2347.—Christ's Age at Baptism.
Please explain Luke 3:23 in Revised Version. Jesus was baptized at the age of thirty. His ministry began A.D. 27. Did His ministry begin three years before His baptism? E. F. Our inquirer has confounded the beginning of the Christian era with Christ's birth. The beginning of the Christian era is four years this side of the real birth of Christ. It was not placed there until the thirteenth century, by Roger Bacon. He found that the paschal full moon A.D. 30 fell on Friday, and this circumstance led him and several others, as Scaliger, Usher, Pierson, to conclude that this was the year of the crucifixion; but Dr. Hale's Chronology shows rather that it was not the year of the crucifixion, but four years before. Christ began His ministry when He was thirty years of age in the autumn of the year 27 A.D. He closed it in the spring, A.D. 31, three and one-half years later.