New Testament History

The renditions of the dates

The chronology here presented for the history of the New Testament period is based on the revelations to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich and on data taken from ancient sources (archaeology, epigraphy, literature, and numismatics). We here provide a brief description of the principles used in our rendition of dates.

1. The conversions of the lunar dates

The Jewish calendar is lunar: months have 29 or 30 days (i.e. the length of a lunar cycle), with each month beginning (and ending) at the occurrence of the New Moon. The year contains 12 months (13 in a bissextile year), which correspond to the following months of the Gregorian calendar:[1]

Nisan = March/April

Iyar = April/May

Sivan = May/June

Tammuz = June/July

Av = July/August

Elul = August/September

Tishri = September/October

Heshvan = October/November

Kislev = November/December

Tevet = December/January

Shevat = January/February

Adar = February/March

Adar II = an intercalary month

The Jewish year has several New Years. The most important ones are the New Year in Nisan (the religious New Year) and that in Tishri (the civil New Year).[2] The latter is applied to the Sabbatical years.[3]

A lunar year has 354 days on average (6 months of 29 days + 6 months of 30 days), which is 11 days less than the solar year (i.e. 365¼ days). In order to remain consistent with the solar cycle, an intercalary month (Adar II) is added every two or three years.[4] At the time of the New Testament the Jews did not yet introduce this extra month by calculation but rather by observation.[5]

The lunar dates found in our sources have been converted into solar dates by means of the edition of Reingold and Dershowitz.[6] Sometimes the edition of Parker and Dubberstein[7] (who reconstruct the Babylonian lunar calendar from 626 BC until 75 AD) has also been consulted.[8] The dates given in both editions can deviate one or two days from the historical lunar dates (i.e. the dates that actually took place): Parker and Dubberstein’s because of the distance between Jerusalem and Babylon[9] and because the beginning of a month was determined by the observation of the first appearance of the new crescent rather than by calculation, which was the case in Babylonia[10]; Reingold and Dershowitz’s because their edition uses the rules of the modern Jewish calendar, some of which were not yet at use in ancient times:

  ·   In the modern calendar 15 Nisan may not fall on a Friday, such that 1 Nisan is prevented from falling on Friday, while in ancient times this was possible.

   ·  According to the current preferred configuration Elul has 29 days, and Tishri 30 days.

   ·  Nowadays 1 Tishri may not fall on a Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday,[11] whereas antiquity did not know of such a restriction. Hence A.C.E. describes a year in which 1, 15, and 22 Tishri fell on a Sunday.[12]

In order to improve or to check the date conversions found in both editions, the occurrences of the New Moon are sometimes mentioned.[13]

The length of a month was not fixed; months of 29 and 30 days alternated in irregular sequence.[14] The visions of A.C.E. indicates that, if a month had 29 days, the Festival of the New Moon only lasted for one day: the following day, while if a month had 30 days, it lasted for 2 days: the last (i.e. 30th) day of the month and the following (i.e. 1st) day of the next month. Hence her descriptions of the Festival of the New Moon provide data concerning the lengths of the months.

Further, apart from the possible deviation of 1 or 2 days, there can also be a deviation of 1 month between the reconstructions of Reingold and Dershowith (and Parker and Dubberstein) and the historical calendars owing to differing intercalation (since this intercalation was not calculated in ancient Palestine, whereas it is in the modern Jewish calendar and it was in ancient Babylonia beginning from the 4th century BC).[15] For instance, Parker and Dubberstein have a month of Adar II in 33 AD, while A.C.E., Reingold and Dershowitz, and modern scholarship call the relevant month Nisan. Thus a possible difference of up to one month and one or two days must be borne in mind.

2. The renditions of the solar dates

Unless indicated, the solar dates in the present study are always given according to the Julian calendar.[16] When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar in 46 BC, every third year was bissextile. In 8 BC Augustus improved the intercalation principle: every fourth year became bissextile. By 8 BC the deviation – resulting from a leap day every third instead of every fourth year – had amounted to three days.[17] Augustus corrected the error by omitting three bissextile years:[18] 5 BC, 1 BC, and 4 AD were not bissextile.[19] Scholars never use Julius Caesar’s calendar but always Augustus’s, even for the period 46 BC-4 AD. When that period is referred to in the present presentation, the deviations (1 to 3 days) between the factual dates (i.e. the dates according to Julius Caesar’s calendar, indicated as “factual Julian”) and the theoretical dates (i.e. the dates according to Augustus’s calendar, indicated as “theoretical Julian”) are generally indicated.[20]

The Julian calendar is marked by still another inaccuracy: it contains 11 minutes and 14 seconds too many per year. In 1582 AD Pope Gregory XIII therefore adapted the Julian calendar: only centenary years divisible by 400 remained bissextile (e.g. the year 2000 AD, not 1900 AD). In this study dates are sometimes given according to the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian dates in the 1^st century BC and the 1^st century AD are two numbers lower than the corresponding Julian dates.

The Gregorian calendar is not ‘perfect’ either: the Gregorian calendar has one day too much in 2,500 years (i.e. one leap day of 29 February too much). Given that 2,000 years (i.e. almost 2,500 years) separate us from the New Testament times, the New Testament dates given according to the Gregorian calendar are one day higher than the real historical dates. In addition to the Julian and Gregorian dates, these actual dates will likewise often be indicated.

In order to know on which weekdays relevant solar dates fell, we have consulted the edition of Reingold and Dershowitz.