Christmas Series: The Year
History of Christmas: The Year — How Could Jesus be born in 4 B.C.?
Before Christ, or before himself?
It’s common knowledge that Jesus was born on December 25, A.D. 1,
Right?
Well, not so fast.
OK then, 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 Flavius Josephus *.
The king was quite alive during the Wise Men‘s visit in the Nativity story 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!)
Why is there a gap of this much time in our modern calendar?
Christmas Calendar Gap
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, he unwittingly committed history’s most significant numerical error…
