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Keywords = Herod the Great’s death date

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24 pages, 4028 KiB  
Article
The Beginning of the Christian Era Revisited: New Findings
by Liberato De Caro, Fernando La Greca and Emilio Matricciani
Histories 2021, 1(3), 145-168; https://doi.org/10.3390/histories1030016 - 11 Aug 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 10126
Abstract
We have re-examined and discussed all chronological, historical and astronomical elements which can be referred to the year of Herod the Great’s death, which occurred—according to Josephus—after a lunar eclipse and before Passover. Since the XIX century, most scholars still assume the eclipse [...] Read more.
We have re-examined and discussed all chronological, historical and astronomical elements which can be referred to the year of Herod the Great’s death, which occurred—according to Josephus—after a lunar eclipse and before Passover. Since the XIX century, most scholars still assume the eclipse occurred on 13 March 4 BC, so that Dionysius Exiguus was wrong in calculating the beginning of the Christian era—by four years at least—because Herod the Great must have been alive when Jesus was born. We have solved the apparent incompatibility of the events narrated by Josephus, occurring between the eclipse of 13 March 4BC and a too-near Passover (12 April 4 BC), by determining another date after studying all eclipses visible from Jerusalem in near years. This analysis—supported by a novel simulation of naked–eye visibility of partial lunar eclipses—has shown that the most eligible eclipse associable to Herod’s death occurred in the night of 8–9 November 2 AD. Besides this astronomical finding, our conclusion is also supported by significant correlation between segmented sleep and eclipse intervals; by its compatibility with the long sequence of events narrated by Josephus and with the rabbinic tradition about Herod’s death. This dating also agrees with other historical facts connected to Roman and Jewish history. In conclusion, Herod the Great must have died in the first month of 3 AD and, very likely, Dionysius Exiguus was correct. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section History of Knowledge)
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