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In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
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This is the Gospel reading to be read aloud by a priest on the second Sunday of Advent, Year C, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. It will follow either a reading from Baruch 5 or Malachi 3, which say respectively, “[the captives to Babylon] went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne;” and, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and Yahweh whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” One of those two will be followed by Canticle 16, which sings, “for you [John the Baptist] will go before the Lord to prepare his way, To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” Those will then be followed by a reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he wrote, “For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.”
The first verse of this reading selection sets important historical timing that not only states when John the Baptist was in ministry, but it also establishes when Jesus was born. This is because John was only six months older than Jesus. So, understanding how to read this is important towards reaching that end – determining when Jesus was born.
In divine language, punctuation sets a chronology that must be seen as pointing out separation in the order of events in time. This means one event, followed by a comma mark, separates the former in time from the latter. This also places great importance in translating each word of a segment where it is not matching one’s personal agenda, so it reveals the underlying truth. This means verse one of this reading breaks down as stating this:
In year now fifteenth of this prince’s of Tiberius of Caesar ,
of being governor of Pontius of Pilate of this of Judea ,
importantly of being tetrarch of this of Galilee of Herod ,
of Philip now of this of brother of same of being tetrarch of this of Ituraea importantly of
Trachonitis of homeland ,
importantly of Lysanias of this of Abilene of being tetrarch ,
In this series of five segments, five different names are stated. These segments are less about the five rulers (emperor, governor, and tetrarchs) all being named at the same time and more about the division of Herod the Great’s kingdom. This can be seen in the three uses of “kai” – a marker word alerting the reader to importance to follow – where Antipas is not named as such, instead being called “of Herod.” That is important to grasp as a timing element. This then leads one to understand the five named, which is:
Tiberius: “the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37.” [Wikipedia]
Pontius Pilate: “was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under
Emperor Tiberius from the year 26/27 to 36/37 AD.” [Wikipedia]
Herod Antipas: “After the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, Augustus confirmed the
testament of the dead king by making Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a region
he would rule for the next forty-two years.” [Wikipedia]
Philip: “ruled over the northeast part of his father's kingdom from 4 BCE until his death in
34 CE.” [Wikipedia]
Lysanias: This is a questionable reference, believed to be the son of Lysanias I.
“Therefore, the Lysanias in Luke (28–29) is a younger Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene
only.”
The mistake made by scholars in translating this verse as questionable historical evidence is they read the Greek as the NRSV translates [and other like them]. The whole is written in the genitive case, which is stating possession. This means every word needs the word “of” added to it. Each word is then its own statement of possession; but normal syntax (of Greek and English) accept the genitive word spellings to simply be something that is ignored in translation into English. Thus, the scholars believe the base fact stated (which scholars question as accurate) is: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius.” That is not written. The order of capitalized Greek words says “of Tiberius of Caesar,” where “Caesar” is read as meaning “of Emperor.” While the word does not expressly denote a human deity, as a demigod, the capitalization of the name here (along with that “of Tiberius”) must be read as “a ruler” who proclaimed himself to be “of godlike status,” over vast holdings of land and peoples.
The translation that I provided above, in the separation of verse one into five segments, says, “In year now fifteenth of this prince’s of Tiberius of Caesar .” In that, the genitive case first appears in the words “tēs hēgemonias,” which translate to “of this prince’s” or “of this of prince.” When that possessive case is applied to “In year now fifteenth,” the title stated as “of rule, of authority, of sovereignty; of a reign” [Strong’s], acceptable to be read as the noun “prince” [Wiktionary], makes it necessary to read that not as defining “the rule of Tiberius of Caesar,” but as defining John’s time in relationship to Jesus, the “prince” of peace. This takes understanding “year fifteenth” into a whole new light.
To grasp this, one must be aware that the Greek word “En” [“Ἐν”] is capitalized. While the word does begin a ‘sentence’ – the first segment of words in verse one – it is not capitalized for that syntactical reason. The capitalization of all New Testament Scripture [Hebrew has no capital letters] is for the purpose of alerting the observant reader to that word needing to be read with divine elevation in meaning. As a common preposition, meaning “in, on, among” [Strong’s], as well as “at” or [relative to time] “during the time of” [Wiktionary], the divine elevation becomes a statement of time as recognized by Yahweh, whose Spirit guided the text written by the Saint Luke. Because Tiberius claimed to be a god in human flesh (the meaning “of Caesar”), Luke was not writing about his time.
The Roman historian Josephus would refer to dates as “in the fifteenth year of Tiberius;” but Josephus wrote no books that have been canonized. Luke was writing his Gospel in “roughly the year 85 C.E. (± five to ten years)” [Todd Berzon, Department of Religion, Columbia College], which was well before the invention of a Westernized calendar that would begin to declare years as Anno Domini (Year of Our Lord). Still, Yahweh is All Knowing (Omniscient) and would have known in 85 C.E. that 15 C.E. (or A.D.) was the divinely elevated meaning that applied to “In year fifteenth of this prince’s.” While the Josephus timing would have been “year fifteenth of this of Tiberius of Emperor." this is not a book written as a historical document relative to a Roman emperor.
This presents a range of years, where a decade would have been spent by John in ministry, while Valerius Gratus was the Perfect of Judea, before the change of the guard that brought in Pontius Pilate. That means the timing of the second segment of words began in the twelfth year of Tiberius’ reign, after John had been in ministry for some time. The advent of Pontius Pilate as the Governor of Judea was a change of the guard that took place at the time Jesus began his ministry. It was about that same time that John the Baptist was beheaded by the orders of Antipas, because of the complaints made against him by John, before the arrival of Pilate. Thus, the third segment of words places focus on the important time of the rift between Antipas and John.
In the fourth segment of words, where Philip’s area of rule is stated, the importance of “Trachonitis” should be seen as a capitalized word that requires one to understand the meaning of the name. That meaning is “a rugged stony tract,” which can now be seen as the wilderness in which John found safety. The region known as “Trachonitis” is the easternmost area under Philip’s rule. It is doubtful that Philip was born there (he was from a different mother than that of Antipas), as his mother is said to be Cleopatra of Jerusalem. So, this can be an important place that John sought to be the wild man he was pictured as. Still, the use of “kai” between “Ituraea kai Trachonitis” can be a silent way to place focus on the unnamed region under Philip, which was Gualanitus. Gualanitus was east of the Jordan, as it flowed into the Sea of Galilee, and included the place where Jesus regularly preached by that sea. Therefore, the importance becomes the area between Ituraea and Trachonitis. That could possibly be the “rugged stony tract” that overlooked the sea.
The mention in the fifth segment of Lysanias and Abilene is most confusing to scholars; but the use of “kai” marking this as important says that this was another region where John could go safely. The area where “Abilene” is located is east of Mount Hermon, which is where Jesus went to be Transfigured. The capitalization of the place means “Land of Streams” (or “Meadows”), with “Lysanias” meaning “Ending Sorrow, The End Of Grief.” More than pointing to one obscure character in history, in a strange place (each ‘name’ only found in this reading in Scripture), it could mean John also trekked up Mount Hermon to get close to Yahweh, after having spent time in the wilderness preparing for his acts of ministry.
The name of “Annas” becomes a statement of the high priest of the Temple, who officially served in that capacity between the years six and sixteen A.D. His son Eleazar next served, between sixteen and seventeen A.D. Caiaphas followed between eighteen and thirty-six A.D, which took him well beyond the time of John’s death. Thus, verse two is adding to the timing that John’s time in ministry in Jerusalem was between 16 A.D., until his arrest and death, while Caiaphas was high priest. It was during those years that John received his messages to deliver, from Yahweh.
Verse three states that message as being to repent and seek forgiveness. While he would be known as the “baptizer,” a word that means “submerging,” usually implying with water, the use of “kēryssōn baptisma” [“preaching a submerging”] says it was his words, more than the waters of the streams or rivers [by the meadows], that flowed over the sinful who sought cleansing. Therefore, the words spoken by John echoed those quoted from Isaiah.
In the quoting of Isaiah, the Hebrew text of Isaiah must be realized as the source of the words then written in Greek, as translations. The missing element is “the Lord” was stated as “Yahweh” by Isaiah. When the translation says, “make his paths straight,” the reality is Isaiah said, “make straight in the desert , a highway for us elohim .” Isaiah wrote “lelohenu” [“לֵאלֹהֵֽינוּ”], which says Yahweh does not need a path to go straight, His servants need to become His elohim, in order to walk straight or righteously. That was the message John “baptized” the repentant Jews with, so they would be prepared to receive Jesus, when his ministry began later.
It should be noted that the age difference between John and Jesus was only six months; but John began his ministry in the lands once governed by Herod the Great well before Jesus began his there. Jesus was not simply hanging around doing nothing, as he had left the regions of Herod the Great to enter ‘foreign ministry.’ Jesus would return from those journeys, which John knew little about (if anything); so the two cousins probably spent time together in Galilee as children, but grew apart when they became old enough to be considered men.
As the Gospel reading to be read aloud on the second Sunday of Advent, the story of John is preparing the way for Jesus to be born, as the news of his coming before he arrives. This is the point of the season called Advent. It is a time to look forward to a birth that is growing within oneself, knowing the time will come when one has to begin being Jesus reborn. Thus John is speaking on your behalf, as long as your soul has married Yahweh and become ‘with child” from that union.