[Update 2023: I'm mostly abandoning this theory for now.]
I have become convinced Jesus was born on Kislev 25, or very close to then. But what year Jesus was born I’ve been going back and forth on.
I stumbled upon a book online once arguing Jesus was born in 25 BC, heralded by a Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Regulus in 27-26 BC. This Book was not from a proper believer but someone who just called parts of The Bible they felt didn’t suit their theory wrong. I'm not willing to do that, however I did look into to how well this could fit a literal interpretation of The Gospels.
What I found was, the only real problem was reconciling Luke with Matthew. If someone wanted to consider only one Nativity narrative Canon, either one could fit a 25 BC model.
But the main reason for that issue is Luke’s story about Jesus when He was 12. Since interpreting Matthew this way would have the family still in Egypt all through Jesus tween years. The word for “young child” used at the time they return to Egypt can simply mean not fully an adult yet, and in a sense you weren’t fully an adult in Jewish thinking until 30. Mark 5:40-42 and Luke 8:42-43 uses it of a 12 year old, the daughter of Jairus.
The first error of how we commonly view Luke 3 is saying it placed the Baptism of Jesus when He began to be about 30 in the 15th Year of Tiberius. But it doesn't, the reference to the 15th Year of Tiberius at the start of the Chapter is totally unconnected to the Baptism account. Paul in Acts 13 says John "Completed his course" before he Baptized Jesus. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I think it's good evidence against assuming the Baptism was the same year John began his ministry or any other key event of Luke 3. But doesn't rule it out entirely either.
BTW, I've become convinced of an argument that what Luke meant by the Greek phrase translated "Began to be about 30" was that Jesus was "almost" or "about to be" 30.
Luke 3 is clearly not being purely strictly Chronological since verse 20 has John put in Prison then verse 21 describes his Baptism of Jesus.
Luke 3:1-2 tells us that the "Word of God" came unto John in the wilderness in the 15th Year of Tiberius. Then we get a basic account of who John was and what he was doing. Then it talks about him preaching against Antipas and Herodias and getting imprisoned for it.
It could be the 15th Year of Tiberius is when he preached against Herod Antipas marriage to Herodias, (perhaps because that was the year he married her) and was imprisoned for it. And that this doesn't tell us when John began his ministry at all. And so both that and Jesus Baptism could have preceded the 15th year of Tiberius.
John 8:57 can be interpreted as implying Jesus was nearing 50 years old when that event transpired. And since I place John 8 on the Eighth Day of Tabernacles, Jesus probably had one more Birthday before his Crucifixion. One can also see a Biblical symmetry to Jesus dying in his 49th or 50th year. And there is that controversial quote of Irenaeus saying Jesus was about 50 at the Crucifixion. Milestone ages in The Torah go from 20 to 30 to 50. But a 49th year can be interesting because of the Jubilee.
Or maybe Jesus looked young for his age and these John 8 Pharisees were as wrong on this as they were on the other things like Him being born of prostitution. Maybe we're supposed to read John 8 assuming that if the Pharisees said it, it's probably not accurate, and so Jesus could well be 50 or over at this time.
The Slavonic version of Josephus is a big part of this theory for a few reasons. One is it placing the beginning of John The Baptist’s ministry in 6 AD, near the other famous events of that year, thus making it possible to also put Jesus Baptism in that year or later. Slavonic Josephus also seems more consistent with The Gospels in saying Herodias first husband was Philip son of Cleopatra of Jerusalem, rather then Herod Boethus.
Another reason is that it seems to describe the Magi coming to Jerusalem, but places that event between 27 and 22 BC.
In this model the Census could be Augustus first Empire wide Census, the Monumentum Ancyranum inscription combined with other records about Roman Censors tells us this Lustrum was from 28-24 BC. And the wording of Luke 2:1 can be interpreted as saying it was the very first Census of Augustus reign.
And I already talked about reasons to doubt Quirinus was mentioned in Luke 2. It could be that verse should be read "the first Census of the governing of Syria and Cyrene".
For the movements of Jupiter and Saturn in Regulus I mentioned. Just download stellarium and look through this period. It’s like the Jupiter-Regulus alignments made such a big deal out of by 3-2 BC theorists, but the involvement of Saturn makes it both even more impressive and far more rare. Jupiter and Saturn conjunction about every 20 years, but only do so in Leo every 800 years or so, and the times they have since and the last time before this came nowhere near fully aligning with Regulus how they did this year. Regulus is the brightest star in the Zodiac and Jupiter the brightest planet, and Jupiter and Saturn are the slowed moving Planets making then aligning with anything less common then the inner planets.
Venus was also involved. For example Venus was visible as an Evening Star during the early part of Hanukkah and again for awhile after Hanukkah in December of 26 BC. And was specifically in the leg of Ophiuchus that is stepping on Antares the head of Scorpio. A pretty ideal circumstance for the birth of the Seed of The Woman.
That Herod began building Herodium about 23 BC is interesting. It seems odd if he didn't know about Bethlehem's Messianic associations till 12-2 BC, which Matthew implies he didn't before the Magi visited and he had to ask about it.
These are all pretty compelling evidences. But I’m not willing to throw out Matthew or Luke however. So unless an answer to that one issue could be found, I couldn’t support this theory.
But here is the final piece, the solution to the one problem this theory had.
I think it’s possible the Greek word usually translated Twelve might have sometimes been used by Luke and Mark with the intent of saying Twenty. (The Greek word usually translated Twenty or Score is used in the New Testament only as a part of larger numbers.) It’s basically combing the Greek words for two and ten, and so could have been used by people who's first language wasn't Greek like Mark or Mary to say two tens. (Or if you're less invested in the infallibility of Scripture then I am, you could consider it a flawed Greek translation of something originally said in Hebrew or Aramaic, or a scribal error.) That includes both Luke 2 and the daughter of Jairus mentioned above.
The thing I noticed recently that would become an issue to me honestly even without its relevance to determining the Chronology of the Nativity. Is that around 12 or 13 as the age of adulthood isn’t supported by The Torah, it’s a Rabbinic Custom and one that may not have developed until after 70 AD.
The Torah talked about 20 years old as the minimum age requirement for the census and the Pilgrimage festivals in Leviticus 27, Numbers 1, 26 and 32:11, though Number 8:24 makes 25 years old an important age for Levites.
Commentators already think Luke singling out Thirty years old for the Baptism has relevance to Numbers 4 (where Fifty years old is also important). So it also makes sense in this context that the Torah significance of twenty years was implied in Luke 2.
Now you may at first feel that the story makes less sense if Jesus was that old. But again some words translated “child” in Biblical Languages can be shown to apply to people older then you’d think. And in Jesus day Jewish men usually didn’t leave their father’s house to get married till they were 30. Frankly I can argue the fact that it took Mary and Joseph so long to notice Jesus wasn’t with them is odd if he was as young as 12. As someone who was still living with his parents at 20, this rings perfectly plausible to me as being about a 20 rather then 12 year old.
I’m probably going to be returning to this subject in the future. I haven’t decided the exact dates I’d go with yet.
We often picture the 12 Disciples as being about the same age as Jesus. But since Jesus refereed to them as "children of the bride-chamber" maybe they were actually a generation younger. (And maybe some or all of his younger half-siblings were around that age if Mary and Joseph decided to wait till they returned to Nazareth to have more children.) Thus making them around the age we usually think of Jesus as being. And then Paul I think was even younger, I picture Paul of Acts 6-9 as being a fiery zealous 20 something during those events, which I generally place in 36-37 AD.
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