Real Bible Truths The Dating of Christ’s Birth
This study will show that Jesus Real Birthday is actually years different then most people believe. I am not talking about the actual day Jesus was born, but the actual year He was born. Follow this short study and see for yourself the truth of His birth year. I will begin with the two sources below which anyone can easily look up and then move on to a very important prophecy.
Read About The Historical Birth date of Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini
Read About When Herod Dies in 4 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
As you may know, the modern dating system is based on the birth of Christ.
Going forward is AD (Anno Domini) and going backwards is BC (Before The Common Era or Before Christ)
However the exact date of Christs birth has eluded most people. Some believe Christs birth was in 4 BC and others believe it was 6 BC. But it turns out that it is actually in 8 BC. and the Bible proves this in the prophecy of The 70 Weeks of Daniel. I will explain how to calculate it later but an understanding of the 70 weeks of Daniel would be very helpful first. For the full study on the 70 weeks of Daniel go here.
One reason we know the current system is not accurate is because of the date they give for the death of King Herod (the great). They have set the date of his death at 4 BC. If this is true, then it means that Christ was born at least 4 years earlier, and here is why.
It was this same King Herod (the great) who ordered the death of all the babies in Bethlehem when he was trying to kill Jesus. Remember when the wise men came seeking the King of the Jews, Herod got wind of it and had an audience with them. But the point is that Jesus had already been born according to scripture (Math. 2:1-16) so how could Herod have died in 4 BC or 4 years before Christ was born? Well he couldn’t have so we know for a fact that Jesus was born AT LEAST 4 years earlier. And it is common knowledge that our dating system is off by at least 4 years but adjustments to our dating system were never made.
The next point is that Herod ordered the death of the Children who were up to two years old according to the time the wise men told him. (Matt. 2:16) So Herod knew that Christ was born at least 2 years before Herod himself died. So now we have a total of at least 6 years! That proves that Jesus was born at least 6 years earlier then originally thought.
In other words, if Herod ordered the deaths the same year that he died in 4 BC (the latest he could have ordered it) and he knew that Christ was born 2 years earlier, that pushes Christ’s birth date back 2 more years to 6 BC. But again that’s only if he ordered the deaths the same year he died. It could have been even earlier, and it was. I will prove through the prophecy of The 70 Weeks of Daniel that it was in fact another 2 years earlier in 8 BC.
In the prophecy of The 70 Weeks of Daniel (Dan. 9:25) it gave a very specific time period of when the Jews could expect to see the Messiah appear to the very year. The prophecy foretold there would be 69 weeks (of years) from the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem after the Babylonians destroyed it until the Messiah. That is a total of 483 years exactly. For details see “The 70 Weeks of Daniel”.
But the one who gave the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem we know was Artaxerxes I. And you can read that in the book of Nehemiah Chapter 2. According to Scripture, Artaxerxes gave this command in his 20th year as king. That means that Christ would come exactly 483 years after that commandment.
It is important to note that the Bible is EXACT. If the prophecy said that Christ would come 483 years after the commandment, then it would be exactly 483 years, it would not be 482 or 484 it would be 483 years exactly.
Now based on the exactness of the Bible lets see how we can easily calculate Christs REAL birth year.
To calculate this we must look at both ends of the prophecy (70 weeks of Daniel). And this really is not very difficult, just follow the calculations below step by step.
1 On one end we have the beginning of the prophecy when Artaxerxes gives the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem.
The Bible doesn’t give us a date but it does tell us that it was in Artaxerxes 20th year as king. You can read how it all unfolds in Nehemiah chapter 2 but the time it starts is in vrs. 1 (Neh. 2:1) Now Artaxerxes ruled from 465 BC to 424 BC., so if we subtract 20 years from the beginning of his rule which started in 465 BC we get the year 445 BC. (465 – 20 = 445) This is the exact year of the commandment to restore Jerusalem was given. Again we know it is exact because the Bible prophecies are exact.
2 On the other end of the prophecy we have Christ making His appearance at the age of 30. Which according to our current dating system would be (AD 30)
Now since we know the prophecy of the Messiah’s appearance is supposed to be 483 years after the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem we simply subtract the 483 years of the prophecy from the known date of the commandment in 445 BC. to rebuild Jerusalem. (445 – 483 = -38)
The negative 38 is the exact amount of years in AD until Christs appearance. That would make Jesus 38 years old when He made His appearance but since we know that He made His appearance and began His ministry at the age of 30, (Luke 3:23), this pushes His real birth year back 8 years. That tells us that Christ was actually born in 8 BC., 8 years earlier than our current dating system suggests. The diagram below should help.
The bottom line here is that Jesus came on the scene at the age of 30, exactly 483 years after Artaxerxes gave the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem as prophecy foretold in The 70 Weeks of Daniel. This is a difference of only 8 years, but since the scriptures are more accurate than our current man made dating system, we know that Jesus was actually born 8 years earlier. This also means that we are 8 years further along then our present date. At the time of this last update, (2022) the date is actually 2030.