The year Jesus was born (?) was quite a year

'TIS THE SEASON: The Year Jesus Was Born (Philip Jenkins, The Anxious Bench).

Looking at these events, we understand just what the Romans were so afraid of in Jesus’s lifetime, and why they were especially nervous about rogue Galileans with religious pretensions – especially any with the slightest aspirations to kingship. And moreover, why they would be so justifiably paranoid around great feasts, such as Passover.

The crisis of 4 BC offered a prequel, a draft script, of so many of the horrors of the coming century. And that was the world into which Jesus was born.

This essay is a re-posting which I noted some years ago. I had forgotten about it, which means it's a good time to link to it again.

In my earlier posting, I express some skepticism about our being able to pinpoint the year of Jesus's birth. Check out the link there for discussion.

Whether or not Jesus was born in 4 BCE, this essay gives a good sense of the social and political world into which he was born.

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