Eclectic Christian

By Michael Bell

Traditionally, Jesus is said to be about 33 years old when he died. This date is calculated by beginning with Luke 3:23 which states that Jesus was about 30 years old when he started his ministry. John’s gospel mentions three passovers, so the assumption is that he was about 33 when he died. This is the most direct evidence that we have, so it is the dating that is most commonly accepted.

There are some questions about this dating. For example, Luke uses the word “about”, showing that he is not certain of the age of Jesus. And while the gospels seem to cover three years of ministry, no where does it say that his ministry was restricted to three years. So the question can be asked: Is there other information out there that would make us think differently?

Lets start back at with Jesus’ birth and see how everything fits.

Right away we are faced with a dating problem. Matthew has Jesus being born during the reign of Herod the Great, who we know died in 4 B.C. Luke on the other hand has Jesus being born during the “first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” The problem is that Quirinius was governor of Syria from A.D. 6 – 12. Either Luke is mistaken, or as some scholars such as F.F. Bruce believe, there was a mistranslation somewhere along the way, and “while Quirinius” was originally written as “before Quirinius”. We do know from Tertullian (Against Marcion 4.19:10) that there was a census that had been taken in Judaea by Sentius Saturninus the Governor of Syria, somewhere between 10-6 B.C. Either way, the earlier census, becomes the more likely census.

If Luke had the wrong census, then he would also have a tendency to underestimate Jesus’ age, by the differential between the two censuses. Jesus then would have begun his ministry somewhere between the ages of 42 and 46. Let us see if this fits with other historical dates.

Jesus’ closest contemporary was John the Baptist. We do have very exact dates for both the start of John’s ministry as well as his death.

Only Luke tells us when John the Baptist started his ministry. He does not give us a calendar date but tells us that John began his ministry in the desert during the reigns of several individuals and at the time of two high priests.

Luke 3:1-2 “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.”

Tiberius Caesar started his rule in A.D. 14. which meant that John started his ministry about A.D. 29. This date fits with the dates that we know for the others mentioned in this passage.

We also know that Jesus was crucified after John the Baptist was beheaded. So when was John beheaded? We know that John was imprisoned by Herod Antipas (also known as the Tetrarch) for criticizing Herod for marrying the wife of his brother. When did this happen? The Jewish historian Josephus ties the death of John the Baptist in with the defeat of Herod Antipas by Aretas IV Philopatris. This defeat happened in the years A.D. 36/37.

This of course give John a public ministry of 7-8 years, longer that what one would assume from reading the scriptures, but not in any way in conflict with it.

We know that Jesus’ ministry had begun roughly a year before the death of John the Baptist. (Using Passovers as a dating method.) Let us assume then, that Jesus’ ministry began in A.D. 35-36. This would fit with what Luke believed, as he thought that Jesus was born in 6 A.D. If Matthew is correct, Jesus is much older, possibly 41-46 years old.

What else supports the older dating of Jesus?

The recording of the death of John the Baptist (Matthew 14), comes just before the feeding of the 5000, which is also recorded in John 6. According to our calculations so far, this would put Jesus somewhere between the ages of 42 (6 B.C. to 36 A.D.) and 47 (10 B.C. to 37 A.D.) at this point in time. What is remarkable about this is how closely this fits to claims of the crowd in John 8:57.

“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him

The early church father, Irenaeus, was the first to point out that you don’t call someone nearly fifty when they are only in their thirties.

From John 6 to John 13 is at least a year as both record passover events. So, based on this, this places Jesus age at death at between the ages 43 and 48.

Irenaeus, mentioned above, claimed that Christ was about 50 when he died (Against Heresies 2.22: 4-8). He uses a number of arguments to advance this claim including some of those above. However his primary argument was that this information has been passed down to him John and the other apostles. We should point out that Irenaeus is a very credible source, a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of John. As such, he is only one generation removed from direct contact with the apostles. Irenaeus was a church bishop who penned this information in his books “Against Heresies” sometime between the years 182 A.D. and 188 A.D. At the time he would have been in his sixties.

There is one other interesting side note that “possibly” speaks of an older age of Jesus. John 2 records the following at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry:

The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

The temple began its reconstruction in 19 or 20 B.C. Add 46 years to that date and it takes you to A.D. 26 or 27. These dates don’t make sense, because we know that John the Baptist only began his ministry in A.D. 29. This could mean one of two things. Firstly either Jesus had a ministry that lasted 10 years which began in relative anonymity two to three years before John the Baptist. The other option that some have suggested is that Luke misunderstood the conversation, again because of his misunderstanding Jesus’ age the conversation was misunderstood, and the 46 years is in fact a reference to Jesus’ age at the time. This would then fit with a death two years later at age 48.

So what does it matter?

Thirty-three or forty-three to forty-eight? Does it matter? It doesn’t really. How old Jesus was is not really that important. None of the creeds express it, no theology is built upon it, no one is going to burn you at the stake for having a view that differs from the norm. However, the fact that there is so much written about Jesus is important. He was a historical figure. He lived, he died, and many witnesses saw him alive after his resurrection. His life, his death, his resurrection all leave us with a choice. A choice to choose to follow, trust, and appropriate his death as a penalty paid for our own wrongdoings, or a choice to do nothing, to continue on as if Jesus Christ doesn’t really matter.

His age. It doesn’t really matter. In the end it is just a bit of interesting speculation. But all the information that was written about him shows that Jesus was not, and is not, some type of fictional character. His claim to be the Son of God, demands a response, and that response has eternal consequences.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.