Timeline of the Bible · The Life of Christ
The Wise Men
Event · About 2 BC
The Years
- The Year 2 BC
- After the birth in 3 BC, before Herod died in 1 BC. Ussher: 4 BC
- “coming to Herod to Jerusalem, and there being taught that the Birth-place of Christ was Bethlehem of Judea”
In 2 BC, after the birth and before Herod died early in 1 BC: Herod slew the children “from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16). Ussher, with the birth in 5 BC, brings them in 4 BC.
Where the year isn’t Ussher’s, the text sets it, and the note says how. Ussher’s years and sentences are from his Annals of the World (1658), quoted as printed.
