re: #28 zombie

But everyone knows that the Julian calendar was 4 years off - - Jesus was born in 4 BC!

re: #37 Nevergiveup

Did Herod know that?

Actually, I’m not joking. Dionysius Exiguus, the guy who came up with “A.D.” — Anno Domini, year of Jesus’ birth — got the date wrong:

According to Doggett, “Although scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before A.D. 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating”.[10] According to the Gospel of St. Matthew (2:1,16) King Herod the Great was alive when Jesus was born, and ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in response to his birth. Blackburn & Holford-Strevens fix King Herod’s death shortly before Passover in 4 BC,[11] and say that those who accept the story of the Massacre of the Innocents sometimes associate the star that led the Biblical Magi with the planetary conjunction of 15 September 7 BC or Halley’s comet of 12 BC; even historians who do not accept the Massacre accept the birth under Herod as a tradition older than the written gospels.[12]

The Gospel of St. Luke states that Jesus was born during the reign of the Emperor Augustus and while Cyrenius (or Quirinius) was the governor of Syria (2:1–2). Blackburn and Holford-Strevens[11] indicate Cyrenius/Quirinius’ governorship of Syria began in AD 6, which is incompatible with conception in 4 BC, and say that “St. Luke raises greater difficulty….Most critics therefore discard Luke”.[12] Some scholars rely on St. John’s Gospel to place Christ’s birth in c. 18 BC.[12]

Basically, it could be anywhere between 18BC and 6AD!