A
new book by Pope Benedict VI has cast doubts on the date of the birth of Jesus
Christ.
The book, ‘Jesus of Nazareth: The
Infancy Narratives,’ says Jesus was born several years earlier than has been
acknowledged.
The book is the third and last
volume of his biography of Jesus Christ, a touching and highly personal work
written under the pope’s own name of Joseph Ratzinger.
The book is signed “Joseph Ratzinger
Benedict XVI,”, meaning that it is an academic work rather than papal dogma
that cannot be contradicted, Agence France Presse reports.
He said the current Christian calendar
is based on a miscalculation made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius
Exiguus (known as Dennis the Small in English).
He also says that there were
no donkeys or oxen at the manger where Jesus was born and that Jesus
was born in Nazareth rather than Bethlehem.
The 85-year-old Papal pontiff’s book
went on sale worldwide on Wednesday, with an initial print run of one million
copies and in nine languages, reports Daily Telegraph.
“The calculation of the beginning of
our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who
made a mistake in his calculations by several years.
“The actual date of Jesus’ birth was
several years before. Dennis the Small, who was born in Eastern Europe, is
credited with being the ‘inventor’ of the modern calendar and the concept of
the Anno Domini era.
“He drew up the new system in part to
distance it from the calendar in use at the time, which was based on the years
since the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian.
“The emperor had persecuted
Christians, so there was good reason to expunge him from the new dating system
in favour of one inspired by the birth of Christ.
“The monk’s calendar became widely
accepted in Europe after it was adopted by the Venerable Bede, the
historian-monk, to date the events that he recounted in his Ecclesiastical
History of the English People, which he completed in AD 731,” said excerpts
from the book.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of
the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the volume focuses on 180 verses from
the Bibles of Matthew and John.
The book is “a gateway into a palace
where we can already hear voices coming from chambers inside, particularly the
question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus at his trial 33 years later: ‘Who are
you?’” Ravasi said.
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