When Was Jesus Born?

[cinepro]

The book does not represent doctrine, natural. But it was vetted and the brethren did not have a problem with what was contained in it. You seem to believe that if the brethren say it or approve of it it must be official doctrine. You must do more research on this matter. Regardless, my point stands. The church has never officially declared when he was born. I am not sure why you are having such a difficult time with this simple concept. Unless it is an official declaration or in the scriptures, it is opinion. Why don't you speak to the statement on the church website instead of splitting hairs?

I just thought it would be pertinent to the discussion to note that at least one Prophet and one Apostle have stated in General Conference that Jesus was born on April 6, based on what is explicitly found in the standard works. Each of us will have to decide for ourselves whether the scripture and the Prophet and Apostles who were reiterating it were mistaken or not.

Edited December 9, 2011 by cinepro

[Lachoneus]

I just thought it would be pertinent to the discussion to note that at least one Prophet and one Apostle have stated in General Conference that Jesus was born on April 6, based on what is explicitly found in the standard works. Each of us will have to decide for ourselves whether the scripture and the Prophet and Apostles who were reiterating it were mistaken or not.

Two prophets.

On Easter Sunday 6 April 1980 at the dedication of the buildings on the Peter Whitmer, Sr., farm, President Spencer W. Kimball stated, "My brothers and sisters, today we not only celebrate the Sesquicentennial of the organization of the Church, but also the greatest event in human history since the birth of Christ on this day 1,980 years ago. Today is Easter Sunday" (Ensign, May 1980, p. 54). President Kimball did not reference D&C 20:1 or any other scriptures.

[Rivers]

Two prophets.

On Easter Sunday 6 April 1980 at the dedication of the buildings on the Peter Whitmer, Sr., farm, President Spencer W. Kimball stated, "My brothers and sisters, today we not only celebrate the Sesquicentennial of the organization of the Church, but also the greatest event in human history since the birth of Christ on this day 1,980 years ago. Today is Easter Sunday" (Ensign, May 1980, p. 54). President Kimball did not reference D&C 20:1 or any other scriptures.

But D&C 20:1 is obviously where this doctrine comes from.

[David T]

It's too bad that a head note to a revelation text that formally expresses, "Christ's Church is being legally organized once again in the year 1830 A.D. as God commanded us to, on April 6th" has come to mean "We are revealing and announcing to the world that Jesus was born today exactly 1,830 years ago."

[thesometimesaint]

Lachoneus:

I seem to have missed that in my D&C. Can you tell me when it ws added?

[Freedom]

Not really. Anyone can watch the former broadcasts and get it as it was given. Very few changes in the printed text are made, if at all.

I would suggest you go back and review the videos and the magazines. Take a look at Elder Packards talk concerning homosexuality. there were significant revisions.

[Mortal Man]

In English: "Luke made it up"

So did Matthew.

[Cobalt-70]

There were several "Jewish calendars" over the years. The religious calendar was the lunar one we mostly hear about. It had to be intercalated from time to time because, as we all know, the moon and the sun don't work well together as chronographs.

There were at least two others, as I recall, one a secular calendar that corresponded to the Mesoamerican one in many details, notably in its having exactly 360 days in the next smaller unit plus five days that did not coincide with any "month".

As we can easily deduce from the first calendar's intercalation, over time, the solar year and the lunar year would stay pretty well in sync in any case. Six centuries would meet the "over time" condition.

As to the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, I read once that there may have been a second, earlier Zedekiah (which was a throne name, not the personal name, of the king). Lehi would not have known about the reign of the one we usually think about under the name because he'd left Jerusalem before the imposition of the more malleable puppet-king. Sorry I don't recall more about this, and I'm really not feeling well enough to search for it now.

If that particular Old World calendar had 360 days, but 5 days that did not correspond to a month, then this calendar is of no use in reconciling the Book of Mormon chronology, because in the end, the year is 365 days, and you cannot lose the necessary 8-9 Gregorian years over the period between 597 BC and about 5-6 BC.

Another problem with the Mesoamerican long count calendar is that the Book of Mormon uses a month-day-year calendar. See 3 Nephi 8:5. But the 20 day "winal" period in the Mesoamerican calendar was not a "month," and was far to short to be confused with a "month."

As to the two-Zedekiah theory, I don't think there is any historical support for that hypothesis. For this theory to reconcile the Book of Mormon chronology using a solar calendar, this hypothetical "other" Zedekiah would have had to begun his reign in about 604-5 BC. But I think it is conclusively established that Jehoiakim was still in power during those years. Jehoiakim was king when Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah in 599 BC, and 2 Kings 23:36 says that Jehoiakim reigned a total of 11 years. There is no evidence that the name "Zedekiah" was a "throne name." Even if it were, it would make no sense for Nephi to use the throne name to identify the specific king that was in power when Lehi left Jerusalem. That would be like saying "I left Ohio in the 1st year of the term of the President of the United States of America."

[LeSellers]

If that particular Old World calendar had 360 days, but 5 days that did not correspond to a month, then this calendar is of no use in reconciling the Book of Mormon chronology, because in the end, the year is 365 days, and you cannot lose the necessary 8-9 Gregorian years over the period between 597 BC and about 5-6 BC.

I may not have been clear enough. This year is 360 + 5 = 365 days long: no loss of "the necessary 8-9 Gregorian years" you posit. In a thousand years, there would be the shift of 265 days (due to the lack of Leap Day every ~4 years), meaning there's nearly one whole year extra in the count of years on the calendar compared to the track of the sun.

Another problem with the Mesoamerican long count calendar is that the Book of Mormon uses a month-day-year calendar. See 3 Nephi 8:5. But the 20 day "winal" period in the Mesoamerican calendar was not a "month," and was far to short to be confused with a "month."

The Book of Mormon seems to use at least two, and perhaps as many as four calendars simultaneously. Please note, I did not use the word "month" in describing the calendar, except as a similar, not identical, unit. My words were "next smaller unit", which I only compared to a "month" for reference.

As to the two-Zedekiah theory, I don't think there is any historical support for that hypothesis. For this theory to reconcile the Book of Mormon chronology using a solar calendar, this hypothetical "other" Zedekiah would have had to begun his reign in about 604-5 BC. But I think it is conclusively established that Jehoiakim was still in power during those years. Jehoiakim was king when Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah in 599 BC, and 2 Kings 23:36 says that Jehoiakim reigned a total of 11 years. There is no evidence that the name "Zedekiah" was a "throne name." Even if it were, it would make no sense for Nephi to use the throne name to identify the specific king that was in power when Lehi left Jerusalem. That would be like saying "I left Ohio in the 1st year of the term of the President of the United States of America."

I suggest you do not know what a "throne name" is.

A throne name is a name the king takes on ascending to the throne in place of his birth name, much as Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger became Benedict XVI a couple of years ago. Solomon, for instance, was not born as Solomon; he was "Jedediah" at birth (see 2 Sam 12:25). If there were two Zedekiahs, as the author I alluded to suggested, then the earlier of the two, on the throne in 600 BC, would have been the only one Lehi knew of. The fact that Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon installed the king over Jerusalem following his successful siege of Jerusalem, succeeding his his nephew, Jeconiah (who reigned only a few months), does not mean that the king installed stayed installed. The theory is that Zedekiah (the first, for convenience) lasted a couple of years, long enough to advance the calendar from ~600 to 597, before he blazing the trail that got Z II's eyes poked out, rebelled. This opened the way for Jeconiah's uncle, Zedekiah II to ascend to the throne, taking the same throne name as his immediate predecessor. (This may have been a part of Nebuchadnezzar's political strategy to subdue the Jews.)

I haven't done the study required to defend this position, so I'm not going to try. But, if you are going to attack it, you need to have a better understanding of what the theory actually is. Striking a strawman may be satisfying, but it does not really harm your enemy.

Lehi

Edited December 9, 2011 by LeSellers

[Robert F. Smith]

If that particular Old World calendar had 360 days, but 5 days that did not correspond to a month, then this calendar is of no use in reconciling the Book of Mormon chronology, because in the end, the year is 365 days, and you cannot lose the necessary 8-9 Gregorian years over the period between 597 BC and about 5-6 BC.

360-day years without intercalation are known biblically,¹ in Egypt,² Mesopotamia,³ India (as part of the Kaliyuga), and in Mesoamerica.⁴ This is not something new to Lehi and company.

¹. The biblical 360-day prophetic year is discussed in brief by Grant R. Jeffrey online at http://biblestudyweekly.net/downloads/classnotes/Daniel/The%20360%20Day%20Prophetic%20Year%20of%20the%20Bible%20-%20Grant%20Jeffrey.pdf .

². The standard 360-day Temple Year among the ancient Egyptians (Anthony Spalinger, Three Studies on Egyptian Feasts and Their Chronological Implications [baltimore: Johns Hopkins/Halgo, 1992], 23 [n. 84]; cf. 9 [n. 31]).

³. See Wayne Horowitz, “The 360 and 364 Day Year in Ancient Mesopotamia,” JANES, 24 (1996), 39-40, online at http://www.jtsa.edu/Documents/pagedocs/JANES/1996%2024/Horowitz24.pdf

⁴. David H. Kelley, “The World Ages in India and Mesoamerica,” SEHA Newsletter, 137 (Mar 1975), 3; A. L. Basham, The Wonder That was India (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1954), 320-321; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Macropaedia, 8:929.

Another problem with the Mesoamerican long count calendar is that the Book of Mormon uses a month-day-year calendar. See 3 Nephi 8:5. But the 20 day "winal" period in the Mesoamerican calendar was not a "month," and was far to short to be confused with a "month."

12 months of 30 days each = 360 days, allowing the Nephites to coordinate their calendar with that of the Mesoamericans. No intercalation necessary. However, an extraordinary feature of Mesoamerican calendrics is the simultaneous use of several coordinated calendars of various lengths -- making it possible to run several different systems of "months" in Nephite chronology. Surely you are not suggesting that the Muslim lunar calendar is not possible simply because it does not jibe with our calendar. They manage two systems of "months" simultaneously with great ease.

As to the two-Zedekiah theory, I don't think there is any historical support for that hypothesis. For this theory to reconcile the Book of Mormon chronology using a solar calendar, this hypothetical "other" Zedekiah would have had to begun his reign in about 604-5 BC. But I think it is conclusively established that Jehoiakim was still in power during those years. Jehoiakim was king when Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah in 599 BC, and 2 Kings 23:36 says that Jehoiakim reigned a total of 11 years. There is no evidence that the name "Zedekiah" was a "throne name." Even if it were, it would make no sense for Nephi to use the throne name to identify the specific king that was in power when Lehi left Jerusalem. That would be like saying "I left Ohio in the 1st year of the term of the President of the United States of America."

You are correct about the impossibility of the two-Zedekiah theory. However, "Zedekiah" is the throne name given to Mattaniah when he was placed on the throne of Judah by Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon in 597 B.C. And Nephi correctly uses that throne-name, as does Jeremiah.

[Cobalt-70]

I may not have been clear enough. This year is 360 + 5 = 365 days long: no loss of "the necessary 8-9 Gregorian years" you posit. In a thousand years, there would be the shift of 265 days (due to the lack of Leap Day every ~4 years), meaning there's nearly one whole year extra in the count of years on the calendar compared to the track of the sun.

Getting just one extra year does nothing to help reconcile Book of Mormon chronology.

A throne name is a name the king takes on ascending to the throne in place of his birth name, much as Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger became Benedict XVI a couple of years ago. Solomon, for instance, was not born as Solomon; he was "Jedediah" at birth (see 2 Sam 12:25). If there were two Zedekiahs, as the author I alluded to suggested, then the earlier of the two, on the throne in 600 BC, would have been the only one Lehi knew of. The fact that Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon installed the king over Jerusalem following his successful siege of Jerusalem, succeeding his his nephew, Jeconiah (who reigned only a few months), does not mean that the king installed stayed installed. The theory is that Zedekiah (the first, for convenience) lasted a couple of years, long enough to advance the calendar from ~600 to 597, before he blazing the trail that got Z II's eyes poked out, rebelled. This opened the way for Jeconiah's uncle, Zedekiah II to ascend to the throne, taking the same throne name as his immediate predecessor. (This may have been a part of Nebuchadnezzar's political strategy to subdue the Jews.)

Gotcha, although 2 Sam. 12:25 says that Solomon was his birth name given by David and Bathsheba, but that it was Nathan who later gave him the second name (perhaps a religious name) of Jedediah. (That of course is beside the point.)

But still, this theory has problems. First, it assumes that Jesus was born in 1BC, which he could not have been consistent with the New Testament.

Second, 2 Kings 24:6 says that Jeconiah succeeded his father Jehoiakim. We know that Jehoiakim reigned for 11 years (2 Kings 23:36), and we also know that Jeconiah's reign began on December 598 BC (2nd day of Adar, in the 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign). We also know that Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah in 599 BC, so Nebuchadnezzar could not have installed a king before that time. So at all years that might reconcile Book of Mormon chronology, under a solar calendar, if Lehi left Jerusalem in that year, Jehoiakim was the king. We know that Jehoiakim's regnal name was not Zedekiah, because Jehoiakim's birth name was Eliakim, and Jehoiakim was in fact his regnal name.

[Cobalt-70]

360-day years without intercalation are known biblically,¹ in Egypt,² Mesopotamia,³ India (as part of the Kaliyuga), and in Mesoamerica.⁴ This is not something new to Lehi and company.

¹. The biblical 360-day prophetic year is discussed in brief by Grant R. Jeffrey online at http://biblestudywee...t%20Jeffrey.pdf .

². The standard 360-day Temple Year among the ancient Egyptians (Anthony Spalinger, Three Studies on Egyptian Feasts and Their Chronological Implications [baltimore: Johns Hopkins/Halgo, 1992], 23 [n. 84]; cf. 9 [n. 31]).

³. See Wayne Horowitz, “The 360 and 364 Day Year in Ancient Mesopotamia,” JANES, 24 (1996), 39-40, online at http://www.jtsa.edu/.../Horowitz24.pdf

⁴. David H. Kelley, “The World Ages in India and Mesoamerica,” SEHA Newsletter, 137 (Mar 1975), 3; A. L. Basham, The Wonder That was India (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1954), 320-321; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Macropaedia, 8:929.

I don't have access to all these sources, but the two for which you provide links don't seem to suggest that there was never any intercalation, and that they just let seasonal drift occur without ever correcting it.

The Jeffrey reference, moreover, seems a little dubious, as this guy appears basically to be a televangelist, and he's basing his arguments on the book of Genesis, apocalyptic prophecies, and a strange quotation from Isaac Newton. Moreover, all he establishes is that the Bible refers to blocks of 30-day months. He gives no reason why the ancient Hebrews would have been so astrologically unsophisticated in relation to their Egyptian and Mesopotamian neighbors as not to incalate their years. I don't see any evidence that the Hebrews in Jerusalem, circa 600 BC, would have used a calendar that never corrected for the solar year, and simply let the solstices and equinoxes drift 5 days per year over a period of centuries.

The Horowitz article about Mesopotamian calendars is good, but I don't see any indication in the article that these calendars were never intercalated. In fact, if I'm reading it right, it seems to say the opposite. And that is consistent with everything I have read about Mesopotamian calendars. They knew about intercalation a very long time ago, and would have no reason to regress and thus allow their seasons to drift.

I don't have access to the article on the Egyptian calendar, but to my understanding, this calendar was intercalated by the addition of 5 days at the end of the year. It drifted, but only by a quarter-day per year.

Going back to the Mesoamerican long count calendar, another problem is that there is no evidence that this calendar was used any earlier than the first century BC. Assuming that it was in existence in the early 500s BC and invented by some pre-Mayan civilization such as the Olmecs, the idea that Nephi would have used it himself assumes that the Nephites were already integrated into Olmec (or whatever) culture during Nephi's lifetime, and were already using their calendar. Even if they did integrate into some Mesoamerican culture so quickly, it seems like the unmentioned Mesoamerican culture with which the Nephites supposedly melded would have been happy to adopt the more advanced Old World calendar, with intercalation, that the Nephites would have brought with them. Some Mormon apologists already suggest that these pre-existing Mesoamerican cultures adopted (and quickly corrupted) Egyptian or Reformed Egyptian writing. Why did they not also adopt their number system and the Old World method of counting long spans of solar years?

[upstatenom]

I concur. Is there anything else backing up the April 6th date? From when I was first pointed at this scripture as evidence the support seemed very shallow.

I concur with the 6 April date.

[Robert F. Smith]

One thing to keep in mind throughout this discussion is that all of these cultures ran several calendars simultaneously. The Mesoamericans simply had more of them and were far more sophisticated in their calculations.

I don't have access to all these sources, but the two for which you provide links don't seem to suggest that there was never any intercalation, and that they just let seasonal drift occur without ever correcting it.

The Jeffrey reference, moreover, seems a little dubious, as this guy appears basically to be a televangelist, and he's basing his arguments on the book of Genesis, apocalyptic prophecies, and a strange quotation from Isaac Newton. Moreover, all he establishes is that the Bible refers to blocks of 30-day months. He gives no reason why the ancient Hebrews would have been so astrologically unsophisticated in relation to their Egyptian and Mesopotamian neighbors as not to incalate their years.

Whatever shortcomings Grant Jeffrey may have, I don't think that they include believing that intercalation did not exist in certain calendars. He is speaking in that one-page piece on only one type of calendar which he terms the "prophetic year," and he provides examples from the Genesis Flood and from Esther to suggest that large blocks of time are calculated without intercalation. In fact the Bible provides no evidence of intercalation at all for the pre-exilic period, requiring us to extrapolate from what we know of the necessities of agricultural calendars and the practice in neighboring countries.

I don't see any evidence that the Hebrews in Jerusalem, circa 600 BC, would have used a calendar that never corrected for the solar year, and simply let the solstices and equinoxes drift 5 days per year over a period of centuries.

For agricultural and civil purposes, I don't either, and I think we can both be assured that intercalation was practiced. You can go on line to see how that was done among both the Jews and the Mesopotamians. That should not be the question you are addressing here.

The Horowitz article about Mesopotamian calendars is good, but I don't see any indication in the article that these calendars were never intercalated. In fact, if I'm reading it right, it seems to say the opposite. And that is consistent with everything I have read about Mesopotamian calendars. They knew about intercalation a very long time ago, and would have no reason to regress and thus allow their seasons to drift.

This has nothing to do with 'regression," but rather with a variety of different calendars for differing purposes. Horowitz discussed several different Mesopotamian calendars (civil and religious) in addition to the ideal stellar calendar which has no intercalation. As he points out on pp. 39-40,

“ . . . this same 360 day year length finds explicit expression in the first half of the second millennium in two Old Babylonian period documents belonging to a certain Ur-Utu from Tell ed-Der, where a year from one 20th of Nisan to the next is 360 days and 360 nights long: From the 20th of Nisan to the 20th of Nisan of the coming year, 6 times sixty days (and) 6 times sixty nights . . .

“Later explicit references to the 360 day astronomical calendar in first millennium astronomical works include Mul-Apin I iii 35–47 which measures the time from one first-rising of the constellation “The Arrow” (Sirius) to the next as 360 days, and a contemporary Neo-Assyrian treatise on divination which makes clear a connection between observations of the constellation “The Field” (Pegasus), the ideal 360 day year of twelve ideal 30 day months, and New Year’s Day (the first of Nisan).

Twelve are the months of the year; 360 are its days. Take the length of the new year in your hand and continuously seek out the times of the disappearance (of the moon), the expected heliacal risings of the stars, the conjunction of the New Year with “The Field,” the sightings of the moon and sun in Adar and Elul, the risings and first appearances of the moon which are seen monthly.

“This ideal 360 day astronomical year corresponded to an ancient Mesopotamian astronomical theory known from first millennium B.C.E. astronomical texts which held that the stars, sun, and moon moved along 360^o circuits. According to this model, each day of the ideal astronomical year of 360 days corresponded to 1^o of stellar or solar movement.

I don't have access to the article on the Egyptian calendar, but to my understanding, this calendar was intercalated by the addition of 5 days at the end of the year. It drifted, but only by a quarter-day per year.

Of course, and the Mesoamericans had the same set of 5 epagomenae at year's end. The drift of that particular Egyptian calendar continued until 46 B.C., when the Egyptian priest Sosigenes provided the calendar we know as the "Julian" Calendar -- in honor of Julius Caesar who implemented it -- whose leap years corrected for the slippage over time. Of course the separate Egyptian agricultural calendar and the lunar calendar had no such concerns and continued uninterrupted during the millennia preceding Caesar. The Nile continued to rise on time each year, and the solstices and equinoxes continued unabated . . .

Going back to the Mesoamerican long count calendar, another problem is that there is no evidence that this calendar was used any earlier than the first century BC. Assuming that it was in existence in the early 500s BC and invented by some pre-Mayan civilization such as the Olmecs, the idea that Nephi would have used it himself assumes that the Nephites were already integrated into Olmec (or whatever) culture during Nephi's lifetime, and were already using their calendar. Even if they did integrate into some Mesoamerican culture so quickly, it seems like the unmentioned Mesoamerican culture with which the Nephites supposedly melded would have been happy to adopt the more advanced Old World calendar, with intercalation, that the Nephites would have brought with them. Some Mormon apologists already suggest that these pre-existing Mesoamerican cultures adopted (and quickly corrupted) Egyptian or Reformed Egyptian writing. Why did they not also adopt their number system and the Old World method of counting long spans of solar years?

The Olmec invented the Mesoamerican calendar systems, and we have the inscriptions to prove it (*see a sampling of cycle 7 dates below).

If the Nephites ever met Olmec peoples (Jaredites?), there is no record of it in the Book of Mormon, and they were long gone by the time the Nephites merged with the Mulekites of Zarahemla. Whatever calendar system the Nephites found locally was far more sophisticated and precise than anything they had known in the Old World. Only in two places in world history was the zero invented, one of them in Mesoamerica. The Olmec had even used a magnetic compass centuries before any other people on Earth. Please don't underestimate these people. There was little reason for them be envious of the newcomers, except in very limited respects.

* Monument 13, Los Mangales, Salamá Valley, Guatemala

Monument 14 " " " "

bet/500 - 200 B.C. cycle 7.

Monument 3 (Zapotec), San José Mogote, Oaxaca, Mexico

bet/ 300 B.C. - 200 A.D. 260-day count 1 Earthquake

Tablet 14 (Zapotec), Mound J, Monte Alban II

229 B.C. 7-3 7.6.6.16.3 11 Akbal 16 Kankin T/ 11 Pée 10 I

Tablet 10 (Zapotec), Mound J, Monte Alban II

209 B.C. 10-18 7.7.7.8.14 12 Ix 2 Uo T/ 112 Pèche 1 O

Stela 10 (Olmec/Mayan), Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala (cf. Stela 11)

147 B.C. 11-10 7.10.10.8.2 8 Ik 0 Zotz' T/ 8 Wind 16 P

Stela 2, Abaj Takalik (Columba), Guatemala

(40 B.C.) 7.16.

Stela 2 (Olmec), Mound 5b, Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico

36 B.C. 7-8 7.16.3.2.13 6 Ben 16 Xul T/ 6 Cane 15 A

Stela C (Olmec), Tres Zapotes, Vera Cruz, Mexico

32 B.C. 9-3 7.16.6.16.18 6 Etz'nab 1 Uo T/ 6 Flint 2 O

[poulsenll]

For the common man in ancient cultures, calenders were of little importance. Calenders were used by the elite and the priests to calculate feast days, name children and possibly predict future events. For these purposes intercalation was not necessary. Intercalation was only necesary in order to adjust the calendar to the solar year. The common man could have cared less simply because he used the sun to determine dates and seasons. At any location in the world sunrise on the horizon moves a measurable amount each day except at the solstices when the sun appears to stand still. Look up solstice in a good dictionary and you will find that solstice refers to when the sun stands still. Ancient cultures, with the exception of some of the elite were active from dawn to dusk. They were aware of the movement of the sun on the horizon and could tell from its position on the horizon exactly what day of the year it was by noting the direction of movement from day to day. Todays culture is so dependant on our clocks and calendars that we forget that it was not always so. If you have done any genealogical research you will know that until after the American revolution dates were recorded on a different calendar from the one used today and some peoples birthdays are off by a significant period based on our present calendar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

Dual dating

Main article: Dual dating

During the period between 1582, when the first countries adopted the Gregorian calendar, and 1923, when the last European country adopted it, it was often necessary to indicate the date of some event in both the Julian calendar and in the Gregorian calendar, for example, "10/21 February 1750/51", where the dual year accounts for some countries already beginning their numbered year on 1 January while others were still using some other date. Even before 1582, the year sometimes had to be double dated because of the different beginnings of the year in various countries. Woolley, writing in his biography of John Dee (1527–1608/9), notes that immediately after 1582 English letter writers "customarily" used "two dates" on their letters, one OS and one NS.^[43]

As you can see some countries did not accept the changes until as late as 1923

Larry P

Edited December 10, 2011 by poulsenll

[Kevin Barney]

For my take on this question, see here:

http://bycommonconsent.com/2010/12/19/when-was-jesus-born/

[Robert F. Smith]

For my take on this question, see here:

http://bycommonconse...was-jesus-born/

A very useful summary with points well made, yet lacking a coming-to-grips with the Book of Mormon. Following your numbering, I have some brief comments:

II.A. I explained to Lefgren in writing why his basic theory was wrong, and then he cited me in his Foreword as though I supported his theory.

Spackman could only shoehorn his square chronology into a round hole by declaring that the III Nephi superscription was in error in placing the time of Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah – thus conveniently derailing the actual beginning of the 600-year count, and allowing placement of Jeremiah in prison at a very late date (in that case to shoehorn in his unworkable lunar year), not to mention cramming all the action in the early pages of the Book of Mormon into only 4 months of tenting in Wadi Lemuel, and then ignoring the 8 years in the wilderness before coming to Bountiful (with nary a word about the destruction of Jerusalem until arrival in the New World?!).

I think that we ought to be very cautious about finding fault with the Book of Mormon scribes, or with lopping off time so as to allow use of some Procrustean bed.

V.C.6, Chadwick too failed to begin with the chronological strictures of the Book of Mormon in formulating his theory.

-------------------------------------

Since standard scholarship holds that Nebuchadrezzar II placed Zedekiah on the throne in early 597 B.C., and that Herod the Great died in early 4 B.C., we ought to see whether the internal chronology of the Book of Mormon fits that schema based on the actual text of the Book of Mormon.

I have already noted that the Old World had the 360-day year among its various calendars (cf. the 360-day Egyptian temple calendar, Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed., 203). Even if that were not the case, however, we can rely on Sorenson’s observations about the Mesoamerican use of the 360-day Long Count as normative and controlling in several Book of Mormon chronological sequences (Brant Gardner and John Clark have each commented on some of the interesting correlations of baktun counts, and I have attempted to account for Mayan cyclic fatalism at http://www.scribd.com/doc/74773355/Cyclic-Fatalism-Among-the-Maya ).

See my comments at post #25 in this thread for a summary of the proper way to deal with the tight Book of Mormon strictures.

[cinepro]

But D&C 20:1 is obviously where this doctrine comes from.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

"But the latter day prophets and apostles are getting that teaching from the scriptures, so you should be less inclined to believe it..."

[Brant Gardner]

For what it's worth, when I was working on the Book of Mormon, I started with Spackman's suggestion of a lunar calendar and used that to create the basic definition of year. Since it correlates with one of the calendars in Mesoamerica, I don't see a problem with its continuation in the New World, and in fact, suspect that there was a natural confluence of the two because of the similarity.

Using that calendar to recast what a year meant, I found just what Robert Smith did. The years work. There are just 600 of those years before (I believe I remember) a 4 B.C. date.

As another odd point, I think the Mesoamerican 52 year "century" is also a very good explanation for the events of Benjamin's abdication and installation of his son at the beginning of Mosiah. It is the only abdication mentioned, and while it is ostensibly done for Benjamin's health, he lived for several years after that. That, of course, is pure speculation, but it creates an interesting context that can explain why he abdicated at that time (and perhaps why he had to build a tower to speak to the people).

[Rivers]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

"But the latter day prophets and apostles are getting that teaching from the scriptures, so you should be less inclined to believe it..."

That is kind of ironic isn't it. But its been pointed out already that this verse of scripture was actually a heading to the text and not part of the actual revelation.

[Robert F. Smith]

For what it's worth, when I was working on the Book of Mormon, I started with Spackman's suggestion of a lunar calendar and used that to create the basic definition of year. Since it correlates with one of the calendars in Mesoamerica, I don't see a problem with its continuation in the New World, and in fact, suspect that there was a natural confluence of the two because of the similarity.

Using that calendar to recast what a year meant, I found just what Robert Smith did. The years work. There are just 600 of those years before (I believe I remember) a 4 B.C. date.

I'd like to see your math on how that works.

As another odd point, I think the Mesoamerican 52 year "century" is also a very good explanation for the events of Benjamin's abdication and installation of his son at the beginning of Mosiah. It is the only abdication mentioned, and while it is ostensibly done for Benjamin's health, he lived for several years after that. That, of course, is pure speculation, but it creates an interesting context that can explain why he abdicated at that time (and perhaps why he had to build a tower to speak to the people).

Some others see the Israelite Jubilee year (49 years) at work in the Nephite festival sequence and new years.

I wouldn't so much speak of an "abdication" as a "coregency" in King Benjamin's formal actions -- though for the reasons you state.

[Robert F. Smith]

The Biblical Archaeology Society has a free eBook on the birth of Christ at http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/free-ebooks/the-first-christmas-the-story-of-jesus-birth-in-history-and-tradition/?mqsc=E2999714 , in case anyone wants to know what scholars are speculating these days.