Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth and a Lunar Eclipse
Letters to the Editor debate dates of Herod’s death and Jesus’ birth
Giotto, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1306.
Both Luke and Matthew mention Jesus’ birth as occurring during Herod’s reign (Luke 1:5; Matthew 2:1). Josephus relates Herod’s death to a lunar eclipse. This is generally regarded as a reference to a lunar eclipse in 4 B.C. Therefore it is often said that Jesus was born in 4 B.C.
But physics professor John A. Cramer, in a letter to BAR, has pointed out that there was another lunar eclipse visible in Judea—in fact, two—in 1 B.C., which would place Herod’s death—and Jesus’ birth—at the turn of the era. Below, read letters published in the Q&C section of BAR debating the dates of Herod’s death, Jesus’ birth and to which lunar eclipse Josephus was referring.
When Was Jesus Born?
Let me add a footnote to Suzanne Singer’s report on the final journey of Herod the Great (Strata, BAR, March/April 2013): She gives the standard date of his death as 4 B.C. [Jesus’ birth is often dated to 4 B.C. based on the fact that both Luke and Matthew associate Jesus’ birth with Herod’s reign—Ed.] Readers may be interested to learn there is reason to reconsider the date of Herod’s death.
This date is based on Josephus’s remark in Antiquities 17.6.4 that there was a lunar eclipse shortly before Herod died. This is traditionally ascribed to the eclipse of March 13, 4 B.C.
Unfortunately, this eclipse was visible only very late that night in Judea and was additionally a minor and only partial eclipse.
There were no lunar eclipses visible in Judea thereafter until two occurred in the year 1 B.C. Of these two, the one on December 29, just two days before the change of eras, gets my vote since it was the one most likely to be seen and remembered. That then dates the death of Herod the Great into the first year of the current era, four years after the usual date.
Perhaps the much-maligned monk who calculated the change of era was not quite so far off as has been supposed.
John A. Cramer
Professor of Physics
Oglethorpe University
Atlanta, Georgia
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When Was Jesus Born? When Did Herod Die?
Q&C, BAR, January/February 2014
Professor John A. Cramer argues that Herod the Great most likely died shortly after the lunar eclipse of December 29, 1 B.C., rather than that of March 13, 4 B.C., which, as Cramer points out, is the eclipse traditionally associated with Josephus’s description in Jewish Antiquities 17.6.4 (Queries & Comments, “When Was Jesus Born?” BAR, July/August 2013) and which is used as a basis to reckon Jesus’ birth shortly before 4 B.C. Professor Cramer’s argument was made in the 19th century by scholars such as Édouard Caspari and Florian Riess.
There are three principal reasons why the 4 B.C. date has prevailed over 1 B.C. These reasons were articulated by Emil Schürer in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, also published in the 19th century. First, Josephus informs us that Herod died shortly before a Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3, The Jewish War 2.1.3), making a lunar eclipse in March (the time of the 4 B.C. eclipse) much more likely than one in December.
Second, Josephus writes that Herod reigned for 37 years from the time of his appointment in 40 B.C. and 34 years from his conquest of Jerusalem in 37 B.C. (Antiquities 17.8.1, War 1.33.8). Using so-called inclusive counting, this, too, places Herod’s death in 4 B.C.
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Third, we know that the reign over Samaria and Judea of Herod’s son and successor Archelaus began in 4 B.C., based on the fact that he was deposed by Caesar in A.U.C. (Anno Urbis Conditae [in the year the city was founded]) 759, or A.D. 6, in the tenth year of his reign (Dio Cassius, Roman History 55.27.6; Josephus, Antiquities 17.13.2). Counting backward his reign began in 4 B.C. In addition, from Herod the Great’s son and successor Herod Antipas, who ruled over Galilee until 39 B.C., who ordered the execution of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14–29) and who had a supporting role in Jesus’ trial (Luke 23:7–12), we have coins that make reference to the 43rd year of his rule, placing its beginning in 4 B.C. at the latest (see Morten Hørning Jensen, “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew,” BAR, September/October 2012).
Thus, Schürer concluded that “Herod died at Jericho in B.C. 4, unwept by those of his own house, and hated by all the people.”
Jeroen H.C. Tempelman
New York, New York
John A. Cramer responds:
Trying to date the death of Herod the Great is attended by considerable uncertainty, and I do not mean to claim I know the right answer. Mr. Tempelman does a good job of pointing out arguments in favor of a 4 B.C. date following the arguments advanced long ago by Emil Schürer. The difficulty is that we have a fair amount of information, but it is equivocal.
The key information comes, of course, from Josephus who brackets the death by “a fast” and the Passover. He says that on the night of the fast there was a lunar eclipse—the only eclipse mentioned in the entire corpus of his work. Correlation of Josephus with the Talmud and Mishnah indicate the fast was probably Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur occurs on the tenth day of the seventh month (mid-September to mid-October) and Passover on the 15th day of the first month (March or April) of the religious calendar. Josephus does not indicate when within that time interval the death occurred.
Only four lunar eclipses occurred in the likely time frame: September 15, 5 B.C., March 12–13, 4 B.C., January 10, 1 B.C. and December 29, 1 B.C. The first eclipse fits Yom Kippur, almost too early, but possible. It was a total eclipse that became noticeable several hours after sundown, but it is widely regarded as too early to fit other information on the date. The favorite 4 B.C. eclipse seems too far from Yom Kippur and much too close to Passover. This was a partial eclipse that commenced after midnight. It hardly seems a candidate for being remembered and noted by Josephus. The 1 B.C. dates require either that the fast was not Yom Kippur or that the calendar was rejiggered for some reason. The January 10 eclipse was total but commenced shortly before midnight on a winter night. Lastly, in the December 29 eclipse the moon rose at 53 percent eclipse and its most visible aspect was over by 6 p.m. It is the most likely of the four to have been noted and commented on.
None of the four candidates fits perfectly to all the requirements. I like the earliest and the latest of them as the most likely. The most often preferred candidate, the 4 B.C. eclipse, is, in my view, far and away the least likely one.
A Different Fast
John Cramer responds to Mr. Tempelman’s letter to the editor (“Queries and Comments,” BAR, January/February 2014) that Herod’s death occurred between a “fast” and Passover. Mr. Cramer acknowledges that the fast of Yom Kippur fits the eclipse but doesn’t fit the time frame of occurring near Passover. There is, however, another fast that occurs exactly one month before Passover: the Fast of Esther! The day before Purim is a fast day commemorating Queen Esther’s command for all Jews to fast before she approached the king. Purim fell on March 12–13, 4 B.C. So there was an eclipse and a fast on March 12–13, 4 B.C., one month before Passover, which would fit Josephus’s statement bracketing Herod’s death by a fast and Passover.
Suzanne Nadaf
Brooklyn, New York
John A. Cramer responds:
This suggestion seems plausible and, if I recall correctly, someone has already raised it. The consensus, if such exists, seems, however, to be that the fast really should be the fast of Yom Kippur, but resolving that issue requires expertise to which I make no claim. Too many possibilities and too little hard information probably leave the precise date forever open.
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When Did Herod Die? And When Was Jesus Born?
Q&C, BAR, September/October 2014
Regarding the date of the death of Herod the Great, the question of which lunar eclipse and which Jewish fast the historian Josephus was referring to must be considered in light of other data that Josephus reported. Professor John Cramer’s suggestion that an eclipse in 1 B.C.E. would place Herod’s death in that year, rather than the generally accepted 4 B.C.E., cannot be reconciled with other historical facts recorded by Josephus.
As is well known, Herod’s son Archelaus succeeded him as the ruler of Judea, as reported by Josephus (Antiquities 8:459). Josephus also recorded that Archelaus reigned over Judea and Samaria for ten years, and that in his tenth year, due to complaints against him from both Jews and Samaritans, he was deposed by Caesar Augustus and banished to Vienna (Antiquities 8:531). Quirinius, the legate or governor of Syria, was assigned by the emperor to travel to Jerusalem and liquidate the estate of Archelaus, as well as to conduct a registration of persons and property in Archelaus’s former realm. This occurred immediately after Archelaus was deposed and was specifically dated by Josephus to the 37th year after Caesar’s victory over Mark Anthony at Actium (Antiquities 9:23). The Battle of Actium is a well-known event in Roman history that took place in the Ionian Sea off the shore of Greece on September 2 of the year 31 B.C.E. Counting 37 years forward from 31 B.C.E. yields a date of 6 C.E. for the tenth year of Archelaus, at which time he was deposed and Quirinus came to Judea. And counting back ten years from that event yields a date of 4 B.C.E. for the year in which Herod died. (The beginning and ending years are both included in this count, since regnal years for both Augustus and the Herodians were so figured.)
These reports, and the chronology derived from them, provide compelling evidence for the generally accepted date of Herod’s death in the spring of 4 B.C.E., shortly after the lunar eclipse of March 13, regardless of the fact that eclipses also occurred in other years.
Jeffrey R. Chadwick
Jerusalem Center Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
Read Lawrence Mykytiuk’s BAR article “Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible” >>
There’s More Evidence from Josephus
Q&C, BAR, January/February 2015
In the letter to the editor in BAR, September/October 2014, Jeffrey Chadwick gives the argument for the death of Herod in 4 B.C. [used for determining the date of Jesus’ birth]. For over a century, this has been part of the standard reasoning for the 4 B.C. of Jesus’ birth. However, it does not come to grips with all of the data from Josephus. Elsewhere I have written about this. [An excerpt by Professor Steinmann can be read below.—Ed.]
One cannot simply and positively assert that a few short statements by Josephus about the lengths of reigns of his sons can be used to prove that Herod died in 4 B.C. Instead, one needs critically to sift through all of the evidence embedded in Josephus’s discussion as well as evidence external to Josephus to make a case for the year of Herod’s death.
Andrew Steinmann
Distinguished Professor of Theology and Hebrew
University Marshal
Concordia University Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Read an excerpt from Andrew E. Steinmann’s book From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology (St. Louis: Concordia, 2011), pp. 235–238 [footnotes removed]; see also his article “When Did Herod the Great Reign?” Novum Testamentum 51 (2009), pp. 1–29.
Originally Herod had named his son Antipater to be his heir and had groomed Antipater to take over upon his death. However, a little over two years before Herod’s death Antipater had his uncle, Herod’s younger brother Pheroras murdered. Pheroras had been tetrarch of Galilee under Herod. Antipater’s plot was discovered, and Archelaus was named Herod’s successor in place of Antipater. Seven months passed before Antipater, who was in Rome, was informed that he had been charged with murder. Late in the next year he would be placed on trial before Varus, governor of Syria. Eventually Herod received permission from Rome to execute Antipater. During his last year Herod wrote a will disinheriting Archelaus and granting the kingdom to Antipas. In a later will, however, he once again left the kingdom to Archelaus. Following his death his kingdom would eventually be split into three parts among Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip.
Josephus is careful to note that during his last year Herod was forbidden by Augustus from naming his sons as his successors. However, in several passages Josephus also notes that Herod bestowed royalty and its honors on his sons. At Antipater’s trial Josephus quotes Herod as testifying that he had yielded up royal authority to Antipater. He also quotes Antipater claiming that he was already a king because Herod had made him a king.
When Archelaus replaced Antipater as Herod’s heir apparent some two years before Herod’s death, Antipater may have been given the same prerogatives as Archelaus had previously enjoyed. After Herod’s death Archelaus went to Rome to have his authority confirmed by Augustus. His enemies charged him with seemingly contradictory indictments: that Archelaus had already exercised royal authority for some time and that Herod did not appoint Archelaus as his heir until he was demented and dying. These are not as contradictory as they seem, however. Herod initially named Archelaus his heir, and at this point Archelaus may have assumed royal authority under his father. Then Herod revoked his will, naming Antipas his heir. Ultimately, when he was ill and dying, Herod once again named Archelaus his heir. Thus, Archelaus may not have legally been king until after Herod’s death in early 1 B.C., but may have chosen to reckon his reign from a little over two years earlier in late 4 B.C. when he first replaced Antipater as Herod’s heir.
Since Antipas would eventually rule Galilee, it is entirely possible that under Herod he already had been given jurisdiction over Galilee in the wake of Pheroras’ death. This may explain why Herod briefly named Antipas as his heir in the year before his death. Since Antipas may have assumed the jurisdiction over Galilee upon Pheroras’ death sometime in 4 B.C., like Archelaus, he also may have reckoned his reign from that time, even though he was not officially named tetrarch of Galilee by the Romans until after Herod’s death.
Philip also appears to have exercised a measure of royal authority before Herod’s death in 1 B.C. Philip refounded the cities of Julias and Caesarea Philippi (Paneas). Julias was apparently named after Augustus’ daughter, who was arrested for adultery and treason in 2 B.C. Apparently Julias was refounded before that date. As for Caesarea Philippi, the date of its refounding was used to date an era, and the first year of the era was 3 B.C. Apparently Philip chose to antedate his reign to 4 B.C., which apparently was the time when Herod first entrusted him with supervision of Gaulanitis.
Additional support for Philip having been officially appointed tetrarch after the death of his father in 1 B.C. may be found in numismatics. A number of coins issued by Philip during his reign are known. The earliest bear the date “year 5,” which would correspond to A.D. 1. This fits well with Philip serving as administrator under his father from 4–1 B.C. He counted those as the first four years of his reign, but since he was not officially recognized by Rome as an independent client ruler, he had no authority to issue coins during those years. However, he was in position to issue coinage soon after being named tetrarch sometime in 1 B.C., and the first coins appear the next year, A.D. 1, antedating his reign to 4 B.C. While the numismatic evidence is not conclusive proof of Herod’s death in 1 B.C., it is highly suggestive.
Given the explicit statements of Josephus about the authority and honor Herod had granted his sons during the last years of his life, we can understand why all three of his successors decided to antedate their reigns to the time when they were granted a measure of royal authority while their father was still alive. Although they were not officially recognized by Rome as ethnarch or tetrarchs until after Herod’s death, they nevertheless appear to have reckoned their reigns from about 4 B.C.
This article was first published in Bible History Daily on January 7, 2015.
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There are differences on the date of birth and death (30 or 33 A.D) of Jesus from Nazareth; is there some (hisotrical) source document on the date of execution of John the Baptist by Herod?
I have worked on this considerably.
Birthdate of Yeshua the Nazarene: sunset of 9-11-3 BCE to 9-12-3 BCE. 9-11-3 BCE somewhat more probable. This is straight from the Revelation of Saint John, and NASA astronomical data.
Conception: 11-27-4 BCE to 12-26-4 BCE. Human gestation is 38 to 42 weeks. The Jews of the time considered your conception to be your birthday. This is why they do not “know” when Yeshua was “born”. From the middle of your last menstrual period, add 28 days. Two weeks on either side of that later date is your “birthday” range. Interestingly, if Yeshua WAS born on 9-11-3 BCE, and he WAS two weeks premature (not unusual for young girls, with their first birth — many were already married by 12.5 years of age, and boys by 14.5 years), then his “birthday”, by a Jewish consideration back then, could be 12-25-4 BCE.
Death: 4-3-33 BCE. Well established by the eclipse. The time of day is afternoon most likely at sunset; I am not fully finished with this part. Hung on the cross for more than one day; it explains the three days thing, which is questioned as being too long, from the records.
Herod’s death was close to 1 BCE, most likely getting close to the end of winter. I have it down to a few weeks. A misunderstanding of the politics of the Roman Empire dates his death much earlier than that (coinage, how you calculate the first year of a reign in the differing Jewish and Roman perspectives, and when Herod turned effective control of the tetrarchies over to his sons, while still remaining in physical possession of the crown and all of its trappings, and Jerusalem). There is a precedent for Herod saying one of his sons “ruled”, while he was actually still in control.
The ministries of John the Baptist and Yeshua combined were almost exactly 3.5 years (a time, times, and half a time). For John, the active part of his ministry was almost exactly a year (a time), which was followed by Yeshua’s active ministry (times and half a time = 2.5 years). The total is like only 3.5 days shorter than 3.5 years. It all works out, and all accounts are supported by this. There are no real discrepancies between the records still extant. But I am not finished writing this.
I even have pinpointed the date that Yeshua read Isaiah in the synagogue in Sepphoris, which was a surprise to me.
Maybe all of those who think this is original groundbreaking research could bother themselves to look at Ernest Martin’s 1991 (& reprinted in 1998) work, “The Star That Astonished the World.” These scholars who are thinking that they are conducting original work might realize they have been wasting time.
PLS SEE http://WWW.7CHURCHES.ORG
HEROD THE GREAT DIED IN AROUND 13AD OR 14AD. BLOOD MOON SHOWN AROUND THE TIME JESUS WAS 11YEARS OLD. SO JESUS COULD COME BACK TO WORSHIP WHEN HE WAS 12YEARS OLD.
JESUS WAS CONCEIVED AROUND DEC 1AD
WAS BORN SEP/OCT 2AD.
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM WAS AROUND NOVEMBER 2AD MEANING JESUS
WAS ALREADY A YOUNG CHILD AROUND 1YEAR OLD WHEN HEROD DECIDED TO DESTROY CHILDREN UNDER 2YRS OF AGE.
MANY REVELATIONS GIVEN BY GOD.
ROMAN YEARS AUC ARE 355DAYS ONLY AND SO ALL MISCALCULATIONS BY SO MANY CHRISTIANS ARE DUE TO THE SPAN ERRORS FOR THIS 365DAYS JULIAN/GREGORIAN AND 360DAYS GOD CALENDARS.
LOTS OF EVIDENCES BEING COMPILED AS ACCORDING TO GOD’S MIGHTY HAND UPON ANYONE WHO IS WILLING TO HEAR.
As it is a big book I am writing, I have not gotten around to double-checking all of this information yet, but anyway:
Herod died in 1 B.C., (1) after a day that the Jews observe as a fast which happened (2) just before an eclipse of the moon (3); before the Passover (Jewish Antiquities XVII:166-167, 213).
(1) There were only four lunar eclipses observable over Palestine from 7 B.C.E. to 1 B.C.E.: a total eclipse on March 23, 5 B.C.E.; a total eclipse on September 15, 5 B.C.E.; a partial eclipse on March 13, 4 B.C.E., and, a total eclipse on January 10, 1 B.C.E. Drawing from information which is too lengthy to present here (it takes numerous pages to draw it all out), all of these eclipses can be discounted as being the eclipse seen just before Herod’s death, except for the eclipse of January 10, 1 B.C.E. Note that the Gregorian vs. Julian discrepancy diminishes towards zero, as you approach 1 B.C.E. / 1 C.E.
(2) There are always several candidates for a fast occurring before Passover. The fast calendar of 1 B.C.E. is perhaps quite a bit different from today’s, and could even possibly include an older form of Yom Kippur Katan (literally, the little Yom Kippur) on the 29th of specific months. One can only speculate on this. There are even several fasts of individuals, such as the Feast of Moses, that occur within the Jewish year. But I note especially the fast of the Tenth of Tevet, which commemorates the start of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and which would have been a prefiguring feast of supreme spiritual and political importance to the Jews in the days of the Roman-backed, Jerusalem-sacking, Idumean usurper Herod. This fast occurred on January 5, 1 B.C.E. The proposal to include Purim is erroneous, as it is by far not a fast day.
(3) The first night of Passover fell on April 7 in 1 B.C.E.
The Tenth of Tevet is a before dawn to nightfall fast, today. It could easily have been, and likely was, a 25 hour fast in the time of Herod.
From this data, I propose that Herod died between sunset of January 6, 1 B.C.E. to sunset of January 7, 1 B.C.E., i.e., the day after the Fast of the Tenth of Tevet. This is “just before” sunset of 10 B.C.E.
I would like to see the original text of Josephus, to see if “just before” can be translated into English differently, such as “shortly before”.
Or, possibly, sunset of January 5 to sunset of January 6, 1 B.C.E. I will have to double-check my NASA vs. Jewish calendar conversion data.
From St John in Revelation one can also calculate the date of the Nativity.
I have read a letter by Dick Gagel, Aberdeen, Scotland who points out that in The Birth of Christ Recalculated by Dr. Ernest L. Martin 1978.the date is calculated from astronomical data in Revelation.
To quote:”All of the following is culled from The Birth of Christ Recalculated by Dr. Ernest L. Martin (ELM), a late acquaintance of mine, a trained meteorologist, historian and author. As this publication emanated from a fundamentalist Protestant background, it remained under the radar of most people.
Notwithstanding the many opinions voiced by SIS contributors that Jesus’ birthdate could probably never be ascertained, the necessary data have been available for nigh on two millennia albeit in encrypted form in the oldest NT book of Revelation, chapter 12, verses 1-2:
“And there was a great wonder [sign] in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered”
The giveaway is the word “sign” in vs 1. According to Genesis, the celestial bodies were to be regarded as giving signs (1:14). Some early Jewish opinion included among these “signs” the astronomical associations between the sun, moon, planets, and other constellations (Philo, Op.Mund.,55; Rashi, Commentary, vol. I, p.5). There can hardly be a doubt that astronomical “signs” are mentioned in the Book of Revelation (Lange, Commentary, vol. X, p.34).
The essential factor is the identification of the Woman. She is “in heaven” – in the astronomical sense – as the sun and the moon are associated with her. This strongly suggests that the Woman herself is some kind of constellation which the two primary luminaries can traverse. Indeed, the word “sign” used here is the same one used by the ancients to denote the zodiacal constellations (Liddell and Scott, Lexicon, p.1448). And since the sun and the moon are amidst or in line with the Woman, this indicates it must be a constellation located within the normal paths of the sun and the moon. The only sign of a Woman which exists along the ecliptic is that of Virgo the Virgin. She occupies, in body form, a space of about 50 degrees along the ecliptic. (The head actually bridges some 10 degrees into the previous sign of Leo and her feet overlap about 10 degrees into the following sign of Libra.) In the period 3 BC the sun entered the head position of the Woman about August 12, and exited from her feet about October 1st. But the sun more precisely “clothes” the Woman, i.e. covers her mid-body, somewhere between the neck and the middle part of her legs. In that year the sun would have “clothed” the Woman for a 20-day period, from about August 27 to about September 15.
The moon is said to be located “under her feet”. Since the feet of Virgo represent the last 7 degrees of the constellation (in Jesus’ time this was between 185 and 192 degrees along the ecliptic) the moon has to be positioned somewhere within those degrees. But it has to be in that exact location when the sun is mid-bodied to Virgo. In 3 BC these two factors came to precise agreement for a 14 hour period on September 11/12. This relationship began about 6.30 am Palestine time and lasted until around 8.30 pm. This was the only time in the entire year that such a thing could take place. But there is more. If the moon is located under Virgo’s feet at the same time the sun is in the uterine position, the moon has to be in crescent form, i.e. a new moon occasion. It has therefore to be the first day of some lunar month in late summer – the first of Tishri in 3BC – no other month is possible.”
This estimate also supports the ! BC date for the death of Herod.
However I do not agree that Revelation is the oldest book, as the Gospels were surely written before it, as they just do not sound like books written after the catastrophes of the Neronian persecution and the fall of Jerusalem, whereas Revelation clearly does mention the persecution and the siege of Jerusalem…
Alistair McFarlane, Ireland.
Gary – maybe you work too hard and think too little, Neither the Jews of that time nor the Jews of this time EVER considered the day of conception to be a birthday.
PROVE ME WRONG.
Nor the Jews of an earlier time, come to think of it.
Greetings everyone…great debate. I want to side wholeheartedly with Mr. Templeman and respond to the main suggestion against him that the “fast” Josephus mentions means Herod’s death in proximity to Yom Kippur.
Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, we are told plainly in Josephus–in the citations already given above–that Archelaus mourned his father for a full week and then Passover began. In our Gregorian calendar, that would put Herod’s death from about March 25th-April 2nd in 4 BCE, the latter date being 8 Nisan, a week before Passover.
Secondly, Yom Kippur is far from the only fast in the Bible. There is Tisha B’Av for example, commemorating the destruction dates of both Temples. More to the point however is THE FAST OF ESTHER, right before Purim.
Now since Herod died at after a lunar eclipse (full moon) but before Passover (the next full moon), it makes sense that Purim (a full moon feast) is the last full moon Herod saw. Haman and Herod were of Edomite stock–in fact Herod was a direct descendant of Haman (long story), so it makes sense both men die at the same full moon.
So yes there was a fast before the last full moon before Passover. Herod died just after the FAST of Esther (Esther 9:31, Josephus Antiquities 11:228-229), . In 4 BCE, 2 Adar 13 hit on a Shabbat (Friday-Saturday) and the eclipse happened 4 days later. There may be some debate if the Rabbinic rules of pushing a Shabbat Esther Fast back to Thursday applied then, but either way it was within a week of the lunar eclipse and therefore all of Josephus’ details fit much better in March than they can in December. Here are his words:
165 Now it happened, that during the time of the high priesthood of this Matthias, there was another person made high priest for a single day, that very day which the Jews observed as a fast. 166 The occasion was this:–This Matthias the high priest, on the night before that day when the fast was to be celebrated, seemed, in a dream, {b} to have intercourse with his wife; and because he could not officiate himself on that account, Joseph, the son of Ellemus, his kinsman, assisted him in that sacred office. 167 But Herod deprived this Matthias of the high priesthood, and burnt the other Matthias, who had raised the sedition, with his companions, alive. And that very night there was an eclipse of the moon. (Antiquities, 17:165-167 JOE)
As a result, there is nothing contradicting the 4 BCE date, and frankly I am surprised that the person who advocated Yom Kippur made no effort at all to even acknowledge other possible fast dates on the Hebrew calendar.
I have also found 1 BCE advocates I have studied tend not to really give a lot of evidence for their view (from what I have seen). For example, there are claims that Josephus was altered from a 1 BCE reckoning to a 4 BCE reckoning but no one produces a manuscript. Also, no one I have seen from that camp seems to have looked at the fact that Josephus and Roman historians like Tacitus and others agree on the same dating chronology, so now are all Tacitus’ mss also altered? It strains credulity to suggest such in my view. Not even the well respected late Dr. Ernest Martin addressed these issues adequately in “The Star that Astonished the World” and he has done a lot of great research in other areas that I greatly respect.
I should also point out that partial eclipses (this one was at 40%) counted as genuine in the Middle East of the 1st century. The Babylonian astronomy school at Sippar for example counted partial eclipses and total ones as legitimate.
Finally, those into the Star of Bethlehem studies likewise look at spectacular conjunctions in 3 and 2 BCE as “proof” of a 1 BCE Nativity. Having researched the archaeo-astronomy for 25 years I believe I can prove those events relate to Messiah’s infancy years, not his birth. So when Jupiter and Venus have the super close conjunction for example, it may simply mean mother and child are safe back in Nazareth.
Hope this helps!
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Translator of the Aramaic English New Testament (AENT)