by Michael Rudolph
The New King James Version translates Luke 1:26-27 as follows:
"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary."1
The unmodified phrase "in the (ordinal numbered, eg. 1st, 2nd, etc.) month" appears numerous times in the Tanakh, and only once in the New Testament. Since in every one of its Hebrew occurrences it refers to a numbered month of the Biblical calendar, it is reasonable to suppose that its meaning in the Greek is the same -- that verse 26 in Luke 1 is saying that Gabriel visited Mary in the sixth month of the year.
While most commentaries are silent on the matter, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries expresses an opposing view. Seemingly because verse 24 states: "Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months...", Leon Morris interprets verse 26 to mean the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy -- not the sixth month of the year.2
Although it is plain from verse 36 that it was Elizabeth's sixth month of pregnancy, that is not the meaning of verse 26. If it were, verse 26 would have been rendered (in the Greek) in the same manner as verse 36 -- in the possessive case -- eg., "in her sixth month" or "in the sixth month of her".
Scripture states that Mary began her journey to visit Elizabeth "with haste" (Luke 1:39). The reason for the "haste" was that Elizabeth was "in her old age" and six months pregnant (verse 36), and Mary wanted to be with her when she gave birth and possibly a short time thereafter. This is clear because when Mary arrived, Elizabeth had not yet given birth, and Mary stayed with Elizabeth "about three months" (verse 56).
Mary was already pregnant when she arrived at Elizabeth's home (verses 40-44). This fact, combined with the haste of her departure to begin the journey, makes it almost certain that the Holy Spirit inseminated Mary at the time of, or immediately after, Gabriel's visit, in the sixth month of the year. Assuming a normal nine month gestation and a twelve month year, that would place Yeshua's3 birth in the third Biblical month -- Sivan on the Rabbinical calendar. Sivan is the month in which Shavuoth (Pentecost) occurs, in the Spring. In the less likely case that that particular year had a leap month, Yeshua's birth would have fallen in Iyyar, a month earlier -- still in the Spring.
EndNotes
1. Acronym for "Old Testament".
2. Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Revised edition, p. 80, (Leicester, England / Grand Rapids, Michigan: Intervarsity Press / William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988).
3. Hebrew for "Jesus".
© Michael Rudolph
May 10, 1997