Hello Dear Anamaria !
First I would like to thank you for a beautiful post, and second I would like to throw some facts to you and the rest of my friends and see what kind of reaction I get. Please remember when I make a forum I make sure all the facts are true and might not be accepted by some.
When Was Jesus Born?
The general assumption is that Jesus was born on December 25th in the
year one A.D. Those who have studied into it have proven that both the
year and the date are wrong, a fact you can find in any encyclopedia.
The question is, can we actually find out
when Jesus was born; both the correct year and the correct date? The
answers are, yes, we can find the exact year, and no, we can't find out
for sure the actual date, but we can find the season and the date he was very likely born.
First let's find out the year. There is a prophesy in the Bible called the seventy weeks prophesy.
It's major purpose is to tell when the Messiah, Jesus, would begin His
ministry. We know He was thirty years old when He began His ministry,
so if we count back thirty years from the year it began we'll know the
year of His birth. Let's see what the prophesy says:
Daniel 9:25
"Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the
Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks..."
Threescore means sixty, a score is
twenty. Add sixty and two and seven together and that's sixty-nine
weeks. (The seventeth week is the time the Messiah will be teaching His
people. Jesus taught for three and a half years and will teach the
other three and a half when He returns.) Sixty-nine weeks is 483 days.
In prophesy, the Bible often uses a day for a year, so that would mean
that exacly 483 years after the command to rebuild Jerusalem was
issued, the Messiah would begin His teaching.
All we have to do is find out when this command was issued and we know what year Jesus was born!
The book of Ezra tells us that it was in the seventh year of king Artaxerxes:
Ezra 7:8,11
8 And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
11 Now this [is]
the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave unto Ezra the
priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of
the LORD, and of his statutes to Israel.
This letter that king Artaxerxes gave
Ezra in the seventh year of his reign contained the command to rebuild
Jerusalem. This was the year 458 B.C.
Counting forward 483 years from 458 B.C.
gives 26 A.D. (If you do the arithmatic yourself remember you have to
add one year because there is no year zero.) Now, if we count back
thirty years we come to 5 B.C. (You have to add a year again because
there's no year zero. It may seem strange that you have to add a year
going both directions but that's the way it works.) To make sure it's
correct, just subtract 30 years from 483 years to get 453 - then
subtract that from 458 B.C. and you get 5 B.C.
Now that we know Jesus was born in 5
B.C., can we figure out the time of year He was born and even come
close to the actual date? Yes we can.
The key is in the book of Luke and the book of 1st Chronicles. Let's look at Luke's account of the birth of John the Baptist:
Luke 1:5-6
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest
named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the
daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both
righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord blameless.
Notice that it says Zacharias was of the course of Abia (spelled Abijah in the Old Testament).
Luke 1:5-6
And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before
God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's
office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the
Lord.
King David had arranged the temple
service among the priests so that there were 24 "courses" who served
for one week every six months. This can be found in 1st Chronicles
24:7-19. The course of Abijah would have corresponded to about the
second week in July of the Roman calendar and then Zacharias would go
home.
During this duty, Zacharias was chosen to burn incense and an Angel
appeared to him.
Luke 1:11-22 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing
on the right side of the altar of incense. When Zacharias saw him, he
was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him,
"Fear not, Zacharias: for your prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth
will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
"You will have joy
and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he will be great
in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's
womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord
their God.
"And he will go
before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the
just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
And Zacharias said unto the angel, "How will I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old too."
The angel answered,
"I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God; and I am sent to
speak to you about this good news. Because you didn't believe my words,
you shalt not be able to speak until the day that these things shall be
performed."
The people waiting
for Zacharias wondered why he was so long in the temple. Then, when he
came out, he could not speak to them, and they realized that he had
seen a vision in the temple, for he signed to them, and remained
speechless.
Zacharias went home immediately after his
course was over and his wife Elizabeth probably become pregnant in the
next two weeks. Why is this important? John the Baptist was born nine
months later and he was six months older than Jesus. This places the
most probable time of Jesus' birth within about two weeks of October
first of the Roman calendar; the early part of autumn. Right in the
middle of this four weeks is the biblical Feast of Trumpets. The Feast
of Trumpets pictures the coming of the Messiah. The inns were full,
probably with feast-goers, since Bethleham is only five miles from
Jerusalem, the night Jesus was born, so it is highly probable that He
was born on the night of the Feast of Trumpets in 5 B.C., far from the
traditional December 25th.
This also fits perfectly with a three and
a half year ministry of Jesus that ended in His crusifixion on the
Passover day, which is half a year away from the Feast of Trumpets.
