Dating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ

Christ crucified, wood carving
by Manuel Alfonseca Santana

During their deportation in Babylon, the Jewish people adopted a lunar Babylonian calendar and took it with them at their return to Palestine. Ordinarily their year consisted of twelve lunar months, but as this made them lose on average eleven days every year against the solar cycle, occasionally it was necessary to introduce an intercalary month, thus some of their years had thirteen months.

At the beginning of our era there was no rigid rule for the proclamation of the intercalated months. Every year the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Supreme Court) decreed whether or not an extra month would be intercalated. For this they used several criteria, first of all that the Passover celebration had to take place after the spring equinox, but if the crop had been very bad and the first fruits, to be offered in that festivity, were not mature, or if the sacrificial lambs had not grown enough, the council could decide to insert a new month, delaying a full cycle the celebration of the Passover.

The celebration of Christmas

Earth lighting in the winter solstice

The time of the winter solstice was the occasion for major celebrations by nearly all ancient peoples. It represents the time when the sun, after losing height for six months, begins again to recover its upward movement. The ancients had always the fear that some year the sun could fail to recover, and would continue down until disappearing forever, a catastrophe for humanity.

In the Roman Empire, the Saturnalia played that role, for Saturn was the god of agriculture and the recovery of the sun was a sine qua non for the success of the next harvest. Also, just by that time the sun entered the sign of Capricorn in the zodiac, which was astrologically linked with the planet Saturn. The festival, which began on December 17, lasted for several days, until the 23rd. During these days, banquets were held, gifts were distributed, and masters served their slaves.

One of the traditional deities of ancient Indo-European peoples, Mitra, had a varied fate, according to the particular people we are talking about. Thus, in Vedic India he was one of the chief gods, along with Varuna and the other asuras, but came to play a secondary role, almost demonic, when in Hindu India prevailed the devas, another group of gods including Siva and Vishnu.