The Hebrew calendar

In order to discuss fully the biblical evidence for an actual date for Jesus's birth, it is necessary at this point to take a look at how the Hebrew calendar is organized. In fact, the Hebrew calendar is incredibly complicated. This is because calendar months must be strictly lunar while Passover must always occur in the Spring (which is, of course, solar). In addition, the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana) is on the 1st day of the 7th month (Tishri) and, while days begin at sunset, clock times are measured from sunrise! Leap years occur in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of a 19-year cycle, but instead of adding a leap-day, an entire leap-month is added. Hebrew year 1 AM (Anno Mundi, meaning "Year of the World") corresponds to 3761 BC. Because of these complexities, I will consider only the Hebrew years corresponding to the year of interest, viz. 6 BC. This was Hebrew years 3755-3756 AM. Neither of these was a leap year, being the 12th and 13th years of the cycle, respectively.

Incidentally, I am using Gregorian-equivalent dates (the so-called "Proleptic Gregorian Calendar") throughout this document, even though it was the Julian calendar that was in operation at the time, because the Julian calendar was in such disarray at the time (see section on the Roman calendar). Around this era, the two forms of dating differ by two days, e.g. Saturday March 18th, 6 BC (Gregorian) is Saturday March 20th, 6 BC (Julian).

We will be needing to look at some of the Jewish festivals later, so, for the moment, I will list the major Jewish feasts here:

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