 14 C.E. This is well known, well established. Before this, Tiberius had been assisting Augustus
Caesar and so some people might say 'Well, okay he had been assisting Augustus Caesar so his reign
started a little earlier'. Some people do say this, however he was not inaugurated into office by the
Senate until this particular date of September 18, 14 CE. You don't officially start ruling until you are
inaugurated in office, so this date is well established.
If we take September 18th, 14 CE and then we add 15 years to that, that's going to conclude in
September of 29 CE. So the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar would be 29 CE.
That is the year in which both Yohannon and Yeshua the Messiah turn 30 years old.
If we count backwards 30 years beginning with 29 CE, counting all the way back, you get to the year 2
BC. Note that when counting back, there is no 'zero' year between the CE and BC. That will throw you
off you just try to do the math with your calculator. It goes directly from 1 BC to 1 CE so there's no
'zero' year there. If you count that correctly you come to 2 BC as the year of Messiah's birth. (T:15:30)
Addressing Controversy
objections to Luke
Since Yeshua was born in 2BC, he was 30 years old in 29 CE. That means he would have been 33.5
years old when he came to the end of his ministry and was crucified on Passover of 33 of CE or AD,
whichever you use. So we have the whole story of his life here in terms of when he was born and when
he died. We have all of this information and it is firmly pinpointed by Luke.
Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary states that:
“Jesus's birth happened before Herod the Greats death which was no later than march or April in 4
B.C.”
This is the date that we commonly see, it's 4 BC or earlier. So it might be 5, 6 and some go as far back
as 8 BC. What we've seen though is that the book of Luke demands that Yeshua's birth would have to
be in 2 BC. Essentially what you have here is Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary and all of the
rest of them that say that Luke is wrong. They're not saying that, but in so many words they are because
they are picking a different day. Now this is why this has been commonly accepted and why you find it
in all of these reference works. It's really pretty simple. It has always been thought that Herod the Great
who of course had to be alive before Messiah was born, because he killed all the infants, that he died in
the year 4 BC. It's always been believed that that was true and so the reason why you find in all these
reference works that Messiah was born sometime before the year 4 BC, is because it was believed that
Herod died in the year 4 BC. So if Herod was not even alive in the year 2 BC, then Messiah couldn't
have been born then.
However we should believe the Bible first before secular material. The whole problem here is that
people have believed the secular evidence first and a certain interpretation of it, instead of what is
plainly set forth in the book of Luke. On the basis of the secular information, they have actually
claimed that Luke made a mistake. This all revolves around Josephus. Josephus was a Jewish priest in
the first century and he wrote an extensive history and in it he writes about Herod and this is the
principle source of information that we have about Herod. We are going to now read the section from
the Antiquities of the Jews written by Josephus that applies to this matter of Herod's death.
Antiquities of the Jews 17:167-191
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.
167
What he's describing here is this intrigue that went on between this high priest and Herod and how
Herod carried out his vengeance against them and then it mentions of course on that very night
there was an eclipse of the moon. The account from Josephus goes on to explain how Herod died
before the Passover of that same year. So the way that they connect this up is somewhat more
complex than this but what it comes down to is there's an eclipse of the moon in the year that Herod
died. That's what they use in order to time this event of Herod's death. So they're saying that we
have to pick the year that the eclipse of the moon and it meets other textual things here and that's
the year that Herod died. So on the basis of this information, they picked the year 4 as the date of
Herod's death.
Since that happened, we have more information that has come out. Under Herod the Great in
Wikipedia, it gives really some of the most recent information about it. We're going to read a quote
right now.
Josephus (Ant. 17.167) reports Herod died after a lunar eclipse. There is
disagreement about whether Herod counted his years of rule from when
he was titled king or from when he actually sat on the throne. If the
former, he may have died after one of the total lunar eclipses that was
visible from Jerusalem in 5 BC. However, counting off 34 regnal years
from year 40 BC (with partial years not included) leads most scholars to
argue he died in 4 BC, despite there being only a partial lunar eclipse in
that year, on March 13. However, if Herod counted his regnal years from
when he ruled Judea, he may have died in 1 BC, perhaps after the total
lunar eclipse that was visible from Jerusalem on 9 January, 1 BC.
Now they picked this date in 4BC because there was an eclipse that year. Now according to NASA,
and their information, that particular eclipse in 4 BC, only 37% of the Moon was in shadow.
According to NASA's information, the eclipse on January 9th of the year 1 was a TOTAL lunar
eclipse that started at about 2230 (10:30 PM) local time. Everybody would have seen that eclipse
and so that one is the one that you would expect Luke would be talking about, not the partial eclipse
earlier. So why do the experts pick the one that's obviously wrong instead of the one that is a total
lunar eclipse on the right year?
Based in Josephus' Antiquities it has been traditionally inferred that
Herod died at the end of March, or early April of 4 BC. However, modern
scholarship has deepened our understanding of Josephus' manuscripts
and present evidences corroborating the date of Herod's death as 1 BC.
The primary one is that a printer typesetting of the manuscript
Antiquities messed up in the year 1544. According to scholars, every
single Josephus manuscript in these libraries dating from before 1544
supports the inference that Herod died in 1 BC.
Isn't that amazing? So you see, there was a change that happened to our copies of the Josephus
manuscript in 1544. So since 1544, the Josephus manuscripts are put together in such a way that
they infer the 4 BC date. However all of the older manuscripts are different and they all point
towards the 1 BC date. Unfortunately many scholars still hold on to the 4 BC date to protect their
professional pride. However the fact is that Herod did not die in 4 BC, he died in the year 1 BC. This
is proven by the oldest manuscripts of Josephus, by the astronomical evidence and of course by the
book of Luke which all along said that Yeshua the Messiah was born in the year 2 BC. So we can
put that all together. Messiah was born in the year 2, some time a little bit later in that year, Herod
killed the innocent children in his effort to try and kill the Messiah and then in the very next year,
Herod was struck by God with a horrible disease. Josephus tells all about this horrible death that
Herod died. So 2 BC was the year of the birth of Messiah according to the book of Luke.
One more argument regarding
Luke chapter 2 verses 1-5
Luke 2:1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that
all the world should be taxed.
Luke 2:2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
Luke 2:3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
Luke 2:4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city
of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
Luke 2:5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
We have a number of things that it points to in these verses. The first thing we notice is that Caesar
Augustus ordered the census and then it mentions Cyrenius was governor of Syria at the time.
Each family must register at their family of origin which is why they had to go back to Bethlehem.
We've established that Herod died in 1 BC, so Yeshua's birth had to have been before Herod's
death. So we have this information in Luke that we already looked at that would tell us that Yeshua's
birth was in the year 2 BC, but then it mentions Cyrenius here and what the story is with Cyrenius is
that because of information in Josephus, they say he was made governor around the year 6 CE so
quite a bit later and so therefor they're saying that okay Luke then is here dating the birth of Yeshua
at 6 AD or later. So they're saying ok Luke in one place is saying that it would be earlier and then in
this place because Cyrenius was governor later and conducted a census later around the year 6,
that that proves that Luke was confused, that he was wrong about one thing or the other. That's
basically what they're saying. This is based on some things that Josephus wrote about in this period
”...So Archelaus’s country was laid to the province of Syria; and Cyrenius, one that had been
consul, was sent by Caesar to take account of people’s effects in Syria, and to sell the
house of Archelaus.” (Antiquities, 17 13:5)
What this really all boils down to is that Archelaus was deposed in the year 6 AD. So if Cyrenius is
sent there because of that it must have been after 6 AD. Well I don't see any contradiction because
Luke says this was the 1st census taken while Cyrenius was governor of Syria. There's obviously
more than one census here. So if Cyrenius was sent in the year 6 to govern Syria and to conduct a
census, it doesn't mean that he didn't rule in some sense in the area earlier and conduct an earlier
census. The fact that we don't necessarily have records of that, well there's lots of things that we
don't have records of from that period and so Luke says this was the 1st census then why would he
say it was the 1st census unless there's more than one? So this is why I say that this argument is
very weak because those who are the opponents here have to prove that the census in 6 is exactly
the same census that Luke is talking about and they can't really prove that. That's a very very weak
argument. The other thing they say is 'well he wasn't governor until 6, but the story there is that the
word that Luke uses that we translate as 'governor' into English, it's not really the official term
'governor'. It's not the title 'governor'. It is a general title meaning 'a ruler'. So it could be any ruler or
a ruler in this case who's in charge of the census, not necessarily 'the governor'. There's a different
word for 'governor', which is 'legatis' and that is the specific title of a governor and that's not the
word that Luke used. So this doesn't disprove anything that Luke has to say.
The people who are sometimes referred to as the early church fathers who lived closer to the birth
of Yeshua, they all thought that he was born in 2 or 3. None of them picked that earlier date as is
more popular today. And so when the BC/AD system was worked out, it was worked out with what
the early church father had in mind. Here's how it works. Since we have no zero year and Yeshua
was born in the year 2 BC so on his birthday one year later he is turning one year old and he
becomes one year old in the year 1 BC. Now he stays 1 year old for a year so that goes into the
year 1 AD. In 1 AD at this birthday he finally turn 2. So his birthday each year puts him one year
beyond the present year in the AD years. So for instance this year Yeshua turns 2014 years old as a
man and then he always turns the next year. However, for a good part of the year he's the same age
as the calendar year which is really amazing. And you know what that proves to us? Those people
who lived back then knew a lot more than we think they do. Many times the people that lived closer
to that time have a better grasp than do people from much later because they have more
information available to them that now is gone. And I think that the very fact that the early church
fathers unanimously picked the year 2 or 3 shows that it wasn't 4, 5 or 6.
What about the wise men following the star to follow the baby?
If 2 BC is the right time, then in 2 BC or slightly before 2 BC, we ought to find the star. It's extremely
interesting that in the year 3 BC and going into 2 BC, there was some really quite amazing events
astronomically that were brand new, something that hadn't happened before. The Magi, they were
from Babylon and in Babylon they watched the stars, they watched the sky. They thought of it as
having significance and in Babylon there was a huge Jewish community. So when they looked at the
stars, they saw them as having meaning too but in a different way as applying to Israel. It does sort
of reflect the knowledge of Babylon but it's applied in a different way.
It's believed by many people that the Magi that came from the East were actually from the Jewish
community in Babylon, that these were actually wise men of the Jewish community that saw these
things and came looking for their Messiah. I have an interesting quote to read. This is from the
December 1993 In Premise, this is from Craig Chester, president of the Monterrey Institute for
Research in Astronomy and certainly as an astronomer he should be able to tell us something about
what happened with the stars in those years. We're going to read an excerpt from that article and
the article itself was repeating a presentation that he gave before a group of people.
The Star of Bethlehem
By Craig Chester
[Cofounder and Past President, Monterey (California) Institute for Research in
Astronomy, Dr. Chester holds a PhD in astronomy from Case Western Reserve
University.]
In 3 BC and 2 BC, there was a series of close conjunctions involving Jupiter, the planet
that represented kingship, coronations, and the birth of kings. In Hebrew, Jupiter was
known as Tsadik or "Righteousness," a term also used for the Messiah.
In September of 3 BC, Jupiter came into conjunction with Regulus, the star of kingship,
the brightest star in the constellation of Leo. Leo was the constellation of kings, and it
was associated with the Lion of Judah. The royal planet approached the royal star in the
royal constellation representing Israel. Just a month earlier, Jupiter and Venus, the
Mother planet, had seemed almost to touch each other in another close conjunction,
also in Leo. Then the conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus was repeated, not once
but twice, in February and May of 2 BC. Finally, in June of 2 BC, Jupiter and Venus, the
two brightest objects in the sky save the sun and the moon, experienced an even closer
encounter when their disks appeared to touch; to the naked eye they became a single
object above the setting sun. This exceptionally rare spectacle could not have been
missed by the Magi.
In fact, we have seen here only the highlights of an impressive series of planetary
motions and conjunctions fraught with a variety of astrological meanings, involving all
the other known planets of the period: Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. The astrological
significance of these impressive events must surely have been seen by the Magi as the
announcement of the impending birth of a great king of Israel.
But if the planet Jupiter was the Star of Bethlehem, or was a component of the events
that triggered the visit by the Magi, how do we view the final appearance of the Star on
their journey to Bethlehem? It would have been in the southern sky, though fairly high
above the horizon. Could the Star have stopped over Bethlehem? The answer is yes. The
word "stop" was used for what we now call a planet's "stationary point." A planet
normally moves eastward through the stars from night to night and month to month, but
regularly exhibits a "retrograde loop." After it passes the opposite point in the sky from
the sun, it appears to slow, come to a full stop, and move backward (westward) through
the sky for some weeks. Again it slows, stops, and resumes its eastward course.
It seems plausible that the Magi were "overjoyed" at again seeing before them, as they
traveled southward, "his star," Jupiter, which at its stationary point was standing still
over Bethlehem. We do know for certain that Jupiter performed a retrograde loop in 2
BC and that it was stationary on December 25, interestingly enough, during Hanukkah
What this is telling us is that from the standpoint of the Magi, something amazing was really going
on in the sky. Jupiter, which interestingly enough was named 'Tsadik' and this other star 'Regulus',
both consider 'royal', were involved in this dance together and Jupiter actually circled around over
the head of Regulus 3 times as if crowning a king. An amazing thing. And then Jupiter the Tsadik,
started going westward, started going the opposite direction from the direction a star normally goes
and that happens because of what they call 'retrograde motion', in other words, because of the
motion of the earth in relationship to Jupiter in that particular year it made Jupiter appear as if it was
going in the opposite direction actually leading back from Babylon towards the land of Israel and so
this is why after why after already seeing Jupiter crowning a king they said 'oh we're going to follow
that star and they found the Messiah. All of this is actually written in the stars in the years 3 and 2
BC because it started earlier than Yeshua's actual birth in order to bring them there at that general
time. Now what he explains here is that this retrograde motion caused Jupiter, which is one of the
very brightest lights in the sky, to appear to stop right over Bethlehem from the perspective of the
Magi and this happened around Hanukkah so it actually happened, it stopped there several months
after Yeshua's birth. That really is in harmony with the Scriptural account because it appears they
stayed in Bethlehem until Joseph was warned by the angel that they had to leave. They never did
go back from Bethlehem to Nazareth until after they had gone to Egypt. Then when they came back
from Egypt, they went to Nazareth. So they were in Bethlehem for a period of time until the angel
said for them to leave.
We've pinpointed the date from the book of Luke. We have this corroborating information and you'd
think this would be enough but you know there's even more information that corroborates this date?
If this is the time of Yeshua's birth in 2 BC, then his death would have to be in 33 AD. And we know
that it would have happened right on Passover and on Passover there's a full moon. We have the
astronomical evidence from that year that from Jerusalem on Passover in the afternoon there was a
full lunar eclipse said to be the kind of eclipse that causes the moon itself to turn red and to cause
the sky to go dark. So here's more astronomical evidence that agrees perfectly with the Scriptural
picture. Regardless of what the critics have to say, the true information from the Scriptures
themselves stand the test of the truth. For that reason we can tell you without a doubt that Messiah
was born in the year 2 BC. According to our modern reckoning of time and that He died on Passover
day of the year 33