Chronology
Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born around the beginning of the first century and died between 30 and 36 AD in Judea. Amy-Jill Levine states that the general scholarly consensus is that Jesus was a contemporary of John the Baptist and was crucified by Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who reigned from 26 to 36 AD. Most scholars hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea and did not preach or study elsewhere.
The general scholarly agreement on the historicity of Jesus' interactions with John the Baptist and with Pilate shapes the approximate chronological picture. In the Antiquities of the Jews, first-century historian Josephus places the execution of the Baptist before the defeat of Herod Antipas by Aretas IV in 36 AD; and the dates of Pilate's reign are well established by Roman sources.
Two independent approaches have been used to estimate the year of Jesus' birth. One collates the Nativity accounts in the Gospels with other historical data; the other works backwards from the estimated start of his ministry. The first approach applies Matthew 2:1, which associates the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod the Great, who died around 4 BC, and Luke 1:5, which mentions that Herod was on the throne shortly before the birth of Jesus. However, Luke's gospel also associates the birth with the first census, which took place in 6 AD. The second approach ignores the Nativity accounts and considers the statement in John 2:13–20 that the temple in Jerusalem was in its 46th year of construction at the start of Jesus' ministry. Correlating this with Josephus' dating of the death of John the Baptist, and working backwards from the statement in Luke 3:23 that Jesus was "about thirty years of age" at the start of his ministry, yields a date of 27–29 AD. Some scholars thus estimate 28 AD to be roughly the 32nd birthday of Jesus. Most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC, but some propose a wider range between 7 and 2 BC.
The years of Jesus' ministry have been estimated using three different approaches. The first applies the reference in Luke 3:1–2 to the start of the ministry of John the Baptist in the 15th year of Tiberius' reign and the statement of Acts 10:37–38 that John's ministry preceded that of Jesus. The dates of Tiberius reign are known, and these indicate a date of around 28–29 AD for the start of Jesus' ministry. The second approach uses the statement about the temple in John 2:13–20, together with Josephus' statement that the temple's reconstruction was started by Herod in the 18th year of his reign, to estimate a date around 27–29 AD. The third method uses the date of the death of John the Baptist and the marriage of Herod Antipas to Herodias, based on the writings of Josephus, and correlates it with Matthew 14:4 and Mark 6:18. Given that most scholars date the marriage of Herod and Herodias as AD 28–35, this yields a date about 28–29 AD.
A number of approaches have been used to estimate the year of the Crucifixion of Jesus, scholars generally agreeing that he died between 30 and 36 AD. One approach relies on the dates of the prefecture of Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Judea from 26 AD until 36 AD, after which he was replaced by Marcellus (reigned 36–37 AD). Another approach, which yields the latest year possible for the Crucifixion, is to work backwards from the trial of the Apostle Paul in Achaea, Greece, by Roman proconsul Gallio, the date of whose reign is confirmed in the Delphi Inscription discovered in the 20th century at the Temple of Apollo. The conversion of Paul is estimated at around 33–36 AD, and Jesus must have died before this. Astronomers since Isaac Newton have tried to estimate the precise date of the Crucifixion, the most widely accepted dates being April 7, 30 AD and April 3, 33 AD (both Julian).
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