It seems clear that our reckoning of time began with the birth of Jesus, but it appears that scholars have been wrong about the date. The evidence shows that the savior may have come into the world earlier than we thought.
Since the beginning of our current time Jesus Christ his birth matters, it may seem clear that the savior was born 2023 years ago, but the situation is not so simple. There have been several theories and ideas about the exact year in which Jesus was born.
The calculations are wrong
The calculation most often used in our everyday life Dionysius the Lesser to his name, except that he made several mistakes in his calculations. One is that Luke based on a note in his Gospel, the age of Jesus at the time of his baptism was thought to be 30 years old, and the evangelist writes that this event Tiberius it happened in the 15th year of the emperor’s reign. The original text, however, does not say that Jesus was exactly thirty years old, but that he was past that age.
The other mistake is that at that time the concept of zero was not known in chronology, so in the time calculation adjusted to the birth of Christ, 1 before Christ is followed by 1 after Christ, and year zero does not exist. Moreover, in his calculations, all Augustusthe reign years of all Roman emperors Tiberius were listed incorrectly, since the former ruled even as Octavian, and the latter did not take into account the years he spent as co-emperor.
Matthew his gospel mentions that when Herod the Great learned about the birth of Jesus, slaughtered all the newborn boys in and around Bethlehem. However, we know about Herod that he died in 4 BC, so by definition the chronology tied to the birth of Jesus is wrong.
The answer must be sought in space
However, there is one moment of the birth of Jesus described in the Bible that can be used to determine the year of his birth. This is none other than the so often mentioned star of Bethlehem, which served as a guide for the Eastern wise men to find the king they were waiting for.
Even some of the late antique authors took the position that the star that the wise men saw was a comet. The most popular candidate was Halley’s Comet, which happened to pass close to Earth in 12 BCE.
This is not the only comet that could be an ideal candidate for the role of the star of Bethlehem. A Chinese source from the Han Dynasty that recorded various celestial objects also saw a comet in the sky in 4 BC. According to the source, this comet was visible for seventy days and rose in the eastern sky at dusk. All of this is in line with biblical information.
The famous astronomer, Johannes Kepler however, he came up with a different theory. According to his opinion, the star of Bethlehem could have been a light phenomenon caused by the extremely rare conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which occurred three times during 7 BC.
Today, this date is accepted by most scholars, as it fits most biblical information and is less controversial than the others. According to them – if Jesus was really born in this year – we should currently only write 2016 instead of 2023.