聖誕快到了，查找這些相關的資料。

在網上看到新民弟兄的一篇文章，主要是引用馬丁教授的。

馬丁確定的時間：

耶穌基督誕生在3BC9月11日黃昏，AD30年逾越節被釘十字架

 

這是新民的觀點：

 

馬丁博士還認為，……在AD30年逾越節被釘十字架。筆者對此保留看法，因為那樣的話，耶穌傳道就只有兩年時間，少於福音書與傳統所講的3年多……到AD33的4月3日逾越節被釘十字架（《自然雜誌》1983年底第306期）。

 

看來新民的數學不太好，主前3年9月11日到主後30年4月份，可不是“只有兩年時間”，而恰好是三年半多一點兒時間（建議文章修改一下）。

 

不過我想請教的是下面這篇文章，我找不到相關英文資料，無從反駁。想新民在這個問題上花費了很多精力，願有以教我。這位數學博士或反基督教人士完全否認了更改約瑟夫“希律死於主前4年”的任何努力。

 

 

1

The Star of Bethlehem Documentary–The Death of Herod and
Josephus’ Account

Posted on February 14, 2013      

 

Aaron Adair

In order to make the theory presented in the Star of
Bethlehem documentary work, a major premise concerns the date when Herod the
Great, a king of Judea, died. This is because the Gospel of Matthew says that
Jesus was borne during his reign. Moreover, the Magi are said to come to King
Herod, and it is only after Herod’s death that the Holy Family returned from
Egypt to Palestine. So the events with the Star have to take place before
Herod’s death in order to be consistent with Matthew’s account.

Now, there is a significant problem that this creates for
the MMEL hypothesis. The Jupiter-Venus conjunctions take places in 3 & 2
BCE, but most historians place the death of Herod before the Passover in 4 BCE.
This provides one bit of impetus for the attempt to change the order of
historical events. For this, we have to look into what evidence do historians
rely on to get the 4 or 5 BCE date for Herod’s death, and what is the evidence
that the MMEL hypothesis uses to argue that instead Herod died in 1 BCE.

When it comes to the life, deeds, and death of Herod, the
major source we have is the account of the Jewish historian Josephus in his
Antiquities of the Jews (JA from hereon in), along with some things in his
other important work, the Jewish War (JW). Writing in the 90s CE, Josephus was
writing a history of the Jews from Genesis up to the time of the major revolt
against Rome in the 60s CE. The Bible is an obvious source Josephus uses when
it comes to the Patriarchs, but for Herod he had access to some good sources.
The two most noteworthy are the Histories of Nicholaus of Damascus and Herod
the Great’s own memoirs (JA 16.183-7, 15.174, 14.9). Nicholaus was a close
friend of Herod’s, and he survived Herod so he knew about his death rather
well. Josephus had other sources as well, so when it comes to putting a date on
the most important aspects of his life he was in a good position. While Herod’s
memories won’t  have much on his death
and funeral, Herod certainly knew about the events of his life, so we have
primary sources in the hands of Josephus when he composed his narrative.

It should be noted that Josephus is far from a perfect
historian. We know he makes mistakes, and his use of calendars has caused
headaches. However, we can confirm events he speaks of with outside witnesses
and artifacts, This will be brought up for the best reconstruction for Herod’s
beginning as king of the Jews and his death.

Now, the basic way we know when Herod died is from the start
of his reign and how many years he reigned. Josephus goes through each year he
ruled, and he gives us the start date. In fact, he gives us two starting dates:
when he was declared king of the Jews by Rome and when he took the thrown after
defeating the Parthian Empire that controlled the region. According to Josephus,
Herod ruled for 37 years after he was declared king by Rome (JW 1.665, JA
17.191), and 34 years after he was properly crowned. Josephus tells us very
particularly that Herod was made king by Rome in 40 BCE by citing the consuls
of that year (JA 14.389), and the consular list is something independently
established by classicist and is not in dispute. The beginning of Herod’s rule
also given by Josephus using the consuls again in 37 BCE (JA 14.487). The date
of Rome made Herod king is also independently given by the historian Appian who
was writing about the Roman civil war. In his Civil War 5.75, he talks about
various rulers being established by Rome, including Herod. The details, such as
the death of Marc Anthony’s wife (Fulvia) and the start of Parthia’s siding
with Cassius and Brutus, place the events in 40 BCE, lining up with Josephus’
record.

From either of those years, you do the computation and you
get Herod dying in or around 4 BCE. In addition, Josephus mentions a lunar
eclipse taking place not long before his death (JA 17.167); we may be worrisome
that this was used for dramatic effect, but the eclipses in 5 and 4 BCE can be
used to also confirm that this dating fits what Josephus said about when Herod
died.

Another indication that Josephus’ version of events is
chronologically on-track is his mention of an event in Herod’s seventeenth
reigning year when Augustus made a state visit to him (JA 15.368-370, cf.
15.354, 380). This would, on the normal chronology, be 20 BCE, and again we have
independent verification. Augustus himself notes the occasion (Res Gestae 11),
and is further confirmed by the historian Cassius Dio (Roman History 54.7.4-6,
54.9.3).

We have still another correlation to consider from Josephus’
account. The Jewish historian says that Herod died before he reached the age of
70 (JA 17.148; JW 1.647), so if we knew something about his birth year we can
limit when Herod would have died. Josephus tells us that Herod was 25 when he
was appointed governor of Galilee in 47 BCE (JA 14.158; note that there is
likely a textual corruption as it says Herod was 15) just after Julius Caesar
had temporarily stayed in Syria, so he would probably have been born in about
73/74 BCE, and thus he died before the year 3 BCE. Again, the data fits with
what is expected from the 5/4 BCE death year of Herod rather than in 1 BCE.

Josephus also provides evidence in the other direction based
on the sons of Herod. After Herod died, his kingdom was divided up among his
four sons. One of his sons, Archelaus, ruled into his tenth year (JA 17.324-4)
which ended 37 years after the famous Battle of Actium in 31 BCE (JA 18.26). As
such, Archelaus started to rule in 4 or 5 BCE and ended in 6/7 CE, an end date
confirmed by Cassius Dio (Roman History 55.27.6); since sons tend to rule after
their father dies (and Josephus discusses the process of how the kingdom was
divided up), Herod the Great must have died in 5 or 4 BCE. We see the same with
the other sons of Herod. Philip died in the 20th year of Tiberius (33/34 CE)
after ruling for 37 years (JA 18:106), which would again place the date of
Herod’s death to 5/4 BCE. And if we look to Antipas, he lost his reign in 38/39
AD and his coinage only goes to the 43rd year of his rule, at least so far as
been uncovered; again, the simple back-calculation will give you 4 BCE as when
Antipas began to rule, and hence Herod must have died in 5/4 BCE. So we have
several lines of evidence from several angles all pointing to the same time for
when Herod died.

Now, all of this should give us confidence that Josephus is
not making an error any greater than a year in his chronology, let alone three
in order to get a death year of 1 BCE (and 1 CE has been argued by some as
well, using the same reasoning). However, there is one principle argument that
is used to prefer a different chronology. As noted, Josephus talks of a lunar
eclipse before Herod died, and the most commonly cited one is from March of 4
BCE, which was a partial rather than full one. The main argument against this
is that there was not enough time between this eclipse and the Passover for all
the events mentioned by Josephus to have transpired. This was argued by Ernest
Martin, who took what he considered the shortest plausible lengths of time for
events to happen, add them up, and see that they cannot fit.

Before I get into the details, let us consider a point of
order. Suppose that indeed the events between the eclipse and Passover could
not have happened as described, meaning Josephus is mistaken. the question then
is this: should we consider it a mistake when or what eclipse Josephus was
referring to (or even placing it there for dramatic purposes as was common in
antiquity), or should we change the chronology by several years? Considering
how good Josephus’ chronology has been up to this point, it seems it is the
greater sin to fudge his account by three years rather than one detail.

However, Martin’s argument has two ways out: one is a major
mistake in his reading of events, and another is which eclipse to consider. One
of the points Martin makes is that the funeral procession that traveled from
Jerusalem to Herod’s burial site at the Herodium only traveled 8 stadia (about
a mile) a day for a distance of 200 stadia. This would then take around 25
days, absorbing almost all the time between the lunar eclipse (March 13) and
the beginning of Passover (April 11). However, Josephus does not say the
procession is going 8 stadia a day, but simply the procession went 8 stadia (JA
17.199), and after that it isn’t said. A likely proposal is that after the
procession in the vicinity of Jerusalem was over, the body was then taking to
the burial place soon after, perhaps the same day (Jewish custom required
prompt burial after funerary rights were observed). When you take away the
artificial obstacle Martin created for the standard chronology, things have a
greater potential to fit.

But even ignoring this, we have another, more prominent
eclipse of the moon to consider from September 15 in 5 BCE. Even Martin’s
strange chronology can fit into the space between this date and the Passover.
In fact, the late 5 BCE eclipse is a better fit to Josephus’ description,
giving it some preference. One of the major experts of the Herodian dynasty,
Nikos Kokkinos, prefers the 5 BCE year as that of Herod’s death (The Herodian
Dynasty, pp. 372-3), and it does ensure that there is not too much of a time
compression of events happening between the eclipse and the Passover.

In fact, another source that has been used to date the death
of Herod is independent of the record in Josephus, what is called the Megillat
Ta’anit or Scroll of Fasting. While most fasts are given a reason for why they
are special, there are two dates given which are not explained, 7 Kislev and 2
Shevat; the latter date is considered by scholars to in fact be the day after
Herod died in the Jewish calendar (and some also believing the same for 6
Kislev, see Vered Noam, “Megilatt Taanit—The Scroll of Fasting” in Safrai, Safrai, Schwartz,
Tomson, The Literature of the Sages, pp. 339-62, esp. p. 370; to compute
between the Gregorian or Julian calendar and the Jewish calendar, go here). On
that line of evidence, both of these dates come after the September 15 eclipse
in 5 BCE, but before the January eclipse in 1 BCE as the MMEL hypothesis
believes. As such, the Scroll dates fit the 5 BCE eclipse best (even better
than the March of 4 BCE eclipse), and it provides yet another line of evidence
against the revised chronology.Now, we see that all the evidence provided by Josephus fits
best when Herod died in 5/4 BCE, and other sources independently fit this time
frame as well, while the arguments of Martin et al. cannot stand on their own
(and even if so, we would consider something in Josephus’ record to be slightly
inaccurate rather than completely change his timeline). However, there is one
other line of evidence to consider. Most all the Apostolic Fathers in the
Catholic tradition gave Jesus a birth year in the area of 3/2 BCE as in the
MMEL hypothesis, thus putting Herod’s death later than 4 BCE. Did they have
some other line of evidence? Unfortunately, these sources do not say they know
this based on some other record from the time of Jesus’ birth. In fact, we can
see how they likely derived that date. According to Luke 3, Jesus was “about
30″
when he came to see John the Baptist whose ministry began in the 15th year of
Tiberius (28/29 CE). If one believes Jesus came to John at the beginning of his
ministry, then you can easy get a date of 3/2 BCE from this. As such, the
Catholic tradition is not independent verification of when Herod died, but it
is derivative of the Gospel material (which is itself in contradiction on
important matters). It is also worth mentioning that while it is true Luke does
talk about a king Herod when discussing the birth of John and Jesus, there is
reason to believe he may be talking about Archelaus (who was also called “king”
and “Herod”). But for the historian, the key thing is we cannot use late
sources that are not dependent on primary sources for their calculations to
deny something we find in a source (Josephus) who is using multiple primary
sources (the writings of Nicolaus and Herod himself).At this point, it should be clear that the evidence we have
is strongly in favor of the 5/4 BCE date of Herod’s death, while there is
nothing but several lines of special pleading for a different date. These are
not the only arguments to consider, and there has been plenty written on the
matter in biblical studies journals. The 1968 paper by Timothy Barnes is still
a strong and worthy argument (“The Date of Herod’s Death”, Journal of
Theological Studies 19), and modern attempts to go against it are require that
most other historical sources from antiquity to be wrong (such as details about
the Augustan court).However, there is one last-ditch effort to get
past this problem, based on textual witnesses to Josephus’