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In ancient times as today, shep–
herds brought their fiocks in from
the fie lds and penned them in
shelters
not later than the middle
of October!
This was necessary to
protect them from the cold, rainy
season that usually followed that
date. (The Bible itself makes it
clear that winter in Palestine is a
rainy season; see Ezra 10:9, 13;
Song of Solomon 2:11.)
Yet Luke 2:8 telis us that at the
time of J esus' birth, the shepherds
were yet
abiding
in the fields-by
night,
at that! They had not yet
brought their flocks borne to the
sheepfolds. Clearly the cold, ·rainy
season had not yet commenced.
Thus, on the basis of Luke's tes–
timony alone, we see that Jesus
could have been born
no later than
mid-October- when the weather is
still pleasant at Bethlehem. A
December 25 nativity is too late!
More Proof
Additional biblical evidence lends
further support to the foregoing
conclusion .
Luke 1:24-38 informs us that the
virgin Mary miraculously became
pregnant with Jesus when her cou–
sin E lizabeth was six months preg–
nant with a child who would later
be known as John the Baptist.
Jesus, then, would have been born
six months after John .
If
we could know the time of
Jobn' s birth, we could then simply
add six months and know the t ime
of Jesus ' birth.
Does the Bible reveal the general
time of John's birth?
N otice: Elizabeth 's husband
Zacharias was a priest at the Tem–
ple in Jerusalem. Luke 1:5 records
that Zacharias was "of the course
of Abia [in Hebrew, Abijah] ."
In the days of King David of
ancient Israel (1Oth century
B.
c .),
the number of priests had so
increased that they had to be
divided into 24 courses or shifts,
which would take turns in perform–
ing the priestly duties
(1
Chron.
24) . Each course served one week
at a time, beginning and ending on
a weekly Sabbath day (II Chron.
23:8). The course of Abijah was the
eighth
course or shift in the rota-
tion (1 Chron. 24:1 0).
·
The Talmud (collection of Jew–
ish civil and religious laws and
20
commentaries) records that the
first course performed its duties in
the first week of the first mqnth of
the Hebrew calendar. This month
(called
Abib
or
Nisan)
begins
about the start of spring in the
Northern Hemisphere.
The second course worked the
second week. The third week–
being the annual festival season of
Passover and the Days of Unleav–
ened Bread-found
a/1
24 courses
serving together, sharing the heavy
duties of that special time. The
third shift then took its turn during
the fourth week of the year.
Projecting forward, the eighth
course-the course of Abijah, in
which Zacharias served- worked
the ninth week of the year. But
Zacharias' course then stayed on at
the Temple to serve the 1Oth week
also-the week of the annual Pen–
tecost festival- along with all the
otber courses.
It was during that two-week peri–
od of wo rk- near the end of
spring-that the announcement by
tbe archangel Gabriel carne to
Zacharias regarding his wife's immi–
nent conception (Luke 1:8-20) .
When his two weeks' service was
completed, Zacharias and Elizabeth
went back to thei r home and Eliza–
beth conceived (verses 23-24)–
sometime late in June or early July.
The rest is a matter of biology
and arithmetic. Elizabeth's sixth
month of pregnancy would have
been in December. She would have
given birth three months later-in
late March or early April of the
following year. Six mónths after
that, J esus would have been born,
in late September or early Octo–
ber- before t he sheep were
brought in from the fields, as we
have seen!
Clearly, Jesus was not born in
December.
Late September or early October
was also the time of year that taxes
were customarily paid-in the fall ,
at the end of the harvest. Joseph
and Mary, it will be remembered,
had journeyed to Bethlehem to be
taxed (Luke 2:3-5) .
The fact that there was " no room
for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7)
also su ggests the time of the
autumn harvest, because the annual
fall festivals occurring at that time
attracted multitudes of Jews to
Jerusalem and nearby towns, filling
all available accommodat ions.
Jesus Born "Before Christ"?
An even more frequent quest ion
received from readers concerns the
year
of J esus' birth . Few subjects
are fraught with so mucb confusion
and misunderstanding. Opinions
vary widely.
This immediately brings up a
preliminary question: How could
Jesus have been born in a year
"s.c."- Before
Christ-as most
authorities suggest?
lt
would seem
to be a contradiction in terms!
First, understand that the manner
of reckoning time according to
B.C .
and
A.D.
was devised hundreds of
years after J esus' birtb. It was
invented in the sixth century
A.D.
by
a monk in Italy named Dionysius
Exiguus. This Dionysius misunder–
stood the time of the reign of Herod
the Great, king of Judea. So he reck–
oned the birth of Jesus to have
occurred in December of the year
753 AUC
(ab urbe condita- "from
the foun dation of the city [of
Rome) ") . In past ages, time was
often reckoned using the founding of
Romeas the starting point for count–
ing.
Thus, in Dionysius' new system,
J anuary 1, 754 AUC, became Jan–
uary 1,
A.D.
1
(anno Domini,
" in
the year of the Lord") . That is, he
assumed Jesus was born on Decem–
ber 25, just a week before J anuary
1,
A.D.
l.
Later, it was discovered that Dio–
nysius had been incorrect in bis
reckoning of the reign of Herod and
hence of the commencement of the
Christian era. Jesus had been born
sorne years
earlier
than Dionysius
bad thought. But by then, the new
chronology was in general use and it
was too late to change!
It
has contin–
ued in use throughout most of the
world to the present day.
Wi th that understanding, we can
now proceed to determine the year
of J esus' birth. There are severa!
ways of doing so.
Danlel 's Prophecy
Notice, first, this ancient prophecy
from the book of Daniel:
"Know therefore and under–
stand, that from the going forth of
the commandment to restore and to
build J erusalem unto the Messiah
The
PLAIN TRUTH