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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2011
New Testament critics have waited more than half a century for an explanation of the following strange ending of a Syriac writing of the fifth century after Christ, first published by William Wright in The Journal of Sacred Literature for April 1866. We quote from his translation in that journal for October of the same year:
But Joseph and Mary, when they saw the treachery of king Herod and the envy of the Scribes and Pharisees, arose and took the Child, and went to a foreign country and of a barbarous tongue; and there they dwelt for the space of four years, during which Herod continued to reign after (their flight). And at the commencement of the reign of Herod's son, they arose and went up from that land to the country of Galilee, Joseph and Mary, and our Lord along with them, and the five sons of Hannah (Anna), the first wife of Joseph. But Mary and our Lord were dwelling together in the house in which Mary received the Annunciation from the holy Angel.
1 Date of Acts, p. 135.
2 See Ignatius, Eph. 18 and 19, and below, p. 171.
3 See the citation below, p. 171.
4 See Zahn, Kommentar, Apostelgeschichte, Bd. II, 1921, Exc. V, p. 866 and O.
Gerhardt, Datum der Kreuzigung, 1911. The astronomical argument is best presented by J. K. Fotheringham in the Journal of Theological Studies, October 1910. Turner (Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. ‘Chronology of N.T.’) shows convincingly how this date of A.D. 29 for the passion (the year of the “two Gemini”) became dominant. Unfortunately Turner adopts A.D. 29 as historically correct. Astronomical reckoning shows it to be impossible, for Turner's assumption that at this date the fixation (‘sanctification’) of the new moon of Nisan was made by the Sanhedrin otherwise than by actual observation is disproved by documentary evidence. It is true, as Sir W. M. Ramsay states (Was Christ born in Bethlehem? 1898, p. 218) that “the original Christian calculation which ultimately gave rise to the modern era of the nativity … was wrongly calculated as early as the second century.” The work of the chronographers began, indeed, ca. A.D. 144, with the earliest attempts to reach agreement in the centuries-long paschal controversy, but it did not begin with the nativity but with the attempt to date the passion in relation to the Jewish passover. And the year fixed upon was A.D. 29 (for harmonistic reasons) instead of 30, as modern calculation requires.
5 Dictionary of Christian Biography, I, s.v. ‘Africanus,’ p. 56.
6 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, auct. ant., IX, 218.
7 Chronicon Paschale interjects the comment after this consulate (Kαῖσαρ καί Kαπίτων): Ίoυδαίων βασιλέα Aὕγoυστoς Άρχέλαoν ‘Hρώδoν παῖδα καθίστησιν τετράρχας δὶ ἀπoδείκνυσιν ‘Hρώδην τòν καὶ Ἀντίπαν καὶ Λυσανίαν καὶ ϕίλιππoν, Ἀρχελάoυ ἀδελϕoύς.
8 Chronography of A.D. 354: “A generatione Christi usque ad passionem anni XXX, et a passione usque ad hunc annum qui est XIII imp. Alexandri (A.D. 234) CCVI.
9 See W. M. Ramsay, Was Christ born in Bethlehem? 1898, where a date 9–8 B.C. is shown to be probable.