Daniel's 69-weeks

Daniel Historicity

Passion Week Harmonized

Jesus' Historicity

Jesus' Birth Date

Reign of Herod the Great

Herodian Chronology Julian 5BC Mar 23 Eclipse

Herodian Chronology Julian 5BC Sep 15 Eclipse

Herodian Chronology Tishri reckoning

Herodian Chronology Nisan reckoning

Lunar Eclipses

Herod's 40 B.C. voyage to Rome and return

Herodian Chronology Notes

Ancient Calendars Seasons & Transport

Chronology of the Herods - Julian non-accession, inclusive reckoning

with events surrounding Herod the Great's death reconciled to a 5 B.C. March 23 lunar eclipse

Presented here is a chronology from 167 B.C. to A.D. 70 of events related directly or indirectly to Herod the Great from his appointment as governor of Galilee by his father Antipater to the death of his sons and heirs Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip.  The events are largely drawn from Josephus' Wars of the Jews and Antiquities of the Jews.

Notable years and events are:

164 B.C.	Temple rededicated and beginning of Hasmonean rule
75 B.C.	Hyrcanus II becomes High Priest
63 B.C.	Pompey captures Jerusalem and the temple, restores Hyrcanus II as High Priest
47 B.C.	Antipater makes Herod governor of Galilee when Herod was 15 [emended to 25] years old
40 B.C.	Herod appointed king by Rome; Parthians depose Hyrcanus II and make Antigonus king
37 B.C.	Herod captures Jerusalem and has Antigonus killed
5 B.C.	March 23 lunar eclipse, September 15 lunar eclipse, birth of Jesus Christ
4 B.C.	Herod's death; Archelaus made ethnarch, Antipas and Philip each made tetrarch
1 B.C.	January 9 lunar eclipse
A.D. 6	Archelaus banished; Quirinius in Syria
A.D. 26	Jesus Christ baptised in Tiberius' 15th year
A.D. 27	"46 years to build Temple"
A.D. 30	Crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Tiberius' 18th year
A.D. 34	Philip died
A.D. 39	Antipas deposed
A.D. 70	Titus destroys the Temple

The purpose of the chronology is two fold, to determine:

1. when Herod the Great died by synchronizing all significant dateable events to known historical events, and;
2. which reckoning system(s) best reconcile with Josephus' reports

The Reign of Herod the Great: 47 B.C. to his death in 4 B.C. presents an analysis and conclusions drawn from the four chonological tables.

Each chronology is synchronized to several calendars and dating methods: 

• The 4 left-most columns reflect calendars or eras for Julian, Olympic, A.U.C. and Actian reckoning (respectively). 
• Because some events or periods are dated by the number of years a particular Caesar ruled, or when Jerusalem was captured, or when the Temple was captured or built, there are columns for these references. 
• Next are 5 columns for the regnal years of Herod and his sons, and whomever was the Jewish king or priest.
• Lastly are columns for the Hebrew calendar followed by a description of the event.

The Julian calendar was not established until A.U.C. 709, prior to which the Roman calendar was a 354-day lunisolar calendar but intercalated haphazardly which causes some unaccounted months in the A.U.C. 708 calendar column.

The specific chronology below presumes non-accession, inclusive reckoning by Julian calendar beginning on January of each Julian year for dates and reigns of Jewish kings and priests.  That means that when counting years of someone's reign, each year is presumed to begin on January 1st and end December 31st as shown in the Julian column.  Consider, for example, the first reign of Hyrcanus II as Jewish high priest, reported by Josephus to have lasted 9 years.  Scroll down in the table below to -75 (B.C.) in the Julian column and note that in the Priest/King column, Hyrcanus II's first year ended Dec of -75 Julian and his 2nd year began Jan of -74 Julian, and further note that every regnal year thereafter changes on the Julian year boundary.

This Julian-reckoned chronology is further differentiated from years 7 B.C. to 1 B.C. to identify which lunar eclipse (5 B.C. March 23 or September 15) best reconciles with Josephus' reports relating to Herod's death and the succession of his heirs.

Tradeoff of portraying months in chronological tables:

Because these chronological tables are intended to demonstrate when events occur in the various calendar systems, and because the Julian and Hebrew calendar columns define both years and months within years, then of necessity events are shown as if "assigned" to specific months, and therein arises a potential misrepresentation.  The chronological tables misleadingly show events as if they were historically reported as occurring in specific months of specific years when actually they are undated.  For example:

Josephus only reports a duration of years for each of the Jewish High Priests; he does not report specific months when their reigns began and ended.  But to show how their reigns can reconcile with events in Herod's life (e.g. when Hyrcanus II was deposed by Antigonus who in turn was executed by Herod when Herod captured Jerusalem, etc.), it is necessary to "fit" their reigns into the chronologies, and because the chronological tables are defined as months within years, that means positioning their reigns and assigning a beginning and ending month that reconciles with any known fixed dates, such as Antiochus IV's desecration of the Temple, Pompey's capture of Jerusalem, Roman Consulships, Jewish feasts, eclipses, battles, and coins, etc.

Since Josephus reports the number of years which Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II, and Antigonus each reigned, and that Aristobulus II's reign was ended by Pompey who restored Hyrcanus II who was then deposed by Antigonus who was killed when Herod captured Jerusalem; and since Josephus reported that Herod captured Jerusalem after a 5-month siege that began when winter ended in the 3rd year from Herod being appointed king by Rome; then the reigns of Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II, and Antigonus must "fit" around the events of Pompey's and Herod's respective captures of Jerusalem 27 years apart on the fast on the 3rd month. 

Consequently, to achieve that "fit", the reigns of Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II are shown to begin and end on specific months as defined in the tables, months whose assignment was based not on any historically reported monthly dates but on "best fit" relative to other interrelated events.

Further, because every row in the chronological tables represents some particular month, then to show any event in the chronology requires that it be shown as occurring in some particular month, even though no specific month for that event is known to us historically.

A less confusing portrayal might have been to define the tables down to the level of only a year, instead of implying a knowledge of specific months.  But because the various calendars are offset by some number of months, and some years have more months in them than others due to intercalation, and because many significant events are in fact dated to a "season" and some to a specific month or number of months, then portrayal of months in the tables becomes necessary, which portrayal of calendar months then causes the misrepresentation of assigning months to all events when many aren't dated that precisely.

Doesn't that invalidate the chronology and render it uninformative, if not useless?

Yes and No.  Yes, if there were no warning that the tables imply monthly dates which in many cases history has not attested, or if the year or count of years failed to reconcile.  But No, when the count of years between events is correct, or the year of an event does reconcile in multiple calendars, or a series of events all fit within a specific timeframe, then the chronology is accurate to within a year and approximate to the month, and that is legitimately informative.  Further, exposing to scrutiny the number of months of travel by ambassadors and letter couriers, and showing which months have inclement weather during which troops don't move and ships don't sail, is preferable to ignorance. Consider two further examples of the tradeoffs:

Josephus reports Antigonus reigned 3 years and 3 months when Herod besieged him as winter ended, and that Herod captures Jerusalem after a siege of 5 months.  Accurate treatment of these reports requires a chronological table with specific months.

The Bible passage Mat 2:22 reports that after having fled to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus, Joseph heard that Archelaus reigned in Judea after Herod.  Because the chronological tables are all monthly entries, this reference had to be assigned to some monthly "cell", but the reference itself is undated lacking both a specific month and a specific year.  Being undated, it could have been shown anywhere between Archelaus' succession and when Jesus was twelve years old and was found in the Temple (Luk 2:42-46), however the entry most reasonably belongs closer to Archelaus' succession, but into what month and year should an otherwise undated reference be placed?

Consider also that every event actually occurred during some specific month - history just hasn't recorded which months those were, and the chronological tables show a hypothetical approximation for what those months might have been.  While the assignment of undated events to specific months is an approximation, being able to precisely count the durations of years (to within a month) between events yields an accurate demonstration that Josephus' reports regarding the death of Herod the Great do reconcile when properly reckoned.

To reiterate, the purpose of these chronologies is to identify what differences, if any, arise from using Julian vs. Tishri vs. Nisan reckoning for Josephus' reports of Jewish kings and priests (which requires that specific months dictate when regnal years begin and end), and determine a coherent, consistent chronology that reconciles Herod's life with independent events (such as eclipses prior to his death).   Additionally, some significant biblical synchronisms are:

Birth of Jesus Christ in 5 B.C., likely August
Joseph heard that Archelaus reigned in Judea after Herod (Mat 2:22)
46 years to build Temple (Joh 2:20)
Jesus Christ crucifixion in A.D. 30

The chronology tables are all the same except for the reckoning and eclipse-related differences explained above.  This is to facilitate side-by-side comparison.

The footnotes are all the same as well, collected on a common Herodian chronology notes page.  Because the text in the table is very compressed so as to fit multiple calendar columns across the screen, footnote superscripts become too small to readily recognize and so they have all been highlighted to draw attention to their presence.  It is recommended that to view a footnote, simply click on the highlighted hyperlink and your browser will switch pages and jump to the footnote.  You should then use the browsers 'back' button to return to the previous view of the chronological table.  Additionally, a copy of the footnote page can be opened in another browser tab or browser window.

Various table entries are color coded as follows:

Inconsistencies, differences, special circumstances
Hypothetical Jewish intercalary months
Roman intercalary months
Dates fixed absolutely from non-Josephean sources
Dates determined relatively from direct or indirect Josephus' references
Historical synchronisms
Biblical synchronisms
Arbitrary position to reconcile best with Josephean chronology, actual date unknown
Superscripted footnote references
Table format lacks extra space to fully portray all months after intercalation

The tables use HTML table tags of, essentially, 1 row per month to simultaneously portray multiple calendar systems on a monthly basis, calendars which by definition never align month-to-month and also differ by the number of days per month and months per year. When extra intercalated months have been inserted into a specific calendar column, some misalignment occurs.  This appears as not enough month "cells" in a given year, usually for the Hebrew calendar where the intercalation is irregular but counting and naming the months is desired.   This only affects which months have names assigned and corresponding event and reference descriptions, and is highlighted in red.  For example in Hebrew year 3722 A.M., there were not enough month "cells" to show the months of Sivan and Elul.  This table organization deficiency does not affect the count of years.

Herodian Chronology by non-accession, inclusive Julian reckoning - Herod's eclipse on 5 B.C. March 23: