Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary 
    None of the penumbral lunar eclipses (those with two dashes in the last columns), listed above, could have 
been the lunar eclipse prior to the death of Herod. Penumbral eclipses are not noticeable to the casual observer 
and may be difficult or impossible to discern with the naked eye, even for a knowledgeable observer. This is 
particularly true for penumbral eclipses with small magnitudes. In penumbral eclipses with smaller 
magnitudes, only the lighter portion of the penumbra covers a portion of the moon's surface. Furthermore, the 
penumbral eclipses above that are of greater magnitude (> 0.4) did not occur between the Day of Atonement 
(Tishri 10, in the autumn) and the Passover (Nisan 14, in the spring), as required by Josephus' description (see 
chapter 12). 
    Several  of the remaining eclipses, those that are umbral rather than penumbral, can also be ruled out 
because they did not occur between the months of Tishri and Nisan:   0008 Jun 03,  0007 May 24,  0003 Sep 
05,  0001 Jul 17, 0000 Jul 05, and 0001 Jun 24. In addition, the eclipse of   0005 Apr 04 (6 
B.C.
) is ruled out 
because it occurred during the Passover that year. According to Josephus, a number of time consuming events 
occurred between the lunar eclipse and the death of Herod and the subsequent Passover (see chapter 12). Thus 
the eclipse could not have occurred during the Passover. 
    Interestingly, we can also rule out any eclipse which occurred immediately after the Day of Atonement at 
the start of the Feast of Tabernacles. Every able bodied adult Jewish man was required by the Jewish Law to 
attend the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut 16:16). With so many devout Jews staying in and around Jerusalem for 
the feast, Herod would not have chosen such a time to put to death 40 students of the Temple and two of their 
teachers.
1236
 Furthermore, Josephus, a Jewish priest, would most likely have made mention, if the deaths of 
these Jewish martyrs occurred at the start of the holy Feast of Tabernacles. He mentions the Day of 
Atonement (Tishri 10) in association with the high priest, the one whom Herod later deposed, but he does not 
associate the deaths of the Jewish martyrs (at the time of the eclipse) with the Feast of Tabernacles. On this 
basis, the following eclipses are ruled out:   0005 Sep 27 and   0004 Sep 15. In addition, the Sept. 27 eclipse in 
6 
B.C.
 ( 0005) occurred during the daylight hours in Jerusalem (UT + 2 hours), and so was not visible. 
    Note also that the Sept. 15, 5 
B.C.
 eclipse ( 0004) would have preceded the month of Tishri if spring of 5 
B.C.
contained the leap month of AdarII. In 5 
B.C.
, the decision as to whether or not to add a leap month before the 
month of Nisan could have gone either way (because the Passover would begin close to the Spring Equinox). 
With the leap month of AdarII added, the eclipse would be ruled out because it would have occurred before 
Tishri. Without the leap month added, the eclipse would have occurred during Tishri, at the start of the Feast 
of Tabernacles. In either case, the eclipse is ruled out as the eclipse at the time of Herod's death. 
    As explained in detail in chapter 12 of this book, one lunar month is not a sufficient length of time to 
contain all of the events Josephus describes from the eclipse to the death of Herod to the subsequent Passover. 
On this basis, the eclipses of   0004 Mar 23 and   0003 Mar 13 are ruled out. Note that the March 13, 4 
B.C.
 ( 
0003) eclipse is often cited as the eclipse before the proposed date for the death of Herod in 4 
B.C.
    The March 13, 4 
B.C.
  ( 0003) eclipse has two additional problems. First, it began very late at night. The 
umbral shadow could first be seen on the moon at about 01:42 hours on Mar. 14, Jerusalem Standard Time 
(JST):  the time of greatest eclipse (00:52) minus S.D. partial (70 min.) and adjusted for Jerusalem Standard 
Time (by adding two hours). Second, this eclipse at its time of greatest magnitude (02:52  JST) covered only 37 
percent of the moon's visible disk. An eclipse such as this one, occurring very late at night and affecting 
considerably less than that 37% of the moon for most of the time of the eclipse (the 37% was at the time of 
greatest magnitude) would not have been likely to have been noticed by many persons, remembered in 
association with the events of the previous day, and recorded in the history of Josephus. 
    An ideal candidate for the eclipse before Herod's death would be a total eclipse of the moon beginning in 
the early evening when many persons are still awake and outside. Such an eclipse would have at least 3, and 
preferably 4 or more, months between the eclipse and the Passover, in order to allow for all of the events 
described by Josephus. 
    There are six remaining lunar eclipses, in the period 10 
B.C.
 to 1 
A.D.
, to be considered. The  0009 Dec 10 
eclipse (10 
B.C.
) was an early morning eclipse. The time of greatest eclipse was 04:58 hours U.T., that is, 06:58 
hours Jerusalem time. The eclipse would have first been visible about 82 minutes earlier (05:36 hours), when 
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