Part 2 (1/2)
The forrees with the early Christian tradition alreadythat traditional date another matter must be considered Jesus was crucified on the Friday at the opening of the feast of the Passover Whether it was the day of the sacrifice of the Passover (14 Nisan) or the day following (15 Nisan), is not essential for the present question As the Jewish an with the first appearance of the new moon, it is evident that, in the year of Jesus' death, the un on a day that would make the 14th or the 15th fall on Friday Now it can be shown that in the year 30 the 14th of Nisan was Thursday (April 6) or Friday (April 7), for at best only approxins the passion to 29, generally names March 25 as the day of the month This date is impossible, because it does not coincide with the full moon of that month The choice of March 25 by a late tradition arded as the date of the spring equinox, the turning of the year towards its renewing Mr Turner has shown (HastBD I 415) that another date found in an early document cannot be so explained Epiphanius was faave March 18 as the date of the crucifixion; and it is remarkable that this date coincides with the full ives unusual weight to the tradition, particularly as there is no ready way to account for its rise, as in the case of March 25
Froains in probability as the year of the passion Without atte to arrive at a final conclusion,--a task which ical specialists,--it is safe to assume that Jesus died at the Passover of AD 29 or 30
51 Concluding that Jesus' active ministry fell within the years AD 26 to 30, is it possible to deterospels: he was born before the death of Herod (Matt ii
1; Luke i 5); he was about thirty years of age at his baptis a census conducted in Judea in accordance with the decree of Augustus at a time when Quirinius was in authority in Syria (Luke ii 1, 2); after his birth wise”his star” (Matt ii 1, 2) From these facts it follows that the birth of Jesus cannot be placed later than BC 4, since Herod died about the first of April in that year (Jos Ant xvii 6 4; 8 1, 4) The aardness of having to find a date _Before Christ_ for the birth of Jesus is due to the miscalculation of the monk, Dionysius the Little, who in the sixth century introduced ourfrom ”the year of our Lord”
52 But is it impossible to determine the time of Jesus' birth more exactly? Luke (ii 1, 2) offers what seems to be more definite inforustus and the enroled stateospels It has been said (1) that history knows of no edict of Augustus ordering a general enrolment of ”the world;” (2) that a Roman census could not have been taken in Palestine before the death of Herod; (3) that if such an enrolment had been taken it would have been unnecessary for Joseph and Mary to journey from Nazareth to Bethleheovernor of Syria is definitely assigned by Josephus to the year after the deposition of Archelaus, AD 6 (Ant xviii 1 1; see also Acts v 37); (5) that if Luke's reference to this census as the ”first” be appealed to, it overnor of Syria at any ti the lifetime of Herod This array of difficulties is impressive, and has persuaded many conservative students to concede that in his reference to the census Luke has fallen into error
Soypt, however, have furnished new infor the i that a policy adopted in Egypt may have prevailed also in Syria, Professor Raument for Luke's accuracy in respect of this census (Was Christ born at Bethleheument may be condensed as follows: We have evidence of a systeypt taken every fourteen years, and already traced back to the tiustus, the earliest docu, apparently, to the census of AD 20 It is at least possible that this systeyptian enrolments may have been part of an i the statenificant that the date of the census referred to by Josephus (AD 6) fits exactly the fourteen-year cycle which obtained in Egypt If the census of AD 6 was preceded by an earlier one its date would be BC 8; that is, it would be actually taken in BC 7, in order to secure the full acts for BC 8
53 The stateainst Marcion, iv 19) that a census had been taken in Judea under Augustus by Sentius Saturninus, as governor of Syria about 9 to 7 BC, certainly coospels, and tends to confirm Luke's account of a census before the death of Herod That a Ro Herod's life is seen froovernor of Syria, had to send Roman forces into Cilicia Trachaea to assist Archelaus, the king of that country, to quell a revolt caused by native resistance to a census taken after the Roman fashi+on (Tacitus, Ann vi 41) Herod would almost certainly resent as a mark of subjection the order to enrol his people; and the fact that he was in disfavor with Augustus during the governorshi+p of Saturninus (Josephus, Ant xvi 9 1-3), suggests to Professor Raht to avoid obedience to the imperial will in the matter of the census If after some delay Herod was forced to obey, the enrolment may have been taken in the year 7-6 Since it is probable that the Roive the census as distinctly Jewish a character as possible, it is easy to credit the order that all Jews should be registered, so far as possible, in their ancestral homes Hence the journey of Joseph to Bethleheistered as from David's line, her removal with Joseph to Bethlehe of the census would have postponed it until after the recall of Saturninus The statement of Tertullian may therefore indicate simply that he knew that a census was taken in Syria by Saturninus
54 The successor of Saturninus was Varus, who held the governorshi+p until after the death of Herod How then does Luke refer to the enrolment as taken when Quirinius was in authority? It has for a long time been known that this ate of the emperor in AD 6 There seems to be evidence that Quirinius was in the East about the year BC 6, putting down a rebellion on the borders of Cilicia, a district joined with Syria into one province under the early eovernor, but Quiriniusfor the time the power of the Roman arms If Herod was forced to yield to the imperial wish by the presence in Syria of this renowned captain, the statement of Luke is confirmed, and the census at which Jesus was born was taken, according to a Jewish fashi+on, during the life of Herod, but under compulsion of Rome exacted by Quirinius, while he was in command of the Roives as a probable date for the birth of Jesus BC
6, which accords ith the hints previously considered, inasmuch as it is earlier than the death of Herod, and, if born in BC 6, Jesus would have been thirty-two at his baptisiven in Matthew of ”the star” which drew the wisethe date of the birth of Jesus, but it is at least suggestive that in the spring and autumn of BC 7 there occurred a remarkable conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn
This was first noticed by Kepler in consequence of a similar conjunction observed by hiy must have been impressed by such a celestial phenomenon, but that it furnishes an explanation of the star of the wise men is not clear If it does, it confirms the date otherwise probable for the nativity, that is, not far froo further and determine the time of year or the month and day of the nativity? It should be borne in mind that our Christmas festival was not observed earlier than the fourth century, and that the evidence is well-nigh conclusive that December 25th was finally selected for the Nativity in order to hallow a an festival coincident with the winter solstice If anything exists to suggest the time of year it is Luke's ht over their flock” (ii 8) This seems to indicate that it must have been the summer season In winter the flocks would be folded, not pastured, by night
57 It therefore seems probable that Jesus was born in the summer of BC
6; that he was baptized in AD 26; that the first Passover of hisof 26 or 27; and that he was crucified in the spring of 29 or 30
V
The Early Years of Jesus
Matt i 1 to ii 23; Luke i 5 to ii 52; iii 23-38
58 It is surprising that within a century of the life of the apostles, Christian ireatness of Jesus as to let its thirst for wonder fill his early years with scenes in which his conduct is as unlovely as it is shocking That he who in manhood was ”holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb vii
26), could in youth, in a fit of ill-temper, strike a co his accusers with blindness (Gospel of Thomas, 4, 5); that he could mock his teachers and spitefully resent their control (Pseudo-Matthew, 30, 31); that it could be thought worthy of him to exhibit his superiority to co water in his mantle when his pitcher had been broken (sa clay birds in play on the Sabbath and causing thehtiness (saends exhibit incredible blindness to the real glory of the Lord Yet such things abound in the early atteination to write the story of the youth of Jesus, and the account of the nativity and its antecedents fares as ill, being pitifully trivial where it is not revolting
59 How coht and feeling is clear e notice that excepting the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke the New Testa whatever of the years which preceded John the Baptist's ospels are books of testimony to what men had seen and heard (John i 14); and the epistles are practical interpretations of the saious life and hope The apostles found no difficulty in recognizing the divinity and sinlessness of their Lord without inquiring how he came into the world or how he spent his early years; it hat he showed himself to be, not how he came to be, that formed their conception of him
Yet the early chapters of Matthew and Luke should not be classed with the later legends Notwithstanding the attempts of Keim to associate the narratives of the infancy in the canonical and apocryphal gospels, a great gulf separates them: on the one side there is a reverent and beautiful reserve, on the other indelicate, unlovely, and trivial audacity
60 The gospel narratives have, however, perplexities of their own, for the two accounts agree only in the main features,--thethe mother and Joseph the foster-father, and Nazareth the subsequent residence In further details they are quite different, and at first sight seelory over the birth of Jesus, Luke draws a picture of humble circumstances and obscurity These differences, taken with the silence of the rest of the New Testa a miraculous birth, constitute a real difficulty To e that the disciples and the brethren of Jesus did not refer to these things if they knew them to be true But it must not be overlooked that any familiar reference to the circuospels would have invited froe of the honor of his hoe of these wonders did not keep Mary fro her son (Luke ii 19, 51; compare Mark in
21, 31-35), the publication of thereatly the belief of others The fact that Mary was so perplexed by the course of Jesus in his ministry makes it probable that even until quite late in her life she ”kept these things and pondered them in her heart”
61 No parts of the New Testaed so widely and so confidently as these narratives of the infancy But if they are not to be credited with essential truth it is necessary to shohat ideas cherished in the apostolic church could have led to their invention That John and Paul ive no hint that this involved a miraculous birth, shows that these stories are no necessary outgrowth of that doctrine The early Christians whether Jewish or Gentile would not naturally choose to give pictorial form to their belief in their Lord's divinity by the story of an incarnation The heathensons of the Gods were in all their associations revolting to Christian feeling, and, while the Jewish mind was ready to see divine influence at work in the birth of great men in Israel (as Isaac, and Samson, and Samuel), the whole tendency of later Judaism was hostile to any such idea as actual incarnation Some would explain the story of the miraculous birth as a conclusion drawn by the Christian consciousness from the doctrine of the sinlessness of Jesus Yet neither Paul nor John, who are both clear concerning the doctrine, give any idea that aSoerness of the early Christians to exalt the virginity of Mary, This is certainly the anin to Jewish senti as it is contradictory to the evidence in the gospels that Mary had other children born after Jesus
62 Moreover, the songs of Mary (Luke i 46-55) and Zachariah (Luke i
68--79) bear in thein before the doctrine of the cross had transformed the Christian idea of the Messiah That transformed idea abounds in the Epistles and the Acts, and it is difficult to conceive how these songs (if they were later inventions) could have been left free of any trace of specifically Christian ideas A Jewish Christian would almost certainly have made them more Christian than they are; a Gentile Christian could not have ly and naturally Jewish as they are; while a non-Christian Jeould never have invented thenatius (Ad Eph xviii, xix) of the very early currency of the belief in a miraculous birth, they confirm the impression that it is easier to accept the evidence offered for the ends
The idea of a ht; it beconized on other grounds It may not be said that the incarnation required a ed that a miraculous conception is a most suitable ospel stories are chiefly significant for us in that they show that he in whoan his earthly life in the utter helplessness and dependence of infancy, and grew through boyhood and youth to hbors, dull concerning the things of the spirit, could not credit his exalted claims He is shown as one in all points like unto his brethren (Heb ii 17) Two staterowth of the divine child as simply as that of his forerunner (Luke i 80), or that of the prophet of old (I Sam ii 26) The clear irowth from infancy to manhood, while the whole course of the later life as set before us in the gospels confirroas free froe of the probable conditions of his childhood is as satisfying as the apocryphal stories are revolting The lofty Jewish conception of home and its relations is worthy of Jesus The circumstances of the home in Nazareth were humble (Matt xiii 55; Luke ii 24; compare Lev xii 8) Probably the house was not unlike those seen to-day, of but one roo with the s for home-life We should not think it a home of penury; doubtless the circuhbors In one respect this home was rich The wife and mother had an exalted place in the Jewish life, notwithstanding the trivial opinions of soospel tells of the chivalry of Joseph renders it certain that love reigned in his horowth of the holy child