This register is the control side of the work: it sets every load-bearing constraint — every primary datum that limits the variable space — beside its source and its status. It is ordered by axis, in the order of the chapters. The status is a single mark, which says how the datum was inspected: SEEN, PRIMARY / SEEN FIRSTHAND (firsthand, as page image, own count or calculation) · DOCUMENTED (transmission — translation, summary, OCR) · CALCULATED (derived arithmetically or by automation) · CONSTRUED (a reading, not a measurement) · NOT SEEN (not inspected, and therefore without weight). Where a constraint carries two sides, the second is given in parentheses. It is a curated selection of the load-bearing constraints; the machine-readable base register in the deposit (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22944959) contains the full, numbered collection.
Axis 1 · Herod's year of death and the counting rule (chapters 2–3)
The four degrees of freedom (investiture year, capture year, counting rule, year-beginning) and the constraints that fix the year 4/3 BC.
Constraint
Source
Status
Lunar eclipse shortly before the death; only 5, 4 and 1 BC umbral and visible
AJ 17.167; Espenak eclipse canon
CALCULATED
34 regnal years since the capture, 37 since the investiture — plainly 4/3 BC
BJ 1.665; AJ 17.191 (Niese)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Investiture under the consuls of 40 BC
AJ 14.389
SEEN, PRIMARY
Capture under the consuls of 37, the 185th Olympiad, "27 years after Pompey, on the same day"
AJ 14.487
SEEN, PRIMARY
SVM itself names the way out "27 instead of 26"
Schürer–Vermes–Millar I, 286 n. 11
SEEN, PRIMARY
Sabbatical year during the siege; bears toward neither side
AJ 14.475; North 1954, 85–86
SEEN, PRIMARY
Josephus's sabbatical-year notices "cannot be reduced to a consistent chronology [...] theorizing"
North 1954, 85–86, 88 (reprise of Biblica 34, 1953)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Coin gap years 1-3 of Antipas and Philip
RPC I; chance argument in the right unit
CALCULATED
Eight knob combinations computed: two reach 1 BC, one the spring of 4
automated, own ephemeris
CALCULATED
Chain profiles over 20 data: C 0 V/0 E, CA 1 V, SY 3 V/8 P
the ledger
SEEN FIRSTHAND
Inclusive counting rule retained for Herod, rejected for the Hasmoneans
via Cameron 2018, n. 18; SVM I 200–201 n. 1
DOCUMENTED (SVM itself NOT SEEN)
Cameron: AJ 18.106 fits 4/3 untouched; for 3/2 two interventions
Cameron 2018, n. 53; AJ 18.106
CONSTRUED (Greek NOT SEEN)
SY: three rejections (consuls 40, consuls 37, Olympiad)
Steinmann & Young 2020b, 445–447
SEEN, PRIMARY
Philip and "Ἡρώδης ὁ ἐκ Μαριάμμης", not Philip
BJ 1.573; AJ 17.53 (Niese)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Axis 2 · Matthew 2 — the birth–death interval (chapter 4)
Constraint
Source
Status
Birth before Herod's death ("until the death", ἕως τῆς τελευτῆς)
Matt 2:15 (SBLGNT)
SEEN, PRIMARY
"two years and under" — a limit set by the king, not an age
Matt 2:16 (SBLGNT)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Smallwood's measure: "at least a year [...] not necessarily two"; Egypt "need not have been lengthy"
Smallwood 1976, 570–571 (App. E)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Smallwood's own date of death ± February 4 BC, Passover as limit
Smallwood 1976, 104 n. 158
SEEN, PRIMARY
The τότε is Matthean style, not a temporal marker
Matt 2:16 (SBLGNT), count
CALCULATED
Egypt without duration; "the estimates are just guesses"
Davies & Allison I
DOCUMENTED
The Matthew floor is "months", not a full year
own weighing of Matt 2
CALCULATED
The star as a report: five properties (appears, out of view, the same on return, goes before, stands over); only a comet satisfies all five among celestial candidates, with "stands over" as an optical impression
Matt 2:1–10 (NA28); own elimination
INTERPRETED
No celestial object can stand still over one place; ἐστάθη ἐπάνω as direction or as an object near at hand
geometry, own computation
CALCULATED
All five elements of Matt 2:9 stand in the LXX around the guiding light of the exodus
Exod 13:21; 33:9; Num 9:15; Deut 1:33 (LXX)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Selective sight: 2 Kgs 6:17; Num 22:23; Acts 9:7, 22:9, 26:13; Herod must ask (Matt 2:7)
LXX; NA28
SEEN, PRIMARY · INTERPRETED
Chrysostom: "some invisible power transformed into this appearance"
Hom. in Matt. 6.3 (NPNF)
TRANSMISSION
Babylon: last dated observation 30 June 10 BC, then only almanacs; Greco-Roman: no comet between 12 BC and AD 9
ADART V no. 31; ADART VII; Ramsey 2006
SEEN, PRIMARY
The one contemporary reading of no. 63 is Chinese and dynastic (Xia Heliang 5 BC; Wang Mang)
Han Shu 26; Dubs 1955, 28–32
SEEN, PRIMARY
The interval depends on the part of the year and the season of death: 5 BC under winter 4/3 ample in every part (Nisan 19.5–23.8 months, autumn feasts 13.3–17.6), under spring 4 (± 3 April) only on 15 Nisan (11.4 months; autumn feasts 5.5, under Smallwood's February 4 BC 4.0); 4 BC 7.5–11.7 months on 15 Nisan against 1.7–6.3 at the autumn feasts
`db/veeg-seizoenen.py`, run; table §6.2
CALCULATED
Axis 3 · The legates of Syria, the coins and Luke 2:2 (chapter 5)
Constraint
Source
Status
Fasti of Syria: Saturninus, then Varus 7-c. 4 BC, then Piso; Quirinius only in AD 6/7
Dąbrowa 1998, 26, 135
SEEN, PRIMARY
Varus coin-anchored: "ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΕΠΙ ΟΥΑΡΟΥ", year 25 (7/6) and year 27 (5/4)
RPC I 4242, 4252 (RPC Online)
SEEN, PRIMARY
From year 28 (4/3) Augustus himself on the Antiochene bronzes, no legate
RPC I 4255 "ΚΑΙΣΑΡΙ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΩ ΑΡΧΙΕΡΕΙ" (RPC Online)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Gaius on the consilium at the will; consul in Syria 1 January AD 1
BJ 2.25; AJ 17.229; Dio 55.10a.4
SEEN, PRIMARY
ILS 918 (titulus Tiburtinus) headless; iterum "far from stabilized"
ILS 918; Sherwin-White 1963, 164 (page image)
SEEN, PRIMARY
ILS 2683 (Aemilius Secundus) carries no date — does not date Quirinius
ILS 2683; EDCS-08000281
SEEN FIRSTHAND
A genuine census record dates by imperial year/consuls, not by the governor
P.Yadin 16 (AD 127)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Luke 2:2: ordinal + genitive absolute = temporal; the article ἡ is secure
NA28 on Luke 2; Acts 5:37
SEEN, PRIMARY
"before Quirinius" fails: Luke says πρό where he means it
count of πρῶτος + genitive in Luke/LXX
CALCULATED
Axis 4 · The season — season of death and season of birth (chapter 6)
Constraint
Source
Status
No lunar eclipse visible from Judaea between Passover 4 BC and Passover 3 BC (5 Sept 4 BC daylight; 31 Jan 3 BC below horizon; 2 March 3 BC penumbral 0.12)
own computation, NASA-calibrated
CALCULATED
Day count AJ 17.167–213: window 22–57 days; 13 March → Passover 4 BC 30 days (inside), → Passover 3 BC 414 days (357 unnarrated)
AJ 17.191, 17.200, 17.213; BJ 1.665, 2.1; `db/aj17-rekening.py`
CALCULATED
Ages at baptism 15 Tishri AD 27: Sukkot 5 BC 31.0, Passover 5 BC 31.5, Sukkot 4 BC 30.0 (only under winter 4/3); exact ages; with a baptism after 20 October 27 (late autumn 27 or winter 27/28) at most 0.4 higher; in completed years no cell of the window changes, in year cells 6 BC drops out if a winter baptism counts as baptism 28
Parker & Dubberstein; Luke 3:23; §6.2, §9.3
CALCULATED
Antipas's year 43 = AD 39/40 puts year 1 at 4/3 BC; excludes 1 BC
RPC I 4934 "ΓΑΙΩ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΙ ΓΕΡΜΑΝΙΚΩ" (RPC Online)
SEEN, PRIMARY
Regnal years allow nothing before 1 Nisan 4 BC
BJ / AJ, double figure
SEEN, PRIMARY
Travel clock: only a death immediately before Passover excluded
Kushnir-Stein 1995, 76–79
SEEN, PRIMARY
Illness clock is a retribution topos and does not clock — withdrawn
Ladouceur; Africa 1982; Zeichmann
CONSTRUED (withdrawal)
Ptolemy sweep: Josephus distinguishes the Ptolemies, prices block 2 without breaking it
automated sweep over Niese (AJ 17 // BJ 2)
SEEN, PRIMARY
7 Kislev points to winter but does not choose the year
Megillat Taʿanit (scroll); scholion post-Talmudic
SEEN, PRIMARY (scholion DOCUMENTED)
Priestly courses do not choose: Sukkot 5 at +8.9 wk, Passover at +10.3
continuous-course model (`koersen.py`)
CALCULATED
Comet Ho no. 63 in the sky on 22 April 5 BC
Han Shu 天文志; Ho Peng Yoke
SEEN, PRIMARY (CALCULATED)
Eighth day: 15 Tishri → circumcision on Shemini Atzeret
Lev 23:36, 39; counting back
CALCULATED
No ancient source places the birth in Tishri
Clement, Chronograph of 354, Epiphanius
SEEN, PRIMARY
Axis 5 · Patristics as a witness class (chapter 7)
Constraint
Source
Status
No Father supplies a year in an independently readable era — all conversion
Finegan 1998, Tab. 139
SEEN, PRIMARY
The same figure 41 spreads 15 years across the five Augustus epochs
Finegan 1998, Tab. 128
CALCULATED
SY's "11 witnesses" = Finegan's nine; three rows point elsewhere
Finegan 1998, §500
SEEN, PRIMARY
Two of the 11 have Herod die after 1 BC (Origen AD 2/3; Epiphanius's 37th year)
Finegan 1998, Tab. 143–144; Epiphanius, Pan. 51.10 and 51.22
DOCUMENTED (underlying loci NOT SEEN)
Clement's interval "194 years, 1 month, 13 days" before Commodus
Clement, Strom. 1.21.144–146 (ANF)
DOCUMENTED (Greek NOT SEEN)
Most recomputable Eastern figure lands on 25 December 4 BC
Bar Hebraeus, AG 309
SEEN, PRIMARY
Axis 6 · The logigram — run A and run B (chapters 8–9)
Constraint
Source
Status
Run A (freestanding): C/CA/HV → 8-4 BC; SY → 5-1
`logigram.py`, output
CALCULATED
Run B-consistent (coupled): C/CA/HV → 6-4 BC
`logigram.py`, output
CALCULATED
Kill matrix: Matthew 2 "after the death" 264, Luke 3:23 364, "≥5 years before" 120
`logigram_output.json` (deposit)
CALCULATED
Tiberius floor: baptism not before AD 27 (inclusive); mainstream coverage
Steinmann 2011, 100; Smallwood 1976, 168 n. 82
SEEN, PRIMARY
Coin material matches inclusive reckoning — but measures the pagan framework, not the Jewish one
RPC I 4270, 4330; Philo
SEEN, PRIMARY
"about thirty" on ±2 (Plummer): early edge 6, not 7; 8 measurable ὡσεί passages, 7 at zero
Luke 3:23 (SBLGNT); Plummer, ICC
SEEN, PRIMARY (CALCULATED)
Run B uses the Luke 3:23 age band without an imported birth-year floor
`logigram.py`
CALCULATED
The open "not seen" entries are in the apparatus (appendix D); the full machine-readable base register is in the deposit, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22944959.
This register is the control side of the work: it sets every load-bearing constraint — every primary datum that limits the variable space — beside its source and its status. It is ordered by axis, in the order of the chapters. The status is a single mark, which says how the datum was inspected: SEEN, PRIMARY / SEEN FIRSTHAND (firsthand, as page image, own count or calculation) · DOCUMENTED (transmission — translation, summary, OCR) · CALCULATED (derived arithmetically or by automation) · CONSTRUED (a reading, not a measurement) · NOT SEEN (not inspected, and therefore without weight). Where a constraint carries two sides, the second is given in parentheses. It is a curated selection of the load-bearing constraints; the machine-readable base register in the deposit (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22944959) contains the full, numbered collection.
Axis 1 · Herod's year of death and the counting rule (chapters 2–3)
The four degrees of freedom (investiture year, capture year, counting rule, year-beginning) and the constraints that fix the year 4/3 BC.
Axis 2 · Matthew 2 — the birth–death interval (chapter 4)
Axis 3 · The legates of Syria, the coins and Luke 2:2 (chapter 5)
Axis 4 · The season — season of death and season of birth (chapter 6)
Axis 5 · Patristics as a witness class (chapter 7)
Axis 6 · The logigram — run A and run B (chapters 8–9)
The open "not seen" entries are in the apparatus (appendix D); the full machine-readable base register is in the deposit, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22944959.