John 2:20

Ver. 20. “ The Jews said, therefore: Forty-six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? ”

The restoration of the temple by Herod had begun in the eighteenth year of his reign, according to Josephus (Antiqq. 15.11, 1). In the Jewish War, the same historian, by an error, mentions the fifteenth. The first year of the reign of this prince was that from the first of Nisan 717 U. C. to the first of Nisan 718; the eighteenth would consequently be the year included between the first of Nisan 734 and the first of Nisan 735: it was about the autumn of that year that the work began (Jos. Ant. 15.11, 1).

The time indicated, forty-six full years (ᾠκοδομήθη), brings us, therefore, as far as to the autumn of the year 780. The present Passover, consequently, must be that of the year 781, and as it was divided from the year in which Jesus died by the one alluded to in John 6:4, it follows therefrom, that Jesus died in 783. Now for many other reasons, that year seems really to have been the year of His death. Weiss objects that the expression: was built, does not necessarily imply that it was still in the course of building at that moment. But the work continued still for many years, until in 64 it was finished under Agrippa II. What reason could there be to suppose an interruption at the time in which our narrative places us?