Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary 

completion of a son's twelfth year. 

378

 The time of the Passover was considered to be the completion of 

Christ's 12th year, even though He was conceived in February (AdarII) and born in November (Kislev). How 

could the Jews have considered Jesus to be 12 years old at this time, when He was past 12 years old from 

conception and nowhere near 12 years old from birth? 

    This Passover (of 3 

B.C.

) was the 12th Passover of Jesus' life since birth (14 

B.C.

 was the first). I believe it 

was the custom among the Jews of that time to keep track of a person's age by the number of Passovers since 

birth. (The counting of the years since the completion of the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem was also 

according to the number of Passovers. See chapter 8 for details). 

    Keeping track of the number of Passovers since a child's birth would have been easy and well in keeping 

with the lives of the Jewish people. Jewish religious law required all adult Jewish males to attend the Passover 

(Deut 16:16). Many Jews traveled a significant distance for several days or longer to arrive in Jerusalem for the 

Passover. Such an event would be easy to mark in one's memory, as would also the number of Passovers since 

a child's birth. One would not need a calendar to keep track of this important yearly event. 

    Furthermore, this method of counting the years of a child's birth parallels the Jewish method of counting the 

years of a king's reign. Passover occurs in the Jewish month of Nisan, in the spring. It was certainly the 

custom of the Jews at that time to keep track of the years of a king's reign from the month of Nisan. So then, 

even if a king ascended to the throne in the fall, each year of the king's reign was counted from the beginning 

of the month of Nisan. Any portion of a year from the beginning of the king's reign to the first of Nisan was 

counted as the king's first year, so that a few months, or even a few days, were counted as if a whole year.

379

 If 

the Jewish people counted the years of a person's life as with the years of a king's reign, then each year the 

start of the month of Nisan would be counted as the completion of one year of age and the beginning of the 

next year of age. 

    The month of Passover occurs in the middle of the month of Nisan. Counting the years from the celebration 

of Passover, in the middle of Nisan, rather than from the start of Nisan, would be more convenient and more 

meaningful. The importance of the Passover in Jewish life and worship carried over into the counting of the 

years of a person's life; a person's age was counted by the number of Passovers since their birth. So, if the 

Jewish people at that time in history counted the years of a person's life by the number of Passovers, the first 

Passover of a person's life since birth would be counted as the completion of the first year, even though that 

year was a partial year.

380

 We see this same principle (of the part counted as the whole) applied to the count of 

the 3 days from the death to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That amount of time is not 3 full days (24 hours 

x 3), but rather one full day, Saturday, and two partial days, Friday and Sunday. 

    An example of this method of counting a person's age is found in Jack Finegan's  Handbook of Biblical 

Chronology, Revised Edition. He quotes from commentary by Rabbi Avadyah on the Mishna:  Like a man 

whose son is born on passover. He has fulfilled his first year of life on passover of the next year. 

381

 Finegan 

interprets this quote to mean that each year of a person's life is counted as the completion of 12 full months of 

the Jewish calendar (or 13 in a leap year) since the day of their birth. However, I suggest that the choice of the 

Passover to illustrate the counting of a person's age was not arbitrary. Thus, a man whose son is born on any 

day of the year would count his son's first year as being completed on the very next Passover. In this way, the 

number of Passovers since birth would be the count of a person's age. 

    Now we see why Sacred Scripture omits the word  about  when telling us Christ's age at this particular 

Passover, but uses the word  about  in telling us Christ's age when His Ministry began (Lk 2:42; 3:23). The 

start of Christ's Ministry was in the fall, but the Passover is in the spring. Christ's age is called  about thirty 

years,  not exactly thirty years, because His Ministry did not begin at the time of the Passover in the spring. 

But the passage from the Gospel of Luke telling us that Christ was 12 years old (without using the word 

 about ) refers to his trip to Jerusalem for the Passover; the exact time of year when the Jews counted the 

completion of one year of age and the start of the next. Christ's age at the 12th Passover since His Birth was 

counted by the Jews as the completion of His 12th year exactly (with the first partial year, from Birth to 

Passover, counted as year one). 

96