The birth of Christ is *very* hard to pin down. the one sure thing is that the King Herod of the Bible is Herod the Great.
Current consensus is that he died in 4 BCE, though 1 BCE is the previous consensus and both 1 CE and 5 BCE have proponents.
Now the Massacre of the Innocents (found only in the Bible, and not considered an actual historical event) had kids up to 2 years old being slaughtered,. Meaning that Christ would have been born 0 to 2 years before that.
So that gives us a range from 1 CE to 7 BCE as possible birth years. And likely several years earlier as it'd have likely happened before the year Herod died.
There are a few historical events that can be dated precisely due to eclipses or supernovas. But aside from those, dates get really hard to pin down the farther back you go.
Heck, even well documented dates in some parts of Europe are hard to pin down in the 1600 to 1800 range, maybe even up to the 1900s.
That's because of the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Different countries switch at different times, and some switched back and forth.
So the day on one side of a border could be 11, 12 or even 13 days different from the date on the other side (depending on which century it was).
For going *really* far back you have to deal with continental drift too.
Language and customs are going to be a big problem for the more distant (human) past.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-12-23 09:02 pm (UTC)Current consensus is that he died in 4 BCE, though 1 BCE is the previous consensus and both 1 CE and 5 BCE have proponents.
Now the Massacre of the Innocents (found only in the Bible, and not considered an actual historical event) had kids up to 2 years old being slaughtered,. Meaning that Christ would have been born 0 to 2 years before that.
So that gives us a range from 1 CE to 7 BCE as possible birth years. And likely several years earlier as it'd have likely happened before the year Herod died.
There are a few historical events that can be dated precisely due to eclipses or supernovas. But aside from those, dates get really hard to pin down the farther back you go.
Heck, even well documented dates in some parts of Europe are hard to pin down in the 1600 to 1800 range, maybe even up to the 1900s.
That's because of the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Different countries switch at different times, and some switched back and forth.
So the day on one side of a border could be 11, 12 or even 13 days different from the date on the other side (depending on which century it was).
For going *really* far back you have to deal with continental drift too.
Language and customs are going to be a big problem for the more distant (human) past.