In What Year Was Jesus Christ Born
part 1


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For most people, the most accessible and therefore the primary
sources of information about the time of the birth of Christ are almanacs, encyclopedias, or dictionaries. Most of these, however, would seem to indicate doubt and confusion about the date of the birth of our Lord. Such doubt is usually indicated by "c.", which stands for circa, Latin for "around." Some even have Him born seven years B.C. or in the seventh year A.D., which makes very little sense. Obviously, then, our primary source must be the nearest that we have to first-hand information. Everything else is commentary on the first sources or commentary on the commentary, and comment on that commentary, ad infinitum

There are two kinds of reliable sources of information about the time of Christ's birth

Scriptural --(the Holy Bible), and

Extra-Scriptural -- the writings of the early Christian Fathers
oral tradition, iconography, relics, inscriptions, the writings of Roman historians, graffiti, etc

Before considering all the evidence before us, however, we must first be equipped with a means of guiding us through the process, a means to prevent us from going astray. Such a tool was designed for us by a simple monk, St.Vincent of Lerins. Therefore, our investigation has to begin with the year 434 when St.Vincent wrote, and with what he wrote



The Flight into Egypt

An icon of the Flight into Egypt sent to the author by His Eminence, the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Boston, Ephraim, shows our Savior Jesus Christ being carried by Joseph the Betrothed, the Theotokos riding on a horse, and St. James, the brother of the Lord Joseph's youngest son, carrying their belongings as he urges the horse forward

According to Otto Meinardus, Coptic tradition has it that the Holy
Travelers lived in Egypt for three and a half years

Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity, Cairo, 1999. Going by St. Matthew's Gospel and the reckoning of Dionysius Exiguus, King Herod the Great would have died in A.D. 4 (Matt. 2:19). According to Flavius Josephus, this happened thirty-seven years after he was made king of Judsae by the Roman Senate -Wars of the Jews, 32:8

(to be continued)