With Jesus of Nazareth something curious happens. Few characters have been more celebrated, discussed and reviewed throughout the centuries. Today historians they usually coincide in which (although there is no material evidence of its existence) was a historical figure that can be framed in the Galilee of 2,000 years ago. However, despite all the attention he has received over the last 20 centuries, there are certain key details of his biography that remain shrouded in shadows.
For example the date of your birth. And by “date” we don’t just mean the day, but also the year. When discussing, we could even question where was he born.
The usual thing is to think that Jesus came into the world on December 25 in Bethlehem of Judea and that six days later humanity (at least the West or the West of Christian influence) entered into a new eraone in which history was dislocated into two stages that we still use today in the 21st century, whether we are Christians or not: the one before and the one after the birth of Christ (Anno Domini).
Totally normal, right? That is, why else would we celebrate Christmas every December 25th, a word that comes from the Latin “https://www.xataka.com/magnet/nativitas” (“birth”)? And why do we talk about years BC and AD if it is not for the birth of Christ?
Reality is more complicated and has some chiaroscuros.
What do we know about the birth of Jesus?
The answer to the previous question is very simple: little.
Historians usually agree that there are basically two sources to address the topic of the birth of Jesus and both are reflected in the same work: the New Testament of the Bible. The evangelist gives us a clue Matthew. The other, Luke. The problem is not only the scarcity of information, but that both texts were written many decades after the events they narrate. To be more precise, around 80 and 90 AD, half a century after the crucifixion.
Of course in the New Testament there are older texts (such as the letters of Paul or even the gospel of Mark, written around 70 AD), but they are of little use if what interests us is the childhood (and especially the birth) of Jesus.
Taking into account the few references there are and the importance of the topic (we are talking about the birth of the central character of one of the most influential religions in history), it would be logical that Matthew and Luke coincide in their stories. It’s not like that. In their texts both offer us what experts call “chronological anchors”references that help us date the birth of Jesus, but those clues are scarce and do not quite fit together.
What exactly do they tell us? Let’s see.
“And when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the King of the Jews who has been born? For we have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. When Herod heard this, he was troubled, and Jerusalem with him.’
Matthew 2:2-4
“And it came to pass in those days that an edict went out from Augustus Caesar, that all the land should be enumerated. This first enumeration was made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And they all went to be enumerated, each one to his city.
Then Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be registered with Mary, his wife, who was betrothed to him, who was with child. And it came to pass that while they were there, the days were fulfilled in which she was to give birth.”
Luke 2:2-7
Although it may not seem like it a priori, both passages hide a small discrepancy, as explains in Wake up Ferro Professor Javier Alonso, philologist, historian and biblical scholar. The evangelist Matthew (and Luke) tells us that Jesus was born in the time of King Herod, but then Luke specifies that Mary was counted while she and Joseph were traveling to fulfill the census ordered in the time of Augustus.
If we review history we see that both “anchors” they collide with each other. Herod the Greatruler under the orders of Rome, ruled Judea more or less between 40 and 4 BCyear of his death. As for the census that Luke tells us about, historians believe that it coincided with the census carried out by Quirinus in the time of Augustus, a fact mentioned by Flavius Josephus.
The problem, remember Alonsois that Quirinus ruled around 6 AD the region that covers Judea, years after the death of Herod. Conclusion? Both evangelists are actually drawing a fairly broad time frame, of a decade, that could be set between the years prior to the king’s death and 6 AD “There is a difference of at least 10 years between Matthew and Luke,” explains Alonso.
Why do we say that Jesus was born when he was born?
At this point that is the most reasonable question. If the evangelists point to a time horizon that begins several years before our era (Anno Domini), because devils Do we say that Jesus was born a few days before the 1st AD? Who and how set that date? To answer these questions we must go back a few centuries, although without reaching the era of Herod.
Our attention will focus on beginning of the 5th ADwhen at the request of the Pope the Scythian monk Dionysus ‘the Exiguous’ He launched into a difficult task: calculating the date of Christ’s birth. It may sound strange that so many centuries later the followers of Jesus would worry about this question, but at stake there was a primary issue: clarifying when Easter should be celebrated (Computus paschalis), the main celebration of Christianity. Its date depended on the lunar cycles and forced us to take into account issues such as synodic months and solar years.
Dionysius used all his erudition (and it was not little) to go back centuries and revealed the date of Christ’s birth with astonishing precision: end of the year 753 ad urbe conditathat is, since the founding of Rome.
His calculation could have passed without pain or glory if it were not for the fact that it served to dislocate all of history (at least in the eyes of the West) into two stages: BC and AD, two blocks that were divided at the end of that year. With his work, he put the finishing touch to the diocletian erawhich began with the coronation of Diocletian.
The problem is that the monk skidded. It is assumed that for his accounts he took into account the reign of Herod I the Great and the founding date of Rome, but surprisingly the numbers danced. As Alonso points outhis proposal points to a moment (754 ad urbe condita) in which Herod had already been dead for a few years, which clashes with the gospel of Matthew. It also doesn’t quite fit with Lucas because it is something prior to the famous Quirinus census.
Was the most wise Byzantine monk wrong? Another mystery.
Where does December 25 come from?
If the year of Jesus’ birth is a slippery slope, the exact date, with day and month, is even more so. Yes, we celebrate it on December 25; but in reality that has more to do with political strategy than with historiography. In this case the explanation dates back to the 4th centuryin which the Empire embraced Christianity.
After the convocation of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and above all the edict of the emperor Theodosius I the Great (380 AD) Christianity became the strong religion of Rome. It was one thing, however, to proclaim that the doctrine of Jesus of Narazet was the doctrine of the State and quite another that the message really calm down in a population that already had its own rituals and customs. To facilitate the trance, an old (and effective) tactic was resorted to: assimilation.
About the time of year when we decorate our cities with thousands of led lights Imperial Rome celebrated its Saturnaliaa pagan festival celebrated in honor of Saturn and in which food, gifts and celebrations were also abundant. Of course, instead of focusing on messages of peace and brotherhood, a relaxation more similar to that of carnival reigned.
After all, it coincided with the time of year when the days (hours of light) begin to grow again, marking the ‘birth’ of the Unconquered Sun.
To celebrate this rebirth, a special day was reserved: December 25. In 4th century Rome, which embraced Christianity, the assimilation was clear and direct: if that was the day of the birth of the Sun, shouldn’t it also be the day of the birth of Christ? It was not just a spontaneous and popular question. The ecclesiastical authorities, with Julius I and Liberio In the lead, they favored the idea. The birth of Jesus thus happened to coincide with the winter solstice and Saturnalia.
When was Jesus born then?
The short answer is that we can’t pinpoint it. We do not know the exact day and we cannot specify the year, although we have a limited framework if we take as reference the death of Herod and the census of Quirinus.
That does not mean that the question is still alive two millennia later. For example, there are those who have looked for temporal anchors in other stages of Jesus’ biography, such as his crucifixion. In it appears the name of Pontius Pilatewho exercised his prefecture in the Roman province of Judea between 26 and 36 AD Another valuable reference is when he began to preach, in the 15th year of Tiberius.
“If we pay attention to Matthew and Jesus was born in 4 BC, it makes sense. He would die in the year 30 and would be, perhaps, about 34 years old,” explains to the BBC Alonso. What we know about his age at death and his preaching allows some authors to draw a framework that coincides with the last years of Herod’s reign. There are those who have gone even further, leaving that horizon and pointing to a specific month: December 1 BCbased on Jewish pilgrimages.
The reality is that it is difficult to give certain answers.
And this is partly due to the mentality of the first Christians.
First because they may have been tempted to include references so that the birth of Jesus would fit better with the prophecies. “The Quirinus census does not fit, and it is understood that Luke used it as an excuse to move some people who are from Nazareth, in the north of Israel, to Bethlehem, which is where the messiah has to be born, but nothing more,” Alonso points out. “It’s a literary device.”
The other reason is that the date of Christ’s birth still intrigues us, but it certainly wasn’t something we lose sleep to the first Christian communities, more focused on the future, on the arrival of a Kingdom of Heaven that was promised imminent, than on Jesus’ earthly past.
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