Jesus Christ’s death by crucifixion – and his subsequent resurrection – is the reason we celebrate Easter.

There is long-standing written evidence that Jesus, who claimed to be the son of God, was a real man. He was a Galilean Jew, born at the beginning of the 1st century.

We are fairly certain of this because Jewish and Roman historians wrote about him, as well as the dozens of Christians who claimed to have crossed his path.

So how old was he when he died?

The obvious first step to finding out how old he was is to work out when he was born. But that detail is about as clear as mud.

The Bible claims Jesus’ birth came during the reign of Herod the Great, who died around 4 BC.

But contradicting this assumption is the gospels’ claim that he was born during the Census of Quirinius which happened ten years after Herod died.

However, the Bible then goes on to state that Jesus was ‘about 30 years old’ at the start of his ministry, which is helpful, seeing as there is no determined date of birth for him.

Most scholars reckon Jesus was crucified between 30 and 33AD, so 1985-8 years ago.

Seeing as we can assume Jesus was about 30 when he was baptised and began his ministry, we know he was over 30 when he was crucified.

Estimates state that his ministry (that came to an abrupt end with his crucifixion) lasted around three years. Those estimates are based on the fact that the Gospel of John refers to three Passovers going by.

However, the Synoptic Gospels refer to just one Passover during the ministry of Christ, meaning he was only around for one year after being baptised.

Therefore, based on those two last pieces of information, Jesus was either about 31 or 33 when he died.

This is, of course, disputed based on various conflicting details in religious texts, but historians are only ever arguing the toss about a few years in his age. Most agree he was in his early thirties.

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