The Birth of Jesus (History meets the Bible)

[cwes99_03]

The point of this thread is to discuss the timeline around the birth of Jesus, to determine what approximate dates (month and year should suffice) are likely to coincide with Biblical accounts of Jesus' birth.

Freddy, let's look into this because I've seen you post some sites and I did a little digging and found lots of sites that report different things.

 

First of importance is this site provided by Freddy.

 

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/Quirinius.html

 

On that site he cites Matt 2:1, Luke 1:5;2:1, writings of Josephus and then these references.

 

References

1. Craveri, The Life of Jesus: p61-63

2. Guignebert, Jesus: p97

3. Ibid: p100

4. McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: p71

5. Asimov, Guide to the Bible: p925

6. Ibid: p926

7. Guignebert, Jesus: p100

Maccoby, Revolution in Judea: p50

8. McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: p71

9. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: p61

Cary & Scallard, A History of Rome: p630

10. Caird, Saint Luke: p28

Guignebert, Jesus: p100-101

 

Here are the three scriptures as found in the NWT Bible. If some would like to post the same scriptures from other translations they would be welcome to do so.

 

Matt 2:1 "After Jesus had been born in Beth´le·hem of Ju·de´a in the days of Herod the king, look! astrologers from eastern parts came to Jerusalem, "

 

Luke 1:5 "In the days of Herod, king of Ju·de´a, there happened to be a certain priest named Zech·a·ri´ah of the division of A·bi´jah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth"

 

Luke 2:1-3 "1 Now in those days a decree went forth from Caesar Au·gus´tus for all the inhabited earth to be registered; 2 (this first registration took place when Qui·rin´i·us was governor of Syria;) 3 and all people went traveling to be registered, each one to his own city."

 

If someone could also find quotes from the works of Josephus mentioned on the geocities cite that would be good. Also if someone could find a cite of eclipse dates (with area where that eclipse was viewable and dates for the eclipse) that would be great. Some background on Josephus (to set him up as an expert, as well as to test the veracity of his works, as I already saw a site saying that some of his work was suspected of innacuracies.) Any other physical/evidence that may point to a month/year when Jesus was born.

[cwes99_03]

So here is one of the first cites I have visited. Please read through it carefully. There are some claims that need to be substantiated, such as on the page "clues from Herod's death" that Josephus refers to an eclipse happening after a Jewish fast. I see a reference to an eclipse, but nothing as specific as after a fast.

 

http://www.btinternet.com/~prgreetham/Wisemen/chron.html

 

There is also an additional interesting point that I had not considered in my first post.

On the website's 4th page he mentions the rota and Zechariah, father of John the Baptist who was about 6 months older than Jesus according to the Bible. Could someone look this up?