Each year, at Christmastime, the debate over the exact date of Jesus Christ’s birth resurfaces. Over the centuries, there have been several attempts to pinpoint the date. One study history of Italian researchers brought a new approach to the question and came to the conclusion that He was indeed born in December, the year 1 BC
Liberato De Caro, a researcher at the Crystallography Institute of the National Research Council in Bari, Italy, and coordinator of the research, spoke in detail in an interview with National Catholic Register how they came to that conclusion.
To estimate the historical date of the Nativity, De Caro and researcher Fernando La Greca, from the University of Salerno (Italy) analyzed the chronology of a series of events and elements. The main ones are the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary – which according to the Bible would have occurred in the sixth month of the pregnancy of Elizabeth, cousin of Mary and mother of John the Baptist; and the calendar of different Jewish festivals and pilgrimages.
With this, they concluded that the Annunciation would have taken place just before the Passover. That would be at the end of our current month of March, which means that Jesus would have been born in December.
According to the record in the Gospel of St. Luke, Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy when the Annunciation took place – the announcement by the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus.
According to the historian, at that time three pilgrimages were made to Jerusalem: on Passover, on Pentecost (50 days after Passover), and on the Feast of Tabernacles (six months after Passover). Therefore, the maximum period of time between one pilgrimage and another was six months (between the Feast of Tabernacles and the following Passover).
Joseph and Mary were pilgrims, according to the Gospel of Luke. As Mary, at the time of the Annunciation, was not aware of Isabel’s pregnancy, the researchers infer that no pilgrimage had taken place for at least five months prior to that moment, when Isabel was in her sixth month.
“It is entirely plausible to suppose that if there had been a pilgrimage between the angel’s annunciation to Zechariah [que Isabel daria à luz João Batista] and at the Annunciation, Joseph would have gone to Jerusalem and would already know from Zechariah about the unexpected pregnancy of his wife Elizabeth, a relative of Mary, since she was too old to have children. News as important as this were not saved”, argues De Caro in the interview.
However, according to the Bible, Mary was not aware of Elizabeth’s pregnancy during the Annunciation.
This implies that the Annunciation must have taken place at least five months after a pilgrimage. From this, the authors deduced that the Annunciation took place between the Feast of Tabernacles and Easter, and that the Archangel’s visit to Mary must have been just before Easter. If the nine months of pregnancy are added together, the birth of Jesus must have taken place in late December or early January.
year of birth
To determine the year of Jesus Christ’s birth, historians have taken into account records of King Herod’s death.
Herod must have been alive in the year Jesus was born, as the Bible speaks of an alleged killing of innocents after birth. According to first-century historian Flavius Josephus, Herod died after a visible lunar eclipse from Jerusalem.
Based on current astronomical studies and other historical elements, Herod’s death would have occurred between AD 2 and 3, consistent with the conventional beginning of the Christian era. Which means the Nativity “occurred at the end of the year 1 BC”, says De Caro.
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