Understanding the years of Herod the Great is necessary because they impact the timing of other key markers such as establishing a witness to the 7 year sabbatical year cycle and the timeline of the construction of the temple. The evidence we have from the Gospel of Luke and the 2 BC census should be enough on its own to establish that Herod died in 1 BC, but scholars have ended up using their interpretation of Herod’s death as the basis for questioning the legitimacy of Luke’s testimony and arguing that Luke used an unconventional means of counting the years of Tiberius. For all of these reasons we need to go though the 7 independent proofs of the years of Herod’s reign to establish beyond all reasonable doubt that he died in 1 BC.

Herod's Death

Josephus tells the story with great detail. Herod had just burned alive two revered rabbis and forty of their students for tearing down the golden Roman eagle he had placed over the Temple gate. That same night the eclipse occurred:

"But Herod deprived this Matthias of the high priesthood, and burnt the other Matthias, who had raised the sedition, with his companions, alive. And that very night there was an eclipse of the moon." — Josephus, Antiquities 17.6.4 §167

Josephus mentions only one lunar eclipse in his entire twenty-one volumes of history. He places it here, deliberately, as the opening act of Herod’s final collapse. From that night forward Herod’s body rotted while he still lived: gangrene, worms, suicidal despair. God, Josephus says, “was now punishing him for all his iniquities” (Ant. 17.6.5 §168–169). The astronomical record confirms two possible dates. NASA’s Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses lists a deep total eclipse on the night of 10 January 1 BC (Julian calendar). The moon rose already eclipsed over Jerusalem and remained blood-red for an hour and thirty-nine minutes — far more dramatic than the faint partial eclipse of 4 BC that is usually cited, an eclipse which happened at 3 AM when few would notice it. If this were the only evidence you had, the full blood moon is hands down the most likely event within the 10 year window. The only reason to consider the extremely partial eclipse of March 13, 4 BC is if all the other evidence was pointing that direction. So this eclipse marks the third independent witness, the first being the census, and the second being 30 years from Tiberius 15th. Aside from the visual distinction, Josephus describes a sequence of events leading to Herod’s death for which the shortest plausible timeline is 35 days and and longest plausible is 85 days. On the calendar most assume from tradition, there were at most 29 days between the eclipse and Passover which occurred after the public mourning for the king was over.

When the public mourning for the king was over… before the feast which is called Passover

— Josephus (Antiquities 17.9.3) It requires extreme special pleading to fit that timeline if you are committed to a dark/sliver moon start of month and the 4 BC eclipse; however, if you reference the Jan 10, 1 BC eclipse there are a full 114 days which gives ample time for the timeline to unfold. The only way to save the 4 BC eclipse is to consider the full moon calendar which would buy you another 15 days — enough to be plausible but still tight.

The Reign of Herod

Now that we have established Herod’s death by 3 witnesses, we can look at additional witnesses to support how his regal years were reckoned. We will use additional independent proofs that don’t work backward from his death. When taken together the proofs of the years of his reign also contribute to the proof of his year of death which in turn confirm that Luke used conventional dating for Tiberius. The evidence from his death already strong points to his regal years starting in 38 and 35 BC; however, conventional assumptions put it at 40 and 37 BC, a 2-3 year difference. We can derive these dates by subtracting 37 and 34 years from 4BC and 1 BC according to the testimony of Josephus.

37 years from the time the Roman Senate proclaimed him king (39 BC), and 34 years from the time he captured Jerusalem and slew Antigonus.

— Antiquities 17.8.1 §191; War 1.33.8 §665)

Josephus gave us two witnesses, so lets start with the year Herod captured Jerusalem. Josephus tells us that Herod conquered Jerusalem 27 years to the day from when Pompey conquered Jerusalem. Both events happening on the Day of Atonement (the 10th of 7th month).

This calamity befell Jerusalem during the consulship of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus in Rome, in the hundred and eighty-fifth Olympiad, in the third month [of the siege], on the day of the fast, as if it were a recurrence of the misfortune which befell the Jews under Pompey after so many years, on the day which even now they call the fast. For it was on that day that Pompey, after breaking through the wall, entered the temple with his troops, and though the Romans did no harm to the holy objects, but slaughtered many of the people, and took the city, and carried off the people into captivity.

— Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews

We know Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 BC. Every single ancient author who gives a specific year or consular pair for Pompey’s capture of Jerusalem agrees on 63 BC. There is no ancient source that puts it in any other year. 63 BC is not a modern guess — it is the unanimous testimony of the original Roman and Greek historians who were either alive at the time (Cicero) or writing within a generation or two.

Herod took Jerusalem on the very same day … after twenty-seven years’ time

— Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews

Therefore, exactly 27 years later to the day, puts Heard taking Jerusalem in 36 BC on the Day of Atonement. After he takes the city in the fall, his first “de facto” year of rule starts in spring of 35 BC as the Jews used spring-to-spring reckoning for local rulers. This aligns perfectly with the 1 BC death. The reason they can argue for 37 BC is because Josephus gave some other points of references including: the consulship of Marcus Agrippa and Canines Gallus and the 185th Olympiad and all of these references do not appear to agree. So lets dig in deeper. The 185th Olympiad ended before the Day of Atonement in 36 BC, but the siege started months beforehand, during the 185th Olympiad. It is therefore plausible to reconcile this statement with both 38 and 36 BC, but it does lean slightly in favor of 38 BC because the entire event would fit in the Olympiad. The consulship of Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus ran from January to December 37 BC, which appears incompatible with a siege concluding in the fall of 36 BC. Yet the same consulship is equally problematic for the 37 BC siege if we apply the conventional spring-to-spring (Nisan-based) reckoning for Jewish kings, where Herod’s de-facto reign would begin the following spring (35 BC for a 36 BC capture, or 36 BC for a 37 BC capture). To force a 37 BC capture to align with Herod’s 34 de-facto years ending in 4 BC (or even 1 BC), the 37 BC side must plead that Josephus deviated from standard practice—either by using fall-to-fall (Tishri) reckoning or by counting the partial accession year inclusively as year 1. Such adjustments are uncharacteristic of Josephus, who consistently applies spring-to-spring non-inclusive reckoning for pre-Herodian Jewish monarchs. In contrast, the 36 BC case requires only a modest extension of the consular reference: Josephus frequently anchors ongoing campaigns to the consuls in power when hostilities began or orders were issued, rather than the exact year of completion. Thus, while both interpretations demand some flexibility with the consulship, the 36 BC timeline aligns more naturally with Josephus’s typical regnal-year conventions and requires far less departure from his established historiographical habits. The last bit of testimony we have from Josephus is that this event occurred on a Sabbath Year.

This calamity befell Jerusalem in a sabbatical year, just as it had previously under Pompey.

— Antiquities of the Jews 14.16.2

Sabbath years start in the Fall with the first season seeds are not planted because no harvesting would be allowed in the spring. Assuming 1406 BC Jordan river crossing started the cycle then spring 35 BC would be the 7th year of the cycle and the timing would fit perfectly. I’ve presented extensive evidence on this event due to the apparent internal contradictions in Josephus’s own statements, so let’s organize it into a helpful table to reveal the big picture. What the table demonstrates is that a 37 BC date forces Josephus to appear inconsistent or erroneous on key details, while 36 BC requires only minor adjustments—such as referencing the start of the siege or decree rather than its end. The consequence of assuming Josephus deviated to non-standard regnal-year reckoning or was outright wrong about the 27 years 'to the day' from Pompey is that it undermines his testimony on all other matters.

Allowing special pleading against Josephus’s plain words—whether reinterpreting “twenty-seven years to the day” or forcing non-standard regnal counting—opens the door to dismissing his other clear testimonies at will. The lunar eclipse marking Herod’s death, the temple’s construction timeline, and every detail critics use to challenge Luke’s straightforward account of Tiberius’s fifteenth year could be similarly waved away. Once we treat Josephus as malleable when inconvenient, his entire witness becomes unreliable, leaving us with no solid anchor for biblical chronology beyond tradition and preference.

Herod’s Age at Death To further confirm the reign and death of Herod the Great, we turn to a fifth fully independent line of evidence: his age at death. By cross-referencing his documented age during a known historical event with his age at death, we can pinpoint the year he died with high precision. This relies solely on Josephus's accounts, without external assumptions or adjustments. Key Event: Herod's Appointment as Governor of Galilee Josephus records that Herod was appointed governor of Galilee at just 15 years old, during a period that overlaps with the 9th year of Hyrcanus II's rule as high priest and ethnarch (spring 55 BC to spring 54 BC).

“This [appointment as governor of Galilee] was done in the ninth year of Hyrcanus the high priest and ethnarch, in the month Panemus” (July). — Antiquities 14.8.5

The 9th year of Hyrcanus II is universally dated to 55/54 BC, as Hyrcanus became ethnarch following Pompey's conquest in 63 BC. Using inclusive counting (common in ancient chronologies), this aligns precisely.

Antipater … made his son Herod governor of Galilee, when he was but fifteen years old.

— Antiquities 14.9.2 (continuation)

This confirms the appointment occurred in the same year (55/54 BC), when Herod was 15. A simple subtraction from this anchor point gives us Herod's birth year: If the appointment was in 55 BC: 55 BC - 15 years = born in 70 BC (accounting for Herod being 15 until his 16th birthday). If in 54 BC: 54 BC - 15 years = born in 69 BC.

Thus, Herod was born around 70/69 BC.

Josephus states Herod's age at death in two separate works:

He was about seventy when he died.

— Antiquities 17.6.1 & War 1.33.1

Adding 70 years implies a death in either 1 BC or 1 AD depending upon the exact birthday overlap. This plain, evidence-based calculation—using only Josephus's statements—supports a 1 BC death without contradiction or special pleading. The traditional 4 BC death date would make Herod at most 67 years old contradicting Josephus’ claim of 70 years old. Here are some examples of how those arguing for 4 BC address these inconvenient facts:

Jack Finegan (in Handbook of Biblical Chronology, rev. ed. 1998, p. 300) notes the discrepancy and suggests Josephus's age is likely an error or loose approximation: "Josephus states that Herod was fifteen years old when appointed governor of Galilee (Ant. 14.158), but this would make him only about sixty-five at death in 4 B.C., whereas Josephus also says he was 'about seventy' (Ant. 17.191; War 1.665). The age of fifteen is probably an error, perhaps a scribal mistake or rhetorical exaggeration.”

Harold W. Hoehner (in Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, 1977, p. 12) echoes this, calling the fifteen-year-old reference "a mistake in Josephus" and prioritizing the "about seventy" at death to fit 4 BC. Andrew E. Steinmann (a minority-view critic of 4 BC) summarizes the consensus approach in From Abraham to Paul (2011, p. 220) and his articles: the 4 BC supporters "treat the age of fifteen as erroneous or approximate" to avoid re-dating everything else. Now it is fair to note that Josephus isn’t perfect—no ancient historian is—and I’m not claiming his testimony must be flawless to hold value; after all, minor inconsistencies or rhetorical flourishes are common in texts from that era. However, the key distinction lies in the nature of these supposed "errors": if they were truly random scribal mistakes, exaggerations, or approximations, the odds that they would all conveniently align to form a coherent, interlocking narrative supporting a 1 BC death for Herod (e.g., the age-15 appointment, reign spans, eclipse timing, and successor overlaps) are vanishingly small, far more likely to scatter into chaos than converge on an alternative timeline. Instead, this pattern suggests a bias in the critics' approach: they selectively dismiss details as erroneous only when they threaten the traditional 4 BC framework, while upholding Josephus as reliable elsewhere, revealing a preference for preserving consensus over following the evidence where it naturally leads. In other words, they have opened Pandora’s Box of discrediting their star witness with respect to the life of Herod the Great, and if their star witness can get these details wrong why would anyone trust their cherrypicked quotes and interpretations of Josephus to override the plain reading of inspired scripture regarding John the Baptist’s 30th year aligning with Tiberius’ 15th year?

Start of His Regnal Years

The traditional chronology dates Herod's appointment as king by the Roman Senate to late 40 BC, shortly after the Treaty of Brundisium (October 40 BC). This allows him to return quickly to Judea, begin campaigns in winter 40/39 BC, conquer Jerusalem in 37 BC, and die in 4 BC—fitting the 37- and 34-year reign spans Josephus records. However, this timeline depends on the assumption that Herod's entire journey from Alexandria to Rome was completed swiftly enough to keep the Senate vote within the 40 BC consular year, with no significant delays from storms, ship repairs, or winter weather. Our evidence for Herod's death in 1 BC and the conquest of Jerusalem in 36 BC requires the appointment to occur after Nisan 1 in 39 BC (around April/May in the Julian calendar), so that spring 38 BC becomes his first full regnal year under non-inclusive reckoning. The voyage itself provides the natural explanation for this 5–6 month gap, and the full moon calendar's delayed Shavuot on July 1, 40 BC—already proven beyond reasonable doubt in this book—extends the journey timeline in a realistic way. Josephus describes the Parthian invasion escalating around Shavuot, when the enemy exploited the large crowds gathering for the feast:

But while there were daily skirmishes, the enemy waited for the coming of the multitude out of the country to Pentecost, a feast of ours so called.

— Antiquities 14.13.3 Assuming Pentecost was fixed on the 15th of the third month in the Temple calendar, and months beginning at the visible full moon, the feast falls on July 1, 40 BC. The invasion peaks in early July, prompting Herod's immediate overland escape to Masada, Petra, Rhinocolura, and Alexandria—a journey complicated by political rejections (no aid from Arabia or Cleopatra) that could take 4–6 weeks, placing his arrival in Alexandria in mid-August 40 BC. From Alexandria, Herod sailed amid the summer etesian winds and encountered a violent storm that forced a detour to Rhodes:

[Herod] sailed away in a storm, which fell upon him as he sailed, with great danger; and he was sorely shaken with the tempest, and was thereby in distress.

— Antiquities 14.14.3

Refitting a large vessel in Rhodes—hiring crew, sourcing timber, and awaiting supplies—could easily require three or more months under typical ancient conditions, extending into late October or early November 40 BC. The Mediterranean's mare clausum (closed sea) season began in November, with storms and short days making voyages rare and perilous until March. Herod likely wintered in Rhodes or along the route to avoid disaster, as historical parallels (e.g., Paul's winter shipwreck in Acts 27) illustrate the risks of pressing on. Sailing the windward leg to Brundisium (against northerlies) in early spring 39 BC (March/April) fits the safer post-winter window, with Herod then proceeding overland to Rome. Appian sequences the appointment during Antony's eastern reorganizations after the treaty:

He [Antony] appointed kings over the nations who had assisted him, Herod over Idumaea and Samaria…

— Civil Wars 5.75

This narrative flow extends into Antony's winter 40/39 BC in Athens, allowing the Senate vote to slip past Nisan 1 in April/May 39 BC amid bureaucratic delays—quorums, auspices, or Antony's schedule. Dio Cassius's account (Roman History 49.22) further supports this by placing Herod's campaigns after Ventidius's 39–38 BC Parthian victories, implying an early-to-mid 39 BC appointment without contradiction. Scholars like Andrew Steinmann (From Abraham to Paul, 2011) and W.E. Filmer (1966 Journal of Theological Studies) affirm this minority view, interpreting Appian and Dio's ambiguities as permitting a 39 BC date to harmonize with a 36 BC conquest and 1 BC death. The full moon calendar's two-week shift, combined with Shavuot's mid-summer placement, naturally extends the journey by three weeks compared to traditional thinking, making post-spring 39 BC not just possible but probable under realistic conditions. Critics asserting a rigid late-40 BC appointment bear the higher burden: they must prove Herod's multi-leg odyssey defied storms, refit timelines, and winter risks to complete swiftly—without a shred of direct evidence for such haste. Their speed is speculative, built on idealized assumptions to preserve the 4 BC death consensus, while this reconstruction meets plausibility through documented delays and source flexibility. With five or more independent witnesses (including scripture) converging on 1 BC, the evidence demands we follow where it leads, not force-fit it to tradition. It is not rational to allow something as flimsy as speculation about a journey’s length serve as the foundation of Herod’s Regal years, especially in light of how much other objective evidence it would overturn.

Years of High Priests

The sixth independent line of evidence for the reign of Herod the Great also comes from Josephus, who is proving to be reliably internally consistent in his testimony.

Accordingly, the number of the high priests, from the days of Herod until the day when Titus took the temple and the city, and burnt them, were in all 28; the time also that belonged to them was 107 years.

— Josephus: Antiquities 20.10.2

Since it is widely accepted that Titus took the temple and city in the summer of 70 AD, we can do some simple math and identify that the “days of Herod” points to the summer of 38 BC, Herod’s first regnal year after his appointment by Rome. The alternative view is to use inclusive counting, yielding a range from 37 BC to 70 AD. This has been used to support a 37 BC siege of Jerusalem instead of a 36 BC date. Using exclusive counting in instances where Josephus references an exact day marking the end would be consistent, and it aligns well with the start of Herod's regnal authority after his appointment, reflecting the first full spring-to-spring year in 38 BC. This yields approximately 107 years to 70 AD, treating the figure as a close, rounded span common in ancient historiography for symbolic or narrative emphasis. Using inclusive counting implies 37 BC years + 70 AD years as the range. This fact has been used to argue that Herod's de facto years count from 37 BC instead of from 35 BC. The issue with assuming 37 BC as the start of his de facto regnal years is that it requires inclusive counting for de facto years, as a 37 BC capture would place the first spring-to-spring de facto year starting in 36 BC. Alternatively, it forces moving the capture of Jerusalem to 38 BC to keep the spring-to-spring timeline, but if that adjustment is made, the 107 years wouldn’t span the first high priest appointment made shortly after the capture of the city. The bottom line is that Josephus's 107-year number is close enough to fit both theories and not a perfect fit for any theory. However, the 38 BC regnal / 35 BC de facto start is the better fit overall, as Josephus's phrase "days of Herod" emphasizes the era beginning with his effective control and first high priest appointment post-conquest (late 36 BC), yielding ~106 years—a near match to 107 that allows for rounding without shifting events or mixing reckoning methods. This maintains internal consistency in Josephus's narrative, where the high priest span is tied to the practical onset of Herod's authority rather than a nominal or partial year, avoiding the traditional view's need for adjustments that misalign the first appointment or force inconsistent counting. The 107-year figure is a broad summary interval, presented without precise markers like 'to the day,' so treating it as approximate by one year is reasonable and consistent with Josephus's occasional rounding in non-critical summaries. In contrast, the 27-year interval from Pompey's capture is stated explicitly as 'after twenty-seven years’ time' and 'on the very same day' — a precise chronological claim that the traditional view must reinterpret as inclusive or non-literal to fit 26 years. This is the crucial difference: my model preserves the plain sense of Josephus's most emphatic chronological marker, while allowing minor flexibility only on a summary number. The traditional view does the reverse — it overrides the emphatic claim to preserve exactness in the summary. That asymmetry favors the reading that requires fewer adjustments to the text itself.

Herod's son Philip’s Reign One of primary arguments for Herod’s death in 4 BC is derived from the documentation of the reigns of his children. We will address each child in turn, starting with Philip. According to all early copies of Josephus Antiquities of the Jews, Philip dies 22nd Tiberius after 37 years.

Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews 18.4.6 states that Philip the Tetrarch (Herod’s son) “departed this life in the 22nd year of the reign of Tiberius after he had been tetrarch of the region of Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, Gaulanitis, and Paneas for thirty-seven years.

— Antiquities of the Jews 18.4.6

If this were the only variation then there would be no dispute as 37 years back from Tiberius’ 22nd year places the first year of Philip’s reign as there year of Herod’s death in 1 BC. The issue is that the majority of the newer manuscripts claim the 20th year. This would put the first year of his reign starting the year after the alleged 4 BC death of Herod. It is not uncommon for scribes to “correct” texts to align with scholarly consensus, and I submit that this is exactly what happened with the later manuscripts. Here are the two variations:

“20th year” (εἰκοστῷ): Supported by the majority of Greek manuscripts, including the primary witness codex Laurentianus (9th century) and most later Greek copies (e.g., Palatinus Graecus 14, 10th century). This is the reading in standard critical editions (Niese, Thackeray Loeb 1927–1965). “22nd year” (δωδεκάτῳ): Found unanimously in the early Latin translations (Vetus Latina tradition, 4th–8th centuries, e.g., Codex Sangallensis 135, 8th century, and other pre-1544 Latin MSS like the 6th-century Codex Fuldensis fragments). Some Greek fragments (e.g., 10th-century minuscules) show traces of “22nd,” but it’s a minority in Greek. The Latin unanimity (all ~20 surviving early Latin copies of this passage) suggests an early variant, possibly from a 2nd-century Greek archetype lost in the main line.

The older Latin tradition preserves the “22nd” consistently, indicating an ancient reading (pre-4th century). Traditional interpretations favor “20th” due to Greek number of copies, but the “22nd” is attested unanimously in early translations. So which of these two manuscripts carries the most weight on its own, independent of any other facts?

In every single metric the older 22nd year manuscripts win, hands down. They are 300 to 500 years older, from multiple independent geographic origins, in unanimous agreement, and align with external attestation. Now we can build a complete picture of what happened as it was common for Herod’s family to ante-date their reign to the day they were appointed, not the day they took power. Herod the great took power after 3 years, thus his own reign was ante-dated by Josephus and Herod's’ own coins by 3 years.

Evidence for Antipas’ reign being back dated can be inferred from a lack of coins from his first 3 years. Scholars (e.g., Kogon/Fontanille's die study of ~800 specimens) confirm the "year 4" as the earliest, with no evidence of prior minting as earlier years show no surviving coins or die links. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the lack of coins is consistent with the written testimony. Meanwhile Archelaus’ coins are few and contain no dating inscriptions.

Herod’s Three Sons: Testing 4 BC Death Date If Herod the Great died in spring 4 BC (before Passover) as alleged by most, the regnal chronologies of his three sons should align smoothly with Josephus, Roman sources, and coin evidence. Archelaus and Antipas fit reasonably well under standard Herodian ante-dating practices, but Philip creates an challenging problem.

Archelaus (ethnarch of Judaea) Josephus records a 10-year reign (Ant. 17.13.2), ending with exile in AD 6 (confirmed by Dio Cassius 55.27.6). If power began immediately upon Herod’s death in spring 4 BC, the timeline works cleanly. Coins begin in “Year 1” = 4 BC, with the usual 1-year ante-dating: the partial overlap with Herod’s final year is counted as Archelaus’s full first year. No special pleading is required—this is normal Herodian practice.

Herod Antipas (tetrarch of Galilee and Perea) Antipas ruled for 43 years according to Josephus (Ant. 18.7.2) and was banished in AD 39 (Dio Cassius 59.8.2). Starting in spring 4 BC, the length matches exactly. His coins also open in “Year 1” = 4 BC, again using the standard 1-year ante-dating (partial final year of Herod counted as full Year 1). Like Archelaus, this requires no unusual justification.

Philip (tetrarch of Batanea and surrounding regions) Here the contradiction emerges. Josephus states Philip reigned 37 years (Ant. 18.4.6) and died in the 20th year of Tiberius. The majority Greek manuscripts place Tiberius’s 20th year in AD 33/34. Counting exactly 37 years backward from AD 33/34 lands precisely in spring 4 BC—leaving zero room for ante-dating. Coins would therefore begin in “Year 1” = 4 BC with no partial-year overlap counted from Herod’s last months. This zero-year ante-dating is unprecedented. Archelaus and Antipas both back-dated by at least one year (treating Herod’s partial final year as their Year 1). No Herodian ruler ever counted from the exact moment of accession without such adjustment. Philip’s case forces an exact 37-year span from spring 4 BC, breaking the consistent pattern seen in his brothers.

Conclusion

The 4 BC death date accommodates Archelaus and Antipas without difficulty, but Philip’s reign length and coin dating demand an impossible zero-year ante-dating. This single anomaly strongly undermines the 4 BC scenario.

however, it is far more plausible to conclude the Consul that started the hostilities was referenced than the Consul that came after it had already happened. In this case the most plausible case is still in favor of 36 BC fall and 35 BC start of first de-factor reign.

To argue for 4 BC requires you to assume Josephus was being imprecise or there was a scribal error without any evidence to suggest such a thing. Josephus is clearly indicating that his precision is to the day. At this point you should start to see the pattern of extreme rationalization necessary to defend the Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday crucifixion.

Herod's years anchor the Gospel timeline, sabbatical cycles, and temple construction. Luke's Tiberius fifteenth year and the 2 BC census alone place his death in 1 BC—yet the traditional 4 BC date prompts scholars to doubt Luke and invent unconventional Tiberius reckoning. Seven independent proofs converge on 1 BC: January 10, 1 BC total lunar eclipse —dramatic and visible, unlike 4 BC's faint partial. 114-day post-eclipse window to Passover, fitting Herod's illness and mourning. Exact 27 years "to the day" from Pompey's 63 BC capture to Herod's 36 BC conquest on Atonement. Sabbatical-year match for from 1406 BC Jordan cycle. Age ~70 at death, from 15 in 55/54 BC Galilee governorship —born ~70/69 BC. 107 high priests from Herod's "days" (38/35 BC) to 70 AD. Early Latin MSS: Philip dies Tiberius 22nd year (AD 35/36) after 37 years from 1 BC—superior to Greek “20th."

These align Josephus without error or non-standard counting. 4 BC demands dismissing "27 years to the day," Herod's age as "scribal mistake," timeline compression, and unprecedented zero-year ante-dating for Philip—undermining Josephus selectively to preserve tradition.