The Birth of Jesus:
The Best Historical Evidence

Jefrey Breshears

“In the Fullness of Time”

In Galatians 4:4 the apostle Paul writes that “In the fullness of time” God sent forth his Son to redeem us so that we might become true [spiritual] children of God. In other words, Jesus appeared at the most propitious time in history — a truly significant but not particularly surprising declaration considering God’s great love for mankind.

According to calculations by Erik Kreps of the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, approximately 105 billion people have lived in the approximately 100,000 years that homo sapiens have existed. Of that number, only about 2% were born in the 98,000 years before Jesus Christ lived. Kreps remarks that “God’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect.”

Consider if Jesus had come a couple of thousand years earlier. Virtually no written records would exist because the art of writing was still in its infancy and limited to southern Mesopotamia. As it was, Jesus came at a time when Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire had united much of the civilized world into one unified culture. Furthermore, he came just before the exponential explosion of the world’s population. So even though as much as 98% of humanity’s time line had already passed, only about 2% of humanity had lived.’

So why did Christ come? Henri Nouwen writes that “God became human for us to make divine love tangible. That is what the incarnation is all about. ²

Early Calculations

By the late-lst century, Gnostics (particularly Docetists) were claiming that Jesus was not really human and had never experienced a human birth [ref. I John 4:1-3, 13-15]. However, in the first 150 years of Christian history there was relatively little apparent interest in when Jesus was born.³

In 525, Pope John I commissioned Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis the Short”) to calculate the date of Jesus’ birth. Dionysius was a Ukrainian monk and a respected scholar, mathematician and astronomer. Working from the old Diocletian calendar that measured time from the (mythical) founding of Rome, Dionysius created a new calendar based on the birth of Jesus. As he explained at the time, “We are unwilling to connect our cycle with the name of an impious persecutor (i.e., Diocletian), but have chosen rather to note the years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hence, the designation Anno Domini (A.D.) — “In the Year of our Lord.”

Inexplicably, although the entire Western world eventually adopted the A.D. system, historians and chronologers continued to date the years before Christ using the same dating systems of antiquity until the 18′^h century, when it finally became common practice to refer to these years as “B.C.” — Before Christ.”

Using the gospels of Matthew and Luke as guides, Dionysius calculated that Jesus was born in the 753rd year of the old Roman calendar. His calculations were probably off by a couple of years as the best evidence indicates that Jesus was probably born sometime between December of 3 BC and February of 2 B.C. According to the gospels, Jesus was born when Herod the Great was king of Judea, and Herod probably died in 1 B.C.

Several early Christian writers agree on the 3/2 B.C. date, including:

• Irenaeus (Against Heresies, c. 180);
• Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, c. 194);
• Tertullian (An Answer To the Jews, c. 198);
• Julius Africanus (Chronographies, c. 221);
• Hippolytus (Chronicon, 235);
• Origen (Homilies on Luke, c. 235);
• and Eusebius of Caesarea (Ecclesiastical History, c. 325, and Chronicle).

Additionally, Clement of Alexandria noted that Jesus was born on November 18, 3 B.C., a date preserved in the traditions of the Egyptian church. Hippolytus of Rome agreed.

Based on modern translations of Josephus’ Antiquities (c. 94 A.D.), Emi1 Schurer calculated Herod’s death to be 4 B.C. in History of the Jewish People In the Time ofJesus Christ (1898). This date went unchallenged (and is still generally accepted) until W. E. Filmer proposed a date of 1 B.C. in a 1966 article, “The Chronology of the Reign of Herod the Great,” in the Journal of Theological Studies. Other recent scholars also argue for the 1 B.C. date, including:

• Ernest L. Martin in The Birth of Christ Recalculated (1978), “The Nativity and Herod’s Death” in Jerry Vardaman and Edwin M. Yamauchi, eds., Chronos, Kairos, Christos.’ Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan (1989), and in The Star That Astonished the World (1996);
• Ormond Edwards in “Herodian Chronology,” Palestinian Exploration Quarterly (1982); Paul Keresztes in Imperial Rome and the Christians.’ From Herod the Great to About 200 A.D., 1989);
• and most notably, Jack Finegan in his Handbook ofBiblical Chronology (1998).

In 1995, David W. Beyer reported to the Society for Biblical Literature that the 4 B.C. date for Herod’s death was based on a translation error in the text of Josephus’ Antiquities in 1544 which all subsequent translations replicated. According to Beyer, all the pre-1544 Josephus manuscripts indicate that Herod died early in 1 B.C. ⁴

Christians first celebrated Christmas on December 25th in the year 336 A.D. during the reign of the emperor Constantine. The choice of the date has always been controversial since it seems to reflect a convergence of several pagan influences including the celebration of the Roman sun god Sol Invictus and the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Also, the winter solstice, which marked another celebration of the sun, was observed just a few days earlier. Since pagans were already celebrating deities with some parallels to the true God on December 25th, some believe that Constantine might have chosen the date so as to co-opt these pagan holidays.

Questions Surrounding the Birth of Jesus

From start to finish, the birth of Jesus is steeped in historical controversy. Luke states that Jesus was born “while Quirinius (Cyrenius) was governor of Syria.” Sulpicius Quirinius was actually governor twice: first, when he was on special assignment from Caesar Augustus during a census registration in 3-2 B.C., and later when he served as governor of Syria in A.D. 6 or 7. According to Roman records, a Roman legate named Quintilius Varus ruled over Judea from 6 to 4 B.C. Some scholars, believing that Herod died in 4 B.C., have assumed that Luke got the names “Quirinius” and “Quintilius” confused, and that Jesus was therefore born about 4-6 years “Before Christ.” But in fact, if Jesus was born in the winter of 3-2 B.C., the date would correlate perfectly with Quirinius’ first term as governor of Syria.

Luke also writes that Jesus was born at a time when Augustus ordered a universal census. This presents a historical problem because outside the Gospel of Luke, there is no record of such a census. We know that Augustus ordered empire-wide censuses in 28 B.C., 8 B.C., and 14 A.D., but these involved only Roman citizens. There were local censuses that included non- Romans, but the only one that occurred while Quirinius was governor of Syria took place in 6 A.D. Some scholars think the problem is in the translation, arguing that the passage should read: “This census was before the census taken when Quirinius was governor” — but most doubt this interpretation.” (Furthermore, why would Joseph and Mary leave their hometown of Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem if the census was several years later?) Also, Romans typically registered people in the city where they lived, worked, and earned money rather than where they were born. Interestingly, both Justin Martyr (c. 150 A.D.) and Tertullian (c. 190 A.D.) note that the taxation registration mentioned in Luke was kept “in the archives of Rome—” but if so, these records have not been found.

So how reliable is Luke as an historian? Many secular historians regard Luke’s Acts of the Apostles in particular as an extraordinarily reliable source, and Jack Finegan believes that “In view of Luke’s general accuracy in other chronological matters there seems no sufficient reason to question his accuracy in speaking of Quirinius in relation to an enrollment at the time of the birth of Jesus. ⁶ This is important to consider because if a historian proves to be generally reliable concerning so many points that can be verified and validated historically or archaeologically — including even relatively trivial details — then it is reasonable to assume that he is probably correct when making a claim for which there is no other corroborating source. In other words, the burden of proof is on the skeptic.

Parentage

Jesus’ father was Joseph (Yosef), a tekton — an artisan who worked either with wood or stone — from the Galilean village of Nazareth. Joseph was a skilled craftsman, not a peasant, and hence he was relatively “middle class.” Jesus’ mother, Mary (Miryam), might have been a young teenager and many years younger than her husband.

According to Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, Mary was a virgin and Jesus was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit. Contrary to how Mary has often been depicted, she was not a poor, naive, ignorant peasant girl. To the contrary, Mary’s canticle, The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), indicates that she had a keen awareness of her identity as the mother of the Messiah, along with a sophisticated understanding of divine providence and justice.

My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me — holy is his name.
His mercy extends to all those who revere him, from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel and been be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.

Ironically, Joseph and Mary were among the most important people in human history, yet we know less about them than anyone else of their significance. The same can be said of the early apostles, including Paul. Evidently, God knows the human tendency to idolize individuals and manufacture personality cults, so he left us little information on some of the most important people in Christian (and world) history.

Was Mary really a virgin? Skeptics contend that the virgin birth was a myth integrated into the story in order to prove that Jesus was the Messiah and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. According to Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord shall give you a sign; behold, [the] alman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” But in the original Hebrew, alman simply meant a young woman of child-bearing age, which in Jewish culture would imply that she was a virgin. The Greek Septuagint translation used the word parthenos, which is more nuanced to indicate a virgin. In his account, Matthew makes it clear that Mary was a virgin and the birth of Christ fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14.’ When the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published in the 1950s, it translated the passage, “a young woman shall conceive….” Hence, many conservatives criticized the RSV as a liberal translation. Skeptics contend that there is nothing unique about Jesus’ virgin birth story as it corresponds to other similar legends in ancient mythology. For example, Atia, the mother of Octavian Caesar, was supposedly impregnated by the god Apollo. Hence, according to the historian Suetonius, “Augustus was the Son of God and divine.” In Indian legend Buddha emerged from his mother’s womb walking, talking, and philosophizing. But in fact, the virgin birth of Jesus is absolutely unparalleled in ancient literature as the New Testament scholar Ben Witherington explains:

What we find in Matthew and Luke is not the story of… a [god] descending to earth and, in the guise of a man, mating with a human woman, but rather the story of a miraculous conception without the aid of any man, divine or otherwise. As such, this story is without precedent either in Jewish or pagan literature. [Ben Witherington III, “Birth Jesus,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, p. 70]

However, skeptics have offered up naturalistic alternative accounts of Jesus’ conception since the 2^nd century. In A.D. 178 the playwright Celsus wrote a satire on Matthew’s gospel in which he portrayed Jesus as the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier.⁸ More recently, Bishop John Spong’s Born ofa Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth ofJesus (1992) argues that Mary was “really” a teenaged girl who was raped and became pregnant with an illegitimate child, and was then taken under the protection of Joseph.

Was Jesus’ virgin birth a myth invented by the early church? As the biblical scholar Craig Blomberg observes, the gospel narratives of Jesus conception are brief and unadorned, and the rest of the New Testament adds little to the story:

If this were a case of later Christians theologizing in mythical garb, we would expect the doctrine to play a much more important role in the epistles and in the rest of the theology of the Evangelists themselves. [Quoted in Paul Copan, ed., Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? p. 107. See also Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels]

Consider that Jesus had already died a torturous, scandalous and humiliating death, so it is doubtful that Christians would have added to the implausibility of his life by inventing a preposterous story of a virgin birth. The early church was struggling for social respect and toleration, and a mythical virgin birth story would only have added to the scorn and derision.

But of course for anyone who believes the first verse in the Bible — Genesis 1:1 and the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) — a miraculous virgin birth should pose no problem whatsoever.

Born in Bethlehem

According to Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Some modern skeptics who reject the birth narratives in the gospels contend he was born in Nazareth, but no historical sources corroborate this theory. And as previously noted, in all probability Jesus was born sometime in the winter of 3-2 B.C.

Many scholars speculate that Jesus was probably not born in the wintertime. According to Luke 2:8, shepherds were in the fields “keeping watch over their flocks by night.” Normally, shepherds guarded their flocks only in the spring when the ewes were giving birth to new lambs. In colder winter months, shepherds usually kept sheep in corrals unguarded. However, winters in Israel are relatively mild, so it is certainly possible that shepherds would be out in the fields.

There is some reason to believe that Jesus might actually have been born on December 25th. Although it is possible that Constantine may have chosen the date so as to supercede pagan holidays such as Saturnalia and the worship of Sol Invictus and Mithra, he might also have been following a tradition that at least some Christians had observed for a couple of centuries or more.

Did Joseph and Mary arrive just in time for the birth of Jesus? Probably not, as Joseph would have taken ample time to find a suitable place for Mary to give birth. Luke 2:6 informs us that while they were in Bethlehem, “the days were completed for her to give birth.”

Was Jesus Born in a Cave, a Stable, or a House?

The biblical skeptic Marcus Borg has charged the Gospels contradict themselves because Matthew writes that Jesus was born “in a stable” while Luke implies that he was born in a house.⁹ However, Borg’s claim is based on a mistranslation in the King James Version of Luke 2:7 — “…[T]here was no room for them in the inn.” In fact, the only inns at that time were located on main roads and in cities, so it is unlikely that there would have been an inn in a small town like Bethlehem. The word “inn” (katalyma) is the same as that for a “guest room” in a private home such as mentioned in Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11. In fact, many peasant houses had two rooms: a main room that served as a family room, kitchen, dining room and sleeping quarter; and a guest room.

The New Testament scholar R. T. France notes that in 1“ century Palestine, animal sheds were often attached to houses, and a manger would not have been in a separate stable but “in the main living room of a peasant house, where animals were brought in at night” for warmth and safety.¹⁰ Kenneth Bailey adds that mangers were often “built into the floor of the raised terrace of the peasant home. ¹‘ Jesus might also have been born on the ground floor of a two- level house, in a room where animals were brought in to sleep at night, and it is possible that Mary and Joseph might have stayed in the ground-floor room with the animals because the guest room was full.

Regardless of their accommodations, after the birth of the baby Jesus his parents laid him in a manger — a feeding trough for animals. Since many animals were kept in stables inside caves at night, this has led to the common presumption that the birth took place inside a cave, or grotto.

Circumcision and Consecration

On the eighth day, Jesus was circumcised according to the mandate of the Mosaic Law (Lev. 12:1-3). Thirty-three days later, Joseph and Mary took the baby to Jerusalem to consecrate him to God and offer a sacrifice, also in accordance with the Law.¹² Given their modest economic situation, they offered a pair of doves or two young pigeons as a sin offering rather than a lamb. While in the temple court, they encountered the aged Simeon, a devout man who was “filled with the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he saw the Messiah, and he recognized the baby Jesus as the fulfillment of that promise. Simeon who took Jesus in his arms, blessed him, and praised God:

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

Joseph and Mary marveled at what Simeon said, but the blessing also included a warning: Simeon warned Mary that “a sword will pierce your soul” (ref. Luke 2:21-35). At that very moment, another person approached them and blessed their child. Anna, a prophetess, lived in the temple area where she constantly devoted herself to worship, prayer and fasting. She thanked God and testified to all those in the temple courtyard that the child was the Messiah (ref. Luke 2:36-38).

[At this point, according to Luke’s gospel, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth (ref. Luke 2:39). Inexplicably, Luke doesn’t mention the star of Bethlehem, the visit of the magi, the family’s flight to Egypt, or Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.]

The Magi

A few months — or perhaps a year or two — after Jesus’ birth he was visited by magi. The word “magi” is related to “magic,” or “wizard” or “sorcerer.” The identity of the magi is a matter of speculation, and there are at least three possibilities:

1. They were Zoroastrian priests or astrologers from Persia;
2. They were Babylonian astrologers; or
3. They were simply great (or “wise”) men — hence, the “we three kings”

In any event, the magi may have been familiar with the ancient Hebrew prophecies related to the birth of a Messiah,'” and the legend that there were three of them comes from later apocryphal sources and is derived from the fact that they presented the baby Jesus with three gifts which, knowingly or not, symbolized the unique nature and destiny of the child: gold, in worship of a king; frankincense, an incense in honor of a god; and myrrh, an ointment for Jesus’ burial and symbolic of his sacrificial death as the Savior of mankind.

[The first-known “nativity scene” was created by Francis of Assissi in 1223. Using real-life animals and actors, he reenacted the scene inside a stable.]

The Star of Bethlehem

According to Matthew 2:1-10, the magi “saw his star [rising] in the east” and interpreted it as an omen of momentous importance. Like most ancient people, the magi might have believed in astrology — the idea that the gods orchestrated the movements of the stars and planets and communicated important messages to humanity via these means. Interestingly, among the peoples of the Middle East, the only ones who avoided astrology were religious Jews. Therefore, neither Herod nor his advisors had apparently noticed the star, which is why the king had to ask the magi when the star first appeared. Although devout Jews rejected astrology as a matter of course, they might still have believe that God used the stars and planets (“wandering stars”) to signify important truths or events

Throughout history, there have been numerous attempts to explain the star of Bethlehem. Several theories contend that the star was an extraordinary alignment of stars and planets that indicated a great ruler had been born. Ancient astrologers interpreted Jupiter (Greek: Zeus) as event.

One theory holds that Jupiter appeared in Ares in April, 6 B.C. According to Matthew, the star (or planet?) of Bethlehem appeared “in the east” — i.e., it was about to emerge as a morning star. The closer the moon came to Jupiter, the more momentous was the event. So even though the star appeared in the east and magi were traveling west, they still could have followed this particular “wandering star” westward toward Palestine.¹⁴

Another theory holds that in 6 B.C. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars all came into the constellation of Pisces — an event that occurs every 805 years. According to this theory, astrologers would have interpreted the conjunction to mean that a cosmic ruler or king was to appear in the land of Israel at the culmination of history.¹⁵

In the years 3-2 B.C. there were spectacular planetary and stellar events. For example, on the morning of August 12, 3 B.C., Jupiter and Venus rose in conjunction in the eastern sky, in close relation to Regulus (the “King star”) and in the constellation of Leo, the tribal sign for Judah. Astrologers could have interpreted this as signifying the birth of a great Jewish king.¹⁶ Jupiter later came into close conjunction with Regulus three times (a triple conjunction) — on Sept 14, 3 B.C.; Feb 17, 2 B.C.; and May 8, 2 B.C. Then, five weeks later on June 17, 2 B.C., Jupiter once again came into conjunction with Venus, this time being so close that the two planets looked like a single star shining in the west in the direction of Jerusalem as seen from Babylonia or Persia. According to Matthew 2:9: “The star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.” Jack Finegan writes:

If the magi were students of these astronomical events it can be theorized that the appearance of this ‘star’ on June 17, 2 B.C, was the final heavenly sign that impelled the magi to begin the journey that brought them in the late summer or early fall of 2 B.C. to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. [Handbook of Biblical Chronology, p. 320]

Finally, Jupiter went retrograde (appearing to “stand still”) over Bethlehem in the constellation of Virgo (the Virgin) on December 25 — which was also the ancient date for celebrating the winter solstice. Therefore, it is conceivable that the magi arrived in Bethlehem and presented their gifts to the child on Christmas Day (December 25), 2 B.C.! But of course none of these theories answers the question of how the “star” guided them directly to the exact house in Bethlehem where Jesus and his parents lived.

However, one other theory is certainly plausible: the star might simply have been a unique supernatural phenomenon that cannot be explained naturally. Perhaps the most reasonable explanation is that the star was the Shekinah — the glory of God’s presence that appeared to Moses in the burning bush and led the Israelites through the wilderness — which shone in the form of a star over the place in which Immanuel (“God With Us”) entered the world to dwell among us.

Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents

Despite being one of the most prolific builders of monumental architecture in all of ancient history, King Herod the Great (r. 37 – 1 B.C.?) was in fact much hated and feared by the Jews over whom he ruled. In fact, Herod was only half-Jewish. He was actually an Idumean and the son of Antipater, but in an attempt to bolster his legitimacy and acceptance among the Jews he married Mariamne, an heiress of the Hasmonean dynasty.

In 37 B.C. the Roman senate voted Herod the title, “King of the Jews.” Then, to win favor with the Jews, he commissioned the construction (actually, the expansion and re-construction) of a new Temple complex in Jerusalem — a massive building project that employed thousands of workers. Construction began in 18 B.C. and was finally completed in 63 A.D. In addition, Herod commissioned the construction of the great port city of Caesarea Maritima, the majestic mountaintop fortress/palace at Masada, an incredibly elaborate burial complex for himself at Herodian, and numerous other building projects that were absolutely unrivaled in the ancient world.

Nonetheless, Herod was a megalomaniacal despot and a man of violence. Constantly paranoid and suspicious of plots, he ordered the execution of his wife, one of his brothers, and three of his sons. Paradoxically, he was an observant Jew who refrained from eating pork. (Caesar Augustus is said to have quipped on one occasion, “I’d rather be Herod’s pig than his son!”)

When the magi informed Herod that a future “King of the Jews” had been born, he ordered the “slaughter of the innocents” — the execution of all male babies under age two in the area around Bethlehem. Warned in a dream of Herod’s plot, Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt until after Herod’s death. So the question is: Why are there no corroborating historical references to this gruesome atrocity? Even the historian Josephus (c. 37-100), who chronicled many of Herod’s despicable acts, doesn’t even mention this particular atrocity. In actuality, the “slaughter of the innocents” might have been a relatively minor incident in Herod’s reign of terror. Consider that the population of Bethlehem was probably no more than about 1,000 at the time. If 4-5% were infants under two years old and half of the infants were girls, then Herod might have killed perhaps twenty or so baby boys. Therefore, the murders constituted a relatively minor atrocity — at least by Herodian standards — and could very well have escaped the attention of Josephus.

[A postscript: While conceding that Herod murdered three of his own sons along with a wife, a mother-in-law, a brother, and numerous members of his court, National Geographic declared in a 2008 article entitled “Herod: The Holy Land’s Visionary Builder” that “Herod is almost certainly innocent of this crime [the murder of the Bethlehem babies], of which there is no report apart from Matthew’s account.”¹’ This is, to say the least, just another blatant example of unwarranted biblical skepticism on the part of many mainstream secular historians. While requiring that any biblical references to historical events be corroborated by at least one additional non-biblical source, many historians are rarely hesitant to grant legitimacy to many historical events recorded by a single non-bib1ica1 source. Such is the state of much of modern historical “scholarship”.]

1 If homo sapiens have existed less than 100,000 years, the numbers are even more impressive. In their book, Who Was Adam? (2015), authors Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross of the Christian apologetics organization, Reasons to Believe, estimate that human beings were created by God sometime between 50,000-75,000 years ago. Humanity, like all other life forms, was the product of special creation rather than an evolutionary process that extends back millions of years.
2 Here and Now: Living In the Spirit (2006).
3 Some liberal scholars contend that the church made up the infancy narratives to counter the claims of the Docetists.
4 Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, pp. 298-301.
5 Source: Nigel Turner of the University of Edinburgh.
6 Handbook of Biblical Chronology, p. 305.
7 Ref. Matt. 1:22-23
8 Cited in Origen, Against Celsus, ch. 33.
9 Marcus Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus (1999), p. 180.
10 R. T. France, The Evidence for Jesus (1986), p. 159.
11 Kenneth E. Baily, “The Manger and the Inn: The Cultural Background of Luke 2:7,” Evangelical Review of Theology 4 (1980), pp. 2001-17.
12 Lev. 12:4; Ex. 13:2; Lev. 12:9-12.
13 In ancient times, astronomy and astrology were virtually inseparable.
14 Source: Michael Molnar, a former professor of astronomy at Rutgers University.
15 Source: Paul Maier, professor of history at Western Michigan University.
16 Source: John Mosely of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
17 Tom Mueller, “Herod: The Holy Land’s Visionary Builder.” National Geographic (Dec. 2008), p. 40.