Friday, September 16, 2016

Precise Date and Time of Jesus's Death

While the precise date of Jesus's crucifixion and death is not an essential salvation truth, it is good to know that it can be computed from the information given in the Bible and collaborated with historical events which are dated.

From these two articles "April 3, AD 33 | Andreas J. Köstenberger and Justin Taylor | First Things", "When Was Jesus Born, and When Did He Die  Biblical Foundations" and "7 clues tell us *precisely* when Jesus died (the year, month, day, and hour revealed) |Blogs | NCRegister.com", I gathered the following:
  1. Beginning of John the Baptist's ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius's reign (Luke 3:1-2) - AD 28 or AD 29;
  2. Three Passovers mentioned (John 2:13, John 6:4, John 11:55) - at least 3 years;
  3. Crucified on a Friday (Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:31, John 19:42);
  4. Crucified at Passover (Matthew 26:2, Mark 14:1, Luke 22:1, John 18:39);
  5. Jesus died at the ninth hour (Matthew 27:45-50, Mark 15:34-37, Luke 23:44-46).
Since John the Baptist began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius's reign (1), we can safely assume that Jesus began His ministry around AD 29. It lasted for at least 3 years because of the three Passovers mentioned (2) and the ministry ended either on AD 32 or AD 33. He was crucified at Passover (4) on a Friday (3). The only Passover on Friday after three years from AD 29 happened on 3rd April AD 33. He died at the ninth hour (5), by modern reckoning is at 3:00 pm.

Based on the above, we can conclude that Jesus died precisely on 3rd April AD 33 at 3:00 pm.

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