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SHID - Can you help me to figure out what exact month day was the date of Jesus Christ crucifixion, because in 3 nephi 8:5 it sounds like it said January 4.
JOEL - 3 Nephi 8: 5 says:
"And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land." (3 Nephi 8:5.)
At the time this happened the Nephites were using their own calendar and reckonning their time based on the birth of Jesus Christ. Earlier in 3 Nephi we read:
"Now the Nephites began to reckon their time from this period when the sign was given, or from the coming of Christ; therefore, nine years had passed away." (3 Nephi 2: 8)
The Savior's ministry started when He was 30 years old (Luke 3: 23) and lasted about three years (3 Nephi 8:2). The New Testament account of the crucifixion of Christ, near Passover(Matt 26: 2), would seem to indicate that the Savior was crucified the very week he became thirty-three years of age(assuming, as most Bible scholars do, He was born close to Passover). The Book of Mormon not only substantiates this account, but also provides us with an exact date of the crucifixion, according to the Nephite calendar system. The Savior was crucified "in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month" (3 Nephi 8:5.), which gives us his age at the time of crucifixion as 33 years and 4 days. Although we are not certain when the first month of the Nephite calendar would occur, if the Nephites were using the same calendar system as the Hebrews, the first month would be in the spring of the year sometime between about the middle of March and the middle of April; possibly during the first week of April. Coincidentally the Savior, Moses, Elias, and Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple and restored the priesthood keys and authority on April 3 1836 and is also close to the possible birth date of Jesus.
We really can't get more exact than that because we don't know for sure what the Nephite calendar looked like in relationship to ours. There are some who have attempted to calculate the exact date according to our calender. Some have claimed April 7, others near April 3 to be possible crucifixion dates, which corresponds to 14 or 15 Nissan on the Jewish calendar. A good (but very complex) article on proposed dates is found at the following websites:
The Restoration of Priesthood Keys on Easter 1836, Part 1
The Restoration of Priesthood Keys on Easter 1836, Part 2
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