King Herod?

Because the bible is fiction.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are stories of the same events but they all differ in the 'facts' the state.
All four books were written 50 to 70 years after they say Jesus died. They is no contemporary evidence that a bible Jesus even existed.

Both Luke and Matthew mention Jesus’ birth as occurring during Herod’s reign (Luke 1:5; Matthew 2:1). Josephus relates Herod’s death to a lunar eclipse. This is generally regarded as a reference to a lunar eclipse in 4 B.C. Therefore it is often said that Jesus was born in 4 B.C.

The 3 Herod successors seem to have started their reigns in 4 B.C. -- implying that Herod died that year.

Augustus respected the terms of Herod's will, which stipulated the division of Herod's kingdom among three of his sons.[89]

Augustus recognized Herod's son Herod Archelaus as ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea to 6 CE, referred to as the tetrarchy of Judea.

Augustus then judged Archelaus incompetent to rule, removed him from power, and combined the provinces of Samaria, Judea proper, and Idumea into Iudaea province.[90]

As to Herod's other sons, Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea from Herod's death to 39 CE when he was deposed and exiled; Philip became tetrarch of territories north and east of the Jordan and ruled until his death in 34 CE.

Did Herod really exist?

That Gregoriancalendar dating system was found to be wrong after it had been adopted in 1582. The original calculations were out by several years, but it was too late in the day to change it all again, which would have required setting all the dates forward by about 6 years. Because the exact year of Jesus' birth simply is not know (other than it was before Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. and fitted in with a little known census in 7 B.C.,) no exact start time for the Christian Era can be given.

Herod the Great absolutely WAS king of Judea when Jesus was born!

You seemed surprised.  Read the entire bible.  You will find well over 900 errors, contradictions and outright lies.  You can find several starting in Genesis.  Keep reading......

There was more than one king with that name.

It is not clear when Jesus was born. The current consensus seems to be that it was somewhere between 7BC and 4BC, and that the original calculation of his birth by Dionysius Exiguus was mistaken. There are some scholars who maintain that he was correct, and that the death of Herod took place in 1BC

Because the Bible is a poorly written fanfic level novel.

That was  Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great. As for the Jesus character, there is no such thing as evidence that such a persons ever lived.

That was Herod the Great, it was Herod Antipas, son of Herod 1, who ruled throughout Jesus Christ's ministry.

This was Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch.  He ruled from Galilee and Perea from  4 B.C. - 39 AD and if you remember he was the one who succeeded Herod the Great and imprisoned John the Baptist and he was the one who had John the Baptist's head cut off after Jesus had been baptized by John and was still engaged in His own ministry of healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons and preaching the kingdom of God

The monk who worked out the birth of Jesus made an error in his calculations.   So, Jesus was born around 5BC by our calendar.   No conflict 

That is an easy one. 99.9% of Christian scholars agree that the person in the Middle Ages who renumbered the calendar setting the year "1 AD" got the date wrong.

In the gospel of Luke, it says that Jesus was born when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.  That date was know so the person used it as "year 1".  What he did not know was the Cyrenius had actually been governor twice.  He was a co-regent between 6 and 4 BC.  The person did not know this and so got the date wrong.

The Bible is correct in what it states.  This scholar in the Middle Ages was wrong about the date where he divided history.  by the time they figured it out, the date had been in use so long that they never corrected it.

Actually the date of 1 AD when Jesus was born was incorrectly calculated by monk Dionysius Exiguus.

In reality Jesus Christ was born during king Herod's reign - somewhere between -7 and -4 BC, before king Herod's death.

'Herod' was not the kings name, it was his TITLE.
There were many Herods and you're a lazy historian.

What difference does the exact time of his birth make anyway?
Stop making excuses. 

It's worse than that --- the only year discussed in the New Testament is in Luke 3.  The problem is that there is no actual date when all those rulers were ruling simultaneously.  Those dates are known from history and archeology.  Christian apologists have tried to falsify the dates to produce a definite time, but that's just Lying for Jesus.

That passage in Luke 3 seems like the vague sort of time that many pre-historical oral traditions cite: "long ago...before even your grandfather was born...so-and-so was king..."

Do you even know there was 6 king Herods???

I am an atheist and I would admit this is not a good argument.  There was more than one Herod.  I believe it was Herod the greats son that was the one being referred to here if I remember my studies correctly.

There were Three king Herods
Herod the Great
Herod The Tetrarch  Aka Antipas
and Herod known as Phillip

They covered the entire time period that Jesus was here

Also are you able to prove your statement that Herod died 4bc? or are you just taking someone else's word for it

You probably should know what the heck you are talking about before you uncork and make a complete asshat of yourself

Christians didn't bother with Jesus' birth date until after the time of Constantine, centuries later. Earlier Christians were interested in the Resurrection and the Judgement.  Historical chronology for ancient history is quite difficult, because they didn't use a single calendar or dating system. Moreover, most ancient records have fallen prey to entropy. Jesus' exact birth date will probably never be known, any more than Plato's.

Recognisable errors in calculating the years AD have been discovered and verified, instead of renumbering the years, the era definition changed from BC/AD (before Christ/ anno domini {year of our Lord}), to BCE/CE (ce meaning Common Era). 

All kings in the Herodian dynasty reigned under the name Herod.  

Herod The Great was succeeded as King of Judaea by Herod Antipas.  

There were two Herod during that time frame.  Herod the great and his son Herod Antipas

I and many other Christians don't claim to know when Jesus was born.  The most common date I hear is 4 BC.  There was a mistake in determining His birth date and it would be too much trouble to recalculate the calendar after all these centuries.  Our present calendar works.

There was a Herod Senior and a Herod Junior. 

No, I'm not King Herod.  

Ask questions that make sense.

There was a whole dynasty of Herods.  The one mentioned in the Gospels was described as Tetrarch of Galilee and would have been Herod Antipas who ruled from 4BC to 39AD.  Current scholarship suggests that Jesus was born in October of 4BC.  Our present calendar did not come into common use for around 900 years later.

The bible is what is called "Faction” A fictional story set in a factual time and place. Thus the time, place and real historical characters are all correct but the fictional characters and stories are not!

4 BC is only an estimate. But how could Jesus be born before he was born?


The issue lies within the Roman calendar. They kept changing the calendar to make it fit solar events, and their pagan observances. At one time, there were only ten months to the year. Julius Augustus Caesar added July and August to memorialize his name. One of their years had 444 days. There are at least five years' of errors in the Roman calendar. No one can say exactly what this year is, but its surely NOT 2021 

Some people argue that Herod actually died in 1 BC.

The year of Jesus’ birth is very difficult to establish and historians and scholars argue about it. It’s often believed that Jesus was actually born somewhere between 7 and 2 B.C. But, again, plenty of people still argue about it and give evidence for one position or another looking through secular history and the gospels with a fine-toothed comb. It’s hard to know these things being two thousand years removed and having just a few bits and pieces of information. 

In the U.K. we've had rather a lot of kings called George.  Maybe, back then there were multiple kings called Herod.

There were 5 generations of Herods mentioned in the Bible spanning from before Jesus was born into the Epistles of Paul. And you are claiming that a 12th century guestimate made on Jesus birth invalidates all historical facts?  I think your argument might be a little weak. 

The most basic research would have told you that Herod was the name of a family of political rulers.

The Gregorian calendar, where the 4 BC date is from is known to be inaccurate about where it placed the birth of Jesus and in reality, Jesus was born somewhere between & and 4 BC -- that is, if he actually existed.

Most people that claim Jesus was born in 0 BC do not understand or know that the Gregorian calendar (which is what most western countries use today)  is off by 4 to 7 years and just assume that it is correct.

There are those who believe that the monk that set the dates for the calendar miscalculated the year of Jesus' birth.

The HEROD dynasty:

1. Herod the Great (ruled 37-4 B.C.)

2. Herod Archelaus (ruled 4 B.C.-A.D. 6)

3. Herod Antipas (ruled 4 B.C.-A.D. 39)

4. Herod Philip the Tetrarch (ruled 4 B.C.-A.D. 34)

5. Herod Agrippa I (ruled A.D. 37-44 [41-44 in Judea])

6. Herod Agrippa II (ruled A.D. 50s until long after the end of the Jewish war; died around A.D. 93)

cause they have free speech to say what they want ....  presenting a proposition or allegation does not  cause the allegation or  claim  to be true ...
... it just identifies the audience they wish to  target ..... and  are  compliant .. to not investigate claims ....

YESTERDAY   my husband said he heard a man say  that  TEXAS  has power outrages.... because of WINDMILLS ...... and believes that ..... my thought was   lets INVESTIGATE    Texas has 13 %  from windmills   so WHY is the other  87 %  of   energy not working .....

additionally DENMARK gets 37 % of its power from  wind mills   ITS COLD THERE also IOWA gets  37% of its  energy from wind  turbines  Oklahoma  32 % from wind turbines  Kansas 20 % from turbines
IDAHO  gets  25 %  of its energy from Windmills  and its COLD there a lot ..
.. are people  willing to  investigate claim .... well its take time and effort   thank you for the question

Only Schurer seems to think Herod's reign was those dates, 
most theologians see the reign ending 1AD.

>> which is 4 years before Christians claim Jesus was born <<

Nonsense.

Oh?  Were you there?  Were you measuring things with a chronometer?  New Testament chronology is not set in stone.

It's worse than that.  It also says the Roman census was the reason Joseph took his family to Bethlehem.  The census was done in the year 6, ten years after Herod the Great died. 

Many Christians might loose sight of the goal and then focus on lesser important things never the less the main points of the new testament and of The Christ' teachings are love God with all your soul mind and heart, love your neighbor as yourself and love even your enemy . He even showed us a living example with his lifestyle. Whether we are Christians or not this kind of lifestyle still holds true!

I don't care how the worthless preacher man dropped dead.

The year 40 B.C. saw the Roman Senate nominating the Edomite or Idumean, Herod the Great, to be the king of Judea. It was first in 37 B.C. that he stormed and took possession of Jerusalem and became king de facto. It is from this year that Herod’s kingship should be dated and counted. It is then found to overlap the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem about October 1, in 2 B.C. This wicked King Herod was the one that tried to murder the babe Jesus to prevent his growing up and becoming king.—Matt. 2:1-19.

there was more than one Herod and  according to Math2;16 it seems Jesus was born 2BC But more important is the day He died Luke 22;19

Christians who have looked into our current dating system understand that Jesus was born a few years before what we call "year 1".

No calendar is perfect.
When the current "Gregorian calendar" replaced the "Julian calendar"  in the US the date jumped from September 2nd to the 14th 1752.

It was what we now call the year 525 before the counting of the years was recast to be from the time of Christ.  (and that under a slightly different calendar system).
In doing the calculations, they missed it by a few years.

This is really not an issue.

We know the dates are off.. Herod the Great is also in Revelation chapter twelve (sort of indirectly) but it’s missed because folks don’t know the chapter is an insert and total history of its own. [Tho vs.17 needs Mt.23:39.]

People get too tangled up in this and that line of reasoning. The Scriptures are clear and precise. Luke 3:1 tells us that Jesus was baptized (see verse 21) in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius. We know from history that was 27 A.D. Verse 23 also tells how old Jesus was when He was baptized -- 30 years old. So He had to actually have been born around 4 B.C. The Roman Catholic Church has tried for millennia to falsify evidence for the Bible, when there is real evidence out there. But one of those falsifications was the dating of Jesus birth at 1 A.D. (or zero, whichever technicality you want to get hung up on).

I will send you an article to read so you can get the full picture of Herod’s role in history and to understand why he is important to Bible readers, we need to look back several decades before Jesus’ birth.  Here is the link to the article:  “In the Days of Herod the King” https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/library/r1/lp-e/all-publications/watchtower/the-watchtower-2009/public-edition/december-1
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The Church intentionally obscured the historical dates to prevent 'numerology' (a form of idolatrous sorcery, i.e. 'number worship' ), surrounding the dates or numbers in the dates of Christ's actual birth date and other sacred Biblical events.

These dates are maintained by the Church if a person chooses to approach them with reverence, but most people cannot be bothered because it is easier to simply slander sacred things instead.

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6).

You should also be aware that 'Herod' is a royal line, not a specific king.