Greek word · G4003
πεντεκαιδέκατος
pentekaidekatos
fifteenth
'Fifteenth', an ordinal number. In dating formulas it gives a ruler's regnal year, meaning the year counted from the start of that ruler's reign.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
'Fifteenth', an ordinal number. In dating formulas it gives a ruler's regnal year, meaning the year counted from the start of that ruler's reign.
- Against the English
Every English version has 'fifteenth year'. The translation is not in question. What the date corresponds to is.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Dating by regnal year is standard in the Hebrew prophets and in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); see Jer 1:2, 'in the thirteenth year of his reign', and Ezek 1:2. Greek historians did the same. Thucydides (2.2.1) dates the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War 'in the fifteenth year' of a treaty, together with the Argive priestess, the Spartan ephor and the Athenian archon of that year: a stacked set of dates very like Luke's.
Where it appears
Luke · 1
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Luke 3:1 πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ fifteenth
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,
Here: An ordinal number ('five-and-ten-th'). It fixes the year within Tiberius's reign, most likely AD 28/29 by Roman reckoning (see debates).
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.