218 LIEUT.-COLONEL G. MACKINLAY, THE DATE 



I grant, however, that if a date of say a.d. 33 or later could be 

 proved to be the true date of the Crucifixion that Luke iii, 2, 3, 

 would not support the early date claimed in this paper for the 

 Nativity. In reply to Mr. Townsend Trench and Sir Robert 

 Anderson that the fourteenth year of Tiberius can only indicate 

 A.D. 29, I affirm that a very large number of eminent chronologists 

 are of opinion that it indicates an earlier date, because it was no 

 uncommon plan to date from a time of joint rule l^efore the 

 Emperor reigned alone. I quite agree with Sir Robert Anderson 

 that the Ministry of our Lord lasted for three-and-a-half years ; 

 there are many good reasons in favour of this assumption. But if 

 this be so, it is impossible that Christ's Ministry began A.D. 29 and 

 €JjSO that the Crucifixion was A.D. 32. 



For if A.D. 29 is fixed " with absolute accuracy " as the date of 

 the beginning of Christ's Ministry, we are conducted, after three- 

 and-a-half years, to some time ajter midsummer A.D. 32. As the 

 Crucifixion was certainly at early springtime, it must consequently 

 have been in the next year, viz., A.D. 33. 



If on the other hand A.D. 32 is taken " with certainty " to be the 

 date of the Crucifixion, the Ministry must have begun three-and-a- 

 half years before the spring of that year, or in the autumn of 

 A.D. 28 not A.D. 29. Sir Robert Anderson's assumptions therefore 

 hardly seem to be consistent with each other. Elsewhere I have 

 advocated the widely received date a.d. 29 for the Crucifixion, and 

 I am prepared to discuss it, if desired, but the present occasion 

 hardly seems si^itable to enter into that subject. 



Sir Robert Anderson lays stress on the definite dictum of Fynes 

 Clinton that the earliest possible date for the Nativity is the 

 autumn of 6 B.C. — but this eminent chronologer of a bygone day 

 was ignorant of the evidence which has since become available 

 through recent archaeological research ; the chief perhaps being the 

 knowledge which we now possess of the regularly recurring enrol- 

 ments throughout the Roman Empire every fourteen years. The 

 actual dates of many of these enrolments are recorded on existing 

 documents which have been discovered during recent years. 



I quite agree with Canon Girdlestone in considering that the 

 words in John i, 14, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled 

 among us," support the suggestion that Christ was born at a feast 

 of Tabernacles. But I had purposely avoided any typical or 



