The Weekly Francis – 28 April 2013

Pope Francis is having his "Inaugural Mass"? What's happens in this Mass, and why is it important?

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 17 April 2013 – 28 April 2013 (subscribe hereget as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus/Regina Caeli

General Audiences

Homilies

Papal Tweets

  • “Each one of us longs for love, for truth, for life – and Jesus is all of these things in abundance!” @pontifex, 22 April 2013
  • “Mary is the one who says “Yes”. Mary, help us to come to know the voice of Jesus better, and to follow it.” @pontifex, 23 April 2013
  • “Let us keep the flame of faith alive through prayer and the sacraments: let us make sure we do not forget God.” @pontifex, 24 April 2013
  • “At this time of crisis it is important not to become closed in on oneself, but rather to be open and attentive towards others.” @pontifex, 25 April 2013
  • “Dear young people, do not bury your talents, the gifts that God has given you! Do not be afraid to dream of great things!” @pontifex, 25 April 2013
  • “Join me in praying for the victims of the tragedy in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
    that God will grant comfort and strength to their families” @pontifex, 27 April 2013
  • “The Holy Spirit truly transforms us. With our cooperation, he also wants to transform the world we live in.” @pontifex, 28 April 2013

The eBook version of The Weekly Francis

8 things to know and share about St. Catherine of Siena

St. Catherine of Siena is a saint, mystic, and doctor of the Church. Here are 8 things about her to know and share.

April 29th is the memorial of St. Catherine of Siena.

She is a saint, a mystic, and a doctor of the Church, as well as a patroness of Italy and of Europe.

Who was she, and why is her life so significant?

Here are 8 things to know and share . . .

1. Who is St. Catherine of Siena?

In 2010, Pope Benedict gave an audience in which he discussed the basic facts of her life:

Born in Siena [Italy] in 1347, into a very large family, she died in Rome in 1380.

When Catherine was 16 years old, motivated by a vision of St Dominic, she entered the Third Order of the Dominicans, the female branch known as the Mantellate.

While living at home, she confirmed her vow of virginity made privately when she was still an adolescent and dedicated herself to prayer, penance and works of charity, especially for the benefit of the sick.

Note from her birth and death dates that she only lived to be 33 years old. Nevertheless, a lot happened during her life!

2. What happened after St. Catherine entered religious life?

Quite a number of things. St. Catherine was sought out as a spiritual director, and she played a role in ending the Avignon papacy (when the pope, though still the bishop of Rome, actually lived in Avignon, France).

Pope Benedict explains:

When the fame of her holiness spread, she became the protagonist of an intense activity of spiritual guidance for people from every walk of life: nobles and politicians, artists and ordinary people, consecrated men and women and religious, including Pope Gregory XI who was living at Avignon in that period and whom she energetically and effectively urged to return to Rome.

She travelled widely to press for the internal reform of the Church and to foster peace among the States.

It was also for this reason that Venerable Pope John Paul II chose to declare her Co-Patroness of Europe: may the Old Continent never forget the Christian roots that are at the origin of its progress and continue to draw from the Gospel the fundamental values that assure justice and harmony.

3. Did she face opposition in her lifetime?

KEEP READING.

8 things to know and share about St. Mark and his gospel

April 25 is the feast of St. Mark, companion of the apostles and evangelist. Here are 8 things about him to know and share.

April 25 is the feast of St. Mark, one of the companions of the apostles and the author of one of the gospels.

Who was he, and what do the Bible and the Church Fathers record about him?

Here are 8 things to know and share . . .

 

1. Who was St. Mark?

St. Mark is commonly identified as:

  • The figure John Mark from the book of Acts
  • The figure referred to in St. Paul’s epistles simply as “Mark”
  • The figure in St. Peter’s epistles also referred to simply as “Mark”
  • The author of the second gospel
  • The first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt

 

2. What does the book of Acts tell us about Mark?

We first meet him in chapter 12, just after the martyrdom of James the son of Zebedee (the first of the apostles to be martyred).

At this time, Peter was captured and his martyrdom scheduled, but he was miraculously freed from prison. When this happened, Luke records:

When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying [Acts 12:12].

Mark then began to play a prominent role in the life of the Church, becoming the travelling companion of the apostles Paul and Barnabas:

And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, bringing with them John whose other name was Mark [Acts 12:25].

 

3. How did Mark cause an argument between Paul and Barnabas?

KEEP READING.

The Weekly Francis – 21 April 2013

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 10 April 2013 – 21 April 2013 (subscribe hereget as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus/Regina Caeli

General Audiences

Homilies

Speeches

Papal Tweets

  • “Jesus’ ascension into heaven does not mean his absence, but that he is alive among us in a new way, close to each one of us.” @pontifex, 17 April 2013
  • “Jesus’ ascension into heaven does not mean his absence, but that he is alive among us in a new way, close to each one of us.” @pontifex, 17 April 2013
  • “Please join me in praying for the victims of the explosion in Texas and their families.” @pontifex, 18 April 2013
  • ““The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice and I know them.” The voice of Jesus is unmistakable! He guides us along the path of life.” @pontifex, 21 April 2013

What year was Jesus born? The answer may surprise you

What year was Jesus born? The answer may surprise you.

You might think that Jesus was born in the Year Zero–between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1.

You often hear that Jesus was born around 6-7 B.C.

The evidence from the Bible and the Church Fathers, however, support a different year.

Here’s what the evidence says . . .

 

Not in Year Zero

There is a good reason why Jesus wasn’t born in Year Zero: There wasn’t one.

The sequence of years before Christ ends at 1 B.C. and the A.D. series picks up the very next year with A.D. 1.

This is a bit surprising to us, since we’re used to working with number lines that have a zero on them, but zero wasn’t a concept on the intellectual scene when our way of reckoning years was developed.

If it helps, you can think about it this way: Suppose you have a child and you want to date events relative to that child’s birth. The first year before the child was born would be 1 B.C. (Before the Child), and the first year after his birth (that is, the year ending with his first birthday) would be the first year of the child.

If the child happens to be the Lord, that would be the first year of the Lord, which in Latin is Anno Domini, from which we get A.D.

Thus there is no Year Zero between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1.

(BTW, please note that the “A.D.” goes before the number. “A.D. 2013” = “The Year of the Lord 2013,” which is an intelligible phrase. If you write “2013 A.D.” that would be “2013 the Year of the Lord,” which is gibberish.)

So what year was Jesus born?

 

1 B.C.?

The guy who developed the way we reckon years was a 6th-century monk named Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis the Short”).

He apparently thought Christ was born in 1 B.C. (actually, it’s a bit more complex than that, but we’ll keep this simple).

Today most think this date is a little too late and that the evidence supports a date a few years earlier.

 

6-7 B.C.?

For a little more than a century, the idea has been popular that Jesus was born in 6-7 B.C.

The reasoning goes like this: Jesus was born late in the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C.

Furthermore, the wise men saw the star rise in the east two years before they came to visit Jerusalem, where they met Herod.

Back up two years from 4 B.C. and you get 6 B.C.

Back up another year in case Herod didn’t die immediately after they visited, and you get 7 B.C.

So: 6 or 7 B.C.

The problem, as we saw in a previous post, is that the arguments that Herod died in 4 B.C. are exceptionally weak.

 

3-4 B.C.?

Let’s take the same logic as above and plug in the more likely date of Herod’s death.

As we saw in a previous post, the evidence points to him dying in 1 B.C.

So . . . back up two years from that and you get 3 B.C.

Back up another year for cushion and you get 4 B.C.

Thus: 3-4 B.C.

That’s not an unreasonable estimate, but there are two problems with it:

  1. It’s got a couple of problematic assumptions.
  2. Other evidence, including other evidence from the Bible, suggests it’s a little too early.

The problematic assumptions are that the star was first visible in the east at the moment of Jesus’ birth and that it was visible for a full two years prior to the magi’s arrival.

The first of these assumptions is problematic (among other reasons) because its appearance could be connected with another point in Jesus’ life, such as his conception. If that were the case, you’d need to shave nine months off to find the point of his birth.

It’s also problematic because Matthew doesn’t say that the star appeared two years earlier. What he says is that Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem that were two years old and under, in accord with the time he learned from the magi.

That means that there is some approximating going on here.

Herod would certainly want to make sure the child was dead, and he would err on the side of . . . well, the side of caution from his perspective.

That is, he would to some degree over-estimate how old the child might be in order to be sure of wiping him out.

Thus all the boys two and under were killed.

That means Jesus was at most two years old, but he was likely younger than that.

What may well have happened is Herod may have been told that the star appeared a year ago and he decided to kill all the boys a year on either side of this to make sure of getting the right one.

And then there’s the fact that the ancients often counted parts of a year as a full year in their reckoning, so “two years” might mean “one year plus part of a second year.”

All this suggests that two years was the maximum amount of time earlier that Jesus was born, and likely it was less than that.

Thus . . .

 

2-3 B.C.?

This date would be indicated if we start with Herod’s death in 1 B.C. and then, taking into account the factors named above, backed up only one year, suggesting 2 B.C.

Then, if we back up another year to allow for the fact Herod didn’t die immediately, that would suggest 3 B.C.

So, sometime between 2-3 B.C. would be reasonable, based on what we read in Matthew.

Do we have other evidence suggesting this date?

We do.

Both inside and outside the Bible.

 

The Gospel of Luke

Although Luke offers some helpful clues about the timing of Jesus’ birth, we don’t know enough to make full use of them.

The date of the enrollment ordered by Augustus is notoriously controversial, for example, and too complex to go into here.

However, later indications he gives in his gospel are quite interesting.

He records, for example, that John the Baptist began his ministry in “the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar” (3:1).

Tiberius became emperor after Augustus died in August of A.D. 14. Roman historians (e.g., Tacitus, Suetonius), however, tended to skip part years and begin counting an emperor’s reign with the first January 1 after they took office.

On that reckoning, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar would correspond to what we call A.D. 29. (Remember, the 15th year is the time between the completion of the 14th year and the completion of the 15th year, the same way a child’s first year is the time between his birth and his first birthday.)

Jesus’ ministry starts somewhat after John’s, but it doesn’t appear to be very long. Perhaps only a few weeks or months.

If so, Jesus’ ministry also likely started in A.D. 29.

That’s important, because Luke gives us a second clue: He says Jesus was “about thirty years of age” when he began his ministry (3:23).

So, if you take A.D. 29 and back up thirty years, when does that land you?

You might think in 1 B.C., but remember that there’s no Year Zero, so it would actually be 2 B.C.

Or the end of 3 B.C. if Luke was counting Tiberius’s reign from when he became emperor rather than from the next January 1.

Thus: 2-3 B.C. is a reasonable estimate.

That’s still only an estimate, though, because Jesus could have been a little less or a little more than thirty.

(For purposes of comparison, note that when Luke describes the age of Jairus’s daughter, he says she was “about twelve”; 8:42. So Luke doesn’t seem to go in for rounding things to the nearest 5 years; he tries to be more precise than that. When Luke says Jesus was “about thirty,” he’s probably not envisioning anything between 25 and 35 but a range narrower than that.)

To confirm our estimate, it would be nice if we had an exact naming of the year Jesus was born, and in fact we do . . .

 

The Fathers Know Best

There is a startling consensus among early Christian sources about the year of Jesus’ birth.

Here is a table adapted from Jack Finegan’s excellent Handbook of Biblical Chronology (p. 291) giving the dates proposed by different sources:

The Alogoi

4 B.C. or A.D. 9

Cassiodorus Senator

3 B.C.

St. Irenaeus of Lyon

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

St. Clement of Alexandria

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

Tertullian of Carthage

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

Julius Africanus

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

St. Hippolytus of Rome

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

“Hippolytus of Thebes”

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

Origen of Alexandria

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

Eusebius of Caesarea

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

Epiphanius of Salamis

 3 B.C. or 2 B.C.

Orosius

2 B.C.

Dionysius Exiguus

1 B.C.

The Chronographer of the Year 354

A.D. 1

As you can see, except for a few outliers (including our influential friend, Dionysius Exiguus), there is strong support for Jesus being born in either 3 or 2 B.C.

And note that some of the sources in this table are quite ancient. Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, and Hippolytus of Rome all wrote in the late 100s or early 200s.

We thus have strong indication–from a careful reading of Matthew, from Luke, and from the Church Fathers–that Jesus was born in 3 or 2 B.C.

What year was Jesus born? The answer may surprise you

What year was Jesus born? The answer may surprise you.

You might think that Jesus was born in the Year Zero–between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1.

You often hear that Jesus was born around 6-7 B.C.

The evidence from the Bible and the Church Fathers, however, support a different year.

Here’s what the evidence says . . .

 

Not in Year Zero

There is a good reason why Jesus wasn’t born in Year Zero: There wasn’t one.

The sequence of years before Christ ends at 1 B.C. and the A.D. series picks up the very next year with A.D. 1.

This is a bit surprising to us, since we’re used to working with number lines that have a zero on them, but zero wasn’t a concept on the intellectual scene when our way of reckoning years was developed.

If it helps, you can think about it this way: Suppose you have a child and you want to date events relative to that child’s birth. The first year before the child was born would be 1 B.C. (Before the Child), and the first year after his birth (that is, the year ending with his first birthday) would be the first year of the child.

If the child happens to be the Lord, that would be the first year of the Lord, which in Latin is Anno Domini, from which we get A.D.

Thus there is no Year Zero between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1.

(BTW, please note that the “A.D.” goes before the number. “A.D. 2013” = “The Year of the Lord 2013,” which is an intelligible phrase. If you write “2013 A.D.” that would be “2013 the Year of the Lord,” which is gibberish.)

So what year was Jesus born?

 

1 B.C.?

The guy who developed the way we reckon years was a 6th-century monk named Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis the Short”).

He apparently thought Christ was born in 1 B.C. (actually, it’s a bit more complex than that, but we’ll keep this simple).

Today most think this date is a little too late and that the evidence supports a date a few years earlier.

 

6-7 B.C.?

For a little more than a century, the idea has been popular that Jesus was born in 6-7 B.C.

The reasoning goes like this: Jesus was born late in the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C.

Furthermore, the wise men saw the star rise in the east two years before they came to visit Jerusalem, where they met Herod.

Back up two years from 4 B.C. and you get 6 B.C.

Back up another year in case Herod didn’t die immediately after they visited, and you get 7 B.C.

So: 6 or 7 B.C.

The problem, as we saw in a previous post, is that the arguments that Herod died in 4 B.C. are exceptionally weak.

 

3-4 B.C.?

Let’s take the same logic as above and plug in the more likely date of Herod’s death.

As we saw in a previous post, the evidence points to him dying in 1 B.C.

So . . . back up two years from that and you get 3 B.C.

Back up another year for cushion and you get 4 B.C.

Thus: 3-4 B.C.

That’s not an unreasonable estimate, but there are two problems with it:

  1. It’s got a couple of problematic assumptions.
  2. Other evidence, including other evidence from the Bible, suggests it’s a little too early.

The problematic assumptions are that the star was first visible in the east at the moment of Jesus’ birth and that it was visible for a full two years prior to the magi’s arrival.

The first of these assumptions is problematic (among other reasons) because its appearance could be connected with another point in Jesus’ life, such as his conception. If that were the case, you’d need to shave nine months off to find the point of his birth.

It’s also problematic because Matthew doesn’t say that the star appeared two years earlier. What he says is that Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem that were two years old and under, in accord with the time he learned from the magi.

That means that there is some approximating going on here.

Herod would certainly want to make sure the child was dead, and he would err on the side of . . . well, the side of caution from his perspective.

That is, he would to some degree over-estimate how old the child might be in order to be sure of wiping him out.

Thus all the boys two and under were killed.

That means Jesus was at most two years old, but he was likely younger than that.

What may well have happened is Herod may have been told that the star appeared a year ago and he decided to kill all the boys a year on either side of this to make sure of getting the right one.

And then there’s the fact that the ancients often counted parts of a year as a full year in their reckoning, so “two years” might mean “one year plus part of a second year.”

All this suggests that two years was the maximum amount of time earlier that Jesus was born, and likely it was less than that.

Thus . . .

 

2-3 B.C.?

This date would be indicated if we start with Herod’s death in 1 B.C. and then, taking into account the factors named above, backed up only one year, suggesting 2 B.C.

Then, if we back up another year to allow for the fact Herod didn’t die immediately, that would suggest 3 B.C.

So, sometime between 2-3 B.C. would be reasonable, based on what we read in Matthew.

Do we have other evidence suggesting this date?

We do.

Both inside and outside the Bible.

 

The Gospel of Luke

Although Luke offers some helpful clues about the timing of Jesus’ birth, we don’t know enough to make full use of them.

The date of the enrollment ordered by Augustus is notoriously controversial, for example, and too complex to go into here.

However, later indications he gives in his gospel are quite interesting.

He records, for example, that John the Baptist began his ministry in “the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar” (3:1).

Tiberius became emperor after Augustus died in August of A.D. 14. Roman historians (e.g., Tacitus, Suetonius), however, tended to skip part years and begin counting an emperor’s reign with the first January 1 after they took office.

On that reckoning, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar would correspond to what we call A.D. 29. (Remember, the 15th year is the time between the completion of the 14th year and the completion of the 15th year, the same way a child’s first year is the time between his birth and his first birthday.)

Jesus’ ministry starts somewhat after John’s, but it doesn’t appear to be very long. Perhaps only a few weeks or months.

If so, Jesus’ ministry also likely started in A.D. 29.

That’s important, because Luke gives us a second clue: He says Jesus was “about thirty years of age” when he began his ministry (3:23).

So, if you take A.D. 29 and back up thirty years, when does that land you?

You might think in 1 B.C., but remember that there’s no Year Zero, so it would actually be 2 B.C.

Or the end of 3 B.C. if Luke was counting Tiberius’s reign from when he became emperor rather than from the next January 1.

Thus: 2-3 B.C. is a reasonable estimate.

That’s still only an estimate, though, because Jesus could have been a little less or a little more than thirty.

(For purposes of comparison, note that when Luke describes the age of Jairus’s daughter, he says she was “about twelve”; 8:42. So Luke doesn’t seem to go in for rounding things to the nearest 5 years; he tries to be more precise than that. When Luke says Jesus was “about thirty,” he’s probably not envisioning anything between 25 and 35 but a range narrower than that.)

To confirm our estimate, it would be nice if we had an exact naming of the year Jesus was born, and in fact we do . . .

 

The Fathers Know Best

There is a startling consensus among early Christian sources about the year of Jesus’ birth.

Here is a table adapted from Jack Finegan’s excellent Handbook of Biblical Chronology (p. 291) giving the dates proposed by different sources:

The Alogoi 4 B.C. or A.D. 9
Cassiodorus Senator 3 B.C.
St. Irenaeus of Lyon  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
St. Clement of Alexandria  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
Tertullian of Carthage  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
Julius Africanus  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
St. Hippolytus of Rome  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
“Hippolytus of Thebes”  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
Origen of Alexandria  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
Eusebius of Caesarea  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
Epiphanius of Salamis  3 B.C. or 2 B.C.
Orosius 2 B.C.
Dionysius Exiguus 1 B.C.
The Chronographer of the Year 354 A.D. 1

As you can see, except for a few outliers (including our influential friend, Dionysius Exiguus), there is strong support for Jesus being born in either 3 or 2 B.C.

And note that some of the sources in this table are quite ancient. Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, and Hippolytus of Rome all wrote in the late 100s or early 200s.

We thus have strong indication–from a careful reading of Matthew, from Luke, and from the Church Fathers–that Jesus was born in 3 or 2 B.C.

Jesus’ birth and when Herod the Great *really* died

The birth of Jesus Christ is tied to the death of Herod the Great. Here’s when that *actually* happened.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus Christ was born in the final years of the tyrant known as Herod the Great.

He tells us that when Jesus was born, Herod panicked and had all the baby boys in Bethlehem killed.

Fortunately, the Holy Family escaped to Egypt and remained there until Herod was dead.

They didn’t have to stay long, though.

Here’s when Herod the Great actually died . . .

 

Setting Aside a Common Mistake

For just over a hundred years, the question of when Herod the Great died has been dominated by a proposal by the German scholar Emil Schurer.

He suggested that Herod died in 4 B.C., and this view took off in scholarly circles.

But in recent decades, it’s been challenged and, as we saw in a previous post, the arguments for this position are exceptionally weak.

So when did Herod actually die?

 

The Length of Herod’s Reign

Here is how the Jewish historian Josephus describes the timing of Herod’s death:

So Herod, having survived the slaughter of his son [Antipater] five days, died, having reigned thirty-four years, since he had caused Antigonus to be slain, and obtained his kingdom; but thirty-seven years since he had been made king by the Romans [War of the Jews, 1:33:8 (665); cf. Antiquities of the Jews 17:8:1 (191)].

In this place, Josephus dates Herod’s death by three events:

  1. Five days after the execution of his son Antipater.
  2. Thirty-four years after he “obtained his kingdom” (i.e., conquered Jerusalem and had its Hasmonean king, Antigonus, killed).
  3. Thirty-seven years after “he had been made king by the Romans.”

The death of Antipater isn’t a particularly helpful clue, but the two ways of reckoning the length of his reign are.

First, though, we need to answer one question . . .

 

How Is Josephus Counting Years?

Kings don’t tend to come into office on New Year’s Day, and so they often serve a partial year before the next calendar year begins (regardless of which calendar is used).

They also don’t die on the last day of the year, typically, so they also serve a partial year at the end of their reigns.

This creates complications for historians, because ancient authors sometimes count these additional part-years (especially the one at the beginning of the reign) as a full year.

Or they ignore the calendar year and treat the time that a king came into office as a kind of birthday and reckon his reign in years from that point.

What scheme was Josephus using?

Advocates of the idea that Herod died in 4 B.C. argue that he was named king in 40 B.C. To square that with a 37-year reign ending in 4. B.C., they must count the part year at the beginning of his reign and the part year at the end of it as years. That’s the only way the math will work out.

The problem is that this is not how Josephus would have reckoned the years.

Biblical chronology scholar Andrew E. Steinmann comments:

[T]here is no evidence for this [inclusive way of reckoning the partial years]–and every other reign in this period, including those of the Jewish high priests, are reckoned non-inclusively by Josephus [From Abraham to Paul, 223].

In other words, Josephus does not count the partial first year when dating reigns in this period.

Knowing that, what would we make of Josephus’s two ways of dating Herod’s reign?

 

Herod Appointed King

As we saw in the previous post, Josephus gave an impossible date (one that did not exist) for Herod’s appointment as king.

He said it was in the 184th Olympiad, which ended in midyear 40 B.C. and that it was in the consulship of Calvinus and Pollio, which began in late 40 and extended into 39.

Those can’t both be right, but one of them could be.

Which?

The evidence points to 39 B.C., because we have another source on this: The Roman historians Appian and Dio Cassius.

Appian wrote a history of the Roman civil wars in which he discusses the appointment of Herod in the midst of other events.

By comparing this set of events to how they are dated in Dio Cassius’s Roman History, it can be shown that the events in question–including the appointment of Herod–took place in 39 B.C.

Given how Josephus dates reigns in this period, he would not have counted Herod’s partial first year in 39 B.C. but would have started his count with 38 B.C.

Count 37 years forward from that and you have 1 B.C.

 

Herod Conquers Jerusalem

As we saw in the previous post, Josephus gives contradictory dating information for Herod’s conquest of Jerusalem.

Some of the dating information he provides points to 37 B.C. and some points to 36 B.C.

Josephus said Herod died 34 years after the event.

Bearing in mind that Josephus wasn’t counting partial first years, that would put Herod’s death either in 2 B.C. (if he conquered Jerusalem in 37) or in 1 B.C. (if he conquered the city in 36).

There are various ways to try to resolve which, but some are rather complex.

At least one, however, is quite straightforward . . .

 

Herod’s Lunar Eclipse

We saw in the previous post that Josephus said Herod died between a lunar eclipse and Passover.

While there was a partial lunar eclipsed before Passover in 4 B.C. there was a total lunar eclipse before Passover in 1 B.C.

Further, the lunar eclipse in 1 B.C. better fits the situation Josephus describes (see the previous post for details).

Since 4 B.C. is outside the range indicated above, and since the 1 B.C. lunar eclipse fits the situation better, that lets us decide between 2 B.C. and 1 B.C. in favor of the latter.

There was no lunar eclipse in 2 B.C., pointing us toward 1 B.C.

 

Final Answer?

Putting together the pieces above, we have:

  • Reason to think Herod died in 1 B.C. based on the amount of time he served after being appointed king by the Romans.
  • Reason to think Herod died in either 2 or 1 B.C. based on the amount of time he served after conquering Jerusalem.
  • Reason to think Herod died in 1 B.C. because of the lunar eclipse that occurred before Passover.

More specifically, he would have died between January 10, 1 B.C. (the date of the lunar eclipse) and April 11, 1 B.C. (the date of Passover).

Most likely, it was closer to the latter date, since Josephus records a bunch of things Herod did after the eclipse and before his death, some of which required significant travel time.

There is also one more reason that we should reject the death of Herod in 4 B.C. in favor of a 1 B.C. date . . .

 

We Know When Jesus Was Born

We don’t have to restrict our knowledge of when Herod died to the sources and events mentioned above.

We can also date his death relative to the birth of Christ.

For some reason, moderns seem to think that the dating of Herod’s death should govern when Jesus was born, but the logic works both ways: If we know when Jesus was born, that tells us something about when Herod died.

And we, in fact, have quite good information about the year in which Jesus was born.

It was after 4 B.C., ruling out that date.

So . . . what year was Jesus born?

Stay tuned . . . 

The Weekly Francis – 14 April 2013

Pope Francis is having his "Inaugural Mass"? What's happens in this Mass, and why is it important?

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 3 April 2013 – 14 April 2013 (subscribe hereget as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus/Regina Caeli

General Audiences

Homilies

Speeches

Papal Tweets

  • “Being a Christian is not just about following commandments: it is about letting Christ take possession of our lives and transform them.” @pontifex, 10 April 2013
  • “If we act like children of God, knowing that he loves us, our lives will be made new, filled with serenity and joy.” @pontifex, 10 April 2013
  • “Let us not forget: if we are to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, our lives must bear witness to what we preach.” @pontifex, 14 April 2013
  • “Worshipping God means learning to be with him, stripping away our hidden idols and placing him at the centre of our lives.” @pontifex, 14 April 2013

7 clues tell us precisely when Jesus died (the year, month, day, and hour revealed)

If we put the clues together, can we figure out precisely when Jesus died? Yes, we can!

We recently celebrated Good Friday and Easter, the annual celebrations of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We all know that this happened in Jerusalem in the first century.

That separates Jesus from mythical pagan deities, who were supposed to live in places or times that none could specify.

Just how specific can we be with the death of Jesus?

Can we determine the exact day?

We can.

And here’s how . . .

 

Clue #1: The High Priesthood of Caiaphas

The gospels indicate that Jesus was crucified at the instigation of the first century high priest named Caiaphas (Matthew 26:3-4, John 11:49-53).

We know from other sources that he served as high priest from A.D. 18 to 36, so that puts Jesus’ death in that time frame.

But we can get more specific. Much more.

 

Clue #2: The Governorship of Pontius Pilate

All four gospels agree that Jesus was crucified on the orders of Pontius Pilate (Matthew 27:24-26, Mark 15:15, Luke 23:24, John 19:15-16).

We know from other sources when he served as governor of Judea–A.D. 26 to A.D. 36–so we can narrow down the range by several years.

But how are we going to get it down to a specific day and year?

 

Clue #3: After “the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Caesar”

The Gospel of Luke tells us when the ministry of John the Baptist began:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar . . . the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness [Luke 3:1-2].

This picks out a specific year: A.D. 29.

Since all four gospels depict the ministry of Christ beginning after that of John the Baptist had begun (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 1), this means that we can shave a few more years off our range.

The death of Christ had to be in a range of seven years: between A.D. 29 and 36.

 

Clue #4: Crucified on a Friday

All four gospels agree that Jesus was crucified on a Friday (Matt. 27:62Mark 15:42; Luke23:54;  John 19:42), just before a Sabbath, which was just before the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1).

We know that it was a Friday because it is referred to as “the day of preparation”–that is, the day on which Jews made the preparations they needed for the Sabbath, since they could not do any work on that day. Thus thus cooked food in advance and made other necessary preparations.

The Jewish Encyclopedia states:

Friday, as the forerunner of Shabbat, is called “‘Ereb Shabbat” (The Eve of Sabbath). The term “‘ereb” admits of two meanings: “evening” and “admixture” (Ex. xii. 38); and “‘Ereb Shabbat” accordingly denotes the day on the evening of which Sabbath begins, or the day on which food is prepared for both the current and the following days, which latter is Sabbath.

The idea of preparation is expressed by the Greek name paraskeué, given by Josephus (“Ant.” xvi. 6, § 2) to that day (compare Mark xv. 42; Luke xxiii. 54; Matt. xxvii. 62; John xix. 42). In Yer. Pesaḥim iv. 1 the day is called “Yoma da-‘Arubta” (Day of Preparation) [Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v., “Calendar”].

That eliminates six of the days of the week, but there were still quite a few Fridays between A.D. 29 and 36.

Can we figure out which one?

 

Clue #5: A Friday at Passover

The gospels also agree that Jesus was crucified in conjunction with the annual feast of Passover (Matthew 26:2, Mark 14:1, Luke 22:1, John 18:39).

Here we encounter a momentary complication, because Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe the Last Supper on Holy Thursday as a Passover meal (Matthew 26:19, Mark 14:14, Luke 22:15). That would suggest that Good Friday was the day after Passover.

However, when describing the morning of Good Friday, John indicates that the Jewish authorities had not yet eaten the Passover meal:

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium [i.e., Pilate’s palace]. It was early. They themselves did not enter the Praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover. So Pilate went out to them [John 18:28-29a].

That suggests that the Passover would have begun on sundown Friday.

There are a number of ways of resolving this. For example, some have suggested that Jesus and his disciples used a different calendar than the Jewish authorities, and we know that there were different calendars in use in first century Judaism.

It’s also possible that Jesus just advanced the date of the Passover celebration for him and his disciples. I mean, they were already convinced he was the Messiah and the Son of God. If he says, “We’re celebrating Passover today,” and it’s a day earlier than most people, they’d just go with that. (Note that he made other modifications to the ceremony, such as instituting the Eucharist in the midst of it.)

And there are other solutions.

However, regardless of what Jesus’ movement did, we can look to John’s statement about the Jesus’ captors as an indication of what the Jewish authorities or the mainstream Jewish practice was: They were celebrating a Passover beginning on what we would call Friday evening.

That lets us narrow down the range of possible dates to just a few. Here is a complete list of the days between A.D. 29 and 36 on whose evenings Passover began:

  • Monday, April 18, A.D. 29
  • Friday, April 7, A.D. 30
  • Tuesday, March 27, A.D. 31
  • Monday, April 14, A.D. 32
  • Friday, April 3, A.D. 33
  • Wednesday, March 24, A.D. 34
  • Tuesday, April 12, A.D. 35
  • Saturday, March 31, A.D. 36

As you can see, we have just two candidates left: Jesus was either crucified on April 7 of A.D. 30 or April 3 of A.D. 33.

Which was it?

The traditional date is that of A.D. 33. You will find quite a number of people today advocating the A.D. 30 date.

Do the gospels let us decide between the two?

 

Clue #6: John’s Three Passovers

The Gospel of John records three different Passovers during the ministry of Jesus:

  • Passover #1: This is recorded in John 2:13, near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
  • Passover #2: This is recorded in John 6:4, in the middle of Jesus’ ministry.
  • Passover #3: This is recorded in John 11:55 (and frequently mentioned afterwards), at the end of Jesus’ ministry.

That means that the ministry of Jesus had to span something over two years. A fuller treatment would reveal that it spanned about three and a half years, but even if we assume it began immediately before Passover #1, the addition of two more Passovers shows that it lasted more than two years at a bare minimum.

That means the A.D. 30 date is out.

There is not enough time between the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar–A.D. 29–and the next year’s Passover to accomodate a ministry of at least two years.

The numbers don’t add up.

As a result, the traditional date of Jesus’ death–Friday, April 3, A.D. 33–must be regarded as the correct one.

Can we be even more precise?

 

Clue #7: “The Ninth Hour”

Matthew, Mark, and Luke each record that Jesus died about “the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45-50, Mark 15:34-37, Luke 23:44-46).

“The ninth hour” is what we, today, would refer to as 3:00 p.m.

This allows us to narrow down the time of Jesus’ death to a very specific point in history: around 3:00 p.m on Friday, April 3, A.D. 33.

Of course, there are a lot of detailed arguments that I haven’t taken space to deal with here. But this is the thrust of things.

This is when it happened. 

Pope Francis Washing Women’s Feet & The Popes Who Thought About Resigning . . . But Didn’t

 

Recently, Pope Francis washed the feet of several young people, including young women. He did this in the wake of Pope Benedict's resignation. Here are two interesting discussions of Pope Francis's actions and a look at recent popes who thought about resigning but didn't do so in the end.

It has been widely reported that, when he was still the cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, the future Pope Francis washed the feet of women during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

Now he has done so as pope.

Did he break the Church’s law?

What does this event mean, and how can we understand what he was trying to do?

CLICK HERE TO READ WHAT I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT THAT.

 

Popes Who Thought About Resigning . . . But Didn’t

Benedict XVI’s resignation may have been the first papal resignation in hundreds of years, but it didn’t come completely out of the blue.

He’d already indicated that he had been thinking about the subject of resignation.

What is less well known is that other recent popes had been thinking about it, too.

lot of recent popes.

CLICK HERE TO READ WHAT I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT THAT.

 

Two Conversations

This special, extra episode of the Jimmy Akin Podcast contains two conversations I recently had on these subjects on Al Kresta’s and Drew Mariani’s radio shows.

I thought they were very interesting, productive discussions, and so I thought I’d share them with you.

Use the player or links below to listen!

(Or, if you’re reading by email CLICK HERE to go to the original post and listen.)