Dating Key Events in Jesus’ Life and the Significance of the Fall Feasts

The Biblical feast days commemorate important Jewish historical events, celebrate the annual agricultural cycle, and prophesy about Messiah’s life on earth, in both of His advents. This is a good time for an exploration of these timelines because it is now the middle of the Hebrew month Elul, and that is the temporal setting of the main topic here: the Fall Feasts. I am convinced that the Jewish principal feasts, as commanded in Leviticus 23, provide a totally reliable outline of important events in Jesus’ life.

A Chronology of the First Advent

I started this analysis by setting a time frame for Jesus’ First Advent, which I date in the following short table. Here I have used the Gregorian calendar for the year, because that is more identifiable to most of us, but I’m taking the month and day from the Hebrew calendar, because annual events are Biblically fixed according to that standard and are different every year by the Gregorian and earlier Julian calendars.

Event	Age	Hebrew Date	Gregorian Year
Birth	–	Tishri 15	4 BC
Baptism	about 30 years	Elul	AD 26
Crucifixion	about 33 yrs., 6 mos.	Nisan 14/15	AD 30

Events highlighted in Biblical prophecy occurred during His first advent, on the actual feast days shown. Conversely, events related to the future will occur during His second advent, again on the actual feast days shown.

The Birth of Jesus on the Feast of Tabernacles

I’m very confident that Jesus’ birth was on Tishri 15, the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkoth. This occurred not in December, on a date with absolutely no Scriptural support (but with a pagan connotation!); but rather in a September/October timeframe corresponding to Jewish celebration of the time that God previously “tabernacled” with His people during their 40 years of wilderness wandering. With Jesus’ birth, once again God was living among His people.

The year of Jesus’ birth has been disputed during my entire lifetime. There are always unresolved arguments about when Herod died, when Quirinus was governor of Cilicia/Syria, and what year a lunar eclipse hit the region, all of which are applicable. The most commonly cited estimates place Jesus’ birth in 4 BC, though dates ranging from 1 through 6 BC are also commonly mentioned. I’m sticking with 4 BC here, because it fits well with the other dates in the table.

The Baptism and the Day of Atonement

Regarding the start of His ministry, Luke 3:23 states that Jesus was “about thirty years of age” when He began. Fall of AD 26 is about thirty years after the autumn of 4 BC. His baptism by John was 40 days before Tishri 10, which is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. In fact, if His ministry began on Yom Kippur, and that was the last day of His 40-day “wilderness fast and temptation”, then He was just five days shy of 30 years old.

This 40-day offset culminates with Jesus on the pinnacle of the Temple, defying Satan, on Yom Kippur, in full view of many thousands of worshippers on the plaza below. Some suspect the pinnacle mentioned in Scripture might be the Place of Trumpeting, since it is far more visible from the streets below.

The Timing of the Crucifixion

His crucifixion was on Nisan 15, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Yom ha-Bikkurim, not on Nisan 14, the day of the sacrifices. The year of Jesus’ crucifixion, shown here as AD 30, was calculated using NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) New Moon Tables, which were prepared with historic ocean tides in mind. Every published Biblical chronology that I’m aware of puts the crucifixion in AD 33, but they are all based on an incorrect interpretation that insists He was crucified on Nisan 14. With a correct understanding of the timings, the alignment with the feasts becomes clear.