Actual Crucifixion Date of Jesus Revealed

Scripture tells us and we have now confirmed that Jesus was 30 years old when He began His ministry (Luke 3:23). We now know through modern astronomy that the conjunction zenith of the stars Jupiter and Venus over Bethlehem signified the birth of Jesus and occurred on June 17th of 2 B.C. This means that Jesus turned one year old in June of 1 B.C. while in exile in Egypt and 2 years old in June of 1 A.D. when he was now able to safely live in Nazareth due to the death of Herod in late December of 1 B.C. See related: Creation of the Modern Calendar. In the Spring of 30 A.D. Jesus was thirty years old, but would turn thirty one in June. As a healthy male, Jesus would have been required by Jewish law to attend three of the seven annual Jewish feasts. These three feasts are the Feast of Passover, Feast of Pentecost and Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus attended all Passovers in Jerusalem starting as a very young child accompanied by His step father Joseph and His mother Mary (Luke 2:41-52). But the Passover of 30 A.D. was the first during His ministry which began after His baptism or anointing where He was fully indwelled by the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32).

Scholars believe Jesus overturned the vending tables of the Temple merchants twice. Once when He attended the first Passover of His ministry and a second time when He attended His third and final Passover. By the time He came to Jerusalem to be self- sacrificed the day before the Passover of 33 A.D., the Temple priests and religious leaders were on high alert for His appearance. There were several events that led them to the inescapable conclusion that He was about to publicly announce that He was in fact the long-awaited Messiah. And this would cause massive celebrations that would quickly turn into riots against the Romans and possibly the Temple administration. This in turn would give Rome the excuse it needed to immediately send in overwhelming military forces to quell the riots and in doing so, destroy the Temple system and the nation of Judah.

Here is what the religious leaders knew. First, Jesus had regularly attended the annual Jewish feasts for the past 3 years of His ministry as a respected and renowned rabbi. He was now drawing massive crowds of thousands into the temple specifically to hear Him preach, answer long debated questions using His own personal authority and to heal the infirmed. He spoke of God using terms of endearment as if He was His personal Father. He spoke of heaven as if He had been there and that He had experienced a personal relationship with the patriarchs. He was said to have performed hundreds of miracles throughout Judah and in Jerusalem. He had attracted an ever increasing following of supporters throughout Judah. Even the Greeks were traveling great distances to speak with Him about what they considered to be a radical philosophy on God and His relationship with mankind (John 12:20-26). He had developed an extremely antagonist relationship with the Temple Priesthood by publicly challenging them on their oppressive doctrines and desires for wealth and aggrandizement. Instead, He appeared to be on the side of the poor and the common man. He was quick to challenge the validity of rituals, excessive laws and taxes. And most disturbing of all, even some of the elders, religious leaders and members of the civil Sanhedrin were starting to believe that He may very well be the Messiah.

The final straw came when only a week before His last Passover, He had gone to the tomb of His close friend Lazarus four days dead and two miles from Jerusalem to publicly raised him back to life (John 11: 45-57).

This event in and of itself was enough to galvanized the entire city of Jerusalem with even more rumors concerning Him as Messiah. Then unbelievably, and only a week after the Lazareth event, He had the temerity, the unmitigated gall to ride into Jerusalem though the Beautiful Gate on the back of a young colt thus willfully and knowingly satisfying a prophecy by Zechariah that the Messiah would appear riding a colt (Zechariah 9:9)! He then got off the colt and walked into the Temple’s Court of the Gentiles where the priests ran officially sanctioned and lucrative booths by exchanging money and marketing merchandise. There, He immediately started overturning the tables saying, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of robbers!” (Matthew 21:13; Isaiah 56:7; Jeremiah 7:11). A thief steals at night in secret but a robber unashamedly steals by force in broad daylight. As far as the Jewish leaders were concerned, Jesus had thrown down the gauntlet. They now knew for certain what He was about to do, and they now knew for certain what they needed to do to stop Him! To quote the High Priest Caiaphas, “It is better that one man should die on behalf of the people than the whole nation be destroyed” (John 11:50). They then made plans to bring about the death of Jesus, the Messiah sent to them from God. And for their troubles, 40 years after the start of Jesus’ ministry and because one man died, the entire nation of Judah was destroyed by Rome and left a ruin for the next 2,000 years!

In order to know when the exact date of Jesus’ crucifixion occurred, all we need do is run computer driven astronomical software back to April the month of Passover, in the early years of the first century A.D. and discover what was in the night sky over Judah. We know that God created the heavens to serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years (Genesis 1:14). So, it only makes sense that He would use the heavens to announce the birth and death of His Son Jesus … right? And there it is, right in front of our eyes! On Friday, April 3rd, 33 A.D., a full blood moon arose in the night sky over Judah. This full moon symbolized the full completed ministry of Jesus. And astoundingly, just above the blood moon once again appeared the constellation of Virgo the Virgin with a crown of 12 stars over her head. It was this same astronomical phenomenon that rose over a new moon on the night of Mary’s conception as cited by the apostle John (Revelation 12). This new moon symbolized the start of the life of Jesus and the full blood moon symbolized His completed ministry and His death. See related: The Actual Star of Bethlehem Revealed.

The Angel Gabriel met with Mary thirty five years earlier and made her an offer to serve God as the mother of the Messiah which she accepted. The conception of Jesus’ physical body immediately took place and this all happened on September 12th, 3 B.C. It was on this date that there was a new moon which signaled the start of the three final annual Jewish Feasts. They are the Feast of Trumpets or announcement {the conception of Jesus}, the Feast of Yom Kipper when the Jews pray to be forgiven of their sins and allowed to live another year {Jesus brings salvation and life}, and the Feast of Sukkot or Tabernacles when God lives with mankind {Jesus the incarnation of God communes with His nation}. These are the only feasts that always starts on a new moon. This is also the date that serves as the start of the Jewish civil year. See related: The Conception of Jesus.

Jesus died and was entombed just a few hours before the beginning of the Feast of Passover. He intentionally timed this event to coincide as close as possible with the start of Passover. Jesus was the King and High Priest of Israel in the Order of Melchizedek. He voluntarily self-sacrificed Himself as the final Passover Lamb. Unknowingly, the High Priest Caiaphas had personally selected Him to die that year at Passover for the sins of the Jewish nation. He was inspected, tried and sentenced to death by the Jewish Temple Priesthood, religious elders and the civil court of the Sanhedrin. He was then tried and executed by the gentile court of Rome which ruled the known world. His self-sacrificial death had created a way to free both the Jewish nation and the gentile world from the bondage of sin. This act on His part had been prophesied or symbolized by the Feast of Passover enacted during the Exodus 1,500 years earlier. It was then that God freed the Jewish nation from the bondage of Egyptian slavery. Jesus' sacrifice was obviously deemed acceptable by God in that He resurrected Him from the dead.

So, as it turns out, the 2,000-year-old tradition of Jesus being crucified on Good Friday, the day before Passover, got it right after all!