The Chronology of Jesus' Public Ministry

Abstract

For all practical purposes the chronology of Jesus' public ministry is fully known and indisputable. The abundant and conclusive testimony of New Testament writers, compared with that of Jewish and Roman historians, establishes the fact that Jesus' life-work was done about 26-30 A. D. We do not need to know the exact year of his entrance into public activity, or of his death, or the precise interval between these two events. No doubt a sense of reality and of possession comes to us in knowing the exact year or duration of a past event. But this passion for precise dates is a modern interest. The evangelists who record for us the life of Christ had no such concern for the precise years of Jesus' public ministry-its beginning and end, the deeds and utterances that belonged to it, its culmination. Otherwise they might readily have recorded these dates. As it is, the gospels give us no exact dates for any of the events in the life of Christ. Luke alone of the four evangelists attempted to fix one date, and strangely enough even this eSort has turned out uncertain for us. Luke 3: I, 2 reads: