SEVEN STEPS TO BETHLEHEM.

Introduction to Step Two

THE FIFTEENTH YEAR OF TIBERIUS CÆSAR

     The time reference in Luke 3, that John the Baptist began his ministry in the 15^th year of Tiberius Cæsar seems on the surface to be an ideal bench mark by which to obtain a clear chronology.

    However, by even superficial reading in the various books and journals on chronology, there is evidence of an on-going, and sometimes quite heated debate about this date. This is because each of the authors has his own personal agenda, and when the date doesn’t seem to fit his agenda, he tries to find some other way of resolving the issue. And this is the problem at all levels with the subject of historical chronology. Admittedly there are problems, and when the problems arise because of the ambiguity of written records, investigation is needed to resolve the problem. But there's another type of problem, and this arises, not because of ambiguity, but because of predetermined schemes of exegesis, which demand certain dates, or patterns, in order to fit the "schemes".

   I appreciate the enormous difficulties that beset workers in this field. I have great respect for the tireless labours of those who have written impartially, without a personal agenda, and whose labours now save other researchers much time. 

CHAPTER 10

THE FIFTEENTH YEAR OF TIBERIUS CÆSAR

     Luke 3:1-2 "In the 15^th year of the government of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, and Herod being tetrarch of Ituræa and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the High Priests, the word of the Lord came unto John the son of Zachariah in the wilderness."

Here is a very precise and almost laboured reference to the political scene at the outset of John the Baptist’s ministry. No less than seven important figures are placed on the world stage, together with one very clear time-marker. Luke said at the outset of his writing that he had "investigated all things accurately from the beginning," and we should have no reason to doubt his word. He was a professional man, well lettered, and held in high esteem by his Christian friends. His motive in writing the Gospel would undoubtedly be to honour the Man who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Hence we may place upon his record the stamp of authenticity. I believe it is dishonourable to cast doubts on Luke’s testimony just because it happens to disagree with some secular record. Why should the secular record have the edge of authenticity over the Gospel writer? What motive could there be for a man such as Luke to bend history to fit some pre-conceived scheme? His very records show clearly that this was not his intention. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. Hence we shall accept what he says about the 15^th year of Tiberius, and assume that within that very year John the Baptist was called by God to begin his brief but meteoric career.

    Is there any possibility of nailing down the 15th year of Tiberius? The only way to fit it into some chronological scheme operating in those days is to compare it with other sources and construct a date-plan. Historians have done this, and their work is widely accepted as being genuine as far as anyone is able to reconstruct a chronology of 2,000 years ago with absolute certainty.

   Here are the facts. Augustus Cæsar was born September 23^rd B.C. 63 and died August 19^th A.D. 14. He was succeeded by Tiberius (who was born November 16^th B.C. 42 and died March 16^th A.D. 37.) Hence the first year of Tiberius Cæsar ran from August 19^th A.D. 14, and by simple arithmetic his 15^th year can be calculated. In all cases of this sort, a simple time-line can be of great assistance, because it is very easy to make a mistake of one year in such calculations. Here it is -

THE YEARS OF TIBERIUS CÆSAR

      |--1--|--2--|--3--|--4--|--5--|--6--|--7--|--8--|--9--|--10-|--11-|--12-|--13-|--14-|--15-|--16--|

|--14-|--15-|-16-|-17-|--18-|--19-|-20-|--21-|-22-|--23-|--24-|--25-|-26-|--27--|--28-|--29--| A.D.

Expanding the scale of the time-line, for the portion we are most interested in, we get the following -

THE 15^th YEAR OF TIBERIUS CÆSAR

                                                |------------------15^TH YEAR--------------------|

|---------------------A.D.28----------------------|--------------------A.D.29------------------------|

                                              19                                                                  19
                                            AUG                                                             AUG

    So far, so good. Now the problems arise. First of all, are we sure that the method of dating the reigns of the Cæsars is that shown on these diagrams? Could it be that Tiberius’ 1^st year is idealised as the whole of A.D. 14? (Chronologists refer to this as the "Accession Year System".) If this is the case, then his 15^th year will be the whole of A.D. 28.

    On the other hand, there is the "Non-Accession Year System" which considers the 1^st year of a reign to be that which follows the year of coronation, making his 15th year the whole of A.D. 29

    And then again, history shows that Tiberius had some sort of co-regency with Augustus in the last two years of his reign, when the elderly monarch was rendered unfit to rule by frailty of body and mind. Should these years be added to Tiberius’ reign? If that be the case, then his 15^th year would be either August 26 - August 27 A.D., or just A.D. 26. Without some extra means of checking, there is no way of knowing how to decide which of these possibilities best represents the facts.

    Thankfully we are not left without means of cross-checking. I shall refer to three independent sources. First of all, the writings of Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, and his voluminous histories. He said that the time between the 2^nd year of Darius the Mede and the 15^th year of Tiberius was exactly 137 Olympiads. Each Olympiad being 4 years in length, 137 Olympiads add up to 548 years. By consulting Parker and Dubberstein’s monograph entitled "Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. to A.D. 75" we find on page 15 that Darius’s 2^nd year was B.C. 520, which was also the 1^st year of the 65^th Olympiad. 548 - 520 = 28, but allowance for the absence of zero between B.C.1 and A.D.1 means that we need to add 1 to the result. Hence the 15^th year of Tiberius comes out to be A.D. 29, and as the Olympiad began 1^st July, we are narrowed down to the period between 1^st July and 19^th August in that year, according to Eusebius. This first check fits neatly into the diagram above.

    The second line of enquiry comes from Josephus, who is occasionally unreliable in his method of dating, but this doesn’t mean that he is often wrong, just that sometimes great care is required to unravel the knots he creates. (Furthermore, some of his dates have been tampered with over the centuries, as exemplified by different manuscripts.) Josephus was born in Jerusalem in A.D. 37, the very year that Tiberius died. In his writings he frequently mentions the dates within Tiberius’ reign, and at all times they stem from A.D. 14. Finally, in Wars II.9.5 he says that Tiberius reigned a little over 22 years and 6 months. Now on the ordinary method of dating, shown by the two diagrams above, and by the given dates of his accession to the time of his death, we have a period of 22 years, 6 months, and 26 days. This provides us with a very good check on the A.D 14 date.

    The third line of enquiry is perhaps the most persuasive, inasmuch as two coins have been found with cross-reference dates on them. 

The first is stamped  "1^st year of Tiberius, 45^th year of the Actian era." 

And the second,      "3^rd year of Tiberius, 47^th year of the Actian era."

    This is the kind of evidence historians look for and accept with great pleasure. So what can we learn from it? The great naval battle that was fought off the west coast of Greece near a place called Actium, involving the fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra on one side, and Octavian (Augustus) on the other side, occurred on September 2^nd, B.C. 31. Using another time line, we are now able to determine what the coins reveal.

THE 45^TH YEAR OF THE ACTIAN ERA

        BC31     BC21     BC11     BC1     AD1     AD11     AD12     AD13     AD14     AD15

           0            10          20           30        31         41           42           43           44          45

    Hence the 45^th year of the Actian era would run from September 2^nd A.D. 14 to September 1^st A.D. 15. So great is the synchronism between these three sources of information, that one can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that Tiberius began his reign in A.D. 14, and that his dates began with his inauguration rather than being back-dated to the beginning of the year.

    If we accept this combined testimony, then the 15^th year of Tiberius Cæsar will be measured from 19^th August A.D. 28 to 18^th August A.D. 29. And some time during that year the word of the Lord came to John the Baptist to begin his public ministry of "preparing the way of the Lord."

    One further conclusion can be drawn from this data. The ministry of Jesus cannot antedate the ministry of John the Baptist for obvious reasons, and therefore Jesus’ ministry cannot have started until about the middle of 29 A.D. We shall have to consider this fact more closely as we proceed. But it does already seem to suggest a three and a half year ministry for Jesus, rather than the one year requested by a number of expositors, ancient and modern. Thus it would seem easier to assess the length of His ministry from external chronological sources rather than an internal analysis of the Gospels.

    This new stepping-stone, even if it cannot be narrowed down within the year, provides us with what we need for the next stage of the work.

SSTB.INDEX

NEXT CHAPTER