Well, I'm still curious about it. I wasn't able to find Nyperold's revealing response to my "Marking Y2k time: ok, when was he born, anyway?" question, so I'm doing parts of this post from cut-n-paste and memory.


On November 30, 1999 at 20:46:02, Wolfspirit wrote:
> ...it seems agreed that Christ was actually born in "B.C." times, a little bit before the Year 1 by which we traditionally mark his birth. But where do those 4 B.C. and 5-6 B.C. estimates come from? I've been hearing the 5-6 B.C. date more and more often. Is there new research to support that finding?
>
> Wolf "archeology or astrometrics?" spirit


Sometime on November 30, 1999, Brunnen-G wrote:
> >
> > I've heard that 5-6 B.C. thing too. Is that worked out from Biblical references or what? I don't really care all *that* much, but I hate not knowing stuff. I heard something about how it was based on the possibility that the star seen in the east to mark his birth was some particular supernova or comet or something.

and Nyperold said something like:
>
> Don't know about the year, but I'd guess a September-October time frame.
>
> Nyper"Both? neither? I don't know"old


Hi again. It's taken me until now for that comment by Nyp to sink in. Are you saying that Jesus was born during one of the major Fall celebrations in ancient times, and that's why there was "no room in the inn" for Mary and Joseph -- because out-of-town people were journeying to celebrate the *fall festival* rather than rushing off to comply with some Roman census?

And the census by Caesar Augustus, the first of its kind in the world, has been dated to 5-6 B.C. I still want some hard references (academic journal article or whatever) so I know where that information came from.

Wolfspirit