Abstract
We have re-examined and discussed all chronological, historical and astronomical elements which can be referred to the year of Herod the Great’s death, which occurred—according to Josephus—after a lunar eclipse and before Passover. Since the XIX century, most scholars still assume the eclipse occurred on 13 March 4 BC, so that Dionysius Exiguus was wrong in calculating the beginning of the Christian era—by four years at least—because Herod the Great must have been alive when Jesus was born. We have solved the apparent incompatibility of the events narrated by Josephus, occurring between the eclipse of 13 March 4BC and a too-near Passover (12 April 4 BC), by determining another date after studying all eclipses visible from Jerusalem in near years. This analysis—supported by a novel simulation of naked–eye visibility of partial lunar eclipses—has shown that the most eligible eclipse associable to Herod’s death occurred in the night of 8–9 November 2 AD. Besides this astronomical finding, our conclusion is also supported by significant correlation between segmented sleep and eclipse intervals; by its compatibility with the long sequence of events narrated by Josephus and with the rabbinic tradition about Herod’s death. This dating also agrees with other historical facts connected to Roman and Jewish history. In conclusion, Herod the Great must have died in the first month of 3 AD and, very likely, Dionysius Exiguus was correct.
Highlights
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Josephus writes that Herod was declared king by the Romans in the year of the 184th Olympiad (Josephus, AJ XIV. 389), he reigned for 37 years since he was declared king and 34 years (Josephus, AJ XVII. 191) since Antigonus’ death
The chronology reconstructed under the hypothesis of co-regency correlates with Matthew (Mt 2, 16), who mentions Herod’s order to kill all children under the age of two in the Bethlehem area. This implies that Jesus was born at least two years before, practically the interval elapsed between December BC (Dionysius Exiguus’ calculation) and January 3 AD, in agreement with Matthew
Summary
On Jesus Christ’s birth year, namely 1 BC (Before Christ), according to Dionysius Exiguus [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12], who first, in the year 525 AD (Anno Domini), proposed to count the years after his birth, there is a long-lasting patristic tradition that has been considered correct for centuries. A minimum interval of 1.5∼2 months between the eclipse and the following Passover is a fundamental and unavoidable constraint in establishing the year of Herod’s death In other words, these scholars conclude Josephus did not refer to the eclipse of 4 BC. To this purpose, in Appendix A, we report, at length, our original physical−mathematical analysis of how partial eclipses with low umbral magnitude are seen with naked eyes.
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