Was Jesus born on the Feast of Trumpets?
ROSH HASHANAH AND YOM KIPPUR
The Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah is also called the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:24) as well as the “head of the year” for it is the Jewish civil New Year. It leads up to the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the month. This first month is about renewal, inner renewal, and atonement, divine atonement. Rosh Hashanah is a Jewish holiday that is observed over two days rather than one day as is typical for most of the holidays. While in 2021 Rosh Hashanah began at sundown September 6th, recently, in 2019 its observance went from Sunday, September 29th to Tuesday, October 1st. By no coincidence, the Feast of Trumpets, September 29th to October 1st this seems to be the very time that Jesus was born.
Why was Rosh Hashanah two days? If you think back, you couldn’t broadcast over the internet, or turn on the radio. Back then the Sanhedrin were the ones responsible for telling people that the Sabbath started. Then when the New Year Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets, started it was so important that they had to have two days to make sure it was proclaimed throughout the whole land.
Today Rosh Hashanah is celebrated by praying in the synagogue, and reflection. And it begins on the first day of Tishri, which is the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year. This leads up to the 10th day, which is the Day of Atonement. New Years marks the start of ten days that are called, “the ten days of repentance.” This ends with what we know today as Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance. We call it the Day of Atonement.
The important thing is that Yom Kippur is the single holiest Jewish holiday. It is even more holy than Passover. That is important when you think about the entry of Jesus — the atoning sacrifice — into this world. Today it is a time to reconcile with your neighbors. There are a lot of good wishes one to another, and Happy New Year greetings. It is the time for visiting the graves of your relatives and friends. There is special food and dipping pieces of round Challah bread and apples into honey signifying hope for a sweet new year.
Pomegranates are eaten because of their many seeds represent the 613 commandments in the Torah. This represents the ingesting of the law as it leads up to atonement. Importantly, this celebration was inaugurated when God said to Moses, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an offering to the LORD.’” Leviticus 23:24, 25. We see that Jews were to rest and were reminded of this rest by the blowing of trumpets, to call to a Holy convocation. They were not to do any laborious work, but to present an offering to Jehovah.
Details on the sacrificial offerings are given in Numbers, “Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets. You shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to the LORD … Offer one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you … an offering by fire to the LORD.” Numbers 29:1‑6
The first day of each month in the ecclesiastical year that led up to this seventh month was inaugurated by the blowing of trumpets. We read in Numbers 10:10 and Numbers 28:11‑15, “Also in the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am Jehovah,” or “the LORD your God.”
Tishri was the last of the seven important months of the sacred year that started with the spring Equinox linked to the Passover. It ended in Tishri, the seventh month, with the fall Equinox and the Day of Atonement. The number seven is connected with sacred things. So these two important feasts bridge the ecclesiastical year, and with the seventh month, the civil year.
TRUMPETS
The Feast of Trumpets in Hebrew reads, “the day of blast,” the Greek Septuagint translates this as, “a day of signaling.” Two types of trumpets are mentioned in connection with the feasts and in the celebrations, for the breaking of camp, and for the giving of the law. These are the Ram’s horn, or Shofar (H7782), and the Silver Trumpets (H2689) originally crafted as a pair out of a solid piece of beaten silver measuring about 45 cm (17.5”) in length (Numbers 10:1,2).
For Leviticus 23:24 Jewish custom clearly supports a Shofar being blown. In the Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16a, “Sound [tiku] a shofar” (Psalms 81:4). Why does one sound a staccato series of shofar blasts [terua] in addition to a long continuous shofar blast [tekia]? … “In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns [terua]” (Leviticus 23:24).
The next festival following the Day of Atonement, is the Feast of Booths. This was to signal a glorious time, the kingdom age, after the Day of Atonement is complete. This is when the people came to learn about the Lord. The fall of the year is always significant for events that have an anti‑type in the Millennial Kingdom.
DATE OF THE BIRTH OF JESUS
The date of the birth of Jesus is considered in detail by Bro. Russell (Volume 2, page 54). He says, “it has become customary among scholars to concede … that our Lord was born four years previous to the year AD that is in the year 4 BC.” Where did this custom originate?
German scholar Emil Schuerer based the 4 BC date on the report of a lunar eclipse by Josephus, in relation to Herod’s death (Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 19. 343‑350). Schuerer’s scholarship has been held as “the consensus of the scholarly community for the last century” (Steinmann, 2009). Herod’s death was proposed to occur on March 13, 4 BC. [1]
In recent decades, arguments for this position have become exceptionally weak. Bro. Russell sets forth the date 2 BC and this is an important date because it forms the basis of much of our chronology around the birth and the cutting off of Jesus, and our whole chronological system. But it was always challenged, with some scholars saying 4 BC. Pastor Russell says 2 BC, but why did he take that position?
Matthew recounts the visit of the wise men to Herod. We know that Herod then sought the life of the young child, so the lives of Jesus and Herod overlapped. Bro. Russell goes on to say that the eclipse Josephus identified in connection with Herod’s death, is not the one from 4 BC. “As it happens … all three (eclipses) in 1 BC were total eclipses” (Volume 2, page 57). Today we have an advantage. We can go back, to NASA’s eclipse tables. NASA has calculated lunar eclipses back as far as they could go and it is available to anybody.
| Review of Eclipses (Sky View Cafe) |
| July 5, 1 BC. — This total lunar eclipse was never visible at Jerusalem at all. The total duration of this eclipse occurred when the moon was below the horizon at Jerusalem. |
| December 29, 1 BC. This eclipse was not a total lunar in the customary sense. It was about 40% umbral eclipse when the moon rose at Jerusalem at 4:20 pm. That was about the maximum umbral eclipse that it attained. At no time was this eclipse a full umbral eclipse (even when it was below the horizon). The penumbra did cover the moon, but not the full umbra. By 5:50 pm the partial umbral eclipse passed, and the penumbral portion ended by 7:00 pm. |
| January 10, 1 BC. This appears to be the reported eclipse that preceded the death of Herod. It was a full umbral eclipse, at Jerusalem, from 12:27 am to 1:17 am — and a penumbral eclipse for even longer.
(For additional support for the death of Herod on January 10, 1 BC see Filmer 1966, and Steinmann 2009). |
If January 10, 1 BC is correct for the eclipse, the death of Herod (no year zero) would be before Passover that year. With the September 29, 2 BC birth date, Jesus would have been between 4 and 7 months old when Herod died.
Let us see how this harmonizes with the account in Matthew: “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16). So that’s why the 2 BC date for Jesus’ birth really makes sense, because Herod would have died early in 1 BC.
JESUS’ MINISTRY STARTED AT AGE 30
Jewish law implies that Jesus started his 3½‑year ministry on his 30th birthday based on Levitical and Rabbinical tradition. (Numbers 4:3) The priests were to serve in the temple, as soon as they were 30 years old until they were 50. The date our Lord was crucified was Friday, April 3, 33 AD. This seems well established: “Now from the sixth hour (noon) until the ninth hour (3 am) there was darkness over all the land” (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33) NASA confirms a 5½ hour lunar eclipse on Friday, April 3, 33 AD. It is possible, but arguable, that this eclipse would have been noticed (at moonrise).[2]
A ministry of 3½ years from age 30 would have begun in 29 AD (Volume 2, pages 67‑68). Jesus’ birth, was 30 years earlier, in 2 BC (29 – 30 + 1 for no year 0). The crucifixion occurred during the 70th Week of Daniel’s 70 Weeks Prophecy (Nisan 14), 33 AD (Volume 2, page 58). If we examine years surrounding this date, 33 AD is the only one that has Nisan 14 on Friday, April 3. So if we know Jesus dies in 33 AD and we go back 33½ years remembering there is no Zero year, it takes us to that time of September/October of 2 BC again.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT
There is additional support we may gather from Luke 2:7, “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” In 2 BC, the Feast of Trumpets was celebrated starting September 29th, Tishrei 1. It seems reasonable that there was no room for Joseph and Mary the late afternoon of September 28, 2 BC because Bethlehem was full of visitors coming for the Feast of Trumpets. By Jewish reckoning, the new day starts after ~6:00 pm and on September 29th when Jesus was born.
Luke 2:8 recounts that there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks. The Talmud says that flocks were in the fields at night from March to November. Since Bethlehem is 2,550 feet (777 meters) above sea level with frost, and snow in winter, Jesus’ birth must be before end of October.
Luke 2:1 reads, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” There has always been some controversy trying to establish this from Roman records. A few years ago, Dr. Ernest Martin, an astronomer wrote a book called, The Star That Astonished The World, (1991), pages 197‑198: “Quirinius was then in Syria having conducted his procuratorial role of conducting a registration of peoples … With Saturninus gone to Rome … Quirinius assumed the supreme command while concluding his … duties. With Saturninus gone to Rome in late Spring of 2 BC, this would have left Quirinius as the full administrator until October or so.” He had the authority to issue the census and this was the time when he ordered the registration of the people in the spring of 2 BC, which makes sense for that later period of time, Joseph and Mary are on their way to make that registration when she is taken with child.
Iraenaeus, Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 21.3), writing around 133 AD: “Our Lord was born about the forty‑first year of the reign of Augustus.” In Latin grammar, “about” when used with numbers meant “with close proximity” or, “almost exactly.” The First year of Augustus’ reign was 43 BC, with Jesus born in 41st year of reign, or 2 BC.
Clement of Alexandria 153‑217 AD (Greek original cited in Galloway, 1869, page 410): “The nativity of Christ was in the fifteenth year before the death of Augustus.” We know that Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, hence the year of Jesus’ birth 15 years before is 2 BC (adding 1 because there is no year zero.)
Tertullian in 160 AD affirms both Iraenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, writing, “Augustus began to rule 41 years before Jesus’ birth,” and “Augustus died 15 years after Jesus’ birth.” He then adds, “Jesus was born 28 years after death of Cleopatra.” With Cleopatra’s death in 30 BC, 28 years later takes us to 2 BC.
Eusebius (264‑340 AD) writes “It was the forty‑second year of the reign of Augustus and the twenty‑eighth from the subjection of Egypt on the death of Antony.” Augustus’ rulership began in the fall of 43 BC. The 42nd year of the reign begins after 41 years are completed, or 2 BC in the fall. Egypt was incorporated into Roman Empire immediately after Death of Cleopatra and Anthony in 30 BC, and 28 years later takes us to 2 BC.
Eusebius of Caesarea
Tradition, astronomy, and historical church writings do not prove the Bible, but they compliment the biblical evidence that we believe. Early in the truth movement it was clear that the evidence pointed to Jesus being born 2 BC in the fall somewhere around October. How striking that the time of Jesus’ birth, was one announcing atonement, announcing redemption coming, and it was in that seventh month of the year, making us think of the seven trumpets of Revelation that announce an even greater time of coming atonement and redemption.
— Adapted from a discourse by Br. Len Griehs
[1] From Galloway, 1869, pages 404‑410 it seems that Schuerer was following the brilliant, but flawed French Jesuit scholar Denis Pétau (Petavius), 1583‑1659, who set forward the 4 BC date (Petavius, 1627, see front piece on page 3). Isaac Newton was familiar with this dating from Petavius and dismissed it. Newton believed, as set forth here, that 2 BC was the correct date. Pity the labor by Petavius on calculating the lunar eclipse dates which was all the more complicated by the pre‑Copernican Revolution belief that the sun revolved around the earth! (Petavius, page 699). — Editor
[2] Possibly he was baptized shortly after the Feast of Tabernacles, which the Law obligated him to attend. — Editor
References
Filmer, William E., “The Chronology of the Reign of Herod the Great,” The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 17, Oxford, 1966, pages 283‑298.
Galloway, W.B., Egypt’s Record of Time to the Exodus of Israel, Rivingstons, London, 1869, page 410. In 2021, available from Google Books.
Martin, Ernest, The Star That Astonished The World, Academy for Scriptures, 1991, pages 197‑198: ISBN 10: 0945657889
Dionysii Petavii, Opus Doctrina Temporum (1627) https://archive.org/details/opuspetavii/page/n6/mode/1up.
Steinmann, Andrew E., “When Did Herod the Great Reign?,” Novum Testamentum, Volume 51, 2009, pages 1‑29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25442624