The Sixth Month, part 1

Now in the sixth month

the angel Gabriel was sent by God

to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,

to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph,

of the house of David.

The virgin's name was Mary.

Luke 1:26

One of the really cool things about blogging this way, taking the gospels verse by verse in a somewhat chronological order, is stumbling across the little nuggets the inspire my technicolor imagination! So let me take a moment hear (and as I keep looking at this one verse, I realize we may be here for a few posts...there is that much to talk about!) and share some information which some may find interesting, and which some might not find that interesting or inspirational, but I think it's important to understand the particulars when studying the Bible.

First of all, let us consider the phrase "In the sixth month." This is not a reference to the specific date of the event, though if it were we would have to debate whether it was the sixth month on the religious calendar--six months after passover--or the sixth month on the legal calendar--six months after Rosh Hashanah. The first would place the story in September, the second in March, neither of which (as we shall see in a later post) were the month in which Jesus was conceived. Rather, the sixth month refers to the previous passage when it says Elizabeth hid herself for five months after her own conception. Skip down to verse 36, and the angel Gabriel actually says to Mary, "Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren."

So is there any way of knowing when all this was taking place? I'm so glad you asked.

We've already seen a couple of hints in previous verses that we've considered, but I wanted to wait to have the discussion until the narrative caught up with my line of thought. Look at Luke 1:5, "there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea..." These events were happening while Herod the Great was still king in Jerusalem, appointed and kept there by the will of the Roman Empire. Though past attempts at dating these events have usually placed Herod's death in January of 4 BC, therefore placing Christ's birth in 5 BC or earlier, more recent scholarship has indicated the 4 BC date may actually be in error. That date was based on a misreading or mistranslation of the Jewish historian Josephus, and Herod's death more likely occurred in January of 1 BC. In later posts I will discuss the dating in more detail, but it seems that Jesus was actually born in September, 3 BC.

A second hint about the dating of these events also occurs in Luke 1:5, "a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah..." and verse 8, "While he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division..." The division of Abijah, and its representative priest Zacharias, would have been serving in the temple during the interval between Passover (the third week of the Jewish year) and Pentecost (tenth or eleventh week of the year). Zacharias may have had a week off between his regular temple service and the service of all priestly divisions during Pentecost, or the two may have overlapped, but if Zacharias went home and Elizabeth immediately conceived, it would mean that John the Baptist was conceived during the general time frame of Pentecost. And it was said of him that he would be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb!