How old was Jesus when He died?

Answer 1

Curiously enough, The Bible doesn't mention the precise age. Luke's gospel says that Jesus was baptized at the age of 30, and various historical documents indicate that He was crucified about 3 years later, giving the traditionally known age of 33.

To calculate the age of Jesus when He died we firstly need to clarify as much as possible about the time of his birth. The census mentioned in Luke 2 fixes Jesus' birth as an obvious starting point prior to the death in 4 BC of Herod the Great. The information in the link below helps resolve an apparent discrepancy between Luke mentioning that Cyrenius was Governor of Syria at this time and Josephus' mentioning this as being 6 AD. We now know that this was his second term and so there is no discrepancy. This would make a difference of around ten years in calculating Jesus' age at death.

The traditional age of around 33 years, as mentioned above, would therefore require a date of death in 29 AD.

The year that Jesus died is known. He died in the year 33. In fact, not only is the year known, the exact date of Nisan 14, 33 is when he died. Nisan was a month on the Jewish Lunar calender that corresponds to late March and early April on our calender. This would also correspond with his death on the cross at what we now commemorate as Easter.

Here we must remember that even though Jesus lived 33-odd years on earth, He is ageless.
Some scholars believe he was in his early 30's. There is no true answer, only speculation because the bible does not talk about him growing up as much as it describes his ministry.

Answer 2

Traditionally Jesus was believed to be around 33 - 33 1/2, but Jesus could have been much older or even slightly younger. Here are a few things to consider:

• Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized in doing so to "fulfill all righteousness." This fulfillment of righteousness was in reference to the Old Testament requirements for being a priest, which among them was being the minimum age of 30, but this could be performed all the way up until they were 50 (Numbers 4:3).
• In John's gospel account Jesus is recorded attending three separate annual Feasts of Passover during his ministry (John 2:13, 6:4, 11:55-57). So we know that Jesus' ministry spanned at least two years. However his ministry could have been longer and other Feasts of Passover were not included.

In conclusion, Jesus could have been 32 years old when he died, or he could have been much much older.