The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

by John E. Remsburg

392

In what year was Jesus crucified?

Not one of the Evangelists knows. They agree that he was crucified during the time that Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea, and Joseph Caiaphas was high priest of the Jews. But this, so far as Matthew, Mark and John are concerned, may have been any time from 26 to 36 A. D.

Luke, while he does not state the particular year, nor furnish data for determining it, is more definite. He says that Jesus began his ministry in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,” and his narrative clearly implies that he was crucified at the following Passover. Tiberius commenced his reign in August, 14 A. D. The fifteenth year of his reign, then, extended from August, 28 A. D., to August, 29 A. D. If Jesus began his ministry during the first months of this year, he might have been crucified as early as the spring of 29. But it is generally conceded that the time which this would allow for his ministry was far too brief, and that he could not have been crucified before 30 A. D.

The Christian Fathers who, for the most part, accepted the tradition of Luke and affirmed that his ministry lasted but one year, or less, held that the crucifixion occurred in 29 A. D.

Scribner’s “Bible Dictionary” gives preference to 29 A. D. Cuthbert Hamilton Turner, M.A., Oxford, the New Testament chronologist of that work, after a lengthy review of the subject, says: “To sum up briefly, the separate results of five lines of enquiry harmonize with one another beyond expectation, so that each in turn supplies fresh security for the rest. The nativity in B. C. 7–6; the age of our Lord at the baptism, 30 years, more or less; the baptism in A. D. 26 (26–27); the duration of the ministry between two and three years; the crucifixion in A. D. 29.”

This authority states that his ministry lasted two or three years. It was necessary to do this or reject John. By taking a year or more from John’s ministry of Jesus and adding it to the one year ministry of the Synoptics—by assuming that the Synoptics omit to mention one or more Passovers, and that one of the Passovers mentioned by John was some other feast—it pretends to have reconciled the discrepancy regarding the length of Christ’s ministry. But if his ministry lasted two or three years, as affirmed, he could not have been crucified in 29 A. D.

With orthodox commentators, a favorite method of reconciling Old Testament dates, as I have noted in a previous work, is to assume that a king, concerning the date of whose accession, or length of reign, a discrepancy appears, reigned in consort with his predecessor for a number of years sufficient to cover the discrepancy. This dishonest method of explanation—for it is a dishonest trick, intended to deceive the reader and hide from him an error—has been employed to reconcile Luke and John. By assuming that Tiberius divided the government with Augustus for two years preceding his accession to the throne, an assumption for which there is no credible authority, and that Luke accordingly reckons the fifteenth year from 12 A. D., instead of 14 A. D., when he really became emperor, it is possible to give Jesus a ministry of two or three years and still have him crucified in 29 A. D. But another irreconcilable difficulty remains. The Synoptics state that he was crucified on the Passover and on the day preceding the Sabbath, that is, on Friday. If so, he could not have been crucified in 29 A. D., for the Passover did not fall on Friday that year.

Dr. Farrar says it is “highly probable that the crucifixion took place at the passover of March, 30 A. D.”

Justice Bradley of the United States Supreme Court, who made an exhaustive examination of all the evidence and arguments bearing on the question, decided in favor of 30 A. D. He says: “There were only three years from A. D. 27 to A. D. 36, inclusive, in which the 1st of Nisan, and consequently the 15th of Nisan, happened on Friday, and these were A. D. 27, 30 and 33, the last of which is very doubtful. But the crucifixion could not have happened before A. D. 28, and probably not later than A. D. 31. Therefore the year 30 is the only one which satisfies all the conditions of the problem.... Now, since in A. D. 30, the 1st of Nisan fell on Friday, the 24th of March, the 15th fell on Friday, the 7th of April, which was the day of the crucifixion.”

Dr. Farrar and Justice Bradley are agreed in regard to the year of the crucifixion, but they are not agreed in regard to the calendar month in which it occurred. Dr. Farrar says it occurred in March; Justice Bradley says it occurred in April.

Justice Bradley says that 30 A. D. satisfies all the conditions. It does satisfy the conditions of the Synoptics, but it does not satisfy the conditions of John, as claimed. To satisfy the conditions of John it is necessary to adopt the untenable hypothesis of 12 A. D. as the date of Tiberius Caesar’s accession. But whatever satisfies the conditions of John must necessarily conflict with those of the Synoptics.

Some Christian scholars place the crucifixion in 31 A. D., others in 32 A. D. But neither year can be harmonized with the Synoptics’ statement that he was put to death on the Passover, or with John’s that he suffered on the day of Preparation. Neither can they be harmonized with either the Synoptics or John in regard to the duration of his ministry.

It is probable that a majority of Christian scholars today believe that Jesus was crucified in 33. Renan accepted this date. He says: “According to the calculation we adopt, the death of Jesus happened in the year 33 of our era. It could not, at all events, be either before the year 29, the preaching of John and Jesus having commenced in the year 28, or after 35, since in the year 36, and probably before the Passover, Pilate and Kaiapha both lost their offices.”

The adoption of 33 allows for the four years’ ministry ascribed to Jesus by John, but it cannot be reconciled with the brief ministry ascribed to him by the Synoptics. As for Renan, who in the first edition of his “Jesus” accepted the authenticity of John, but subsequently rejected it and accepted only the Synoptics, he has no Evangelistic authority for 33.

The Dutch theologians, Kuenen, Oort and Hooykaas, and many other Rationalists, give 35 A. D. the preference. To accept this year, however, it is necessary to reject the Passover crucifixion, and to assign to Jesus a much longer ministry than even John assigns.

Of one hundred Christian authorities who attempt to name the year in which Christ was crucified, twenty-three say 29, eighteen 30, nine 31, seven 32, thirty-seven 33, and six 35 A. D.

Thus it will be seen that not a year that can be named can be harmonized with the accounts of the crucifixion given in the four gospels. The result is that there is as great a lack of agreement in regard to the time of Christ’s death as there is in regard to the time of his birth. Christians do not know when he was born, they do not know when he died, they cannot prove that he lived.