October 14, 29 A.D., the date of Christ's baptism
Fact: Other approach to determining the date of Jesus’ birth is from information about John the Baptist. Elizabeth, John’s mother, was a cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named Zacharias, who was the “course” of Abijah. [9]
(Priests were divided into 24 courses[10] and each course officiated in the Temple for one week, from Sabbath to Sabbath.)
When the Temple was destroyed by Titus on August 5, 70 A.D., a witches cross-quarter Sabbath, the first course of priests had just taken office. [11]
Since the course of Abijah was the 8th course, we can track backwards and determine that Zacharias ended his duties on July 13, 3 B.C. If the birth of John took place 280 days later, it would have been on April 19-20, 2 B.C., precisely on Passover of that year. The birth of John and the birth of Jesus was separated by 5 months. Therefore, we have again the autumn of 2 B.C. as Jesus’ probable birth date.
Fact: John began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. [12] The minimum age for the ministry was 30. [13] As Augustus died on August 19, 14 A.D., that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 B.C., his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, 29 A.D., or the 15th year of Tiberius. This seems to confirm the 2 B.C. date and, since John was 5 months older, this also confirms the autumn birth date for Jesus.
John’s repeated introduction of Jesus as “The Lamb of God” [14] is interesting as John was indeed born on Passover, himself sacrificed for the new covenant, making a first in two ways-the last old testament prophet to be slaughtered by those he came to serve and the first New Testament cross bearer to pre-echo the Great Lamb of God he came to represent.
