# herod's death and Jesus' birth



## kappazei (Apr 4, 2013)

Hi Everyone; Can someone help me out here? Herod the Great was supposed to have died in 4 BC correct? Wouldn't that mean that he was already dead by the time Jesus was born? 
I searched in some apologetics sites but I can't seem to get a handle on how they expain it.

Thanks

Bob


----------



## Pergamum (Apr 4, 2013)

kappazei said:


> Herod the Great was supposed to have died in 4 BC correct? Wouldn't that mean that he was already dead by the time Jesus was born?



Not if Jesus was born in 4 BC


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Apr 5, 2013)

Our current dating scheme (B.C. and A.D.) came into being several centuries after Christianity had been in existence. A monk named Dionysius Exiguus set out to try to peg the birth of Jesus to so-many years before that present year. The present year came to be the year A.D. 525. Up til then, the dating schemes (when or where people cared for such things) were based on political dates like the founding of Rome (since Rome was the biggest bully on the block); or a people like the Jews (or some other people) might have a local calendar based on their politics or religion.

The thing was, the monk didn't get his date exactly on the money. With more scholarship through successive centuries, more dusty finds in archaeology and in ancient records, now we believe that the secular ruler Herod probably died around 4 B.C. on the current scheme, rather than in A.D. 1. Because Herod's death is very close to coincidental with Jesus' birth, and because the Bible never gave us exactly Jesus day and year of birth, now we're mostly convinced he was probably within months of Herod's death, possibly within two years of it at the outside limit (given the Magi's reported expectations).

This page Calendar era - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia will give you some idea of how unutterably complicated reconstructing the past is, with the multiplicity of calendars, different dating schemes, different days to start a "new" year (Rome started a new one every April 21st), solar years, lunar years, years with 360 days, years with 365 days, leap year corrections that added months or years to the total--and that doesn't even take into account some really bizarre theories of year-inflation.

All this has made figuring out dates for the past a true puzzle. The thing we need is synchronicity, or a single event described in multiple calendars, that may help two or more dating systems to mesh.


----------



## kappazei (Apr 5, 2013)

Thanks Pastor Buchanan for your help. I was involved in an yahoo online discussion involving the article, 'Easter Science, 6 facts about Jesus' and someone raised the said objection. It was a surprisingly productive time as I felt that I was actually able to bring my points across with truth and gentleness.


----------

