CHAPTER 11

"ABOUT THIRTY YEARS OF AGE."

     Luke 3:23 "Jesus Himself began to be about thirty years of age."

    In this chapter we need to consider the implication of these words. First of all we are aware that there has been a passage of time from when John began his ministry. How much time is not stated, but from what we read in the Gospels it seems to be brief before he meets Jesus for the baptism ceremony. It is on this occasion that the words concerning Jesus’ age are mentioned.

    The Greek of this sentence needs further consideration. If we take the words as they stand in English translation, and apply them as we would today, then we might conclude that it was round about Jesus’ 30^th birthday, give or take a year. It can’t be of greater latitude, otherwise the writer would have said "about 31", or "about 29". Some argue the point here, and say that 30 is a "round number" of the type we employ today, and that Jesus could have been anything from 25 to 35 years old. But such idiom is seldom if ever employed by ancient writers.

    The Greek word "about" is HOSEI, which Luke uses in other contexts, enabling us to assess the degree of approximation he intended here. The examples are as follows -

    Luke 8:42 Jairus’ daughter was said to be "about twelve years old." But in Mark 5:42 the text simply reads "twelve years old."

    Luke 23:44 The darkness covered the land at "about the sixth hour." But in Matthew 27:45 the text simply reads "the sixth hour."

    Acts 13:18. Luke says that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for "about forty years," whereas in point of fact it was forty years almost to the day!

    Luke 9:28. "Now about eight days after these sayings - -." If Luke had meant seven days, or nine days, why didn’t he say so? Surely the word about can only imply that he meant the eighth day?

    Acts 19:6-7 "The Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve of them in all." Would Luke have said this if he knew that there were 11 or 13 men present?

    In all these examples, we get the distinct impression that Luke employs HOSEI to mean "just about", "in close proximity to" or "almost exactly". As a result we can assume that Jesus was in close proximity to being thirty years of age when He was baptised. 

    If today a man should position a row of bamboo poles in the ground and ask his friend if they were properly in line, he might close one eye, look along the row and say, "That’s just about right!" And he would mean, "Yes, they are in a straight line, as near as matters." This is the type of meaning that Luke had in mind when he used the expression.

    Is there some good reason why Jesus had to be 30 years of age when He began His ministry? In Numbers 4:3 we read that the ministry of Priests and Levites began at 30 and ended at 50 years of age. In Numbers 8:24 the age seems to be lowered to 25 for the start, but there is no discrepancy. The first five years were by way of an apprenticeship before a fully-fledged ministry could begin. Five years were assigned for the onerous task of learning about the extensive ceremonial legislation required under the Mosaic code. Failure to comply with this legislation could have resulted in the death penalty, as it did for Nadab and Abihu, who offered "strange fire".

    However, this was the rule for the Priests and Levites, not for members of the other tribes. Jesus was born of the tribe of Judah, so is there a rule that applies for Him? The Mosaic legislation is silent on all academic posts of responsibility other than the priesthood. However, it became an unwritten law in Israel that a man should not attempt to teach until he reached the age of 30. The writings of Irenæus, an early Christian father, state that a man should not become a Rabbi until he reached 30. Anyone under this age was considered too youthful to instruct others. Note that many of those who addressed Jesus referred to Him as Rabbi. Hence we get the distinct impression that Jesus (and John the Baptist) had no desire to offend people by contravening this law, even if it was not strictly laid down in the Torah.

    We shall assume therefore that God spoke to John when he had reached the age of 30, and that Jesus came to John for baptism when He had reached this age. This would allow for about a six months gap between the beginnings of their ministries, based on the details in the early chapters of Luke, where the angel told Mary that it was the sixth month of pregnancy to Elisabeth, the one who had been barren. (Luke 2:36)

    The conclusion to these investigations is that John would have started his ministry during A.D. 28-29 and Jesus sometime during A.D. 29. Nearer than that we cannot go at the moment. The outcome of this must be left to the next chapter.

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