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Do we know what date (mainly what year) Jesus was crucified? I’ve seen in-depth teachings about matching up two Sabbaths in a row (the seventh day in Passover and the seventh day of the week because supposedly Sabbath is plural in Matthew 28:1) giving us 29 AD. I’ve heard that Daniel’s 70 weeks gives us 32 AD. I’ve also heard that Luke 3:1 gives us 33 AD. Who is correct?
If Sabbath is plural in Matthew 28:1 it’s because there were two Sabbaths in a row following the Lord’s death, preventing the women from preparing His body for burial. The first was the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began at sundown on Thursday. It’s the special Sabbath referred to in John 19:31. The second was the regular weekly Sabbath that began the next day, at sundown on Friday. It was against the law to do any work on either day, so it wasn’t until Sunday morning that the women could visit the grave. When they got there Jesus was gone.
At that time in history the day before Unleavened Bread, which is Passover, had become known as Preparation Day because it was the last day any work could be done before the feast. All four Gospels agree that the Lord was crucified on Preparation day. It was a Thursday and the Jews had to have the Lord and the two criminals crucified with Him off their crosses before Sundown when the Special Unleavened Bread Sabbath began. This fact, by the way, solves the three-day three-night mystery surrounding His prophecy of Matt. 12:40.
In the process of unlocking the secrets of Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy, Sir Robert Anderson of Scotland Yard and the London Royal Observatory teamed up to arrive at April of 32AD as the date of the Lord’s death by tracking phases of the moon back through history. (The Jews follow a lunar calendar.)
In Luke 3:1 the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar is mentioned. Although Tiberius had authority over the Roman provinces beginning in 11AD, he reigned as Caesar from 14 to 37 so his fifteenth year would have been 29. If John baptized Jesus in 29, the crucifixion would have taken place in 32AD given the Lord’s 3-year ministry. Luke and Sir Robert Anderson agree.