No one actually knows. It's actually an open question whether he was born at ALL, much less the exact year it happened.
Posted by Thaale (Member # 6800) on :
4 B.C is the most commonly accepted date, though some estimates place His birth as early as 8 B.C. I’ve never heard anyone suggest he was born as early as 200 B.C.!
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Assuming basic accuracy in the background events of the new testament, the leadership in Rome at the time would pretty much rule out 200 BC.
Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :
That is what I also believe. So, do we have a record that it aws at 4 BC? Did Josephus have anything to say about it?
Posted by Tereza Coraggio (Member # 9287) on :
I would like to post a reply to this question which may seem out in left field, but I can back it up with more detail than, perhaps, anyone wants. One (of many) questions that have plagued scholars is why Luke would have written that the census of Herod sent Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for Jesus' birth. Luke was likely writing in the same place (Rome) and time (70's C.E.) that Josephus was writing the War of the Jews - everyone who was educated knew that the census was done in 6 C.E. by a Roman named Quirinus, who was in charge between dynastic Herods. Most Bible historians believe the facts were changed to make Jesus fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But there's another "coincidence" - in response to the census, a Jewish revolutionary movement was born, called the Fourth Philosophy, or the zealots. A Gallilean leader said that the taxation (which was the purpose of the census)was a slippery slope back to slavery. His resistance movement included assassins called the Sicarii. During public gatherings like the temple at Passover, they stabbed the Herodian and pro-Roman informants with short daggers called sica, then melted back into the crowd. Consider the statement "If thy eye offends thee, pluck it out," in this context. He also taught his students to be fearless, because pain has no power over God's people. During public exhibitions of torture, which the Romans had developed into an art form, even children were said to be fearless and seemingly impervious to pain. This leader's own sons were crucified, but each execution only proved his point, until thousands of Jews were ready to lay down and be slaughtered sooner than install a statue of Nero in the temple, as one example. So here's the hypothesis: What if the Christ was a movement, not a person? What if the "code name" for this movement was Jesus?
So, apply this hypothesis to your question,"when was Jesus born?" The birth of the Christ would be the birth of the revolutionary movement in 6 C.E. in response to the census tax. The father of the Christ would be the instigator of this revolution, who happened to be named Judas the Gallilean. To thicken the plot, in Greek, if you transpose two letters, Judas Sicarii become Judas Iscariot.
This piece of information is the tip of the iceberg. If it were true, the implications are far-reaching for today's world, if you consider an end to torture's power to be more interesting than whether Jesus conceived a child. If anyone's curious, ask me questions and I'll keep going.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Interestingly enough, the day before I was.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:If it were true, the implications are far-reaching for today's world, if you consider an end to torture's power to be more interesting than whether Jesus conceived a child.
Is this really the new definition of "far-reaching:" "more interesting than Dan Brown's wacky meaninglessness?"
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
quote:When was Jesus born? Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz write, "There is no certain indication of the precise year of his birth. Certainly Matthew and Luke agree in attesting that Jesus was born in the lifetime of Herod the Great (Matt. 2.1ff.; Luke 1.5), i.e. according to Josephus (Antt. 17, 167, 213; BJ 2, 10) before the spring of 4 BC. This is certainly probable, but there is some dispute over it, as doubts about the reliability of the chronological information in both the Matthean and Lukan infancy narratives is "justified" (The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 1998: page 153).
Luke 2:1 connects the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius, which took place in AD 6 according to Josephus (Wars of the Jews 2.117f., 7.253; Antiquities 17.355, 18.1ff.). Emil Schürer regards this as a chronological error in Luke.
Some have attempted to make a more precise determination of Jesus' birthdate by correlating the magi's star (Matthew 2:2) with astronomical phenomena; however, Matthew 2 describes a miraculous travelling star, which does not fit into known astronomical categories, and such theories have commanded no wide assent.
Such is the date arrived at by John Pratt. He's an LDS astronomer who writes intriguing, unorthodox articles about ancient calendar systems.
Pratt believes many (if not all) planets in our solar system are set up by God to act as timepieces, and claims to understand a few of those.
He shows that the calendars he's found (and especially the ways in which they align) make it possible to find dates accurate to the quarter-day for events depicted in the LDS scripture canon, as well as a few modern events.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Some Mormons believe that it's April 6th, 1 BC, because on April 6th, 1930, Joseph Smith received a revalation that included this phrase:
quote:being one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Tereza, it's easy to assert that a person never really existed, and simply represents an idea, if you are writing two thousand years after his death, and everyone who knew him is long gone.
However, I think that the early Christian church would have had a heck of a time starting up their new religion by writing about their experiences with an individual that all their contemporaries would expect to remember from personal experience, and could not.
It also kind of gets under my skin when people take a small fraction of what Jesus taught, and spin it off into being "what Jesus really was about". Like when people say, "Jesus just had this groovy message that we should all just get along and stuff; that's all he was about. It's just Christians who have messed it up by making it about sin and commandments"
Clearly, such a person has never read the teachings of Jesus.
I get a similar vibe from this "he represents the Zealot movement" theory. There are way too many detailed, fundamental, specific aspects of Christ's life that are irrelevant or contradictory to that idea that it should only be persuasive to people who know absolutely nothing about the man.
For one thing, when he was asked whether or not Jews should pay taxes, his answer, though cryptic, was yes.
Posted by Tereza Coraggio (Member # 9287) on :
Hi, Puppy. I'm not sure if I'm understanding you, but what I'm saying isn't a slight to Christianity - I suspect that Christianity, in its true form, is much, much more powerful than the New Testament has led us to believe. The canonical Gospels are only 4 of over 90 known to have existed. Why were these 4 chosen by the Roman emporer Constantine, whose interpretation of Christianity was "in this sign, conquer"? The imperially-endorsed version of Christianity has been found compatible with slavery, genocide, torture, land-theft and currently, global domination. The Jews who had other scriptures were wrapped in their scrolls and burnt alive. Is that how God made sure we ended up with the right version? Personally, I think that any institution that tortures has lost its claim on spiritual authority.
The early Christian churches were plural, not singular. Over half of the bishops walked out of the Nicene Council, at great personal risk, because they felt that the doctrine represented wasn't true to Christ's message. Maybe the message of Christ has the power to save the world, but we're reading a garbled version of the Gospel according to Caesar.
A pro-Roman Jesus would tell Jews to pay their taxes. Although I think that this passage, "Give unto Caesar what's Caesar's" is true, and a very clever subversive plan. According to the covenant, what doesn't belong to Caesar? Answer- the land, which belongs to God. Therefore, the product of the land belongs to those whose labor works it. If the Jews were to give and share the products of their labor, without selling them, Caesar's coins would be worthless. The Jews wouldn't be defying Caesar, they would simply be giving what's God's to God.
Posted by Tereza Coraggio (Member # 9287) on :
Hi, Puppy. I'm not sure if I'm understanding you, but what I'm saying isn't a slight to Christianity - I suspect that Christianity, in its true form, is much, much more powerful than the New Testament has led us to believe. The canonical Gospels are only 4 of over 90 known to have existed. Why were these 4 chosen by the Roman emporer Constantine, whose interpretation of Christianity was "in this sign, conquer"? The imperially-endorsed version of Christianity has been found compatible with slavery, genocide, torture, land-theft and currently, global domination. The Jews who had other scriptures were wrapped in their scrolls and burnt alive. Is that how God made sure we ended up with the right version? Personally, I think that any institution that tortures has lost its claim on spiritual authority.
The early Christian churches were plural, not singular. Over half of the bishops walked out of the Nicene Council, at great personal risk, because they felt that the doctrine represented wasn't true to Christ's message. Maybe the message of Christ has the power to save the world, but we're reading a garbled version of the Gospel according to Caesar.
A pro-Roman Jesus would tell Jews to pay their taxes. Although I think that this passage, "Give unto Caesar what's Caesar's" is true, and a very clever subversive plan. According to the covenant, what doesn't belong to Caesar? Answer- the land, which belongs to God. Therefore, the product of the land belongs to those whose labor works it. If the Jews were to give and share the products of their labor, without selling them, Caesar's coins would be worthless. The Jews wouldn't be defying Caesar, they would simply be giving what's God's to God.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
I always thought BC stood for Before Christ and AD stood for After Death. Can someone clear up what those mean?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
That's the way I learned it too, Gaal,
More modern usage has it as:
BCE (before current era, or "before common era")
and
CE (current era).
AD was originally Anno Domini (year of our Lord)
I don't know what the Latin for was for the era before Christ's birth.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
In a nutshell, Jesus wasn't preaching a pro-Roman message when he said "give to Caesar what is Caesar's."
He was tripping up the people who'd come out trying to trip him up. As was fairly typical with Jesus' dealings with those who challenged him, he turned the question back on them. Note which of the people was in possession of a Roman coin -- the hated symbol of imperialist hegemony. Isn't it interesting that Jesus got THEM to pull one of THOSE out of the purse in front of everyone? I don't believe for an instant that there weren't a few gasps and a bit of muttering in the crowd that day...and the question of whether not it was lawful for Jews to pay taxes came out being rather secondary to showing who the REAL sell outs were.
The guys with Caesar's image stamped on coins in their own pockets.
Ooops.
I love that one.
And, by extension, maybe the "give to Caesar" line applied as much to the people who'd sold out their own as it did to the coins.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
So, officially, Jesus died 2006 years ago? Since we're in 2006 AD? And what does BC actually mean? Before Jesus's birth? Before he became the Messiah (according to Christians)?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: So, officially, Jesus died 2006 years ago? Since we're in 2006 AD? And what does BC actually mean? Before Jesus's birth? Before he became the Messiah (according to Christians)?
No, AD stands for Anno Domini not "After Death". Anno Domini refers to the year of our Lord's birth not death. This would then be 1 BC, because the monk who created our calender didn't know about 0, so the calender goes from 1 BC directly to 1 AD (one year after the birth of Jesus.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Negative. AD never meant "after death" it meant, as Bob said, Anno Domini, "In the year of the Lord." But this dating system wasn't started until many years after the fact, and it seems that the guy who calculated the year of Jesus birth was probably off by a few years. (Judging by the fact that there was no Roman census in what we now call 1 AD.)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Even if he had known about zero, the first year of Jesus's life would still have been year 1; it's only in computing that it's convenient for zero to be the 'first' ordinal. Anyway, you can hardly blame the guy for getting his math wrong; you try subtracting DCCXXIII from MDCXLVI .
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
So then Jesus was born 1 BC? Or 1 AD? Why are people fuzzy then on what year he was born? Wouldn't the real question be what year he died?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
The modern calender is based originated in the 6th century. In AD 523, monk by the name of Dionysius Exiguus introduced the modern year numbering system. By some means that has not been preserved, he calculated the date of Christ's birth and placed the beginning of year 1 (1 AD) 1 week following the birth of Christ.
It is widely held that Dionysius' calculations were off by 3 or more years and there are several theories about how he made the mistake, but since no one knows how he calculated the day in the first place its all speculation.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Acutally, I think the current consensus among those who believe he existed at all, is that he was born somewhere around 5BC, due to the aforementioned clerical error. Though no doubt there are a bunch of other dates; I've also heard it put that he may have been a teacher living much earlier, and the bit about Herod and whatnot (which was used for dating) got added later as a propaganda measure. There's any number of theories; take your choice.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: That's the way I learned it too, Gaal,
More modern usage has it as:
BCE (before current era, or "before common era")
and
CE (current era).
AD was originally Anno Domini (year of our Lord)
I don't know what the Latin for was for the era before Christ's birth.
It was never "after death" since AD dating was invented around the 6th century, before modern English, and by a Catholic monk. (Dionysis the Short) This is what I was taught in Catholic Highschool.
The dating system favored at that time was AUC, something like "ab urbum Condide" "the founding of the city." It dated all events from the founding of the city of Rome. There were many other calendars, and the international standard was not adopted until 1911, when China accepted the B.C.E.-C.E. system for civil use.
As far as I know the current system of negate/positive dating was not of much use to scholars of Dionysis era, because little was known of the world before the record keeping of Rome. The B.C. A.D. calendar didn't come into common use until the 13th century, and doubtless many people hybridized the AUC dates with the AD dates, thus a BC date was given only as AUC, and an AD date was given as both AD and AUC. I am not sure about this however, so corrections are welcome.
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
Scholars in particluar have begun using BCE (before common era) and CE (common era) in recognition of the fact that there are large numbers of people in the world who are not Christian and that for those people AD would not be appropriate as Jesus is not their Lord. These connotations have only really taken root in scholastic circles however and BC and AD are still more common uses in the Western World.
Most Scholars agree that the birth of Jesus occurred somewhere between 5 and 3 BCE depending on the conversion of the calanedar.
Just for a bit of trivia, did you know that when using BC and AD in dating BC comes after the date, i.e. 6 BC, but that AD comes in front (i.e. AD 2006)?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I learned the "after death" meaning of AD in Catholic grade school. Probably they figured we couldn't really understand latin or it was some sort of weird Vatican II-sanctioned thing.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
quote:For one thing, when he was asked whether or not Jews should pay taxes, his answer, though cryptic, was yes.
We just studied this in my Christianity and Judaism class and it's always interesting what comes to light when one actually understands what's written there.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
kojabu, anything you care to share here?
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
Yea, I can share some stuff later. I'd do it now, but I have to go to class in a few and I'm also sick (my arms are shaking) which makes it hard to type.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by andi330: Scholars in particluar have begun using BCE (before common era) and CE (common era) in recognition of the fact that there are large numbers of people in the world who are not Christian and that for those people AD would not be appropriate as Jesus is not their Lord. These connotations have only really taken root in scholastic circles however and BC and AD are still more common uses in the Western World.
Most Scholars agree that the birth of Jesus occurred somewhere between 5 and 3 BCE depending on the conversion of the calanedar.
Just for a bit of trivia, did you know that when using BC and AD in dating BC comes after the date, i.e. 6 BC, but that AD comes in front (i.e. AD 2006)?
Well, BCE and CE are taught in catholic schools these days, at least at the school I attened. Although many people remain unaware of the system.