Jesus was born in September
Dec 23, 2004
Jesus was not born on December 25, 1AD a few seconds after midnight. It was on September 11, 3 BC between 6:00 and 7:00 in the
By Hilary Bainemigisha
Jesus was not born on December 25, 1AD a few seconds after midnight. It was on September 11, 3 BC between 6:00 and 7:00 in the evening.
You may not cancel your Christmas yet but it pays to know why scholars burst out laughing when December 25, 1 AD midnight is mentioned.
Winter
It could not have been on December 25, as the shepherds were out in the fields, watching over their flock by night because that is mid winter.
In Israel no one would permit flock out on a winter night. Even the census would have been impossible in winter: a whole population could not, then, be put in motion.
According to Sara Ruhin, the 1990 chief of the Israeli weather service, the December temperature in Bethlehem is about seven degrees Celsius (C) but can drop to below freezing point, especially at night. That area has three months of frost: December with an average of 1.6 C.; January with 1.1 C. and February with 0 C.
King Herod
All Gospels agree that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod, the Great. But Roman records show this Herod to have died in 4 BC, four years before the purported birth year of Christ.
The census
Luke talks of Caesar Augustus’ decree for census ‘while Quirinius was governor of Syria’ (Lk 2: 1-3).
But while the first ever census among the Jews was during Quirinius governorship, this could not have happened until at least 6 A.D, the first year that Judea came under direct Roman rule.
The star
Matthew referred to the an unusual star, which hung over Bethlehem at the time.
On December 17, 1603, a German astronomer, John Kepler, observed a striking conjunction of the planets: Saturn and Jupiter in constellation Pisces and calculated that a similar conjunction must have occurred in 7 BC.
Could this have been the star Matthew talked about? Seventy-nine years later, an English astronomer Edmund Halley discovered the comet (which now bears his name) and referred to it as the star of Bethlehem.
But the most coincidental of its periodic flypasts nearest to the time of Jesus’ birth was calculated to have occurred in 12 BC!
Most recently, British astronomers, David Clark of the Royal Greenwhich Observatory, John Parkinson of Dorking’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory and Richard Stephenson of Newcastle University offered yet another theory that the star of Bethlehem was not a comet. It was an exploding star, visible to the Chinese astronomers of the Han dynasty for more that 70 days in 5 BC.
Count back
We can use Jesus’ events, which are tucked to definite dates, to count back to his birth. Luke dates Jesus’ baptism and beginning of His mission to the 15th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius calculable at 29 AD and says Jesus was 30. Calculating back puts his birth at 2 AD.
Bible scholars indicate his ministry took three and a half years. Since he died during the Passover (their month of Nisan), we only have to go back six months to discover his birthday which puts us to the month of Tishri, that falls between our September and October.
September 11, 3 BC at 7p.m.
Luke 2 says Mary came to the Temple for purification, 40 days after producing. This day is the modern Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar.
Thus the 40th day of Mary’s purification had begun at the end of Yom Kippur, the end of the 10th day of the 7th month, because the purification was done at the earliest opportunity - at the beginning of the 40th day after birth.
And since the 6th month normally had only 29 days, Mary’s 39 days of purification had to have begun around sundown on the first day of the 6th month, called Elul. In 3 BC, the first of Elul was September 11.
This was the night of the first sighting of the new moon of Elul, which the Magi in Babylon actually recorded on a clay tablet.
This cuneiform tablet the Magi made at that hour, 2004 years ago, can be found in the British Museum. Cuneiform scholars have identified the date on this tablet as September 11, 3 BC.
Luke says the shepherds went to town telling people what they had seen earlier that evening. People had no electricity in those days and would have been asleep by 9 or 10 p.m. Therefore, the birth took place within a few minutes of 6:30-7:30 pm on the evening of September 11, 3 BC.
Historian Ernest L. Martin consulted NASA lunar-phase tables and found agreement with the image of the heavens recorded in Revelation 12.
Tables showed the sun and the moon were, relative to Virgo, at the time Jesus was born, pin-pointing at the sunset of September 11, 3 BC.
Autumn of 2 BC
However, some historians favour 2 BC as the right time. Tertullian (born about 160 AD) stated that Augustus began to rule 41 years before the birth of Jesus and died 15 years after that event.
Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, placing Jesus’ birth before 2 BC.
Tertullian also notes that Jesus was born 28 years after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, which is 2 BC
Another historian, Iraneus, born about a century after Jesus, also notes that Jesus was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus.
This places the birth in 2 B.C. Other scholars argue that since John the Baptist was born at the Passover in spring and Jesus 6 months later, autumn qualifies as the month.
March 1, 7 BC, at 1:21 a.m
The Rev. Don Jacobs, author of Astrology’s Pew In Church, used the star positioning to pinpoint Jesus’ birth to March 1, 7 BC, at 1:21 a.m.
He writes, “The birth chart for this time contains a cluster of six planets in Pisces: the Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. (Joining all these gives an image of a fish, which used as a symbol for Jesus’ ministry).
Pisces’ energy explains why Jesus was highly spiritual, compassionate and willing to sacrifice himself for othersâ€.
Jacobs used this chart to follow the events, which occurred in Jesus’ life. The earliest gospel, Mark, skips it. Matthew and Luke, who wrote extensively about it, contradict each other in important particulars. The best way is to just enjoy yourself.
Happy Christmas
Jesus was not born on December 25, 1AD a few seconds after midnight. It was on September 11, 3 BC between 6:00 and 7:00 in the evening.
You may not cancel your Christmas yet but it pays to know why scholars burst out laughing when December 25, 1 AD midnight is mentioned.
Winter
It could not have been on December 25, as the shepherds were out in the fields, watching over their flock by night because that is mid winter.
In Israel no one would permit flock out on a winter night. Even the census would have been impossible in winter: a whole population could not, then, be put in motion.
According to Sara Ruhin, the 1990 chief of the Israeli weather service, the December temperature in Bethlehem is about seven degrees Celsius (C) but can drop to below freezing point, especially at night. That area has three months of frost: December with an average of 1.6 C.; January with 1.1 C. and February with 0 C.
King Herod
All Gospels agree that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod, the Great. But Roman records show this Herod to have died in 4 BC, four years before the purported birth year of Christ.
The census
Luke talks of Caesar Augustus’ decree for census ‘while Quirinius was governor of Syria’ (Lk 2: 1-3).
But while the first ever census among the Jews was during Quirinius governorship, this could not have happened until at least 6 A.D, the first year that Judea came under direct Roman rule.
The star
Matthew referred to the an unusual star, which hung over Bethlehem at the time.
On December 17, 1603, a German astronomer, John Kepler, observed a striking conjunction of the planets: Saturn and Jupiter in constellation Pisces and calculated that a similar conjunction must have occurred in 7 BC.
Could this have been the star Matthew talked about? Seventy-nine years later, an English astronomer Edmund Halley discovered the comet (which now bears his name) and referred to it as the star of Bethlehem.
But the most coincidental of its periodic flypasts nearest to the time of Jesus’ birth was calculated to have occurred in 12 BC!
Most recently, British astronomers, David Clark of the Royal Greenwhich Observatory, John Parkinson of Dorking’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory and Richard Stephenson of Newcastle University offered yet another theory that the star of Bethlehem was not a comet. It was an exploding star, visible to the Chinese astronomers of the Han dynasty for more that 70 days in 5 BC.
Count back
We can use Jesus’ events, which are tucked to definite dates, to count back to his birth. Luke dates Jesus’ baptism and beginning of His mission to the 15th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius calculable at 29 AD and says Jesus was 30. Calculating back puts his birth at 2 AD.
Bible scholars indicate his ministry took three and a half years. Since he died during the Passover (their month of Nisan), we only have to go back six months to discover his birthday which puts us to the month of Tishri, that falls between our September and October.
September 11, 3 BC at 7p.m.
Luke 2 says Mary came to the Temple for purification, 40 days after producing. This day is the modern Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar.
Thus the 40th day of Mary’s purification had begun at the end of Yom Kippur, the end of the 10th day of the 7th month, because the purification was done at the earliest opportunity - at the beginning of the 40th day after birth.
And since the 6th month normally had only 29 days, Mary’s 39 days of purification had to have begun around sundown on the first day of the 6th month, called Elul. In 3 BC, the first of Elul was September 11.
This was the night of the first sighting of the new moon of Elul, which the Magi in Babylon actually recorded on a clay tablet.
This cuneiform tablet the Magi made at that hour, 2004 years ago, can be found in the British Museum. Cuneiform scholars have identified the date on this tablet as September 11, 3 BC.
Luke says the shepherds went to town telling people what they had seen earlier that evening. People had no electricity in those days and would have been asleep by 9 or 10 p.m. Therefore, the birth took place within a few minutes of 6:30-7:30 pm on the evening of September 11, 3 BC.
Historian Ernest L. Martin consulted NASA lunar-phase tables and found agreement with the image of the heavens recorded in Revelation 12.
Tables showed the sun and the moon were, relative to Virgo, at the time Jesus was born, pin-pointing at the sunset of September 11, 3 BC.
Autumn of 2 BC
However, some historians favour 2 BC as the right time. Tertullian (born about 160 AD) stated that Augustus began to rule 41 years before the birth of Jesus and died 15 years after that event.
Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, placing Jesus’ birth before 2 BC.
Tertullian also notes that Jesus was born 28 years after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, which is 2 BC
Another historian, Iraneus, born about a century after Jesus, also notes that Jesus was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus.
This places the birth in 2 B.C. Other scholars argue that since John the Baptist was born at the Passover in spring and Jesus 6 months later, autumn qualifies as the month.
March 1, 7 BC, at 1:21 a.m
The Rev. Don Jacobs, author of Astrology’s Pew In Church, used the star positioning to pinpoint Jesus’ birth to March 1, 7 BC, at 1:21 a.m.
He writes, “The birth chart for this time contains a cluster of six planets in Pisces: the Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. (Joining all these gives an image of a fish, which used as a symbol for Jesus’ ministry).
Pisces’ energy explains why Jesus was highly spiritual, compassionate and willing to sacrifice himself for othersâ€.
Jacobs used this chart to follow the events, which occurred in Jesus’ life. The earliest gospel, Mark, skips it. Matthew and Luke, who wrote extensively about it, contradict each other in important particulars. The best way is to just enjoy yourself.
Happy Christmas