As opposed to the scriptures of the New Testament, of which there were found more than 20,000 copies altogether up to date, other historical writings are by far not as good recorded as these. This is also the reason for the lack of extrabiblical evidence for the census mentioned in Lk 2:1-2 and thus the cause for all the difficulties we face by trying to date Yeshua's birth.
Nevertheless, there are some references, even within the Gospels, that hint at specific dates. Like for instance Jn 2:20: “'What!' they exclaimed. 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?'”
As we know from Josephus, the renovation of the Temple under Herod the Great, to which this verse refers (because neither the building of the first nor of the second Temple took as long), started in the year 19 BCE. If we now add the 46 years mentioned in the text, we can conclude that this encounter must have taken place in 27 CE.
The problem is that Lk 3:1 states that Yochanan (John the Baptist) started his ministry in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, who became Roman Emperor in 14 CE, which would make 29 CE the year of the beginning of Yochanan's ministry, which again would then be later than the so called Cleansing of the Temple to which the verse above belongs. But since, according to the synoptic Gospels, the latter is traditionally placed right before the Pessach week which includes the crucifixion of Yeshua, some scholars think that Jn and the other Gospels are talking about two different incidents. Eusebius of Caesarea (263-339 CE) went even further than that and assumed that almost the whole content of Jn (at least until chapter 13), as opposed to the other Gospels, consisted of things that had happened before the arrest of Yochanan.
Whatever the correct solution might be – maybe I'll be writing another article about this problem some other time – Lk 3 tells us at least one other thing, namely that Yeshua was approximately 30 years old at the time (v. 23). So, that would mean that he must have been born in 1 BCE.
Unfortunately, this is impossible because Herod the Great, who is playing an important role in the birth account given in Mt 2, died in 4 BCE. But we mustn't forget that the Greek word ωσει (“approximately”, “about”) could also be translated “like” or even “maybe”, perhaps meaning “Yeshua looked like a 30 year old”.
But even though all these deliberations seem to promote the theory of the Mashiach's birth before 4 BCE, there is another historical fact that contradicts it. Quirinius, who is mentioned in Lk 2:2 (related to the census), became governor of Syria probably not before 6 CE. Nevertheless, there are some assumptions, for example by Blaiklock, about an earlier capacity of Quirinius in Syria. But the easier and probably even more likely solution for the seeming contradiction is to not translate απογραφη πρωτη as “first census” but as “census before” (the reign of Quirinius), which is just as well possible.
So, we can indeed see that the birth of Yeshua before 4 BCE is historically accurate, yet we still don't know when exactly it could have taken place.
Just like in the case of the Mashiach's crucifixion which astronomers have been trying to date by looking for a solar eclipse in Israel around 30 CE (cf. Mt 27:45), they've also been trying to date his birth by identifying the so called Star of Bethlehem (Mt 2:2). Whereas in the first case they couldn't be successful because the crucifixion must have taken place on the 15th of Nisan, in the middle of the month and thus a day of full moon which makes a solar eclipse impossible (but we mustn't forget that Mt talks only about a “darkness”, not about a solar eclipse), there is at least one interesting theory that could explain what the magi (Mt 2:1) had seen in the sky.
In fact, we are talking about a so called conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the Pisces constellation of the zodiac of which already Johannes Kepler had thought that it could have been the Star of Bethlehem. Although he had miscalculated a few dates, modern astronomers were able to show that this conjunction took place on May 27, October 6 and December 1, 7 BCE.
Given that the magi had probably realised the conjunction on the day of its first appearance, the question is: when exactly did they reach Jerusalem or Bethlehem respectively? According to Mt 2:9 (“And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem.”) this must have happened on one of the other two dates given above, in fact when the conjunction was visible in the south-southwest, because Bethlehem is located a few km south-southwest of Jerusalem. Now, this would have been the case on the 6th of October. Interestingly, the time span between May 27 and October 6 is almost exactly the same as the trip from Babylon to Jerusalem takes according to Ezra 7:9. This makes sense because the Greek term μαγοι (“magi”) most probably refers to a priestly caste in or around Babylon.
Despite everything, some scholars have argued that this cannot be an acceptable solution for the dating problem since Jupiter and Saturn are neither stars nor single (cf. Mt 2:9 “the star”). But we mustn't forget that Papias of Hierapolis (?-140 CE) tells that Mt was originally written in “Hebrew dialect” (which could even mean Aramaic) and if we take a look into the תנ״ך (Old Testament), we will see that it appears that the Hebrew word כוכב seems to cover the meanings of both “star” and “planet” (and we can assume that the same applies to the Aramaic term). In addition to that, because of the conjunction, Jupiter and Saturn would have seemed to be a single light (or “star”) to the naked eye.
But another argument stands against the conjunction theory, namely the fact that the Babylonians indeed considered Jupiter the star/planet of kings, but there is no evidence that they associated Saturn with the Jewish people. In fact, it even appears that they associated the latter one with the Syrians. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be forgotten that Syria wasn't a kingdom at that time, and the closest kingdom around would have been the one of Herod the Great which even included Ituraea and Trachonitis, both most probably originally belonging to Syria.
In addition to these extrabiblical references, there is even some internal evidence – basically found in Lk 1 – that makes the Mashiach's birth likely to have happened at the beginning of October. The key passage we are talking about is Lk 1:5 because it tells us that Zecharyah belonged to the priestly order of Abiyah which, according to 1 Chr 24:10, was the 8th of all 24 priestly orders. Since it is just logical to assume that the names given there are in chronological order so that each priestly order would have been responsible to serve at the Temple for two weeks, and the Jewish year at that time started with Nisan, we can conclude that Zecharyah's encounter with the angel (Lk 1:11) must have taken place sometime in the second half of Tammuz which would be beginning of July, according to the Gregorian calendar. This again means that Elisheva most probably got pregnant towards the end of July and that also implies that she must have given birth to Yochanan approximately in April.
Now, Lk 1:36+39 show us that Elisheva was in her 6th month when Miryam got pregnant as well and the latter almost immediately took off to visit the first and stayed with her for 3 months (Lk 1:56), probably until the birth of Yochanan. If we now add the 6 remaining months of Miryam's pregnancy, we see that the Mashiach must have been born either in September or October.
Assuming that October 6, 7 BCE truly was the date of Yeshua's birth, this would give the whole story an even greater symbolic meaning, because back in that year the date mentioned would have equaled Tishri 15, according to the Jewish calendar, and thus the first day of Sukkot. And even the prologue of Jn seems to suggest a connection between Yeshua's birth and Sukkot because Jn 1:14 says, “So the Word became human and made home among us”, but the infinitive of εσκηνωσεν (“made home”) actually means “to tent, to encamp” and even “to dwell in a hut (Sukka)”.
Also, if Yeshua's birth took place on the first day of Sukkot and he was circumcised 8 days later (Lk 2:21), this would have been the day of Shmini Atzeret (“the eighth day of assembly”) of which ויקרא כג לו (Lev 23:36) says, “The eighth day is another holy day on which you present your special gifts to the Lord.” In fact, the Hebrew word used for “special gifts” is אשה which originally referred to a burnt offering but can also mean any kind of sacrifice.
So, we find that even the final sacrifice, that took place on the cross, was foretold in the way the Mashiach received his Brit Milah.
Halleluyah!
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