https://sjmagis.com/2022/05/23/christs-date-of-birth/
https://www.newvision.co.ug/news/1090427/jesus-born-september
https://www.elizabethton.com/2018/09/10/excited-about-9-11-and-return-of-jesus/
At the beginning of December, families start preparing for Christmas, known as Jesus Christ’s birthday. When is Jesus’s birthday? Most people think it is December 25. However, this isn’t the correct date of Christ’s birth day.
During Jesus’s time the Julian calendar was invented by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, but this calendar only has 29 days per month, and each century the gap between our calendar and Julian calendar increases from the four year jump. Not only that, but time back then wasn’t properly recorded and maintained.
Before diving deeper into this topic, I would like to say for the record that I firmly believe in Jesus Christ, our savior and messiah. I believe he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, so when discussing the date of birth of Christ, I only wish to question whether or not the common date for His birth is accurate and not question Jesus or disprove him in any way.
By using historical records from the ancient Roman Empire, astronomic events, the Bible, and “The Star that Astonished the World” written by Ernest L. Martin, we can estimate the date of Jesus’ birth is September 11, 3 BC.
To start, Martin wrote the book to discover the identity of the Star of Bethlehem. He made the conclusion of the exact date of the birth of Christ just stated. Martin’s astronomical identification is supported by Roman and Jewish records that lead to Martin’s conclusion that this star is indeed the star that the Magi of the East saw. Who were the Magi of the East? They are the wise men. Magi back then were high-ranking officials, interpreting dreams for kings, interpreters of heavenly signs. These Magi were trained in an astronomical religion, similar to the one Daniel was head of (Book of Daniel 2:48). In a nutshell, these men knew what they were looking for. In the period of 3 – 2 BC, a rare event occurred involving the alignment of Jupiter called the Great Conjunction. The Magi observed a conjunction between Venus and Jupiter in August 12, 3 BC and another in June 17, 2 BC. In ancient cultures, this timeframe was considered a period of 2 years. This is why Herod the Great ordered to kill every son that was two years or younger (Matthew 2:16).
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus started his ministry around age 30. Meanwhile, Tiberius Caesar Augustus had been a Roman Emperor for 15 years. Caesar became an emperor on August 19, 14 AD and killed Jesus during his reign. Caesar chose the year August 14 AD – August 15 AD as a symbol of his power making every year during his reign to start in August and end in August. Subtracting from the point during Caesar’s 15th year of reign would be August 27 – August 28 AD. Subtracting from that, Jesus’ age, we would get 3 BC as Jesus’ birth year.
We figured out the year, but determining the month would require the 24 priestly courses. In I Chronicles 9:22, King David made a system where every week, the first family of priests began their service at noon on a Sabbath (Saturday) and finished on the following Sabbath noon. The 24 priestly courses required one family of priests, and 24 courses took six months to finish. The father of John the Baptist, Zacharias, serves the eighth course (I Chronicles 24:10). These 24 priestly courses began the first month of Nisan (March-April) in the Jewish calendar, and the first day in the 2022 solar calendar is April 2. The first course is April 2 – 8, second April 9 – 15 with the Passover after noon on April 15, followed by the annual holiday celebration from April 16 – 22. The third course begins, then forth, etc. Zacharias‘ eighth week took place May 28 – June 3; fortunately, Zacharias’ wife would conceive a baby after the eight priestly courses around the week of June 13th (Luke 1:13, 23-24). Since the message was delivered by an angel, the pregnancy would have taken 280 days, making John the Baptist’s birthday in the next March. In Luke 1:26, it indicated that Jesus’ birth would take place 6 months prior to John the Baptist’s birth, meaning Jesus was born in September.
By using the Bible, Magi, Martins’ book, and Historical records of Caesar, we are able to determine Jesus’ birthday with an encouraging level of accuracy. However, this topic is still open to investigation and debate.
Excellent breakdown, but, there is one problem that needs to be resolved. Jesus was born before the death of Herod the Great which is fairly established as 4 BCE. When the family returned from Egypt, Herod was already dead.
I believe it reads in the 'time of Herod.'
That is better proof that it wasn't 4 years later, like 99% of the current belief system.
Most reliable scholarship has the date of Herod's death as in 4BCE. However, there are some less accepted dating that places it in 1BCE but this in an outlier. The text also states that when the Magi came, they found "the child" with his mother in "the house" meaning, that they came to see not an infant in a manger. By the time the Magi came, the family were already settled in the city. It is important that people separate their traditions from the clear reading of the text.
People seem to forget that in the ancient world travel took time. It took time for the Magi to travel from the East when they saw his star and to finally reach Jerusalem - a process that from start to finish took several months. Their first visit would naturally be to the capital to inquire on the birth of a new king. This would have been after his birth by several months. It also took time for them to find him. Herod would have waited for the Magi to find him rather than stir the people up. When Herod had found out the Magi had left without telling him, Herod was enraged. When the angel came to Joseph to warn the family to leave because of Herod, this process had taken months. Therefore, Jesus was already a small toddler when they had the visit from the Magi and then escaped to Egypt. The gifts of the Magi paid their way. Herod died when the family was in Egypt. Therefore, placing his birth in 3BCE does not fit.
Sounds like anecdotal cherry picking.
https://goodnessofgodministries.international/2011/12/22/when-was-jesus-christ-born-the-bible-says-september-11-3bc-the-day-of-the-feast-of-trumpets/
O what a day his birth would be! It had been anticipated and prophesied about for about 4000 years. How glorious it must have been when the angel of the Lord pronounced to the shepherds in the fields:
Luke 2:11-14 (NIV 1984):
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
The question becomes when was the “Today” that the angel proclaimed his birth? The book of Revelation gives us critical information in determining the day of the birth of Jesus Christ and it is so amazingly accurate that we can pinpoint the birth of Jesus Christ to a specific day and even that it occurred sometime within a time frame of eighty one minutes during that day.
Revelation 12:1-5 (KJV):
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
The Greek word for “wonder” in verse 1 means “sign” and God’s Word declares that there will be a sign in the heavens when Mary went into labor and gave birth to Jesus Christ. The Word of God is written across the heavens and in the stars. The signs of the Zodiac were originally not used in astrology but each one signified a characteristic of the life and ministry and kingship of Jesus Christ, the promised Savior and Son of God. The sign of the women that the Bible is referring to here is to the constellation Virgo. Revelation 12 further states that this woman was “clothed with the sun” another celestial body. The sun, as it appears to travel through the ecliptic each year, enters into the mid-body between the neck and the knees of the constellation Virgo, clothing her with the sun for approximately a 21 day period during any given year. In the year 3 B.C. which we later show by other celestial events in the heavens to be the year of the birth of Jesus Christ, the sun was in this position from August 27th through September 15th. Revelation also declares that “the moon was under her feet.” With these two specific details, we can pinpoint the birth of Christ very precisely. In 3 B.C. the sun and the moon in Virgo occurred on only one day and that was September 11. The configuration of the sun and the moon was visible in Palestine between sunset and moonset, this twilight period being called “night” in the Bible. On September 11, 3 B.C., sunset was at 6:18pm and moonset at 7:39pm. Jesus Christ was born on September 11, 3 B.C sometime in that eighty-one minute span of time between 6:18pm and 7:39pm. Amazingly this corresponds to Tishri 1 on the Jewish Calendar which is the First day of the festival of the Feast of Trumpets. We will discuss the wonderful significance of this in a minute but I also wanted to share that was another significant astronomical display on September 11, 3 B.C.
From sunset of September 11, 3 B.C. to September 11, 3 B.C. Jupiter and Regulus could be seen approaching conjunction before dawn. Although the precise astronomical conjunction occurred on September 14, the angle of observation and Jupiter’s slow apparent motion would have made their close rendezvous obvious as early as the predawn hours of Thursday, September 12, within hours of the Messiah’s birth. At that time the king planet Jupiter could be seen approaching the king star Regulus in the constellation of Leo, the sign of Judah from whose seed the Messiah, the promised seed came.
Okay, don't answer the challenge made to your particular hypothesis. Taking it in another direction to obfuscate the challenge still does not take care of the discrepancy. What you present has nothing to do with the points I was offering for consideration.
Unfortunately, it is not as air tight as you think. There has been more than one attempt to use astronomical dating to pinpoint this event. ALL OF THEM arrive at different dating because this software is based upon dating that is flawed to begin with due to the discrepancies in ancient calendars and dating methods. I have seen just about all of them. But that is okay. We can agree to disagree. But unless a hypothesis harmonizes with the rest of the information concerning that event in a textural, historical, and cultural context, it must be held loosely - not as fact.
The important thing is that we are all believers and that is what we have in common and we should not argue about things that cannot be nailed down with any decree of certainty. It was never meant to be. If his birth was to align with a Hebrew festival date, there would be an indication of that in the text. There is none. Therefore, take what we do know for certain - his death and resurrection - and hold to that.