The Course of Abijah (Luke 1:5) as a clue to the historical date of Jesus’ birth

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Last month, in Advent, we had several threads touching on the date the Church celebrates Christmas and the possibility of determining the historical date of the birth of Jesus. One approach mentioned by several posters—in particular @PeterT, @MagdalenaRita, and @Mintaka—is to match up Luke 1:5, specifying that John the Baptist’s father Zacharias belonged to the priestly course of Abijah, with 1 Chron 24:10, where Abijah is listed among the twenty-four divisions or “courses” of Temple priests.

Drawing on numerous other primary sources in addition to these two, Rick Lanser has now constructed an elaborate time chart working backward from the destruction of the Temple by Titus’ Roman legions in AD 70 to a period three-quarters of a century earlier, in the closing years of Herod the Great’s reign, when both John the Baptist and Jesus were born. His full analysis can be read on the Associates for Biblical Research website:

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2018/12/17/Thoughts-on-the-Chronology-of-Christmas.aspx

Each course of priests officiated in the Temple for a week at a time, from one Sabbath to the next (2 Chron 23:8). It was on Monday, August 6, in AD 70 that the Temple was burned down in the fighting. The priestly course on duty that week was Jehoiarib. Since Abijah appears in eighth place out of twenty-four in the duty roster headed by Jehoiarib, it can be deduced that the course of Abijah had last officiated in the Temple seventeen weeks previously, in the week of April 7-14, AD 70.

Counting back through the years, twenty-four weeks at a time, Lanser arrives at the week of October 2-9, in 6 BC, as the latest possible date for Zacharias to have been on duty in the Temple. Four earlier dates, each twenty-four weeks apart, are also possibilities to be considered: in reverse order, April 17-24, in 6 BC; October 31-November 7, in 7 BC; May 16-23 in the same year; and November 29-December 6, in 8 BC, which he believes to be the earliest possible date.

His next step is to determine which of these five dates are compatible with other factors such as:

• The Massacre of the Innocents, which shows that Herod the Great must have lived on at least two more years after the presumed date of Jesus’ birth. Lanser calculates that Herod died in March, 4 BC, from which he concludes that Jesus must have been born no later than March, 6 BC.

• Quirinius’ census, which he places in the early spring of 6 BC.

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• The three annual pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem: Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and Tabernacles.

• The Star of Bethlehem, which he identifies as an occultation of Jupiter by the moon when they were both in Aries; he discusses the significance of both Jupiter and Aries in Zoroastrian astrology.

• The shepherds: In the hill country around Bethlehem, they could have been out all night in the fields with their flocks from mid-March onward, but no earlier than that.

Carefully weighing all these factors against one another, Lanser turns his attention to Mary’s three-month stay with her cousin Elizabeth. According to his calculations, the visit must have lasted from mid-June till mid-September in 7 BC. The next step, the timing of the two pregnancies, leads him to his final conclusion, which is quoted here in full:

In the end, this researcher now feels quite satisfied that, against all expectations, it is possible to say with a great deal of assurance that we can identify when the Savior was born. The year was 6 BC, and it happened the Sabbath night of Nisan 1. The way all of the various factors fit together is a powerful indication that there is indeed an all-powerful God who involves Himself in human affairs, who loves us so much that He sent His Son into the world to die for sin on our behalf. It is also a testimony of the truth of the inspiration of Scripture. We can trust it as His very Word to men.

In 6 BC, the Sabbath night of Nisan 1 corresponded, in the Julian calendar, to the night of Friday-Saturday, March 19-20.
 
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So how do you dismiss St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril referring to the Roman census and birth records, which were available to the public at the end of the 4th century, to say that Jesus was born around December 25?
 
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This snippet from Jimmy Akin’s article calls for comment.

Advocates of the idea that Herod died in 4 B.C. argue that he was named king in 40 B.C. To square that with a 37-year reign ending in 4. B.C., they must count the part year at the beginning of his reign and the part year at the end of it as years. That’s the only way the math will work out.

The problem is that this is not how Josephus would have reckoned the years.

Biblical chronology scholar Andrew E. Steinmann comments:

[T]here is no evidence for this [inclusive way of reckoning the partial years]–and every other reign in this period, including those of the Jewish high priests, are reckoned non-inclusively by Josephus [ From Abraham to Paul , 223].

In other words, Josephus does not count the partial first year when dating reigns in this period.

Steinmann’s chronology has not gone unchallenged. Akin was unwise to accept his verdict unquestioningly. The problem isn’t that Steinmann has misidentified the numbering system that Josephus consistently applies in the case of regnal years, but that Josephus is inconsistent. There is no one system that he applies all the time. Most editors recognize that he evidently copied his dates and regnal years from whatever source he was drawing on at the moment, without always attempting to verify the calculations or to cross-check one source against another.

There were at least four different ways of numbering regnal years in antiquity. Each new regnal year might begin:
  1. On the anniversary of the ruler’s accession
  2. At the New Year, reckoned as Tishri 1, close to the fall equinox
  3. At the New Year, reckoned as Nisan 1, close to the spring equinox
  4. At the Julian New Year, January 1.
According to the Mishnah, #3 was the preferred system in Jewish use. The Tractate Rosh HaShanah (link below) specifies:

If a king began his reign in Adar even if was only for one day that is considered his first year, and from the first of Nissan is considered his second year.

 
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No opinion on the month but personally I tend to agree with you on a 6 BC birth date. Because then it puts Jesus death and resurrection occurring in 27 AD and adding 40 years (a significant number) it brings us to 67 AD which is the date of the Roman siege of Jerusalem and 3 years later its destruction.
 
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