CHAPTER 5
THE YEAR OF THE CROSS
For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.
— Colossians 1:19-20
You would think it would be easy to determine the exact year of the cross. And yet learned scholars disagree.
In the end, it will take some effort and perhaps some unlearning. But with a bit of work and a lot of logic, I believe it is quite possible for us to pinpoint the year with a high degree of confidence. And knowing the year changes everything.
To begin, we must first understand a few basic aspects of our modern reckoning of time. Our current Gregorian calendar was introduced in AD 1582 and replaced the older Julian calendar. The anno Domini (AD) dating system, where years are labeled with either AD (in the year of the Lord) or BC (before Christ), was devised much earlier, in AD 525. In this system, there is no year zero and the year AD 1 follows right after 1 BC, with 1 BC being originally thought of as the year of Yeshua’s birth. However, modern scholarship has shown that Christ was born earlier than originally thought,most likely between the years 6 and 3 BC.
The death of Herod the Great is one of the markers commonly used to help date Yeshua’s birth. Many scholars believe he died in 4 BC. However, another contingent believes the year of his death was in fact 1 BC. In my view, there are many markers pointing to 1 BC and only a few misconstrued ones pointing to 4 BC, so I tend to agree with the latter group. Based on the accounts found in the Gospels of Herod’s attempts to kill Jesus by murdering all babies in and around Bethlehem below 2 years old, this appears to set a latest possible date for Christ’s birth at around 3 BC.
Interestingly, there is also some limited evidence to suggest that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the known world should be registered in 3 BC (Luke 2:1). This fact, accompanied by the known astronomical phenomenon calculated to have occurred on or around Yom Teruah of that year, lead me to the conclusion that Yeshua was most likely born in the early fall of 3 BC, perhaps on the Day of Trumpets itself. I might add that I am in good company, as the late, great Bible scholar Dr. Michael S. Heiser made solid arguments in favor of this view.
The most important passage in the Bible when it comes to dating the cross is probably Luke 3:1-2. “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar … the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” John’s preaching of “the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” happens just prior to Yeshua’s own baptism later in the chapter.
It is interesting that Luke, ever the careful historian, noted the year of Tiberius Caesar’s reign in which the Word of God came to John in the wilderness, yet did not see fit to tell us the year of Tiberius Caesar’s reign in which Jesus was crucified. It is almost as if this detail has been carefully hidden from our view. Or perhaps the beginning year of Yeshua’s ministry, the year of his baptism, is significant for other reasons.
Many historians have dated the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar’s reign from his accession to sole rulership of the Roman Empire in AD 14. This happens to be the simple method by which the original 1 BC date was placed. Jesus was about 30 at the time when John’s ministry began (Luke 3:23), therefore many think this year was around AD 29 (whenever you cross over from BC to AD, you must subtract one year from the total number, owing to the lack of a year zero).
This is a possibility. But based on Herod’s death in 1 BC and a number of other factors, I don’t believe it is a very strong one.
The key distinction to be made here is that Tiberius co-ruled the empire with his stepfather Augustus from late in the year AD 11, when he celebrated a magnificent triumph. The provincial affairs of the empire were placed in the hands of Tiberius from this date onward, and Emperors liked to have their reigns stated as long as possible. Therefore, it is highly likely Luke would have been using the common convention of the Roman provinces when calculating the fifteenth year of Tiberius’ reign. This would place the fifteenth year in late AD 26 to late AD 27.
Based on John’s ministry beginning as early as feasible (AD 26), the earliest possible date for the cross is AD 28. For this date to be correct, the three Passovers found in the Gospel of John (John 2:13, 6:4, and 13:1) would need to have occurred in the years AD 26, 27, and 28. Many believe that the “feast of the Jews” mentioned in John 5:1 was a fourth Passover, and this assumption is used to support the oft-quoted three-and-a-half year ministry of Jesus. However, John referred to the Passover ten times by name, which makes it curious that he would in one case refer to it differently. Moreover, the rest of the scriptural record of Yeshua’s life, as found in all four of the Gospels, seems to better support a shorter ministry period of just over two years. The three Passovers neatly delineate the beginning, middle, and end of this ministry.
The only remaining question, then, is when these three Passovers most likely fell. Again, the earliest possible years are 26, 27, and 28. And yet, for John to be baptizing early in the year AD 26, it would seem this should have been noted as the fourteenth year of Tiberius and not the fifteenth. Another possibility is that the three years were in fact 27, 28, and 29. Incidentally, both of these groups of years also agree well with the dates for the building of Herod’s temple referenced in John 2:20, during the first year of Yeshua’s ministry.
If we accept 3 BC as Christ’s birth, then in the spring of AD 28 he would have only been 29 years old. However, since achieving thirty years of age is viewed as significant relative to his role as our High Priest, I believe we can safely rule out this possibility.
In my studied view, this leaves AD 29 as the most likely year of the cross. Since the year 4000 would have then necessarily begun in the fall of AD 28, we may calculate the corresponding zero year as 3973 BC, which falls well within the error band we established earlier for Ussher’s chronology.
However, among modern scholars, AD 30 is by far the most popular year assumed for the cross. This leaves AD 33 as now only a distant second, despite its prior popularity. But I have problems with both of these years, owing to prophecies we will study shortly.
Another key piece of the puzzle to rightly understanding the year 4000 involves a rare insight into the crucifixion week itself. The traditional view has long been that Christ was crucified on Friday, Nisan 15 in the Jewish calendar (Good Friday). However, a closer examination of the scriptural account shows this position to be fundamentally flawed.
A somewhat popular competing view is that the crucifixion took place on a Wednesday and that the resurrection was on the following Saturday, which was the Jewish Sabbath day. This view, too, is inconsistent with several key scriptures, and so I cannot take it seriously.
As it turns out, the narrow path between these two interpretations is the least popular Thursday crucifixion. Yet it is this view which undoubtedly best harmonizes the relevant Scriptures.
We must first understand the timing of the Jewish feast of Passover and the associated Feast of Unleavened Bread. Remember that the Passover was instituted by God when he delivered the children of Israel from Egypt. They were to select their Passover lamb on Nisan 10, and then it was to be slain on Nisan 14.
Later, shortly after giving the ten commandments, God gave Israel additional yearly feasts which were to be observed. Among these feasts was the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which ran from Nisan 15 to Nisan 21, a full week after Passover. Nisan 15 itself, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, was considered a High or special Sabbath day, which could fall on any day of the week and was to be observed as a day of rest. During the week of unleavened bread, the day which fell after the Sabbath was to be the Feast of First Fruits. This feast always took place on the first day of the week, the day we know as Sunday.
The fourth and final spring feast was the Feast of Weeks, which took place seven full weeks after the Feast of First Fruits. Since this is the fiftieth day, this feast came to be referred to as Pentecost, meaning fiftieth in Greek. Pentecost also always took place on the first day of the week.
Now, there are some in the traditional camp who would argue here that the Jews set their calendar up in such a way as to avoid Nisan 15 even falling on the day of preparation (Friday). I am not quite sure if they realize that arguing for a Friday, Nisan 14 crucifixion nullifies the possibility of a Nisan 10 Palm Sunday. Regardless, this is a classic case of a half-truth being a whole lie. It is true that the Jews did eventually begin the practice of adding “postponements” to ensure that certain holy days did not fall on particular days of the week. However, these were not added until the fourth century AD, over 300 years after Christ. Therefore, a Friday Nisan 15 was indeed a distinct possibility during the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
From antiquity, the Jews reckoned the day as beginning immediately after sundown and ending at the following sundown. They did not have our modern conception of midnight for the division of days. At the time of Yeshua’s life, the Passover practice of the common people was to eat their Passover meal at the very start of Nisan 14. In other words, if Nisan 14 fell on a Thursday, the people would eat their meal after sundown on Wednesday night. In contrast, the Jewish national celebration of Passover involved the slaying of Passover lambs at the Temple. This took place at around the 9th hour of the day (approximately 3 PM) on Nisan 14 itself, so Thursday in our example.
An understanding of this distinction alone makes the traditional Friday crucifixion improbable. This is because Nisan 10 is widely associated with Palm Sunday (correctly, in my view). Jesus fulfilled this aspect of the feast of Passover when he entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey and was selected as the people’s Passover Lamb. Nisan 10 being a Sunday means that Nisan 14 must fall on Thursday, which means that Jesus would have eaten the Passover meal with his disciples on Wednesday night, not Thursday night. The scriptural account, however, is clear that the Passover meal in the upper room, Christ’s last supper, took place the evening before the crucifixion. This makes Friday, Nisan 15 an extremely unlikely day for the cross.
Indeed, all the commotion and comings and goings of the chief priests and rulers of the people on the day of the crucifixion seem unlikely for a High Sabbath day, where strict rules would have been followed. Additionally, the spices bought and prepared by Mary Magdalene and other women who followed Jesus (see Mark 16:1-2 and Luke 23:54-56) seem likely to have been bought after they saw the sepulcher where Jesus was laid. This would not have been possible on a High Sabbath, while on Nisan 14 people still went about their work and shops would have been open until sunset.
Now, all four Gospels identify the day of preparation (which preceded the Sabbath) as the day on which Jesus was crucified, hence the traditional Friday crucifixion position. However, John’s account adds a quite pertinent detail for us.
The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
— John 19:31
So, we know this was Nisan 15 being referred to here, which places the crucifixion firmly on Nisan 14. This means that Jesus perfectly fulfilled his role as the Passover Lamb, dying on the cross around the 9th hour of the day, at the very time when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered at the Temple. The only remaining question is whether Nisan 14 fell on Thursday or Friday. If it was a Friday, then Nisan 10 was not Palm Sunday but rather Palm Monday.
Additional evidence pointing us in the right direction comes from the book of Matthew.
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
— Matthew 28:1 (ESV)
The Greek word translated Sabbath here is actually the plural form of the word. A more appropriate translation would perhaps be “after the Sabbaths.” In other words, after the High Sabbath on Friday and the weekly Sabbath on Saturday.
Part of the power of the Thursday crucifixion is that it better explains the first aspect of the sign of Jonah, given to the scribes and Pharisees by Jesus.
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
— Matthew 12:40 (ESV)
For the Friday crucifixion, Jesus was dead for part of Friday, all of Saturday and none of Sunday. That equals just two days. Then you have Friday night (the beginning of Saturday for the Jews), and Saturday night. Two nights, not three. The math doesn’t add up correctly and seems on the face of it to contradict what Yeshua said.
The Thursday crucifixion fixes this. Yeshua died between 3 PM and 4 PM on Thursday, so he spent several hours of daylight on Thursday dead. Then he was dead all day Friday and all day Saturday. That’s three total days. Likewise, he was dead Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. Three total nights. Everything adds up and the sign of Jonah is fulfilled according to his word.
But what about the Wednesday crucifixion crowd? They correctly, and to their credit, see the flaws of the Friday cross. But why then do they leap straight to Wednesday?
The important detail to realize is that the Wednesday crucifixion supporters are trying very hard to justify the seventh day of the week as the true Sabbath, even under the New Covenant. They therefore choose Wednesday because it allows them to argue that Nisan 10 was on the seventh day, and that Jesus also rose from the grave on the seventh day (Nisan 17). However, they are only able to do this at the cost of contradicting several other scriptures and abandoning the precise fulfillment of the Feast of First Fruits.
Most plainly, they contradict this verse. “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene” (Mark 16:9). Additionally, you will seldom hear the Wednesday proponents mention the statement of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done” (Luke 24:21).
You could argue for a Friday crucifixion here, using the inclusive reckoning of days common amongst the Jews. However, since Luke was a physician and well-versed in the Greek language and customs, I find it more likely he would have used the standard Gentile convention of adding three days to the day of the event. This points to Thursday. However you read it, though, there is no way this statement can be made to agree with a Wednesday crucifixion.
Interestingly, by denying the simple reality that the resurrection occurred on the first day of the week, you also end up losing the power of the Feast of First Fruits. In short, you have Christ perfectly fulfilling Nisan 10 and Nisan 14 on the very days, but then he fails to fulfill the Feast of First Fruits by rising a day too soon. Did God make a mistake by placing this feast on the first day of the week when he originally instituted it for the Jews over a millennium earlier? I think not.
Only a Thursday crucifixion allows for both the perfect fulfillment of the Passover (the Nisan 10 and Nisan 14 aspects) and the perfectly precise fulfillment of the Feast of First Fruits through the resurrection (I Corinthians 15:20). When you add in Shavuot – traditionally the day the Spirit was given, but also quite possibly the exact day of Yeshua’s ascension, if you agree with Dr. Barry Awe’s position, as I do, that the Spirit was instead given at the Feast of New Wine, an additional 50 days later – you realize that Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the first four Feasts (the spring Feasts) during earth’s 4,000th year.
The three fall feasts appear to yet await their fulfillment.
There are many people who take the day of the week they assume for the cross and attempt to look back in time using lunar cycle calculations to determine which years could support a Passover on that particular day (be it Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday). In my own view, this is folly. Inaccuracies of plus or minus 24 hours coupled with uncertainty over the Passover dates observed at the time, make this a fairly fruitless endeavor. There are far better ways to narrow things down.
One of the reasons it is important to understand that the crucifixion occurred on the fifth day of the week, is that a right and proper understanding can be a part of helping us determine whether the year 4000 is the first year of millennial day 5, or the last year of millennial day 4. In other words, from a mathematician’s perspective, it can be a part of helping us to make logical conclusions about whether or not there was a year 0 at the start of creation.
There has long been argument in mathematical circles about whether a new decade begins in the zero year or the one year. For example, is it 2020, or 2021? The same debate extends logically to centuries and millennia.
The central question in mind is whether the zero year in question is the last year of the previous cycle or rather the first year of the new cycle.
I believe we can gain some insight into the subject by properly understanding the Jubilee cycle, as instituted by God, and also by examining his requirements for the Levitical priesthood.
Leviticus 25:8-13 contains God’s direction to the children of Israel regarding the keeping of a Jubilee year every fiftieth year. Every seventh year, they were directed to keep a Sabbath year of rest for the land, which became known as the shmita year. After seven of these cycles, they were to keep the fiftieth year as a special Jubilee year, during which they were to proclaim liberty throughout the land. In this year, debts were forgiven and people returned home to possess their familial land holdings.
Over time, the Jews took to having the fiftieth year also be reckoned as the first year of the next cycle. This kept the overall cycle at 49 years, not 50. It is possible, though, that this practice did not begin until sometime after the Babylonian exile.
This is a heated area of debate. Most Christians today seem to have been convinced that 49 must be right because this is traditionally how the Jews have done it for many centuries now. However, based on a simple examination of the Leviticus 25 text and some sensible assumptions, I believe that the “traditional” view is incorrect. It seems clear to me that the cycle is in reality 50 years long, and therefore, that it syncs neatly with centuries and millennia, whereas the 49-year cycle most assuredly does not. This is the true traditional view of the Jubilee, as practiced by the ancient Israelites.
Incidentally, if you understand that the people of Israel took back the Promised Land in a Jubilee year, which makes logical sense, then the math God told them to use going forward clearly points to a 50-year cycle.
This means that the year 4000, fittingly, was a Jubilee year. And liberty was indeed proclaimed in that year.
In Luke 4:19, when Yeshua went to the synagogue and preached from Isaiah 61, he proclaimed “the acceptable year of the Lord.” This is another term for the year of Jubilee. According to its placement within Luke’s Gospel, this appears to take place at the outset of Yeshua’s ministry. However, I can’t help but wonder if this was placed out of order, as other events in Yeshua’s ministry often were in the book of Luke (verse 23 certainly hints at this). Could this event have taken place in the fall of the year AD 28, which would have been the start of the year 4000, the 80th Jubilee year from creation? Could this even have taken place on the very Day of Atonement (the sixth feast, referenced in Leviticus 25:9) of that year? I believe that it did.
Sir Isaac Newton says this of the incident in Luke Chapter 4 in his Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, “And by this time we may reckon the second Passover was either past or at hand.” I agree with him, and estimate that it was likely about six months past.
Interestingly, I have charted out the days from the Feast of Atonement to the following Passover. In doing so, I found that for the most common Jewish calendar year expected to be used at the time, which was 354 days, a Saturday (Sabbath) Day of Atonement leads directly to a Thursday Passover the next year. Since an extra intercalary month was added only every 3rd year or so, we can expect there was about a 67% likelihood that this 354-day year was the one observed during the year of the cross.
Still, even without the witness of Luke 4, I think it safe to assume that the year 4000 had to be a Jubilee year. This belief does not even stem purely from a mathematical perspective, but also from an understanding of what the Jubilee year was meant to foreshadow and how Yeshua’s death and resurrection fulfilled much of that, with the rest to be fulfilled at his return on another Jubilee year. In the first fulfillment, Christ set us free from our captivity. In the ultimate fulfillment, he will restore us and lead us into the eternal land. Now, does that mean that the Jews, with their eventual subversion of God’s simple Jubilee math, actually celebrated the year of the cross as a Jubilee? I doubt it, as we never see it explicitly mentioned in the Gospels. But regardless, it was God’s Jubilee year, and he is keeping track. In fact, Yeshua’s preaching from Isaiah 61 seems to hint at his deep knowledge of these things.
If you use a 49-year cycle, then the years 3997 and 4004 are Sabbath years, but the closest Jubilee year would be 4018. Does this make any sense to you? It makes no sense to me, and I do not think it likely that this is how God intended the Jubilee cycle to operate. But then, perhaps he did intend all along to allow just enough room for the Jews to misinterpret and twist his words by introducing the 49-year cycle so that these things might be hidden.
From the entering of Israel into the Promised Land on a Jubilee year, I think it safe to assume that the fiftieth year signifies something new and is therefore the first year of the next cycle rather than the last of the previous cycle. This may seem a rather tedious distinction, yet it is an important one in the end. We need to know which year we await.
It is likewise interesting to note that the age a Levite entered into the priesthood was 30 years old, not 31. This again seems to denote a change taking place and a new cycle beginning on the 0 year. Interestingly, if we assume a 3 BC birth, then the Passover of AD 29 occurred when Yeshua was exactly 30 years old. In other words, it was the first Passover he was of age to properly fulfill his high priestly role.
In the crucifixion week, Christ was selected as the Passover Lamb on Nisan 10, which was the first day of the week. This seems to imply that there was a zero year at the beginning of creation and therefore that other zero years (e.g., 4000 and 6000) are the starting points for new cycles. He was slain on the cross as our Passover Lamb on Nisan 14, which was the fifth day of the week, not the fourth. He was raised to life not on the seventh day, but on the eighth day, signifying the new beginning of the New Covenant.
Interestingly, the Greek gematria value for the name Jesus in Koine Greek is 888. New beginning. New beginning. New beginning.
But I digress.
In Luke Chapter 13, we find the following account.
The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
— Luke 13:31-33
What does Jesus mean when he says, “I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected” in this verse? Clearly, he cannot be referring to literal days, for how then could he be perfected only three days after this statement? I believe the most satisfactory interpretation is that he is referring to millennial days and is well aware that the fifth day has, at that time, just begun.
Taken all together, this is strong evidence that the year 4000 – the year of the cross and the year when the Holy Spirit was first given in full measure to believers – was indeed the first year of the fifth millennial day.
Therefore, I think it safe to suppose that the year 6000, the 120th Jubilee, is the first year of millennial day seven. This is the year which begins a whole new era. This is the day we now await. The day when we will at last retake the Promised Land.
It is also important to remember that the year 4000 began in the fall before the year of the cross. So, if the cross occurred in AD 29, then the Day of Trumpets in AD 28 was the true start of the year 4000.
For now, let’s content ourselves with assuming a small range of possibilities for the year of the cross; anywhere from AD 29 to AD 33. Solidifying the precise year beyond a reasonable doubt requires an understanding of other prophecies, which we will be exploring shortly.