Since it IS Christmas time......

the unfortunate thing about christmas, is that Jesus requested his diciples to celebrate his death, not his birth.I think this is significant when you consider that the bible writers make no mention of the date of his birth. If his birth was so important, then why not mention it? This is evidence of the church's failure to relay the new testament message accurately. They have simply adopted false religous ideas and corrupted true christianity. But that's no surprise...Jesus said it would happen.

of course it does.his death took place in the spring on the Passover according to the Jewish calendar, it was Nisan 14 (also known as the month of Abib) in the year 33 CE.The bible also says that John the Baptist began his ministry at 30yrs of age in the 15th year of Tiberius Ceasar. 6 mths later also at the age of 30yrs, Jesus began his ministry. Luke 3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Ti‧be′ri‧us Caesar...God’s declaration came to John the son of Zech‧a‧ri′ah in the wilderness. 3So he came into all the country around the Jordan, preaching baptism [in symbol] of repentance for forgiveness of sins

Herods death is debatable. The 4bce date is based on Josephus account that herod died during an eclips around the time of passover. There was an eclips on March 11 4bce but it was only a partial eclips. There was a total eclipse in 1bce on January 8th, 18 days before Shebat 2, which corresponds to the traditional day of Herod’s death.At age 30, in 29ce, Jesus bagan his ministry and in 33ce at the passover he was put to death. This means jesus was born in 2bce...before herods death if he died in 2 or 1bce.The fact that Jesus was still an infant when his parents returned to their homeland after fleeing to Egypt shows that Herod could very well have died in 1bce. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

bluescat is basing his calculation on a 4bce date for herods death.If herod did die in 4bce, then bluescat is right, but the evidence for 4bce is scanty and there is more evidence to take into consideration before holding to the 4bce date.there is the traditional date of January 8 of 1bce.There is also the fact that Josephus mentions the age of Herod at the time of his death. He says he was about 70 years old. In 47bce he was 25yrs old which is when he became the governer of Galilee. So this line of calculation puts Herod’s death in 2 or 1bce.Another evidence for 2-1bce is the fact that Herod took the city of Jerusalem 36bce and Josephus reports that he died 34 years after he took Jerusalem.
Josephus also reports that Herod died 37 years from the time that he was appointed king by the Romans which is 40/39bce.Now i havnt even used the bible chrononolgy of the gospel accounts yet, but this secular evidence is far greater then the 4bce date for herods death which is based on an eclipse of the moon...of which there are many.What is more reasonable to you?

thats rightand the Roman Senate offically made him king in 39bc according to Appianos and 40bc according to JosephusJosephus also says that this occurred 27 years after the capture of the city by Pompey which was in 63bc...this would make the year he was officially made king as 36bc. (63-27=36)
If Herod died 37 years from the time that he was appointedaccording to Appianos - 39bc-37yrs = 2/1bc
according to Josephus - 40bc-37yrs = 3/2bc
accordint to josephus - 36bc-37yrs = 1bc/1ceIt really is debateable because ancient historians do not always present the same dates as you can see. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

yes we do that one, it was Nisan 14 of 33ce before sundown.you know that the way they piece history together is by the writings of the ancient historians. Some of them used different calanders and used different methods of reckoning time. For instance, Josephus likely used 'regnal' years when mentioning the first year of a rulers coming to power because that is what the Jews were accustomed to. But the Romans did not use regnal years, they would say the rulership of someone began on the first day of his appointment.For christians, the historical acccounts of Jesus apostles are even more accurate because they wrote with the guidance of Gods holy spirit and therefore when their writings give a different picture, i think it is more trustworthy

Im happy to answer this in detail using the bible chronology.
The evidence is that he was born in the month of Ethanim (mid September- mid October) in the year 2BCE. He was baptized about the same time in 29CE, and he died around 3:00 pm on Friday the 14th in the month of Nisan (March-April) of 33CE.The way its worked out is by the fact that he was born approximately six months after the birth of his cousin John the Baptizer when Caesar Augustus (31bce-14ce) was emperor and Quirinius was governer and Herod was king of Judea according to the following scriptures: Matt 2:1, 13, 20-22 & Luke 1:24-31,36 & Luke 2:1, 2,7.Luke 3:1-3, shows that John the Baptizer began his preaching and baptizing in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
September 15th of 14CE is when Tiberius was named emperor, so If counted from when he was formally proclaimed emperor, the year would run from September 28CE to September 29CE.Luke 3.21-23 says that Jesus went to John and was baptized being about thirty years old. So in September 29CE, Jesus was 30 yrs of age, counting back, it puts his birth at September 2bce.This is in harmony with the mosaic law requirement found at Numbers 4:1-3, 22, 23, 29,30, that any isrealite going into some form of sacred service had to be from thirty years old upward. Thats why its also likely that John was already 30yrs of age when he began his special assignment. John’s birth would have been 30 years before he began his ministry which began in Tiberius’ 15th year, hence somewhere between the latter half of 3BCE and August or September of 2BCE.We know Jesus ministry lasted three and a half years, becasue the scriptural evidence is that he attended four Passovers as mentioned in John 2:13; 5:1; 6:4; and 13:1

there is one more way of determining the age of Jesus at his birth and death.Its the 70 weeks prophecy given by the prophet Daniel.Daniel pinpoints the exact timing of the messiahs birth and death in this prophecy.

if you've already judged it as garbage, why would you want to hear it?

Ok,from the month of Nisan (mid march- mid April) in 455 bce there would be 483 years until the Messiah appeared.455 bce - 483yrs = 29ceJesus began his ministry in sept/oct of 29ce, exactly 6 months after John the baptizer began announcing his arrival (mid march - mid april)Because Jesus was 30yrs old in sept/oct of 29ce, he was born in sept/oct of 2bce. 29ce - 30yrs = 2bce Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

that is by jewish reckoning. Week of years is mentioned in the Jewish Mishnah in Baba Metzia 9, and in Sanhedrin 5
Most Bible scholars also agree that the weeks are weeks of years. Some translations even read seventy weeks of years.There are two reasons for this, 1 is that there is a bible rule that a day is a year, and 2ndly, the rebuilding of a destroyed city would take many more then 70 days no matter how many people you had working on the project. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

the bible presents us with prophetic 'times' in many cases...some examples:Revelation 12:6 mentions a specific number of days 1,260 for a certain event, then verse 14 refers to these same 1,260 days as a time and times and half a time, IOW 3 & 1/2 times. Each of the 'prophetic times' amount to 360 days (3-1/2 x 360 = 1,260).the punishment given to Isreal for failing to trust in God was that for every day that they spied out the land of cannan, they would spend wandering in the wilderness.
Numbers 14:34By the number of the days that YOU spied out the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, YOU will answer for YOUR errors forty yearsEzekiel 4:6 shows another example of the bible rule of a 'day for a year'
And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given youin order to understand much of the OT, we need to understand jewish thought and customs...without that understanding it would be very hard to trully grasp the things that Jesus said and why he said them. Besides, the NT is a revelation of the OT...if we dont understand the OT, then we might miss some very important information in the New. if you want understanding, you need to ask God for it and he'll show. That may sound crazy but believe me, its not. in some way, its absolutely imperative that you do exactly that.
The entire bible, from Genesis - Revelation is linked and intertwined so that you cant have some without the others. If we were missing the OT, it would be impossible to prove that jesus was the messiah, and if we only had the OT, it would be impossible.The New testament is a testimony of the fulfillment of the Old testament. They go hand in hand and you cant understand one, without the other. no apologies are necessary. Your responses show that you are at least thinking about it which is a huge step to understanding it.

very trueperhaps what they dont realise is that Jesus didnt create a new religion, christianity is what Judaism was leading to...unfortunately, most of the jews just didnt want it. the bible is not a book. Its more like a jigsaw puzzle with a spiritual picture. In order to see the spiritual picture, you need holy spirit. God doesnt give holy spirit out willy nilly, there are requirements to getting it. The Torah is the 5 books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) These books consist of the 'Law' of Godthe Old Testament is the whole collection of Judaisms writings including the Torah (law) the prophets & the Psalms otherwise known as the 'Hebrew Scriptures' or 'Old Testament'When I say the OT, im refering to the Hebrew scriptures as a whole.And the Hebrew scriptures are almost identicle to the New Testament (Christian writings) because much of what you find in the NT is from the OT. All of Jesus teachings were based entirely on the OT as were the apostles. So really, in order to understand the christian scriptures, we need to know and understand the hebrew.the thing that makes the christian religion different from Judaism is that Chrsitians were free from the requirements of the Law of Moses....these were the legal punishments & animal sacrifices required under the law in order to obtain forgiveness of sins and to be at peace with God. But the christians obtained this forgiveness and peace with God by the sacrifice that Jesus gave of himself.So Judism must look to Moses for its relationship with God, while Christians look to Jesus for its relationship with God. Thats the difference.

interstingly, Luke reported that in 29ce the Jews were in expectation of the Messiahs arrival, this would explain why some wanted to make Jesus a King. It seems that they understood the danial prophecy and knew when to expect the messiah to appear.But you probably dont want lukes testimony, so i'll hunt around and see if i can find some more information about more secular jews and what they may have written.

I did find some quotes by Jews who did beleive Daniels prophecy pointed to the first century as the Messiahs time of arrival. But the articles only quote them and dont provide a reference to where the quote is located. Im having a hard time finding Manasseh's writings in english. Manasseh ben IsraelThere are some who would accept those 70 cycles of seven as saying that after their end the Messiah would come. ... Indeed, all of the Jews who took up arms against the Romans at that time were of that opinion.The Babylonian Talmud has a reference in its Tractate Sanhedrin, folio 97a which speaks directly of the '7 times' prophecy as the seven year cycle at the end of which the son of David [the Messiah] will come. this is certainly a reference to Daniel's prophecy and the Messiah was to appear at the end of it.What you have to take into consideration about the jews of the first century is that the Religious leaders refused to believe that Jesus was the messiah because he said that he was the 'son of God'. this infuriated them because it implied that Jesus was of supernatural origin. They refused to believe this about the Messiah because they had in their mind that the Messiah was to be a man like them.Because the religious leaders rejected him and ensured he was executed, the jewish population was convinced that Jesus could not have possibly been the messiah because if he was, surely the religious leaders would have accepted him as such. This is why there are very few people (other then Jesus followers) who linked Jesus with the messiah. So its not strange that more wasnt written about him by secular jews. Edited by Peg, : fixed