A chronology of Jesus aims to establish a timeline for the events of the life of Jesus. Scholars have correlated Jewish and Greco-Roman documents and astronomical calendars with the New Testament accounts to estimate dates for the major events in Jesus's life.
Two main approaches have been used to estimate the year of the birth of Jesus: one based on the accounts in the Gospels of his birth with reference to King Herod's reign, and the other by subtracting his stated age of "about 30 years" when he began preaching. Most scholars, on this basis, assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC.[1][2][3][4][5]
Five methods have been used to estimate the date of the crucifixion of Jesus. One uses non-Christian sources such as Josephus and Tacitus.[15][16] Another works backwards from the historically well-established trial of the Apostle Paul by the Roman proconsul Gallio in Corinth in AD 51/52 to estimate the date of Paul's conversion. Both methods result in AD 36 as an upper bound to the crucifixion.[17][18][19] Thus, scholars generally agree that Jesus was crucified between AD 30 and AD 36.[8][17][20][21]Isaac Newton's astronomical method calculates those ancient Passovers (always defined by a full moon) which are preceded by a Friday, as specified by all four Gospels; this leaves two potential crucifixion dates, 7 April AD 30 and 3 April AD 33.[22] In the lunar eclipse method, the Apostle Peter's statement that the moon turned to blood at the crucifixion (Acts of the Apostles 2:14–21) is taken to refer to the lunar eclipse of 3 April AD 33; although astronomers are discussing whether the eclipse was visible as far west as Jerusalem. Recent astronomical research uses the supposed contrast between the synoptic date of Jesus' last Passover on the one hand with John's date of the subsequent "Jewish Passover" on the other hand, to propose Jesus' Last Supper to have been on Wednesday, 1 April AD 33 and the crucifixion on Friday 3 April AD 33 and the Resurrection on the third day.
^ abEerdman Publishing. (2000). Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible, page 249. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN90-5356-503-5.
^Craig A. Evans. (2003). The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary: Matthew-Luke, volume 1, pages 67–69 ISBN0-7814-3868-3.
^ abcPaul L. Maier. "The Date of the Nativity and Chronology of Jesus" [In] Jerry Vardaman, Edwin M. Yamauchi. (1989). Chronos, kairos, Christos: nativity and chronological studies, pages 113–129. ISBN0-931464-50-1.
^Craig Evans. (2006). Josephus on John the Baptist [In] Amy-Jill Levine et al.[Eds]. (2006). The Historical Jesus in Context, pages 55–58. Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0-691-00992-6. [1]
^Paul William Meyer, John T. Carroll. (2004). The Word in this world, page 112. ISBN0-664-22701-5.
^ abJesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times by Paul Barnett 2002 ISBN0-8308-2699-8 pages 19–21
^Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum. (2009). The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament, pages 77–79. ISBN978-0-8054-4365-3.
^Rainer Riesner. (1997). Paul's early period: chronology, mission strategy, theology pages 19–27. ISBN978-0-8028-4166-7. Page 27 has a table of various scholarly estimates.