I’ve been asked to ask the SD by someone who wants to know.
I know this isn’t a simple question to answer but was wondering if someone can refer me to a previous thread.
The actual Last Supper or the Da Vinci painting of the event?
Painting - 1490’s
Event - probably sometimes between 25 and 35 A.D (jesus was 33 according to the NT but we don’t know the exact year he was born)
Further to the event date, I’ve seen 29 AD quoted several times, on the theory that Jesus was likely born in 4 B.C. (And yes, that little discrepancy has been discussed! :))
However, nobody knows the specific date – there’s inadequate evidence to nail it down to a particular year in the proper range.
There are several inconsistencies in the New Testament that have to be reconciled in estimating a date.
Matthew indicates that Jesus was born during in the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC.
Luke says he was born during the Census of Quirinus, which took place about 6 AD.
Luke says his ministry began at the age of 30, following that of John the Baptist, which began about 28 or 29 AD. According to different gospels, his ministry lasted either one year or three years.
Jesus was executed during the rule of Pontius Pilate, which ended in 36 AD.
So depending on which sources you believe, the Last Supper could have taken place anywhere from 29 to 36 AD.
1995, but you could have looked that up yourself.
Is there any evidence for the dates of John’s ministry which does not in turn rely on dates for that of Jesus? It seems to me that knowing that Jesus followed John wouldn’t give any new information about Jesus, just about John.
Yes. Luke says the ministry of John the Baptist started in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,” which would place it around 28 or 29 AD. If this is true, then since Jesus followed John the earliest his ministry could have started was 28 AD. If it lasted one year, the Last Supper would be in 29 AD.
Of course, that is incompatible with Jesus being born under the rule of Herod the Great, and starting his ministry at the age of 30, which would mean he would have started about 26 AD.
Well, you’ve all been helpful, thanks for the answers.
Also, according to Josephus, John the Baptist was killed by Herod in 36 AD, after he criticized Herod for marrying his niece/sister in law, Herodius, and just before Aretus IV of Nabatea invaded. So Jesus had to have been executed after that, because the gospels talk about John’s death and Jesus’s reaction.
That brings us to two other individuals who were involved in Jesus’s death…Pontius Pilate and the High Priest Joseph ben Caiaphas. Caiaphas was high priest until 37 AD, and Pilate was procreator until 36 AD. So, because we know that Jesus survived John the Baptist and was executed by Pilate, he must have been executed in 36 AD.
Just to clarify, this was Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. (There were about half a dozen other Herods running around at the time.)
I think you meant “procurator”, there. But it’s a funny typo.
I did, and it is.
Although, that being said, Pilate did a good job of fucking up Judea.