Luke 3:5

Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill made low. The crooked ways shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth.

Scripture: Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain

WHEN

AD 28-29

dated by the text itself

The only place in the New Testament where the text dates itself by seven authorities at once. It is not our reconstruction: it is in the verse.

WHO RULED

SOURCES

date — Luke 3:1-2 dates itself by the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar and names Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiaphas.
Tiberius — Tacitus, Annals I-VI; Suetonius, Tiberius
Lysanias — Luke 3:1. The Lysanias known to Josephus (Antiquities XIV.13) was executed in 36 BC, and the identity of the tetrarch of Abilene is debated; inscriptions from Abila point to a second Lysanias.
Pontius Pilate — Josephus, Antiquities XVIII.3-4; Tacitus, Annals XV.44; the Caesarea inscription, which carries his name and office in stone
Herod Antipas — Josephus, Antiquities XVII.8-XVIII.7
Philip — Josephus, Antiquities XVII.8, XVIII.4
Caiaphas — Josephus, Antiquities XVIII.2.2 and XVIII.4.3; the ossuary of "Joseph, son of Caiaphas," found in Jerusalem in 1990

SEE ALSO