The Birth Date of Jesus Christ

Thesis

One tradition places Jesus' birth on 6 January, another on the twenty-fifth of a month. Their basis is His true birth date, which was 6 January (25 Kislev on the Jewish calendar) in 5 BC. It was the first day of the feast known as Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights. The coincidence was intended by God to underscore who Jesus was. He was the Light coming into the world (John 1:1-5; 9:4-5).

The date we are presenting for Christ's birth is consistent with all relevant historical and circumstantial evidence. For a survey of all relevant questions, see a companion article. In the article being presented here, the purpose is to show why the traditional view of scholars has been that Herod died in 4 BC.

Traditional Dating

The two dates of Herod's accession

The quest for the true date of Herod's death has been sidetracked into much confusion by failure to follow the best strategy. The right way to proceed is to start with the most reliable information that Josephus provides concerning the timing of events during Herod’s career. If this information can be harmonized on the basis of reasonable assumptions, we then have solid anchors for a whole chronology deserving our confidence.

Three time markers in Josephus's Antiquities stand out as most specific and credible. The first two are the dates of Herod's accession.

1. Josephus reports that Herod was appointed king of Judea by the Roman Senate in the Roman year (running from January to January) when Caius Domitius Calvinus (for the second time) and Caius Asinius Pollio held the office of consul,¹ the same as 40 BC.²
2. The same writer tells us that Herod conquered Jerusalem in the consular year of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus,³ which indisputably was 37 BC.⁴

One reason these two time markers may be viewed as trustworthy is that the most likely source of precise Roman dates for events connected with Herod's reign, about a century before Josephus's time, was close to Herod himself; that is, an official source. In fact, we have evidence that the dates sprinkled throughout Josephus’s account of the Herodian melodrama come from record keepers attached to Herod’s court. At one point in Antiquities, Josephus states that he is drawing information from Nicolaus, Herod’s "historiographer."⁵ Nicolaus was a courtly sycophant who painted the king as heroic. Therefore, Josephus is at pains to tell us that although he consulted the writings of Nicolaus, he dismissed the author's flattering slant on Herod’s character and achievements.⁶ He says earlier that he has also drawn information from Herod’s memoirs.⁷ The rendering "memoirs," offered by Ralph Marcus and Allen Wikgren,⁸ is better than William Whiston’s "commentaries."⁹ Although the second source was probably distinct from the first, Josephus's knowledge of it may have been limited to whatever was transmitted in the writings of Nicolaus.¹⁰

The dates of Herod's accession yield insights critical to building an accurate chronology of Herod's reign.

1. Why were the consular years for both Herod's appointment and his conquest of Jerusalem preserved in official documents? And why also were they viewed by Josephus as important information to furnish his readers? The likely reason in answer to both questions is that these years give the dates which Herod himself considered to be the starting points of his reign. The year 40 BC was the beginning of his de jure reign, and the year 37 BC was the beginning of his de facto reign.
2. These dates stated in Roman consular years display Herod's choice to measure his reign according to the Roman calendar. He was, after all, a king appointed by the Roman Senate—a king whose power and position rested on maintaining his image as fundamentally Roman in his loyalties and outlook. Although he was nominally king of Judea, he made no pretense of falling in the line of Jewish kings. He was, as the preeminent scholar Emil Schürer observed, a "Roman vassal king";¹¹ that is, a ruler appointed by the Romans and fully subordinate to Roman authority. From Herod's point of view, if the Caesars reckoned by Roman years, why should he not use them also?

In every facet of life, Herod tried to appear as Roman as possible. He was a Roman citizen.¹² Throughout his career he cultivated close relations with the emperor and his family, succeeding to the extent of spending considerable time in the company of both Augustus and his son-in-law Agrippa.¹³ After reigning seventeen years in Judea, Herod had risen so high in Caesar's esteem that, when speaking of the standing he then enjoyed, Josephus said, "He was beloved by Caesar next after Agrippa, and by Agrippa next after Caesar."¹⁴ Yet at the same moment in his career, the Jewish people "were uneasy at him, because of the innovations he had introduced in their practices, of the dissolution of their religion, and of the disuse of their own customs."¹⁵

Establishing a Roman identity was for Herod no less than an obsession. He sent his sons to Rome for their education.¹⁶ By surrounding himself with officials and counselors and guests who were Greek scholars, he followed the Roman fashion of presenting himself as sophisticated in matters of Greek culture and learning.¹⁷ He undertook extensive building projects, including the construction of theaters, stadia, amphitheaters, and hippodromes such as were found in Rome and other Roman cities.¹⁸ He copied the Romans by sponsoring not only Olympic-style games, but also contests making a spectacle of violent death.¹⁹ He even built many temples to honor Caesar²⁰ and named cities after him.²¹ The crowning edifice in Caesarea, the magnificent new city that Herod built along the Mediterranean coast, was a temple of Caesar visible far out at sea.²²

As a skillful politician, Herod occasionally tossed pretty bouquets at the Jewish masses. But in the words of scholars responsible for the modern, updated version of Schürer's classic work on Jewish history in the days of Christ, "It was . . . an inviolable principle of his [Herod's] policy to maintain his friendship with Rome under all circumstances and at any price."²³ He understood full well that his best strategy was to make the Romans think that he was another Roman.

What standard, then, was Herod likely to use in measuring time? Some form of reckoning derived from Israel's past? No, it was surely the Roman year. Probably this was his preference in all matters of dating, but at the very least we should expect it in official records which might come into play if he or his underlings sat in discussion with the Syrian governor or other Roman authorities. Thus, as Harold Hoehner has maintained,²⁴ whenever Josephus gives a date in terms of Herodian regnal years, he presupposes a calendar with January as the first month.

The length of Herod's reign

The third time marker most helpful for dating events during the Herodian period is Josephus's statement that Herod reigned 34 years after his conquest of Jerusalem and 37 years after he was appointed king of Judea by the Senate.²⁵ These data commend our respect because the total years of Herod's reign by official reckoning must have been common knowledge readily available to Josephus.

Notice that these twin totals, 34/37 years, strongly bolster the dates for Herod's accession. The numbers 34 and 37 differ by three, as do the two Roman consular dates. Therefore, the consular dates and the twin totals are mutually corroborating. Agreement would almost certainly fail if any one of the four time markers was erroneous when Josephus set it down, or if any was corrupted in later manuscripts.

Year three

Two, possibly three, dates in ancient sources establish which regnal year Herod assigned to his takeover of entire Judea.

1. The only dated coins from the Herodian period are inscribed "year 3." A common view of scholars is that these were minted just after Herod gained control of Jerusalem.²⁶ If we encountered a similar pattern in another coinage—the general omission of dates except for one specific year appearing on a subset—we would discount them as helpful in building a chronology, for, in the absence of any explanatory inscriptions, we could not with certainty determine either the corresponding calendar year or its significance for those who produced them.
2. Yet we do find other testimony to year three. In Josephus's account of Herod's conquest of Jerusalem, he specifies the date by placing the event "during the consulship at Rome of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus, in the hundred and eighty-fifth Olympiad, in the third month, on the day of the Fast."²⁷
        Tradition had added many fasts to the calendar. Some scholars believe that since Josephus refers also to the third month, the intended fast is the one on the twenty-third of Sivan, the third month after Nisan; this was a day of mourning for the idolatry introduced by Jeroboam.²⁸ Yet when specifying the day of the city’s capture, Josephus uses the Greek phrase te eorte tes nesteias;²⁹ since eorte ordinarily means "festival,"³⁰ the phrase can be translated "on the festival of the fast." It is most unlikely that he would so dignify the minor observance in Sivan as to call it a festival and refer to it simply as "the fast," leaving the reference uncertain. In the judgment of many scholars, it is far more likely that he means to place Herod’s victory on the Day of Atonement, a festival in the autumn on 10 Tishri.³¹ It was the only day when Mosaic law required fasting (Lev. 23:27–32). Abstaining from food was the intent of the command to "afflict your souls."³² If we consult the handbook compiled by Richard Parker and Waldo Dubberstein, we learn that in 37 BC, the equivalent of 10 Tishri on the Babylonian calendar was 6 October on the Julian calendar.³³
        The Julian calendar employed by the Romans did not stabilize until about fifty years after its introduction in 45 BC. Only then did it regularly insert an extra day's time into the February of every fourth year.³⁴ The date we have just given, 6 October in 37 BC, refers to a calendar that modern scholars have constructed by taking the Julian calendar in its stabilized form and projecting it backward. Yet from March until the end of 37 BC, this artificial calendar coincides with the Julian calendar actually in use at that time.³⁵
        In dating the fall of Jerusalem, we must also consider the testimony of Dio Cassius, a historian in the early third century. He placed the conquest of Jerusalem on the day "even then called the day of Saturn [literally, Cronus]";³⁶ that is, on Saturday. It is obvious in his extensive writings that, in the words of Rainer Riesner, he had access to "a wealth of sources, including apparently such important ones as the Histories of Pliny the Elder and imperial annals and edicts."³⁷ His reliance on Roman records is transparent in his account of Jerusalem's overthrow, for he highlights the exploits of the Roman general Sosius, who was the chief commander of attacking forces, and makes only passing reference to Herod. Therefore, the date he assigns to the event carries considerable weight.
        It so happens that on the Babylonian calendar, the equivalent of 10 Tishri in 37 BC fell not on Saturday, but on Sunday.³⁸ In our evaluation of Dio and Josephus, this discrepancy does not, however, force us to view either or both as weak in credibility. On the contrary, both gain credibility because the discrepancy is so slight. Although the Jews used a lunar calendar derived from the Babylonian, the two calendars did not always agree, since Jewish authorities postponed starting a month until they received reports that a new moon had been sighted.³⁹ It is possible that the Babylonian calendar also never escaped dependence on observation of the sky.⁴⁰ Since a new moon became visible in Judea thirty-seven minutes earlier than in Babylon to the east, a Jewish month occasionally started one day earlier than the same Babylonian month.⁴¹ Moreover, with a procedure so vulnerable to local vagaries, especially during a siege, Jewish authorities in 37 BC may well have set 1 Tishri a day too early. Indeed, the deliberations that led to fixing this date probably took place somewhat later, after all the dust of war had settled.
        In the elaborate date that Josephus furnishes for Herod's seizure of Jerusalem, we have a great puzzle never resolved by scholars. He sets the conquest in the third month. Some scholars have proposed that he means the third month of siege.⁴² Yet in Wars he says in one place that the siege lasted five months; elsewhere, six months.⁴³ Other scholars have found this reference to a third month wholly enigmatic.⁴⁴
        The best explanation is perhaps the one recognizing that in a list otherwise including three calendrical time markers (consulship, Olympiad, and Fast)—each self-explanatory—Josephus would hardly add a noncalendrical time marker that was meaningless without further explanation. It must therefore be another calendrical time marker. But on no calendar did Tishri sit as the third month. What then did he mean? The writings of Josephus contain many errors.⁴⁵ "Third month" here is probably a slip (whether committed by Josephus or a later copyist) effacing the intended words, "third year." As on the coins, the reference was to Herod's third regnal year.
3. This time marker now obscured would have served to inform the reader that the conquest was accomplished in the same third year already mentioned. Josephus had said a while earlier, "When the rigour of winter was over, Herod removed his army, and came near to Jerusalem, and pitched his camp hard by the city. Now this was the third year since he had been made king at Rome."⁴⁶ Ralph Marcus in his translation substitutes "when the storm subsided" for "when the rigour of winter was over,"⁴⁷ but the ordinary meaning of χειμων is "winter," not "storm.".⁴⁸ The wording of Josephus leaves little doubt that he intended "third year" to encompass both listed events: the army's removal from the place of winter encampment as well as its relocation near Jerusalem.
        We have come to a question of central importance. Did the army forsake winter quarters before or after 1 Nisan? In 37, the year of conquest, the Babylonian 1 Nisan (actually, Nisanu) fell on 3 April.⁴⁹
        Here we must pause for the sake of precision. According to the Babylonian Talmud, the Sanhedrin decided at the end of each year whether to insert a thirteenth month, and their main considerations were the state of certain crops, the readiness of lambs for sacrifice at Passover, and the prospective date of the vernal equinox (19–21 March), which they did not permit to fall after Passover (14 Nisan).⁵⁰ In 37, the Jews could not have performed even one fewer intercalations than the Babylonian calendar prescribed, for then Nisan would have begun on 4 March, which was too early. Nor could they have performed an extra intercalation, for then Nisan would have begun far too late, on 2 May. Therefore, we may be sure that in 37, the divergence of 1 Nisan from 3 April did not exceed one day.
        Now we are ready to answer the question just raised. It seems rather unlikely that an invading army—especially one conducting its campaign in Judea's climate—would wait beyond 3 April before waking up from a winter's sleep.

We are now in a position to look at the larger implications of Josephus's three references to Herod's third year. These are critically important, for they help us identify which calendar was used by Josephus's source. As we pointed out earlier, the Romans in Herod's day used the Julian calendar. The non-Roman calendars then most familiar to the Jews were two rooted in their own heritage. As named by Jack Finegan, they were the Jewish, viewing Nisan in the spring as the first month, and the Israelite, viewing Tishri in the fall as the first month.⁵¹

Also, two ways of reckoning regnal years were employed in the ancient world. Accession year reckoning considered the first to be the first full calendar year at the beginning of a king's reign. Nonaccession year reckoning started with the partial calendar year preceding it.

Which calendar and which mode of reckoning could have led to Josephus's placement of two key events—both the mustering of Herod's troops in the spring and their conquest of the city in the ensuing autumn—in the same year, Herod's third?

For the answer, we need to locate more exactly where two other events fall on the timeline.

1. The first is the Roman Senate's decision to make Herod ruler of Judea. His elevation had the consent of both Octavian and Anthony, the two men who had divided the Roman world between them. Primarily the fact that they were both in Rome at this time demands that his elevation be placed late in the year 40.⁵²
2. The second is Herod's arrival in Palestine after the Romans appointed him king of Judea. Josephus says that once he gained royal dignity, he hastened away from Rome, leaving Italy within seven days after coming onto its shores.⁵³ Shortly after this comment, while reporting on the hostilities consuming Judea, he says, "By this time Herod had sailed out of Italy to Ptolemais, and had gotten together no small army, both of strangers and of his own countrymen, and marched through Galilee against Antigonus."⁵⁴ Yet we need not suppose that the journey from Italy to Palestine was accomplished quickly, in a matter of weeks perhaps, so that he arrived in the very year of his departure. On the contrary, his trip to Rome had been a protracted adventure. Shipwrecking late-season storms had caused detour and delay. Instead of going straight from Egypt to Rome, he had veered way north to Rhodes, the island just off the southwest corner of Anatolia, and remained there long enough to build a new ship, or at least to enlarge and strengthen an older ship.⁵⁵ Any attempted trip even later in the same winter could have been equally tumultuous. In all likelihood, he spent considerable time in intermediate ports waiting for better conditions. Thus, he probably did not achieve his goal, Ptolemais, until sometime after the beginning of 39.⁵⁶ Yet the peril of stormy seas had not deterred him from pressing onward to Rome late in the previous year, so we may be sure that despite the midwinter season, he scorned all the risks in moving as quickly as possible to Palestine. The date of his arrival in 39 may therefore be set with some confidence before 1 Nisan on the Jewish calendar.

Whether Herod defined the starting point of his reign as his appointment in Rome or his arrival in Palestine, neither the Jewish nor the Israelite calendar yields satisfactory results. On neither do the two events we can reasonably place in year three—the first being the beginning of military operations in the spring of 37 and the second being the conquest of the city in the autumn of 37—fall in the same year. In relation to 1 Nisan and 1 Tishri, the first event likely preceded both; the second event likely followed both. The two events fall in the same year only on the Julian calendar. It was year three by accession year reckoning if the starting point was Herod's appointment in Rome. Also, it was year three by nonaccession year reckoning if the starting point was when Herod first entered his assigned kingdom and took possession of some portion.

For several reasons, we may be fairly confident that Herod's choice of a starting point was his arrival in Palestine.

1. Neither accession year nor nonaccession year reckoning would serve to better please the Romans, for it was not yet evident what the style would be for Roman emperors, although it would later prove to be accession year reckoning.⁵⁷
2. Also, neither was dictated by historical precedent in Judea, for he was not the latest in a line of regional kings. Choosing between the two reckonings was basically choosing whether to allot his first partial calendar year to a predecessor, but he had no predecessor—at least none that he and the Romans viewed as legitimate. A certain Antigonus in the line of Hasmonean kings had set himself up as king over Judea in 40 BC,⁵⁸ but only in defiance of the Romans, who were already dominant in the region. He was deposed and beheaded when Herod conquered Jerusalem in 37.⁵⁹
3. Herod's commanding motivation was always to magnify himself. Therefore, in the absence of any strong reason to use accession year reckoning, he did not hesitate to claim the first partial year of his reign as his own regnal year.
4. Nonaccession year reckoning was more in line with the Jewish habit of reckoning inclusively. Even from their beginnings in the remote past, the Israelite people (and perhaps also Herod's own people, the Idumeans, who had for ages been close neighbors of the Jews) customarily measured the time between two endpoints by counting all whole and partial calendar units between them. More will be said about this later.
5. Later we will also show that in dating certain key events in Herod's reign, Josephus, doubtless on the basis of official records, always supplies a regnal year assuming that the first was 37—the year when Herod conquered Jerusalem. That was, as we observed before, the first of his de facto reign over the whole nation. He probably chose to highlight de facto years to enhance his legitimacy in the eyes of Jewish subjects. They were not inclined to define kingship as anything less than actual control of people and territory. Moreover, building his regnal years on 37 furnished a constant reminder of his stunning conquest of Jerusalem, which he wanted his subjects to see as an epochal turn in Judea's history. While campaigning in Judea during the interim preceding this conquest, he doubtless saw similar advantages in choosing 39 as his first year. It was at that time his first regnal year de facto, although with a domain rather limited in scope. It therefore served to stress his true kingship and to remind everyone of a critical moment in the nation's history—the moment when he arrived in Judea and began his irresistible push for absolute power.

Our conclusions so far imply that shortly after seizing all Judea, Herod must have abandoned 39 as his first year and substituted 37. That is, he must have revised his scheme for numbering regnal years. Why not? Allowing that he might have changed his mind shows respect for the complexity of the real world and saves us from the trap of being simplistic. Probably when he set 37 as the first year de facto, he also—at least in official records—decided to count his de jure years, starting from his appointment by the Roman Senate in 40 BC. This total served to emphasize that he was a true scion of the world-striding Romans.

The Battle of Actium

In Antiquities, Josephus clearly places two momentous events in Herod's seventh year: the Battle of Actium and a great earthquake in Judea. "At this time it was that the fight happened at Actium, between Octavius Caesar and Antony, in the seventh year of the reign of Herod; and then it was also that there was an earthquake in Judea, such a one as had not happened at any other time."⁶⁰ The exact date of this momentous battle, in which Octavian put down his last rival, Antony, and became supreme ruler of the empire, has been fixed with certainty; it was fought on 2 September 31 BC.⁶¹ The earthquake fell in the preceding spring, according to Whiston's translation of Josephus's account in Wars: "In the seventh year of his reign, when the war about Actium was at the height, at the beginning of the spring, the earth was shaken."⁶²

So worded, this comment leads us to the question whether Josephus mistakenly believed that the battle itself also fell in the spring. If he did, we need not conclude that the stated regnal year extended through the fall. But Whiston's is a free translation shaded with meaning not in the original.⁶³ A better rendering of the Greek is offered by H. St. J. Thackeray. "But while he was punishing his foes, he was visited by another calamity—an act of God which occurred in the seventh year of his reign, when the war of Actium was at its height. In the early spring an earthquake destroyed cattle innumerable and thirty thousand souls."⁶⁴ G. A. Williamson's translation captures the same sense. "But while he was settling accounts with his enemies another disaster befell him, an act of God occurring in the seventh year of his reign at the height of the Actian War. At the beginning of spring there was an earthquake which destroyed 30,000 people and numberless cattle."⁶⁵ The true meaning is that the Actian war was "at the height" not in the spring, but in Herod's seventh year. The phrases "at the height" or "at its height" are attempts to deal with a slightly problematic construction: the present active participle of "to be ripe."⁶⁶ Perhaps the best translation for conveying the thought in Josephus's mind would refer to "an act of God which occurred in the seventh year of his reign, when the war of Actium came to fruition."

Although the battle lasted only one day,⁶⁷ it was merely the climax of a drama onstage throughout 31 BC. Already in the spring, the opposing armies were preparing for conflict. Octavian gathered his forces at an encampment about seven miles north of Antony's forces, and throughout the following summer the two sides sat poised for engagement.⁶⁸ From the perspective of a writer living a century later, the battle was a distinguishing mark of the whole year. Thus, we need not accuse Josephus of a mistake. A fair reading of his account finds that he places an event in the spring (the earthquake) and an event in the fall (the battle) in the same regnal year of Herod—his seventh.

If by Roman reckoning the seventh year was 31 BC, the first was 37 BC, a result perfectly in line with our earlier conclusion that Herod decided to mark 37 as the first of his de facto reign.

Although less easily converted into a precise date on our calendar, three more dates supplied by Josephus are nevertheless useful for checking our conclusions so far. All support our placement of Herod's first de facto year in 37.

Famine in Judea

Josephus states that a severe two-year famine fell upon Judea and Syria in Herod’s thirteenth year.⁶⁹ By our reckoning, his thirteenth was 25 BC. Continuing, he says that the famine persisted into a second year, which we would equate to 24 BC.⁷⁰ Later in the narrative, he records that at about the time when the land recovered, Herod sent troops to assist the expeditionary force of Aelius Gallus.⁷¹ Dio places Gallus’s campaign against Arabia Felix in the year when Augustus was consul for the tenth time, also Gaius Norbanus;⁷² that is, in 24 BC.⁷³

Caesar's visit to Syria

Another chronological datum appears in Josephus’s account of Caesar’s visit to Syria.⁷⁴ Dio locates this visit in the consulship of Marcus Apuleius and Publius Silius;⁷⁵ that is, in 20 BC.⁷⁶ Josephus says that the visit came after "Herod had already reigned seventeen years."⁷⁷ Josephus evidently means that Caesar’s visit occurred sometime after Herod’s seventeenth year, which was 21 BC by our reckoning.

Construction of Caesarea Sebaste

Here our conversion of the date to a modern calendar is limited to a rough approximation, but still it is worth noting that according to Josephus, Herod finished building the city of Caesarea Sebaste in his twenty-eighth year within Olympiad 192.⁷⁸ In our scheme, the year was 10 BC. The named Olympiad ran from 12 BC to 8 BC.⁷⁹

Inaugural years of Herod's successors

One great difficulty for theories setting Herod's death in 1 BC is the unassailable evidence that all three of his successors—his sons Archelaus, Philip, and Antipas—dated their reigns from 4 BC.⁸⁰

Josephus records that Archelaus was deposed in his tenth year (51).⁸¹ Dio identifies it as the consular year of Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius;⁸² that is, AD 6.⁸³ If his years were reckoned on a Roman calendar starting with his accession year, the first was 4 BC.

We deduce from various sources including Josephus that Herod Antipas was deposed in AD 39.⁸⁴ His last dated coins refer to his forty-third regnal year.⁸⁵ On a Roman calendar counting his accession year as the first, the first was no later than 4 BC.

In Josephus, we find that after reigning thirty-seven years⁸⁶— presumably, while in his thirty-eighth year—Philip the Tetrarch died in the twentieth year of Tiberius; that is, AD 34.⁸⁷ The first was therefore 4 BC.

Filmer's Revision

In recent years, several scholars—including W. E. Filmer, Ernest L. Martin, Ormond Edwards, and (in the latest but not the previous edition of his Handbook of Biblical Chronology) Jack Finegan—have argued that the date usually assigned to Herod's death is much too early. Based on a new look at several lines of evidence, they maintain that he died in early 1 BC.⁸⁸ Moreover, they place his accession years in 39 and 36 BC. Elsewhere we have examined and dismissed Martin's chief contributions in support of this thesis.⁸⁹

Filmer's attempt to revise Herodian chronology has left many scholars unconvinced. Rather than accept the implausibilities in his arguments for setting Herod's death in 1 BC, they have held to the traditional date, 4 BC or possibly 5 BC. Those who have in recent years published an endorsement of the traditional date include Timothy D. Barnes, Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar, Harold W. Hoehner, P. M. Bernegger, Paul L. Maier, Douglas Johnson, and Daniel R. Schwartz.⁹⁰

Here we will content ourselves with countering four of Filmer's chief arguments.

1. To discredit the consular dates that Josephus supplies for Herod's accession in Rome and his conquest of Jerusalem, Filmer says, "Now the sources from which Josephus drew his historical material were mainly Jewish, and so would not include dates in terms of Roman consuls or Greek Olympiads. These two dates . . . are not given in his earlier work, The Jewish War, although the same events are reported. It is clear that Josephus added them in the Antiquities, and probably obtained them by conversion from Jewish or Seleucid dates. But owing to the Roman and Greek years starting in January and July, while the Jewish and Seleucid years began in Nisan or Tishri, he might easily have made an error of one year."⁹¹ In other words, Josephus in Antiquities arrived at these dates by his own figuring, starting with information from sources using conventional Jewish or Seleucid dates, but he was unequal to the task and came to wrong conclusions.
         Filmer is overlooking the obvious here. As scholars have long recognized, the dramatic expansion of details in Antiquities probably arises from the author's employment of some new, highly dependable sources, especially Nicolaus of Damascus; perhaps also, if it came to him outside the first source, Herod's Memoirs.⁹² Originating in Herod's court, the new sources transmitted dates presumably also found in his official records. Far from dismissing these dates as amateurish blunders, we may accept them as trustworthy. They inform us (1) that Herod used consular years to mark the beginning of his reign and (2) that he provided fanfare for his eminence in both lights—de jure and de facto. Also, they suggest that in computing regnal years, he used Roman reckoning.
2. A cornerstone of the case that Filmer and his supporters have built for locating Herod's death not in 4 BC but in 1 BC rests on one detail in Josephus's account of Herodian times. Josephus says that Herod conquered Jerusalem and assumed control of all Judea exactly twenty-seven years, to the very day, after Pompey conquered the same city.⁹³ Pompey's victory belongs to 63 BC.⁹⁴ Moving forward twenty-seven years yields a terminus of 36 BC, which Filmer offers as the true year of Herod's victory. This slight shift forward on the historical axis serves to underpin a wholesale revision of Herodian chronology.
         In defense of the date traditionally assigned to Herod's death, we need not accuse Josephus of error when he computes twenty-seven years between the two conquests of Jerusalem. Rather, we can take advantage of Schürer's penetrating insight when he weighed the meaning of the reported sum. He said that the interval stated by Josephus is based on inclusive reckoning.⁹⁵
         It has always been the Jewish habit to measure the time between two endpoints by counting the whole calendar units between them and then increasing the total by adding the fractional units at both ends. For example, the law mandated circumcision of a male child when he is eight days old (Gen. 17:12). Therefore, the Jews have always performed the rite one week after the son's birth, for they have considered the day of birth as the first and the day a week later as the eighth. Elsewhere I have listed other examples of inclusive reckoning.⁹⁶ Edwin R. Thiele has listed still more.⁹⁷ By inclusive reckoning, the terminus of twenty-seven years commencing in 63 BC falls in 37 BC, not 36 BC.
         This is by no means an isolated instance of inclusive reckoning in the history of Josephus. As Schürer pointed out, Josephus sets 107 years between Herod's conquest of Jerusalem and Titus's conquest of the same city in AD 70,⁹⁸ an actual lapse of 106 years if the initial year is 37 BC.⁹⁹ P. M. Bernegger has noted that although the total years make sense by inclusive reckoning, they cannot in any way be reconciled with Filmer's chronology, setting Herod's conquest in 36 BC, which is only 105 years distant from AD 70.¹⁰⁰
         To justify his noninclusive reckoning of twenty-seven years, Filmer points out that on the Babylonian calendar, the Day of Atonement did not fall on the same day after an interval of twenty-six years, yet if the interval was a year longer, the day was in fact the same.¹⁰¹ His point is well taken. In fact, 10 Tishri in 36 BC fell on Saturday, just as it did in 63 BC,¹⁰² whereas, as we noted earlier, it fell on Sunday in 37 BC. But, harking back to this previous discussion, we will remind the reader that the Jews did not necessarily start a new month on the very day chosen by the Babylonians. In 37 BC, it was unlikely that they followed a settled procedure.
3. Another argument advanced by Filmer rests on some passing statements by Dio. In his Roman History, Dio says specifically that in the consulship of Agrippa and Gallus (37 BC¹⁰³)—the year which he also identifies as the one following the consulship of Claudius and Norbanus (38 BC¹⁰⁴), "the Romans accomplished nothing worthy of note in Syria,"¹⁰⁵ for Sosius, the Roman general who superintended Herod’s assault on Jerusalem, "spent the time in devising means, not for achieving some success and incurring his [Antony’s] enmity, but for pleasing him without engaging in any activity."¹⁰⁶ Filmer argues that since Sosius could not be described as inactive in the year when he commanded the overthrow of Jerusalem, Dio is surely denying that its fall occurred in 37.¹⁰⁷ Filmer therefore feels justified in placing this disastrous moment in 36.
         Yet if Filmer is right, Dio seems to contradict himself. Sosius’s victory over Jewish defenders of Jerusalem appears in his narrative just before his reference to year 38.¹⁰⁸ Scholars have long assumed that Dio, looking backward at the catastrophe he has just summarized, is giving the year of Sosius's victory. Hence, scholars in the past considered 38 to be Dio’s date for the event.¹⁰⁹
         Filmer demurs, insisting that although Dio is looking backward, his focus is on the event presented one step earlier in his narrative—the event which enters the story in these words: "Sosius received from him [Antony] the governorship of Syria [which as an administrative realm included Judea] and Cilicia."¹¹⁰ Filmer maintains that it is only natural for the reader to suppose that when the narrative turns next to the conquest of Jerusalem, Dio is giving a parenthetical glimpse at one of Sosius's chief accomplishments after his appointment; namely, his success in leading the assault on Jerusalem two years later, in 36.¹¹¹ But then, after supposedly jumping two years into the future, Dio abruptly states, "This was the course of events in the consulship of Claudius and Norbanus";¹¹² that is, in 38. Dio proceeds to tell what happened in the year following, in 37.¹¹³
         What scholars have traditionally drawn from the passage seems a far more natural reading. Dio was not making unsignaled jumps back and forth along the timeline. Rather, he clearly thought that Jerusalem fell in 38, during the course of events earlier than 37. Notice what he says immediately after his reference to 38. "During the following year the Romans accomplished nothing worthy of note in Syria."¹¹⁴ The contrast is rather weak if accomplishments during the preceding year did not include the dramatic event he has just highlighted—the conquest of Jerusalem.
         We said earlier that by virtue of his access to Roman records, Dio must be viewed as, in general, a reliable historian. But perhaps after drawing certain dates from these records, he accidentally misplaced them in his narrative. Maybe such an error explains why he says that the year 37 was empty of any notable event. The reason is that he had wrongly assigned the most notable event—the conquest of Jerusalem—to the previous year. Yet though we find Dio guilty of a mistake, his credibility overall disposes us to judge that he was off by one year rather than by two years. The true date instead of 38 for the destruction of Jerusalem was not 36, but 37.
4. Appian says in his Civil Wars that "after these events Octavian set forth on an expedition to Gaul, which was in a disturbed state, and Antony started for the war against the Parthians. The Senate having voted to ratify all that he had done or should do, Antony again despatched his lieutenants in all directions and arranged everything else as he wished. He set up kings here and there as he pleased, on condition of their paying a prescribed tribute: in Pontus, Darius, the son of Pharnaces and grandson of Mithridates: in Idumea and Samaria, Herod: in Pisidia, Amyntas; in a part of Cilicia, Polemon, and others in other countries. Desiring to enrich as well as to exercise the soldiers, who were to go with him into winter quarters, he sent some of them against the Partheni, an Illyrian tribe near Epidamnus, who had been very much attached to Brutus; others against the Dardani, another Illyrian tribe, who were for ever making incursions into Macedonia. Others he ordered to remain in Epirus, in order to have them all round him, as he intended to pass the winter himself in Athens"¹¹⁵. According to the consensus of historians, the year of the campaign that Antony initiated against the Parthians after he left Rome and before he went to Athens was AD 39.¹¹⁶ Filmer draws the conclusion that Herod's appointment must have taken place in the same year, the very year claimed by Filmer's dating scheme. Yet Herod appears in the list of new kings only as another ruler created by Antony's policy of trading power for tribute. It is reasonable to suppose that most of the rulers named were appointed in 39, but, as Appian sought to give us a full picture of how Antony remade government in the eastern territories, he had no reason to exclude a king who was appointed late in the preceding year. His words cannot be offered as proof that all including Herod became kings in exactly 39.

The other arguments of Filmer are so tangential or inferential that, in light of the evidence supporting traditional dates for Herod's reign, we need not rebut them. We will, however, consider a strong argument against his conclusions.

Whereabouts of Gaius, the emperor's grandson

When the sons of Herod went to Caesar and disputed who was rightful heir under Herod's will, Caesar brought his grandson Gaius to hear the case,¹¹⁷ yet Gaius was not in Rome at that time if Herod died in 1 BC. Josephus locates his death after a lunar eclipse and before Passover. The next lunar eclipse visible in the region after 4 BC was on 10 January 1 BC,¹¹⁸ and the date of Passover in that year was 8 April.¹¹⁹ The earliest that these sons could have reached Rome was in May. But as Timothy Barnes pointed out, Gaius departed from Rome to the Danube frontier sometime between the summer of 2 BC and early spring of 1 BC. Supposing he was still there in May is therefore a highly dubious reconstruction.¹²⁰

Martin, a leading proponent of Filmer's chronology, has tried to blunt this argument by overthrowing Barnes's interpretation of Gaius's role at the hearing.¹²¹ Josephus says that Gaius was "first" next to Augustus. The meaning, according to Barnes, is that he had just now assumed his place as the emperor's successor—a promotion that doubtless occurred some years before 1 BC. But Martin rejoins that he merely stood in the most prominent place, as he would have done in 1 BC as well as in 5 BC. The right interpretation is elusive but irrelevant. The key fallacy in Filmer's view is that it places Gaius in Rome when he was elsewhere.