here is no contemporary historical evidence demonstrating the date of
Jesus' birth. The common
Gregorian calendar method for numbering years, in which the current year is 2010, is based on an
early medieval attempt to count the years from a point of reference - namely, Jesus' birth - which
Dionysius Exiguus placed, either mistakenly or intentionally, sometime between 2 BC/BCE and 1 AD/CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus#cite_note-43 The
Gospel of Matthew states Jesus' birth occurred during the reign of
Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC/BCE,
but also with the intimation that Jesus may have been as much as two years old when Herod ordered the
Massacre of the Innocents, and therefore that he may have been even older at the time of Herod's death. The
Gospel of Luke similarly points to Jesus' birth as having occurred during the reign of Herod the Great (
i.e., sometime between 37 and 4 BC/BCE), but the author of Luke also describes the birth as taking place during the
first census of the Roman provinces of
Syria and
Iudaea, which is generally believed to have occurred in 6 AD/CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus#cite_note-45 Most scholars generally assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC/BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus#cite_note-46 Other scholars assume that Jesus was born sometime between 7-2
BC/
BCE and died sometime between 26-36
AD/
CE.
Happy Christmas to you all!