Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 16, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

Historical Evidence Concerning the Commencement and the Close of the Seventy Weeks

(Concluded)

AGAIN: we obtain a limit to the period of our Lord’s birth, in the opposite direction, by the statement of St. Luke, that in the fifteenth of Tiberius our Lord was baptized by John the Baptist, and then “began to be about thirty years of age.” Luke 3: 1–23.

What, then, was the date of the fifteenth of Tiberius? The inquiry is not to be answered immediately, because, as is well known, there were different modes of reckoning the years of the reigns of some of the Roman emperors.

If we were to suppose that St. Luke reckoned his reign from the time of his becoming sole emperor on the death of Augustus, the fifteenth year was from August, A. D. 28, to August, A. D. 29. If, therefore, our Lord was thirty in the fifteenth of Tiberius, according to this calculation he must have been born either in B. C. 3 or B. C. 2.

But, from the date of Herod’s death, it is clear that our Lord must have been born earlier than this, and that his birth

could not have been later than the very beginning of B. C. 4, and in all probability not later than the close of B. C. 5.

It is evident, therefore, that St. Luke, who must have known our Lord’s age, adopted some other mode of reckoning the years of the reign of Tiberius. And it is a well-known fact that there was much discrepancy in the mode of reckoning the years of the reign of some of the Roman emperors, particularly in the case of Augustus. (See Clinton, Fasti Hellen. 3: 276; and Fasti Rom. 2: 236, 7; Hales 1: 86.) “The two numbers in St. Luke,” says Mr. Clinton, “the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and thirty years of age for Jesus at the baptism, are irreconcilable with each other. But as it was impossible that St. Luke could have been ignorant of the age of Jesus, we are compelled to conclude that he computed the years of Tiberius in a peculiar manner.”—Clinton, Fasti Rom. 2: 237.

But the solution of the difficulty seems obvious, because history informs us that Tiberius was made by Augustus his colleague in the administration of the affairs of the empire, about two years before his death. And this solution is adopted by Norisius, Pagi, Usher, Lardner, Hales, Gresswell, and others. And it certainly does not lie open to the imputation cast upon it by Clinton, that “they have no other reason for selecting that particular year (i. e., two years before the death of Augustus) as the epoch, than because it is adapted to their own dates for the ministry of the Baptist.”—Clinton, Fasti Rom. 2: 237. For the historical testimony fixing that particular time is clear enough, as I will now endeavor to show.

Augustus died Aug. 19, A. D. 14. But Tiberius, his son-in-law, had been adopted by him as his son, and made, some time before this, his colleague in the empire, as Velleius Paterculus, Suetonius, and Tacitus all testify. “Filius, collega imperii, consors tribuniciae potestatis adsumitur.”—Tacit. Annal. 1: 3. From the words of Velleius Paterculus it would appear that this partnership in the empire was conferred upon him about the time of his triumph on his return from Germany, A. U. C. 765, A. D. 12 (for the date, see Clinton, Fasti Hell. 3: 272); for he says, “Cum res Galliarum maximae molis, accensaeque plebis Viennensium dissensiones, coercitione magis quam poena mollisset, et Senatus Populusque Romanus, postulante Patre ejus ut aequum ei jus in omnibus provinciis exercitibusque esset, quam erat ipsi, decreto complexus esset, ... in urbem reversus, jampridem debitum sed continuatione bellorum dilatum ex Pannoniis Dalmatisque egit triumphum.”—Vell. Paterc. lib. 2. c. 121. And as Velleius had served with him in Germany, and was present, according to his own testimony in the context of the above passage, at the triumph, his witness is the best we can have on the subject. Suetonius says: “A Germania in urbem post biennium regressus triumphum quem distulerat egit ... ac non multo post, lege per coss. lata, ut provincias cum Augusto communiter administraret, simulque censum ageret, condito lustro in Illyricum profectus est.”—Sueton. in Tiber. cc. 20, 21.*

These words would seem to imply that Tiberius was made the colleague of Augustus shortly after his triumph. Putting the two accounts together, we may conclude that the real time must have been close upon the period of his triumph, whether it was a little before or a little after, and therefore about A. D. 12, two years before the death of Augustus. In the lustration that took place three or four months before the death of Augustus, it appears that he called upon Tiberius, as his colleague, to undertake the usual vows. (Vota quae in proximum lustrum suscipi mos est, collegam suum Tiberium nuncupare jussit. Sueton. in Octav. c. 97.)

It is, therefore, quite in accordance with the facts of the case, that Luke should call the thirteenth year of the sole imperatorial power of Tiberius the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberius (tas hegemonias Tiberiou), according to a common mode of reckoning with the ancients in such cases. And, in fact, as the date of our Lord’s birth was certainly some little time previous to Herod’s death, when St. Luke intimates that our Lord was baptized in the fifteenth of Tiberius, and when he was about thirty years of age, we have merely to choose whether we will suppose that St. Luke thus reckoned the years of Tiberius, or whether he made a mistake as to our Lord’s age. The latter certainly is not likely. And, in fact, Jewish customs render it probable that our Lord would begin his public ministry when he was about thirty.

According to this calculation, then, the fifteenth of Tiberius would be from the summer of A. D. 26 to the summer of A. D. 27. And thirty years backward from this period would take us to the latter half of B. C. 5, or the former half of B. C. 4.

Putting together, then, the two calculations, we find that our Lord’s birth must have taken place between the summer of B. C. 5 and the beginning of B. C. 4. And as from the narrative given by the evangelists of his parents’ presenting him in the temple, when the forty days of his mother’s purification were fulfilled, and then returning with him to Nazareth (Luke 2: 22–39), and afterward going down with him into Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, and remaining with him there till Herod’s death (Matt. 2: 13–15 and 19–23), the birth could hardly have taken place nearer the period of Herod’s death than the latter end of B. C. 5, and therefore we may reasonably accept the tradition that it took place in December, and consider the precise period to be Dec. 25, B. C. 5. In fact, we are limited to some day between the early part of September and the end of December.

We are able, therefore, at once to assign the date of our Lord’s baptism. For as it was when he was beginning to be about thirty years old (Luke 3: 23), and our Lord was thirty on or about Dec. 25, A. D. 26, his baptism must have taken place about January, A. D. 27; which, as we have seen, was in the fifteenth of Tiberius, according to St. Luke’s reckoning.

Hengstenberg, in his elaborate commentary on this prophecy of Daniel (Christology, Vol. 2), while he maintains that the years of Tiberius are to be reckoned from the death of Augustus, has entirely forgotten to meet the difficulty arising from the statement of St. Luke, as to our Lord’s age. And when he remarks (ib. 2: 396, American transl.) that what he supposes to be an “error” in the common estimate of the duration of the reign of Xerxes “was committed as soon as only an iá in an ancient authority was confounded with a há,” he has not observed that this will not account for the statement in the Canon of Ptolemy, because in that canon not only is the number of years of each reign mentioned, but the number of the years of the Nabonassarean era at the end of each reign.

That the baptism took place in the beginning of the year, is to be inferred from the fact that it occurred not long before the first passover, which our Lord attended after it. The author of the Paschal Chronicle, Pagi, and Norisius assign January 6 for the baptism. Gresswell supposed it to have been January 24. Several of the early Fathers say that the baptism took place in January.

We are thus enabled to fix, by historical testimony and proofs entirely independent of each other, both the dates of the issue of the decree of Artaxerxes, and the date of the baptism of our Lord; and we find that the former was promulgated about January, 457 B. C., and that the latter took place about January, A. D. 27. There were, therefore, 457 plus 26 complete years, or exactly 483 years, as Daniel predicted, between the two. For the few days of the year A. D. 27 are wanted to complete those deficient in the year B. C. 457. That is, supposing the decree issued Jan. 6, B. C. 457, and the baptism to have taken place Jan. 6, A. D. 27, the six days of A. D. 27 must supply the six days deficient in B. C. 457, to make up the 483 full years. Be it remembered, however, that I do not pretend to fix either the date of the decree or that of the baptism as necessarily occurring in January. Either event might have occurred a month or two before, or a little after January. The decree might have been issued any time between the commencement of the seventy-seventh year of Artaxerxes, and a short period before the first of Nisan following. And the baptism of our Lord, as St. Luke only says that he then “began to be about thirty,” might have taken place a month or so before December, or in February instead of January after. But the accomplishment of the prophecy is clearly not affected by our necessary ignorance of the precise day of these events.—“Fulfilled Prophecy,” by W. Goode, D. D., F. S. A., London, James Nisbet & Co., 1891, pages 216–220.