From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Subject: Was but you missed the 50 Best Books; Jesus/2000/Herod 
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 12:51:34 -0000


Got the buggers at Encyclopaedia Britannica [and as Kropotkin wrote for
them, who am I to disagree] on line:

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,41051+1,00.html

*Herod
b. 73 BC
d. March/April, 4 BC, Jericho, Judaea
byname HEROD THE GREAT, Latin HERODES MAGNUS Roman-appointed king of Judaea
(37-4 BC), who built many fortresses, aqueducts, theatres, and other public
buildings and generally raised the prosperity of his land but who was the
centre of political and family intrigues in his later years. The New
Testament portrays him as a tyrant, into whose kingdom Jesus of Nazareth was
born.
Herod was born in southern Palestine; his father, Antipater, was an Edomite
(an Arab from the region between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba).
Antipater was a man of great influence and wealth, who increased both by
marrying the daughter of a noble from Petra (in southwestern Jordan), at
that time the capital of the rising Nabataean kingdom. Thus Herod was,
although a practicing Jew, of Arab origin on both sides.*

So he died in 4BC. And if the Xtians are right about JC being born in his
reign,  we have a different millenium,  subject to the date calculations
provided by Unka Bart.

On Jesus the dates Britannica gives are:

*The course of Jesus' life and the geographic setting of his ministry can
only be given in rough outline. The details are surrounded by many
uncertainties. The period within which his ministry and death occurred may,
however, be narrowed down with considerable accuracy on the basis of a
synchronistic dating of the appearance of John the Baptist in the 15th year
of Tiberius (Luke 3:1)--i.e., AD 28/29--which is confirmed by nonbiblical
sources. But the year and place of Jesus' birth are uncertain. Mark and John
say nothing about them. The only sources for them are the widely divergent
birth and childhood legends in Matthew 1 and 2, where Jesus' birth and early
lot are set in the time of Herod I and the change of regime (4 BC), and the
narrative of Luke 2, which links Jesus' birth with the first registration in
Judaea under the emperor Augustus (AD 6). There is also historical evidence
of a census carried out about 8 BC. With all of this in mind, many sources
estimate the year of birth as 7-6 BC. (The use of BC [before Christ] and AD
[Anno Domini, or "in the year of the Lord"] was not common until the Middle
Ages.)*

My only comment would be that Luke was writing much later than Mark, but the
point about the census seems no less likely than the mention of Herod. Also,
no mention of any comets there.

I guess believers out there should have been partying since about 1993 to be
on the safe side. The atheistic tendency will presumably be content with the
other night.

BTW when did britannica go on-line? Our librarian only told me  half an hour
ago.

Andy