History of Christmas: The Year — How Could Jesus be born 4 B.C.?
It’s obvious that Jesus was born on December 25, A.D. 1 (Anno Domine, “the year of our Lord”), right? Not so fast.
OK, was it in Year Zero?
No, there wasn’t a Year 0; the calendar went from 1 B.C. to A.D. 1.
We know that Herod the Great (who killed all the babies in Bethlehem younger than two years of age) died in the Spring of 4 B.C., according to the Jewish historian Josephus *.
The king was quite alive during the Wise Men‘s visit in the Nativity story told in the Gospel of Matthew. So Jesus would have to have been born before this time, anywhere from 7 B.C to 4 B.C. (Before Christ, or before himself!)
Christmas Calendar Gap
Why is there a gap of this much time in our modern calendar?
We owe this to a Roman monk-mathematician-astronomer named Dionysius Exiguus, or Dennis the Little, but known to his close friends as Dennis the Humble. During the 6th century A.D., he unwittingly committed what has become history’s most significant numerical error related to the calendar.
Originally from Scythia Minor, north of the Danube River delta in modern Romania near the Black Sea, he relocated to Rome. He was best known for translating many…
