User blog:Christian Sirolli/The Date of Christ's Death Revisited

3 years ago, I wrote an essay on the date of Christ's death. I examined much evidence surrounding the the beginning and ending of Jesus' ministry, and came to the conclusion that Jesus died on April 25th, AD 31. Recently, I have been working on a timeline of the history of the Bible. I started fresh with everything, re-examining all the dates and evidence throughout the Bible and relevant history, as well as new theories as well as old ones, some barely taking root but stirring things up, and others well rooted among scholars but left largely unquestioned. The timeline I linked to is a result (albeit, still a work-in-progress) of this research. In the process, I went over the dates of when Jesus was born, began His ministry, and died. Feeling confident in this work, I vaguely remembered my previous essay on the subject, somewhat wondering about what led me to think what I wrote. My new research has led me to believe Jesus died in AD 30, as is accepted by many, and I will show the results of that here.

But then I came across my essay, and reread it with fresh eyes. I noticed many assumptions and errors that I did not realize then but see clearly now that had led me to believe what I wrote. I had also come across some interesting coincidences that seemed to back up my claim. But with my latest research, I decided to revisit my previous claim and review the evidence and affirm the date AD 30.

First I would like to review the relevant and available data, then we can piece it all together to see how it fits.

Biblical Sources

 * 1)  says John the Baptist began his ministry shortly before Jesus did, in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of [Judea, Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Philip was the tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. This was during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. Calculating this accurately should help in establishing the earliest possible year Jesus could have started His ministry, since Jesus began His ministry after John began his.
 * 2) Jesus' first recorded Passover occurred near the time of His first Temple clearing. At this event, recorded in, Jesus' authority was questioned by the Jews, and He told them to tear down this Temple, referring to Himself, and in 3 days He would raise it again. However, not realizing that He was referring to Himself, they exclaimed that it took 46 years to build the Temple, referring to Herod the Great's renovations that began in 20 or 19 BC and continued after his death until a few years prior to its destruction in AD 70. This synchronism can help us pinpoint when this event occurred, and give us the latest date of when Jesus began His ministry, since this was after His baptism.
 * 3)  says there would be 7 heptads (period of 7) and 62 heptads in between the going out of the word to rebuild Jerusalem and the coming of the Anointed One the Prince. After the 62 heptads, the Anointed One would be cut off, some translations say but not for Himself, others say He would be cut off and have nothing. Scholars believe these heptads are periods of 7 years, totaling to 483 years. Knowing the start of the 7 heptads should give us the exact year the Anointed One (i.e. the Messiah) came, that is, began His ministry. This year should be in between the years of points 1 and 2 above. Some of the proposed events that could be the starting point for point 3 are:
 * 4) The decree of Cyrus in 538 or 537 BC,
 * 5) The decree to Ezra in 458 BC, or
 * 6) The decree to Nehemiah in 445 or 444 BC. With this we are looking at an example of the Goldilocks principle: one event is too early, one event is too late, and one should be just right.
 * 7) The events surrounding Jesus' death and burial can be chronologically confusing. However, in my essay, I proposed a set of dates for how this could have occurred. The event of Jesus death occurred during Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. First the Passover is celebrated for a day, followed by a week of feasting during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. At times these terms became synonymous with each other, especially today. I had suggested that an occurrence of this can be found in the Gospels, which leads to confusion of when Jesus was arrested and crucified. Matthew calls the day of His arrest "the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread", and the day of His crucifixion "Preparation Day". Mark agrees with Matthew, and clarifies that "Preparation Day" was the day before the Sabbath. However, Mark says that when the Sabbath was over the women bought spices, and then on the first day of the week they visited the tomb. Luke says the day of the arrest was the day of the Feast that the Passover lambs were sacrificed, and makes the Feast of Unleavened Bread appear synonymous with Passover. Luke says Jesus died on the Preparation Day, before the Sabbath, but that the women prepared spices and perfumes at home before the Sabbath began. Then John says Jesus was arrested on the day that was just before the Passover Feast. He also says that Jesus died on the "day of Preparation of Passover Week" and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Further on I will sort these details out, but knowing this can help us affirm which year Jesus died, by looking at calendars that have calculated dates that far back and can tell us when the Passover began and on what day of the week.

Piecing It All Together
Let's examine each point above and see what they can tell us.

1. The 15th Year of Tiberius
Tiberius Caesar began his reign in AD 14. A simple calculation would put his 15th year at AD 29. However, nothing is ever simple with history, apparently. He seems to have had a 2 or 3 year co-regency with his predecessor Augustus, and there is still uncertainty about this. If Luke counted from the co-regency, then the 15th year of Tiberius could be either AD 26 or 27. Pontius Pilate, mentioned by Luke to have been governor when John the Baptist began his ministry, began his tenure in AD 26. Therefore, John could not have began his ministry prior to AD 26. This is now the lower limit of when Jesus could have began His ministry.

2. The 46 years of Temple Renovations
Herod the Great began renovations on the Second Temple in 20 or 19 BC in the 18th year of his reign. The events of John 2 as mentioned above took place 46 years following Herod's 18th year. This would be either AD 27 or 28. Since it is probable that Jesus did not start His ministry that year but the previous year sometime after that year's Passover, it is likely that He began His ministry in AD 26 or 27. To be safe we can say the upper limit of when Jesus could have began His ministry is AD 28.

3. The 69 Heptads
So far, the current evidence is pointing to AD 27 as to when Jesus began His ministry, +/- 1 year. Now looking at Daniel's prophecy of the 62 and 7 heptads, it seems that Jesus should have started His ministry 483 years after the word to rebuild Jerusalem was rebuilt.

The first of the three potential starting points is when Cyrus captured Babylon in 537 BC. He took on the title as King of Babylon then, and thus this would have been his first year. Ezra 1 describes that Cyrus, in his first year freed the Jewish exiles to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. 483 years from this event is 54 BC, which is much too earlier for Jesus.

The third event occurred in the 20th year of Artaxerxes I, when Nehemiah asked for permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. This was in 445 BC. 483 years from here is AD 39, again much too late for Jesus. In fact, Pontius Pilate and the High Priest Caiaphas were not in their offices then, having been removed from their offices in AD 36; and they were key characters in Jesus' death.

Now the second event was when Artaxerxes I gave Ezra permission to go to Jerusalem in his 7th year, giving Ezra the financial support to do whatever he saw fit, primarily to rebuild the Temple. This occurred in 458 BC. Now Nehemiah was extremely sad and may have been disappointed that the walls were still destroyed 13 years after Ezra received permission and authority to do what he needed. This suggests that rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem was likely part of this request. 483 years from this event is AD 26.

For AD 26 to be the first year of Jesus ministry, then He and John would have started their ministries in the same year, not far apart of each other, at least 40 days and likely more (this comes from Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness following His baptism by John). This would solidify John's ministry as beginning in AD 26, and Herod's renovations in 20 BC.

So Jesus began His ministry in AD 26. Now Luke says Jesus was about 30 years old when He began His ministry, so He would have been born around 5 BC.

4. The Final Passover
Calculating when Jesus died is a bit trickier. The Gospel of John records 3 Passovers, the one we already mentioned in AD 27, the one when He died and also a second one near the time He fed 5000+ people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Now there is an unnamed feast of the Jews that would have occurred between the first and second Passover. It is believed that this is also a Passover, although I do not see a reason why John would not have said so. However, it is possible that it is indeed the Passover, or at least a relatively close feast such as Pentecost or Tabernacles. There isn't much time spent from John 2, 3, and 4, but an unknown amount of time passes between John 4 and 5, and likewise between 5 and 6. Thus it is plausible that this is another year of ministry.

So Jesus cleared the Temple in AD 27, the unknown feast of the Jews likely occurred in AD 28, Jesus fed the 5000 in AD 29, and had the Last Supper and then died in AD 30. This one unknown feast makes this uncertain the most.

The best of our data suggests AD 30 is the year Christ died. Lets look at when Passover was. Passover was on Nisan 14, with the Feast of Unleavened Bread on Nisan 15 to 21. This corresponds to April 10 and April 11 to 17. On this year, Passover (Nisan 14/April 10) was on a Wednesday. The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was a special Sabbath, so the previous day was a day of preparation, as every day just prior to a Sabbath was. Typically this was Friday, but with the special Sabbath, this Preparation Day was on Wednesday. So the special Sabbath was on Thursday, and the regular Preparation Day was on Friday and the regular Preparation Day was on Saturday.

All of the Gospels agree that Jesus died on some sort of Preparation Day that was followed by a Sabbath. They all agree that Jesus empty tomb was discovered on Sunday morning, after a regular Sabbath.

The women are said to have bought and prepared spices after the Sabbath following Jesus' death was over. But another account says they prepared the spices and herbs at home before the Sabbath, and brought them after the Sabbath to Jesus' tomb. It is certainly possible that these are not the same Sabbaths; the first is a special Sabbath and the second is a regular Sabbath. The day in between gave the women time to adequately prepare everything they needed, which was Friday. Thus Jesus would have died on Wednesday, and arrested on Tuesday.

Now the day prior to the Preparation Day, the day of the Last Supper is described in these ways: This is the most confusing part of it all. In light of the above information concluded about the day Jesus died, these descriptions can be made sense of. John is the easiest, with Tuesday literally being the day before Passover. Now to the Jews, the day ended at sunset around 6 PM. Likewise, the day began at sunset, at 6 PM. So their Sabbaths were about to begin at 6 PM on the Preparation Days. Similarly, their holidays began at sunset, at 6 PM. So with Wednesday being Passover, and with Passover being equated with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it would not be wrong to say that the disciples ate the Last Supper with Jesus on the first day of the feast. Also, the Passover lamb was killed on Passover, Nisan 14. So with this understood reckoning of days, it would also not be wrong for it to be Tuesday, after 6 PM and say it was the day of the Feast that the Passover lambs were sacrificed.
 * The first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread (Matthew & Mark)
 * The day of the Feast that the Passover lambs were sacrificed (Luke)
 * The day that was just before the Passover Feast (John)

I highly recommend reading this article by Don Roth for more of an explanation of the events surrounding Jesus' death.

Conclusion
It is apparent that Jesus was born around 5 BC, began His ministry in AD 26, cleared the Temple the first time in AD 27, fed the 5000+ people in AD 29 (or very late AD 28), and died and rose again in AD 30. We can even know that Jesus died on Wednesday, April 10th. He died on Passover, as our Passover Lamb, the One who spares us from the wrath of God by taking on the fullness of God's wrath upon Himself so we could be reconciled back to God as sinless.