OF THE NATIVITY WAS 8 B.C. 



207 



This method of investigation* lias been partially followed by 

 Lewint, who accepts the facts that the twenty-four courses each 

 served for one week aud that a first course began on the 

 4th August, A.D. 70. He assumes, however (from other con- 

 siderations), that the Nativity was in the year 6 B.C. He 

 adduces no reason for concluding that the Nativity was at a 

 Feasc of Tabernacles ; and he evidently does not consider that 

 the expression " in the sixth month " (Luke i, 26) means the 

 first day of that month. Because although his calculations for 

 the first day of the course of Abijah is the same as that in [H], 

 Table I, viz., 16th May, 7 B.C., he, nevertheless, makes the 

 Annunciation to be in November (giving no nearer approxi- 

 mation) instead of 17th October, 7 B.C., vide [H], Table II ; and 

 he makes the Nativitv to have been in August (he does specify 

 the day) instead of 24th July, 6 B.C., vide [H], Table lY. ^ 



But if we accept the strong reasons which we have 

 previously considered, that the Nativity must have been at a 

 Feast of Tabernacles, we must conclude that Lewin's own 

 calculations negative the supposition that 6 B.C. could have 

 been the year of the Birth of Christ, because we see from 

 Table IV tbat the Feast of Tabernacles in that year did not 

 begin until the 28th September, which is a month later than 

 any possible day for the Nativity according to his calculations. 



The only possible objection to so early a date as 8 B.C. for 

 the Nativity is the fact that Christ nmst have been thirty-tw^o 

 years of age when He began His ]\Iinistry, on the assumption, 

 now generally accepted, that the Crucifixion took place at 

 Passover, a.d. 29, and also that His Ministry lasted for three 

 years and a half. The Evangelist (Luke iii, 23) states that 

 Christ was then " about thirty years of age." Commenting on 

 this passage Dean AlfordJ wrote, " this admits of considerable 

 latitude, but only in one direction, viz., over thirty years." An 

 age between thirty and thirty-one cannot be intended, because 

 Christ, as we have seen, was almost certainly born at a Feast of 

 Tabernacles, yet w^hen He visited the Temple at the Passover in 

 His boyhood, the same Evangelist (Luke ii, 41-42) describes Him 

 as " twelve years old," not about twelve years old. Consequently 



In the Phoenix, a collection of MSS. and printed tracts, 1707 (quoted 

 in The Christiart Armoury, Dec, 1903), the author endeavoured to lind the 

 time of year of the Nativity by this means. But he assumed that the 

 first course of priests always began on the first day of the month Nisan, 

 and he was evidently unaware that each course only served for a week. 



t Fasti Sac ri, -p. 109. See also Ordo Sceculorum, p. 33. Rev. H. Browne. 



X The Neio Testament for English Readers on Luke iii, 23. 



