Friday, December 25, 2009

The year of Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection

There is a lot of information out there about the day Jesus Christ was born. Let's start out by giving some of the dates. Lots of people think that Jesus was born in the year 0. Some people think that he was born some time between 7 BC and 1 BC. There is some backing for both of these. With regard to the year 0, when our modern calendar was made, they used the number 0 to explain that this was the date of Jesus' birth. This is why we are in the year 2009. Others think that it was some time between the years 7 BC and 1 BC. One of the reasons for this is that there are records that Herod died around this time. Thus fulfilling the statement that Gabriel made to Joseph saying that Herod seeks to kill Jesus, and that Joseph should take Jesus and Mary and go into Egypt until Herod was dead. All of these are good dates, but are they accurate?

It is my claim that they are not. Let's take a look at the book of Daniel. Gabriel gave Daniel a prophecy concerning the future of Israel, which involved the messiah, Jesus. In it he said that from the time of the commandment to "rebuild the temple (known as Solomon's Temple) until Messiah the prince would be seven weeks, and sixty and two weeks." And after this he said, "After sixty and two weeks, Messiah the prince would be cut off," meaning Jesus would be killed. The commandment to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem was given in 538 BC by Axtaxerxes, the king of Persia. A Hebrew tradition was that when days and weeks were mentioned in prophecies such as this, each day was to stand for a year. Thus, seven weeks, and sixty and two weeks would be 69 weeks, or 483 days. Taking this figure combined with the tradition previously mentioned, 483 days would be 483 years. Subtract 483 from 538 and you get the number 55. It is in 55 BC that Jesus died. History books need to be adjusted to take this into account.
Tradition holds that Jesus was 33 years old when he died. This is based on the number of Passover feasts that were held when Jesus started his ministry. So, taking this information, subtracting it from the figure of 55 BC to get 88 BC. The reason you get 88 BC instead of 22 BC is because you are dealing with the concept of negative numbers. You would have to add them in reverse.

So it is concluded that Jesus was born in 88 BC, give or take a year, not some other date. I hope this helps lead you into a greater understanding of history and of the scriptures. The Lord bless all those who believe. In Jesus' name, AMEN.