Today’s Scripture Reading (September
14, 2017): Luke 3
As Prince Philip
begins his retirement, the next questions continue
to be this – how long will his wife, Queen Elizabeth, continue to reign. Maybe not
how long will she live, she continues to seem to be going strong. But is there
a point where either she voluntarily steps down from the throne and begins to occupy
a more peripheral role as well as enjoying a little retirement with her
husband, or a time when she invites one of the heirs, most likely Charles, to
reign with her. In ancient times, the
idea of an heir becoming a co-heir seems to be common. Co-reigning almost served
as a time of apprenticeship for the king to be under the guidance of the currently
reigning sovereign.
Of course,
in the case of Elizabeth, the unfortunate truth is that she has a much higher
approval rating than any of the heirs that follow her, with maybe the exception
of George - because everyone loves a toddler. And it might be this single fact
that stays Elizabeth’s hands - and keeps
her sitting solidly, and solitarily, on the Throne of England.
Luke 3:1 has
caused no end of trouble for scholars trying to date the ministry of the Christ.
Our Calendar was originally intended to count the years from the Birth of
Christ, so the year 2017 should mean that 2017 years have passed since the
birth of Jesus. The system was devised early in the 6th century by
counting the years back to the time of Christ. But we now know that the
original assumptions were wrong, and so Jesus was born earlier than the
beginning of the Current or Common Era.
But Luke 3:1
caused a problem in the arrival of our dates – and the problem is actually in
dating the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Strictly speaking, the reign of Tiberius
began in 14 C.E., and that is the
assumption that is made by our Calendar. That would date the beginning of John’s
ministry to 29 C.E. and the crucifixion of Jesus to somewhere around 33 C.E.
But not all the facts fit that kind of dating. One of the most commonly accepted
dates for the Crucifixion is April 6, 29 C.E. But that means that the ministry
of John and the baptism would have had to start much earlier than the fifteenth
year of the reign of Tiberius.
So was Luke
wrong in his dating? Not necessarily. What has
been missed is that Tiberius actually appears to have started to co-reign with
his father, Caesar Augustus in 11 C.E. Luke has dated his comment from the
beginning of that co-reign which would move the beginning of John the Baptist’s
ministry to 26 C.E. which meshes perfectly with a Crucifixion date in 29 or 30
C.E. The year 26 C.E. also matches perfectly with the beginning of the Pontius
Pilate term as Governor in Judea.
But Luke has
set the stage for the life of Jesus in a particular
historical time, and that increases our confidence in the other details of
the story that he is about to tell.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Matthew
4
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