There was a Passover in Jerusalem at the start of his public ministry (John 2:13, 23).John’s Gospel mentions that Jesus attended at least three Passovers (possibly four), which took place once a year in the spring: Now we need to know how long Jesus’s public ministry lasted, because if it went on for two or more years, this would seem to rule out spring of AD 30 as a possible date for the crucifixion. If he was born in 6 or 5 BC, as is most likely, Jesus would have been approximately thirty-two to thirty-four years old in late AD 28 until AD 30, which falls well within the range of him being “about thirty years of age.” The Length of Jesus’s Ministry This coheres with Luke’s mention that “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23). So Jesus’s ministry must have begun between the end of AD 28 at the earliest and AD 30 at the latest. However, it is more probable to place it sometime in the first half of the year AD 29, because a few months probably elapsed between the beginning of John’s ministry and that of Jesus (and the year AD 30 is the latest possible date). If Jesus, as the Gospels seem to indicate, began his ministry not long after John, then based on the calculations above, the earliest date for Jesus’s baptism would be in late AD 28 at the very earliest. So John the Baptist’s ministry began anywhere from mid-AD 28 until sometime in AD 29. The earliest possible date at which Tiberius’s “fifteenth year” began is August 19, AD 28, and the latest possible date at which his “fifteenth year” ended is December 31, AD 29. Most likely, Tiberius’s reign was counted either from the day he took office in AD 14 or from January 1 of the following year, AD 15. “The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” sounds like a straightforward date, but there are some ambiguities, beginning with when one starts the calculation. We know from Roman historians that Tiberius succeeded Augustus as emperor and was confirmed by the Roman Senate on August 19, AD 14. Luke implies that John the Baptist began his public ministry shortly before Jesus did, and he gives us a historical reference point for when the Baptist’s ministry began: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar .” (Luke 3:1). The Year John the Baptist’s Ministry Began Because Christianity is a historical religion and the events of Christ’s life did take place in human history alongside other known events, it is helpful to locate Jesus’s death-as precisely as the available evidence allows-within the larger context of human history.Īmong the Gospel writers, no one makes this point more strongly than Luke, the Gentile physician turned historian and inspired chronicler of early Christianity. But that does not make it unknowable or unimportant. To be clear, the Bible does not explicitly specify the precise date of Jesus’s crucifixion and it is not an essential salvation truth.
However, we want to set forth our case for the date of Friday, April 3, AD 33 as the exact day that Christ died for our sins.
( The evidence from astronomy narrows the possibilities to AD 27, 30, 33, or 34). Virtually all scholars believe, for various reasons, that Jesus was crucified in the spring of either AD 30 or AD 33, with the majority opting for the former. In our book, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived , Justin Taylor and I assume but do not argue for a precise date of Jesus’s crucifixion.
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