Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay! Part 2

From Robertscribbler's article "Large Methane Plumes Discovered on Laptev Continental Slope Boundary: Evidence of Possible Methane Hydrate Release":

Over the past few years, the Arctic has been experiencing an invasion.

Emerging from the Gulf Stream, a pulse of warmer than normal water propagated north past Iceland and into the Barents Sea. There, it dove beneath the surface fresh water and retreating sea ice, plunging to a depth of around 200-500 meters where it concentrated, lending heat to the entire water column. Taking a right hand turn along the Siberian Continental Shelf, it crossed through the mid water zones of the Kara. Finally, it entered the Laptev and there it abutted against the downward facing slopes of the submarine continental region.

As the water temperatures at these depths warmed, researchers began to wonder if they would trigger the destabilization of methane hydrate stores locked  in deeper waters along the shelf boundary. And, now, a new expedition may have uncovered evidence that just such an event is ongoing.
And here's a photo of methane bubbles bubbling up from the slope itself!

Source: Stockholm University via Robertscribbler.


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay!

The methanc clathrates under the East Siberian Arctic Continental Shelf (ESAS), its slope into the deep and even under the Permafrost in Siberia are destabilizing. On land, four "sinkholes" with "levees" have formed, explosively like a the champagne under a popped cork, or even with a fiery explosion.

And the Global Warming demons will be singing "Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay!" as they ride up the rising gas bubbles once the clathrates really belch. Probably past 2100, but who knows?

As Robertscribbler reports in his blog article, "Is This the Compost Bomb’s Smoking Gun? Second Mysterious Hole Found in Yamal Russia."

Yamal, Russia — a stretch of tundra flats and peat bogs stretching as far as the eye can see before terminating into the chill waters of the Kara. A rather stark and desolate place, one that was mostly unknown until a massive and strange hole appeared in the earth there last week. Since that time, the strange hole has been the butt of every kind of wild speculation and controversy.

The hole itself was an alien feature. “We haven’t seen anything like this before,” would be an entirely accurate statement. All about the hole was a large pile of debris — overturned earth, huge chunks of soil piled up in a signature very familiar to the ejecta of a meteor impact crater.
Approaching the hole edge, we came to a gradual slope that proceeded downward for about 40 feet at about a 35 degree incline. Along the surface of this incline, both the unfrozen soil cap and the frozen permafrost were visible.

But it wasn’t until we hit the bottom edge of this incline that we encountered the strangest feature of all — a sheer cliff, rounded in a shape like the smooth bore of a gun, and plunging straight down through icy permafrost for about another hundred and twenty feet before revealing a basement cavern slowly filling with melt.

It’s a combination of features that appears to be one half impact crater and one half sink hole.
A poster by the name of Bernard says two more holes have opened up in Siberia: Antipayuta, Taz district, and Nosok, Krasnoyarsk region. For more info, click here, scroll down and click here.

Second Yamal crater.
A "sinkhole" with levees! 
(Source: The Siberian Times via Robertscribbler)

Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Top 0.1%, Koch Borthers, and Global Weirding

There's a reason why Peak Oil Is No Object, and why we are at the Fin Des Voies Rapides anyway. But it's taken me a while to get there!

It's because of the already extant overburden of Carbon Dioxide (402 ppm), Methane (1830 ppb), Nitrous Oxide, Ozone, etc. We now are at a global warming of 0.92 C since the 1880s -- 0.76 C since 1950 and 0.80 C since 1750, the dawn of industrialization! And already we are having Global Weirding in the weather!

The driving force behind all this -- and controlling the governments -- are the top 0.1%, particularly those who profit from fossil fuels extraction, prime example being the Koch Brothers. And why this driving force? It's as Dmitry Orlov said, it's due to Moneybag Logic:
This logic says that having more money is always good, having less money is always bad, and that therefore everyone should do everything possible to make sure that there is always more money. If that requires turning the Earth into a polluted, radioactive, lifeless desert, so be it.
So here's a subthread I've taken from RobertScribbler's blog article World In Hot Water: Screaming Sea Surface Temperatures Push Globe To Hottest June Yet, and am reblogging it here.

May this begin a discussion.
Raymond DeBrane  /  July 22, 2014

I think the Koch Brothers and other oil and coal billionaires will have to bargain with the military and pay them huge amounts of cash to secure a place in underground shelters such as DUMBS. I strongly suspect that when TSHTF, those rich guys will be tossed out as human garbage when money becomes worthless and there’s nothing more to be gained by the military by giving them food, water, shelter, etc. Since the military is well armed, I’m fairly sure that the military will shoot them down without care or remorse to save the resources they would consume to use for more deserving people. It will be a just end for them all.
   
Andy (in San Diego)  /  July 23, 2014
The military can now legally operate on domestic soil. Cdn + US govt and military signed an agreement a couple of years ago such that they can operate on each others soil during unrest. All the Kochs (and ilk) need to do is own those that tell the military what to do. They have this covered. Greedy yes, and also quite smart.
   
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014
Clever, but not smart. Smart people don’t invest in fossil fuels and suppress the alternatives. The Kochs are two clever chaps who’ve long since lost limbic brain functionality.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

I’d also call them monstrous ignoramuses and lump them in with the villainous personas of our age. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to what’s smart.
In any case, I seriously doubt the Kochs will be able to leverage special military protection, especially when it’s completely obvious to military planners that they’re fighting for the wrong side.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

To this point, you may want to read the book — Soft Apocalypse.
At some point, the military becomes saturated with problems and loses broader functioning. We have 10,000 people fighting fires on the west coast right now. Two brigades worth just to fight fires. How will it look in twenty years? What happens when you’re dealing with mass migration, probably violent unrest, states bordering on collapse, people rioting because their seaside homes were destroyed and there’s no insurance or disaster relief money left, people starving because the Kochs pushed them off food stamps, food riots because the crops failed and people like the Kochs pushed them off food stamps. Who are the people in the military going to sympathize with? The Kochs? You end up with that level of corruption and the whole system collapses pretty quick.
I’m thinking the Kochs have their oxes gored long before that point.
  
Raymond DeBrane  /  July 23, 2014

to Robert,
 I believe, even now, politicians know they are working for the wrong side. Ditto conservative media personalities. As long as the Kochs and other billionaires keep the money flowing to them, they will continue to shill for the wrong side. I think they and the military will take all the money they can get from those guys until things get so out of hand that the banks and the government, and the populace are crippled by financial and environmental collapse, massive gasoline shortages, people out of work that can’t pay for the gas that is available, and not able to pay for food at the grocery store, if it is still available. Then and only then will the Kochs and their ilk become excess baggage, expendable.
If you expect the people in general to come for the Kochs and their ilk, half the country won’t because they are hopelessly brainwashed by conservative media types to be for the policies of the Kochs, and to hate and despise billionaire George Soros, who is fighting the Kochs. Most people I’ve talked to never even heard of the Kochs, and they have no idea of the big picture of what those billionaires are up to and how bad a state the world is in right now because of climate change. Add to that that even people in this blog think that Prof Guy McPherson is wrong about NTE beginning around 2030, and you have people thinking that that can’t happen. It’s too soon. Everybody please Google John Mercer and read about his 1978 prediction about if we keep burning fossil fuels, we will melt the glaciers. As I mentioned previously, he took a lot of flack from his colleagues,, but modern scientists have found him to be a profit.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

Corrupt political systems fail, media systems based on propaganda fail, and, in the end, people come after the Kochs. Absolutely.
In any case, I’m not so cynical as to believe that the Kochs own the system or that the situation is quite so altogether dark. Do the conservatives own the system? They’ve been more and more marginalized despite massive sums of money expended. They wouldn’t work so hard to suppress the vote if elections didn’t matter.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Was Jesus Even Crucified? Part 6c

Part 6

WHEN Was Jesus Crucified?
Previous Parts:

Part 1 - Link
Part 2 - Link
Part 3 - Link
Part 4 - Link
Part 5 - Link
Part 6a - Link
Part 6c - Link

Part 6c – Gospels’ Dates for the Crucifixion

In part 6b I have reached the conclusion – following the lead of theologian Dr. Raymond E. Brown, that the confusion Eusebius exhibits over exactly when Jesus was crucified (if he was at all!) stems from the fact that he tried to shoehorn all manner of disparate secular historical data to fit the gospel narrative. To that I might add now, to show fulfillment of Daniel’s Seventy “Weeks,” particularly where Daniel’s prediction of an overthrow of Jerusalem by violence and warfare in the seventieth “week,” i.e., the very week after Messiah was to be cut-off, or the unction cast out. But I shall not concern myself with the Seventy Weeks here, just the information the Gospels give for dating the Crucifixion.

6c-1. During Caiaphas’ Tenure.

Mark is silent on which of the high priests during Tiberius’ tenure as Emperor was presiding when Jesus was allegedly crucified. But the Gospels gMatthew, gLuke and gJohn are in full agreement: it was Caiaphas: gMatthew states that the high priest was called Caiaphas (gMatt 26:3, 57), gLuke states that both “Annas” and Caiaphas were high priests the year John the Baptist started his career (gLuke 3:2), and gJohn states that Caiaphas was high priest the year that Jesus was hanged (gJohn 11:49, 18:13) .

Josephus dates Caiaphas’ tenure from approximately 18 CE to 36 or 37 CE.1

6c-2. During Tiberius’ Tenure.

The other three Gospels, gMark, gMatthew and gJohn, are silent on who was Emperor, except by reference to Pilate, making Tiberius the Emperor by default. Luke, though, is explicit: he states that John the Baptist started dunking people in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar’s government (gLuke 3:1), probably 28-29 CE. Jesus gets dunked (gLuke 3:21) and a short time later (gLuke 3:22), starts his own public career, which lasts about a year. The other three give a range, therefore, of 14 to 37 CE, with gLuke presenting a shorter stretch of about 28 or 29 to 37 CE.

6c-3: During Pilate’s Tenure.

Here, all four gospels are in agreement: it was Pontius Pilate who was the ruling Roman official at the time. The Passion narratives focusing on the Roman Trial, Crucifixion and Burial are leavened throughout with references to the Roman Prefect: gMark 15, gMatthew 27, gLuke 23 and gJohn 18:28-40, 19.

According to the extant copies of Josephus, Pontius Pilate was prefect from eleven years after Vitellus Gratus was appointed prefect, that is, about 26 CE,2 until he was recalled and ordered to stand trial before the Emperor due to a massacre of Samaritans he committed by Vitellus in 36 CE.3

So this gives us a span of ten years, or, adding gLuke 3 into the mix, about seven to eight years. It is necessary, therefore, to further narrow it down and come up with a certain date. If that is possible.

6c-3.1 Excursus:

Not all scholars are convinced that Pontius Pilate was the Roman Prefect of Judaea only from 26-36 CE. Indeed, the context of both the sections of the Jewish War4 and Antiquities5 seems to indicate an accession by Pilate in 18 or 19 CE.6 And this would dovetail nicely with Eusebius’ complaint (see Part 6a) that the Roman government under Maximinus Daia forged a document that asserted that Jesus was crucifed in 21 CE.

6c-4: Day of the Month.

According to the Gospels, the Crucifixion was supposed to have occurred either on the Day before Passover, the 14th of Nisan, or on Passover itself, the 15th.

The Synoptics: gMark, gMatthew and gLuke place the event on the 15th, since the Last Supper was presented as a Passover (gMark 14:12-18, gMatt 26: 17-20, gLuke 22:7-15). All three identify the present-day Day before Passover, Erev Pesach, when the Passover lambs were slain, as the Day or First Day of Unleavened Bread. There may be a Jewish precedent for this, since the day before Passover is when observant Jews are supposed to look for all the leavening (chomnetz) in their houses and get rid of it (or eat it before a certain time). The Day before Passover is for them the busiest time of the year and is most certainly a day of preparation, just like the day before the weekly Sabbath, Erev Shabbos, is considered a day of preparation.

GJohn, on the other hand, is on record that the crucifixion occurred on the Day of Preparation for the Passover (gJohn 19:14), i.e., the 14th of Nisan, when the Passover lambs were slain at the House of the Holy Place (= the Temple in Jerusalem), because at the trial before Pilate, the Jews refused to enter the Roman Court lest they be ritually defiled, because they want to prepare for and eat the Passover once the trial is done (gJohn 18:28). 

Related to this, is the scene in all four canonical gospels depicting a scene where Pontius Pilate shows Jesus and and a certain Barabbas to the crowd, figuring the crowd will ask that Jesus be released, as he would rather they do, according to the gospels. Now this scene gives some scholars like John P. Meier reason (although a minor one) to believe that originally, the Synoptics and gJohn were in agreement: that the day of the month was Nisan the 14th.7 Except according to gMark, this was Pilate’s own habit: “At the festival it was Pilate's custom to release for the people a prisoner they requested.” (gMark 15:6).8 And according to both Josephus and Philo, Pilate was keen on brutalizing the Jews and undermining their laws. 9 So, assuming mark’s account has any basis in historical fact, Pilate would not be compelled to release any prisoner in time to enjoy the actual consuming of the Passover including the lamb on Passover Eve, but rather he very well could have customarily released him the following day.

6c-5: Day of the Week.
All of the gospels are in agreement that the crucifixion was supposed to have occurred on a Friday (Erev Shabbos), although their readers are not privy to this information until about the end of the duration of the crucifixion. The Synoptics announce this fact at the Burial of Jesus: “It was the Preparation Day10 (that is, the day before the Sabbath11)” (gMark 15:42). Here Mark is referring to Erev Shabbos, not necessarily to Erev Pesach. Matthew just says the Jewish ruling class met with Pilate on “the next day, the one after Preparation Day,” (gMatt 27:62) which is a rather goofy way of saying the Sabbath or even Passover Day! Luke sees Preparation Day and the Sabbath as directly adjacent (gLuke 23:54), acknowledging the Jewish reckoning of when a calendar day ends and the next one begins. John, on the other hand, establishes that Sabbath Day as Passover Day (KJV: “for that Sabbath day was an high day”`12) also (gJohn 19:14, 19:31, 19:42). So Friday it is.

6c-6: Jesus’ Thirtieth Year.

Another clue is in gLuke 3:23, which states that when Jesus started his ministry (during or after Tiberius’ fifteenth year or 28-29 CE), he was about thirty years of age; except in the King James Version, the Young’s Literal Translation, the Latin Vulgate 13 and the original Greek, even the 1904 Greek text used by the Greek Orthodox Church and the RP Byzantine majority Text 2005, the text states that Jesus was beginning to be about thirty years of age.14 Now we could be charitable and call that to be between the ages of 25 and 30, or be rather strict about it and assume that the Arabic text is correct in saying that “Jesus began to enter into the thirtieth year,”15 i.e., was just past his twenty-ninth birthday.

Either way, to determine the date when Luke infers the death of Jesus, we first have to figure out when Luke says Jesus was born. Well that is certainly not easy. Jesus’ nativity is linked with that of John the Baptist, so that, Luke establishes the birth of Jesus to be about fifteen or sixteen months after the annunciation (Zechariah, priest of the course of Abijah).16 Now Luke (gLuke 1:5, “In the days of Herod, King of Judea”; 1:26 “In the sixth month”, 1:39, “At that time” / “In these days”; and 2:1, “At that time” / “ In those days”) appears to establish the two pregnancies and two births to have occured during the reign of King Herod the Great,16 which ended at his death in March / April of 4 BCE.17 Unfortunately for Luke, he also stated that the point of time mentioned in gLuke 2:1 was also the time when Caesar Augustus issued an edict ordering a census for the vast Roman Empire, and that (gLuke 2:2) the census occurred when Quirinus was governor of Syria, which was in 6 CE!18 It appears that Luke has shoved the 6 CE Roman census of Judea under Quirinus back to 4 BCE or perhaps earlier, such as the Matthean implied date of late 7 / early 6 BCE (gMatt 2:1, 2:7, 2:16). Now when we do the math, late 7 / early 6 BCE to Sept 28 – Sept 29 CE gives us approximately 34 years, possibly 35. “About” 30 years of age, but finishing up with it, really, and going on 35. A birth in late 5 / early 4 BCE yields about 32 years, which is closer but no cigar. Placing the birth of Jesus sometime in 3 BCE and his baptism by John the Baptist in 28 CE would yield almost exactly 30 years of age. But we miss the all-important census under Quirinis that ties the nativity of Jesus into Roman world events, don’t we?

But since Luke said he was beginning to be about 30 years of age, we can go with two approximate ages for Jesus, 25 (if we’re generous) and 29 (strict like the Arabic text – see above), and a birth in 6-7 CE. With the two ages we get a baptism date of 31-32 CE or 35-36 CE. That’s pushing the crucifixion rather close to or even beyond the end of Pilate's prefecture if Jesus was about 29, but perhaps Luke has a reason for it: after all, Josephus situates the death of John the Baptist about 34 to 36 CE.19 So a birth in 6 CE and a baptism in 35 CE ties Luke’s gospel into Josephus’ Antiquities. Which means Luke not only has manage to shove Quirinus’ census back into Herod the Great’s day, he’s also kicked the census and baby Jesus back into the time when Judea was being reduced to a Roman province!

South Park – Kick the Baby!! 



Click here if the embedded vid won’t play.
 
6c-7: The Age of the Temple.

Another possible reference to the Crufifixion is the age of the Temple noted in gJohn 2:20. Here, Jesus’ just previous statement was taken by the angry Jewish authorities to be a prediction of the destruction of the Second Temple. They note that the Temple itself has been under construction for 46 years. Josephus gives us two start of construction dates: 23 / 22 BCE and 20 / 19 BCE. 20 Adding forty-six years yields two dates for this fracas: 24 / 25 CE and 27 / 28 CE respectively. 21 Noting that this is the first of three Passovers in gJohn, 22 gives a terminal date of 27 / 28 CE or 29 / 30 CE.


6c-8: Astronomical Confirmation


According to Dr. Raymond E Brown, “Astronomy has played an important role in the narrowing down the possible date of Jesus’ crucifixion. If Jesus died on the 14th of Nisan, in which years during Pilate’s prefecture did that fall on Th[ursday ]n[ight]/F[riday ]d[aytime]?” 23 He finds that the answer is not so obvious or certain, even though astronomers back then were quite mathematically accurate. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that the new moon had to be sighted accurately in Palestine, which could have been thrown off by bad atmospheric conditions. 24 But it appears that the Jews in the Second Temple period determined their dates by their lunar calendar, “and to keep it in approximate synchronicity with the solar year leap months had to be added.” 25 Of course, we have exactly zero historical recores for when leap montyhs were added during the years 27-30 CE. 26 Still, it appears that the most likely dates for when the death of Jesus on a Friday, Nisan 14th, allegedly occurred were: 7 April, 30 CE, 3 April 33 CE and possibly 11 April 27 CE. 27 Which dates are uncertain and moot anywat because the Jewish people, priesthood and authorities during the Second Temple period used a lunar calendar.


Confirmation of this by myself using astronomical NASA data 28 revealed that the date of the 14th of Nisan, according to the Julian calendar, may have fallen on a Thursday night - Friday on 11 April, 27 CE; 7 April 30 CE; and 19 April 37 CE. Now this, of course, is assuming that gJohn is correct about which day during the Passover season Jesus was supposedly crucified on! If the synoptics are right, of course, then the 14th of Nisan would have fallen on a Wednesday night - Thursday! Which yields us the possible dates for the 15th of Nisan occurring on Friday, 23 April 34 CE. 29
 
6c-9: Conclusion.
 

My conclusion as to the date of the alleged crucifixion of the historical Jesus is that it cannot be determined from the Gospels of the New Testament. Sure, they all agree that Pontius Pilate was the prefect, and gLuke and gJohn says Caiaphas was the high priest, but any attempts to be more precise than that gives us dates varying from 28 CE to 37 CE. Trying to confirm a date with astronomical data turns out to be no help in nailing down a precise date.

(done)
Notes:

1.      Josephus, Antiquities 18.2.2 [33 - 35], 18.4.3 [95]
2.      Antiquities 18.2.2 [35] “When Gratus had done those things, he went back to Rome, after he had tarried in Judea eleven years, when Pontius Pilate came as his successor.”
3.      Antiquities 18.4.2 [89] “Pilate, when he had tarried ten years in Judea, made haste to Rome, and this in obedience to the orders of Vitellius, which he durst not contradict”
4.      Josephus, Jewish War 2.9.1 [168] and  2.9.2 [169]: “But when the Roman Empire was translated to Tiberius… Herod also built the city of Tiberias in galilee and in Perea [beyond Jordan] that was called Julias” (Tiberias was built about 20 CE), “Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberius, sent by night these images of Caesar that are called effigies, into Jerusalem.
5.      Antiquities 18.2.5 [54] and 18.3.1 [55]: “So the Senate made a decree… his life was taken by the poison which Piso gave him…” (the murdered person was Germanicus Caesar, who was poisoned in 19 CE), “But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Caesarea to Jerusalem… in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar’s effigies…”
6.      Two scholars who contend a 21 CE execution date are Daniel Schwarz and Robert Eisler. They are both cited by Helen K Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation, New York / Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 1 n. 3 and p. 201 n. 35. She states that Schwartz, following Eisler (The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist, New York, Lincoln Macveagh The Dial Press, 1931, pp. 13-20), argues unconvincingly that Pilate took up his prefecture in 19 CE; and, that the Acta Pilati, circulated in 311 CE during the principate of Maximin Daia, were not forged by the Roman government and that they did prove that Jesus was crucified in 21 CE.
7.  John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus, New York, The Anchor Bible Reference Library, Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1991, Vol. I, pp 386-401. Note particularly p. 400: "Yet, the obvious promise of the Barabbas narrative -- an amnesty or pardon granted to some Jewish Prisoner at Passover -- is that the amnesty or pardon was given precisely so that the Jew, upon release, could take part in the Passover meal. What would be the point of granting release to a Jewish prisoner on Passover Day after the Passover meal, the central ritual of Passover Day, had already taken place?"
8.     The Greek has it: Κατὰ δὲ ἑορτὴν ἀπέλυεν αὐτοῖς ἕνα δέσμιον ὃν παρῃτοῦντο. “Moreover, at the feast, he used to release (ἀπέλυεν) to them whom they requested. The word ἀπέλυεν being the third person singular imperfect indicative active of ἀπολύω, “loose from, undo, set free, release, relieve, send away, let go, [etc.]” So clearly it was Pilate's custom.
9.   Josephus; Antiquities 18.3.1-3 [55 - 64], also Samaritans 18.4.1-2 [85 - 89]; Jewish War 2.9.2-4 [169 - 177]. Cf. Philo, Embassy to Gaius 38.299-305, particularly lines 302 and 303 (emphasis mine):
 (302) "But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (303) Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points. And those who were in power in our nation, seeing this, and perceiving that he was inclined to change his mind as to what he had done, but that he was not willing to be thought to do so, wrote a most supplicatory letter."
10.  Preparation Day: Παρασκευή (noun, nominative feminine singular), “preparation, the day of  Preparation, before the Sabbath day of the Passover.”

11. The day before Sabbath: προσάββατον (noun, nominative neuter singular), “the eve of the Sabbath,” i.e., Erev Shabbos.

12. The phrase, “an high day”: μεγάληἡμέρα (adjective / article / noun feminine singular), “great / the / day” or in a more sensible arrangement, “the great day,” i.e., Passover.

 13. Et ipse Iesus erat incipiens quasi annorum triginta, “And Jesus himself was beginning [to be] about thirty years [of age].”

 14. Καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν Ἰησοῦς ἀρχόμενος ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, “And Jesus himself was beginning [to be] about thirty years [old].”

 15. Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, quoted at Biblehub.com, Luke 3:23. Link: http://biblehub.com/luke/3-23.htm.

 16. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Co., Inc (1977), pp 256, 547

17. Ibid., p. 166 NOTE Matt. 2:1 in the days of Herod the King: “In 750 A.U.C. (4 B.C.) there was an eclipse [of the moon] on the night of march 12 / 13th, one month before Passover.… the best evidence favors March / April 4 B.C. as the time of Herod’s death.”

 18. Josephus, Antiquities 18.1.1 [1]-[10], 18.1.6 [23].

 19. Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.2 [115]-[119].

 20. Josephus, Antiquities 15.11.1 [380], Jewish War 1.21.1 [401].

21. Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, New York, Anchor Bible Reference Library, Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1994, p. 1374.
22. GJohn 2:13, 2:23 (first Passover); 6:4 (second Passover); 11:55, 12:1, 13:1, 18:28, 18:39 (third Passover).

23. Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, p. 1375.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid., p. 1376.

28. See NASA webpage at http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/spring-phenom.

29. Astronomical dates found by another researcher confirming gJohn’s Day before Passover / Day before the Sabbath crucifixion are: Firday, 22 March, 26 CE; Friday, 7 April, 30 CE; and Friday 3 April 33 CE. He also found the Synoptics’ Day of Passover / Day before the Sabbath crucifixion to be: Friday, 11 April, 27 CE; and Friday 23 April, 34 CE.  See the PDF at this link: http://www.biblicaltheology.com/Research/RamsundarP01.pdf.