Nuke's Blog
Periodic ramblings by an old geek…

The topic of my lack of frequent posts comes up often at work, quickly followed by the topic of how long it takes me to construct a post.  You see, I really am not comfortable enough with my knowledge on most things, so feel I have to spend quite a bit of time researching what I am about to write, and even more time proof-reading, rewriting, etc.  I am constantly afraid of being completely on the wrong side of something, and not being able to come close to justifying my random thoughts.  Well, I’m going to try to stop worrying so much and just start posting more.  Maybe this way I’ll see more comments and further debate on things.  I don’t know why I try to figure everything out… T continually reminds me to stop going down rabbit holes.  Well, I can’t stop that, but maybe I can stop spending so much time digging around in the hole, never to come back out and let people know what I think I discovered. ;)

 

So, the topic for today came from the first session of a Bible study class on the Gospel of John, led by a respected coworker of mine.  I was listening to it yesterday, when he mentioned something briefly that really caught my attention.  He stated matter-of-factly that that Jesus was 36 when He was crucified, and then soon asked if there were any questions on the introduction to the Gospel that he had presented thus far.  I expected someone to ask the question burning on my lips, but nobody did.  “Why do you say 36, while I grew up with the notion that He was 33?”

 

Of course, it could just be that it doesn’t really matter to anyone.  I would suggest that it does matter, but more on that later.  Bear with me for a bit first (or just skip ahead, impatient cow).  I decided to deep-dive on this one last night, trying to discover for myself which was correct, or at least which was more plausible.  I didn’t get all that far, so I pulled out my brand-new ESV Study Bible, which I’ve already grown to love (I’ll post a review after I’ve spent more time with it).  I jumped to the introduction to John to see what I would find there.  Lo and behold, there is a nice table showing a timeline of the contents of the Gospel, including a line item for “Jesus crucified and resurrected (A.D. 33 [or 30])+”.  Obviously, there must be some disagreement out there, where I had never heard of any.  The “+” led me to a footnote pointing to an entire article on the subject, called “The Date of Jesus’ Crucifixion”.

 

The article summarized the main points to both sides of the debate on the date of Jesus’ crucifixion, which also includes analysis of His date of birth.  I had certainly heard before that the Gregorian calendar was mistaken to the tune of about 4 years late, which means his crucifixion would have been A.D. 30 to hit the age of 33 that I had understood.  However, there seems to be some substantial reasoning behind a date of A.D. 33.  I wish I could type the entire article in here for you, but I suppose that would be cheating.  Instead, I’ll try to summarize it a bit further.  I will refer to the two sides as the “30″ crowd and the “33″ crowd.

 

• Luke 3:1 states, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, …” as the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry.  Ancient sources place the date Tiberius began his reign as A.D. 14 (after the death of Augustus).  This means John began his ministry in A.D. 29, which already spells trouble for the “30″ crowd, since Jesus’ ministry started soon after, and lasted well over a year.  However, the article notes scholars in the “30″ crowd suggest Augustus and Tiberius were co-regents from A.D. 11/12 to 14, allowing for an earlier start date.
• John 3:20 states that in response to Jesus claiming he would tear down and rebuild the temple in three days, the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple…”  The “30″ crowd says the 46 years refers to the time elapsed between the day those statements were made and the day temple renovations began in 20/19 B.C.  The “33″ crowd says the more likely interpretation of the passage is that the 46 years refers to how long in the past the construction of the temple sanctuary itself was completed in 18/17 B.C.  Here they further point to Josephus as having noted renovations completed well before the date the Jews made their statement.  This again results in a date of A.D. 29/30 for the start of Jesus’ ministry.
• Now we come to the third major argument, which is something I stumbled on years ago when reading about “Bible difficulties” in another book (or maybe a website) that bugged me for a long time.  The so-called difficulty is John 2:13′s mention of Jesus cleansing the temple during Passover in the beginning of His ministry, while the other Gospels place it at the end of His ministry.  The “30″ crowd states that John simply moved the cleansing around arbitrarily in his Gospel for “topical and thematic reasons.”  Since his Gospel is the only one recording three (and possibly four) Passover meals, including this one, the majority of the Gospels lead you to see there were only really two in Jesus’ ministry (since John double-counted one).  So, we can end up with a date of crucifixion in A.D. 30, giving Him only 2 years or so of ministry.  The “33″ crowd says that required some serious playing around with Scripture, and that the later date, with a full set of Passovers and two temple cleansings (one at the beginning of His ministry, one at the end), is a far simpler explanation while also removing the so-called Bible difficulty.  This further provides Jesus with somewhere between 3 and 4 years of ministry.

 

That’s about where the article ends, and it concludes the “33″ crowd has the better argument… which means we end up with an age of about 36 for Jesus on the day of His crucifixion. 

 

By the way, one other thing I recalled when attempting to research it myself was the Book of Daniel’s references to the “70 weeks” left until the Jewish people would have atonement for their sins.  These “weeks” are typically interpreted as being periods of seven years (totalling 490 years) from some event to another.  Nevermind the debate on when the start and end date actually could be, but if it were 458 B.C. when Artaxerxes allowed Ezra and other priests to return from Babylonian exile to Jerusalem, 490 years exactly falls on 33 B.C.  Of course, when I tried to deep-dive on that one, I discovered all kinds of arguments for and against that start date and interpretation of the 7 + 62 + 1 week of Daniel.

 

Anyway, here is the main point I wanted to get to with this, as knowing the real date is not necessary for salvation.  When there seems to be a fairly simple reasoning behind an interpretation of Scripture that allows for each Book to fit with each other, why do we continue to try to bend it to our will?  Why do we come up with arguments like “well, John was just moving events around because it makes a neater impression on the reader”?  Is it so hard to believe what is written is what happened?  When the Book of Job speaks of “behemoth” being insanely huge and unkillable by man, and being the first among all creatures, why do we conclude it was most likely a hippo???  These were words from God, not even the writer.  Did God not understand that hippos aren’t really all that impressive?  (By the way, I finally can stop struggling with that one after listening to the same coworker’s study on Job.)

 

I would suggest it’s because of this: if we can bend Scripture in areas like these that “don’t really matter,” then perhaps we can go ahead and bend those areas that DO matter.  Isn’t that what people are doing these days?  I saw it in the specific church I left a couple years ago, both with the pastors, and with the governing body of the church.  I read it in books.  I see it on the news.  I hear it on the radio.  I see it on Facebook (which T says is another fine invention of Satan ;). 

 

For those of you who believe God is there with us, stop listening to all this bending and twisting of His Word.  If He is there, it’s the Truth.  He didn’t get it wrong.  I think it even came with instructions: No assembly required.

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