April 3, AD 33

In our new
book, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived, we assume but
do not argue for a precise date of Jesus’s crucifixion. Virtually all scholars
believe, for various reasons, that Jesus was crucified in the spring of either a.d. 30 or a.d. 33, with the majority opting for the former. (The evidence from astronomy narrows the possibilities to a.d. 27, 30, 33, or 34). However, we want to set forth our
case for the date of Friday, April 3, a.d.
33 as the exact day that Christ died for our sins.

To
be clear, the Bible does not explicitly specify the precise date of Jesus’s
crucifixion and it is not an essential salvation truth. But that does not make
it unknowable or unimportant. Because Christianity is a historical religion and
the events of Christ’s life did take place in human history alongside other
known events, it is helpful to locate Jesus’s death—as precisely as the
available evidence allows—within the larger context of human history.

Among
the Gospel writers, no one makes this point more strongly than Luke, the
Gentile physician turned historian and inspired chronicler of early Christianity.

The Year John the Baptist’s Ministry Began

Luke implies
that John the Baptist began his public ministry shortly before Jesus did, and he
gives us a historical reference point for when the Baptist’s ministry began: “In
the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar . . .” (Luke 3:1).

We
know from Roman historians that Tiberius succeeded Augustus as emperor and was
confirmed by the Roman Senate on August 19, a.d.
14. He ruled until a.d. 37. “The
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” sounds like a straightforward
date, but there are some ambiguities, beginning with when one starts the
calculation. Most likely, Tiberius’s reign was counted either from the day he
took office in a.d. 14 or from
January 1 of the following year, a.d.
15. The earliest possible date at which Tiberius’s “fifteenth year” began is
August 19, a.d. 28, and the latest
possible date at which his “fifteenth year” ended is December 31, a.d. 29. So John the Baptist’s ministry began anywhere from mid-a.d. 28 until sometime in a.d. 29.

The Year Jesus’s Ministry Began

If Jesus,
as the Gospels seem to indicate, began his ministry not long after John, then based
on the calculations above, the earliest date for Jesus’s baptism would be in
late a.d. 28 at the very earliest.
However, it is more probable to place it sometime in the first half of the year
a.d. 29, because a few months probably
elapsed between the beginning of John’s ministry and that of Jesus (and the
year a.d. 30 is the latest
possible date). So Jesus’s ministry must
have begun between the end of a.d.
28 at the earliest and a.d. 30 at
the latest.

This
coheres with Luke’s mention that “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23).
If he was born in 6 or 5 b.c., as
is most likely, Jesus would have been approximately
thirty-two to thirty-four years old in late a.d.
28 until a.d. 30, which falls well
within the range of him being “about thirty years of age.”

The Length of Jesus’s Ministry

Now we
need to know how long Jesus’s public ministry lasted, because if it went on for
two or more years, this would seem to rule out spring of a.d. 30 as a possible date for the
crucifixion.

John’s
Gospel mentions that Jesus attended at least three Passovers (possibly four),
which took place once a year in the spring:

• There was a Passover in
  Jerusalem at the start of his public ministry (John 2:13, 23).
• There was a Passover in Galilee
  midway through his public ministry (John 6:4).
• There was a final
  Passover in Jerusalem at the end of his public ministry, that is, the time of his
  crucifixion (John 11:55; 12:1).
• And Jesus may have
  attended one more Passover not recorded in John but perhaps in one or several
  of the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

Even if
there were only three Passovers, this would still make a date of a.d. 30 all but impossible for the date
of the crucifixion. As noted above, the earliest likely date for the beginning
of Jesus’s ministry from Luke 3:1 is late a.d.
28. So the first of these Passovers (at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry; John
2:13) would fall on Nisan 15 in a.d. 29 (because Nisan is in March/April, near the
beginning of a year). The second would fall in a.d. 30 at the earliest, and the
third would fall in 31 at the earliest. This means that if Jesus’s ministry
coincided with at least three Passovers, and if the first Passover was in a.d. 29, he
could not have been crucified in a.d. 30.

But if John the Baptist
began his ministry in a.d. 29,
then Jesus probably began his ministry in late a.d.
29 or early a.d. 30. Then the
Passovers in John would occur on the following dates:

Jesus Was Crucified on the Day of Preparation
for the Passover

John also mentions
that Jesus was crucified on “the day of Preparation” (John 19:31), that is, the
Friday before the Sabbath of Passover week (Mark 15:42). The night before, on
Thursday evening, Jesus ate a Passover meal with the Twelve (Mark 14:12), his
“Last Supper.”

In
the Pharisaic-rabbinic calendar commonly used in Jesus’s day, Passover always
falls on the fifteenth day of Nisan (Exodus 12:6), which begins Thursday after
sundown and ends Friday at sundown. In the year a.d.
33, the most likely year of Jesus’s crucifixion, Nisan 15 fell on April 3,
yielding April 3, a.d. 33, as the
most likely date for the crucifixion. In The
Final Days of Jesus, we therefore constructed the following chart to show
the dates for Jesus’s final week in a.d.
33:

Conclusion

The above
calculations may appear complicated, but in a nutshell the argument runs like
this:

While
this is in our judgment the most likely scenario, it should be acknowledged
that many believe Jesus was crucified in the year a.d. 30, not 33. However, if the beginning of Tiberius’s
reign is placed in the year a.d.
14, it is virtually impossible to accommodate fifteen years of Tiberius’s reign
and three years of Jesus’ ministry between a.d.
14 and 30. For this reason, some have postulated a co-regency (joint rule) of
Tiberius and Augustus during the last few years of Augustus’s reign. However,
there is no reliable ancient historical evidence for such co-regency.

We
conclude that Jesus was most likely crucified on April 3, a.d. 33. While other dates are possible,
believers can take great assurance from the fact that the most important
historical events in Jesus’s life, such as the crucifixion, are firmly anchored
in human history. As we celebrate Easter, and as we walk with Jesus every day
of the year, we can therefore be confident that our faith is based not only on
subjective personal assurance but on reliable historical data, which makes ours
an eminently reasonable faith.

Andreas Köstenberger is senior research
professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. Justin Taylor is senior vice president
and publisher for books at Crossway. Together they co-authored The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived (Crossway, 2014).

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