Anno Domini - Historical Birth Date of Jesus

Historical Birth Date of Jesus

See also: Nativity of Jesus and Chronology of Jesus

According to Doggett, "Although scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before AD 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating". According to Matthew 2:1 King Herod the Great was alive when Jesus was born, and Matthew 2:16, says Herod ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in response to Jesus' birth. Blackburn and Holford-Strevens fix King Herod's death shortly before Passover in 4 BC, and say that those who accept the story of the Massacre of the Innocents sometimes associate the star that led the Biblical Magi with the planetary conjunction of 15 September 7 BC or Halley's comet of 12 BC (less likely since comets were usually considered bad omens); even historians who do not accept the Massacre accept the birth under Herod as a tradition older than the written gospels.

The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was conceived during the reign of Herod the Great (i.e., before 4 BC) while also stating that Jesus was born when Cyrenius (or Quirinius) was the governor of Syria and carried out the census of the Roman provinces of Syria and Iudaea. The Jewish historian Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (ca. AD 93), indicates that Cyrenius/Quirinius' governorship of Syria began in AD 6, and that the census occurred sometime between AD 6—7, which is incompatible with a conception prior to 4 BC. On this point, Blackburn and Holford-Strevens state that "St. Luke raises greater difficulty ... Most critics therefore discard Luke".

The Gospel of Luke also states that Jesus was "about thirty years old" during the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar . Tiberius began to reign with his adoptive father, Augustus, in AD 12. The 15th year of his reign would then be AD 26 or 27, placing Jesus' birth about 5 or 4 BC (because there is no year 0). Some scholars rely on John 8:57: "thou are not yet fifty years old", making the earliest possible year for Jesus's birth c. 18 BC.