Since the time of James Talmage and
his 1915 book, Jesus the Christ, many Latter-day Saints hold,
uncritically, to the idea that Jesus was born on April 6, 1 BC, interpreting
D&C 20:1 to be a verse specifying the date of Christ’s birth (it appears
that BH Roberts in his Outlines of Ecclesiastical History [1893] first proposed this thesis, but
the belief became more “mainstream” with the publication of Talmage’s work). There are numerous
problems with such, not the least is that verse 1 is not original to this
section, instead being a later insertion into D&C 20 by John Whitmer, and,
furthermore, no Latter-day Saint interpreted this verse to be about the date of
Christ’s birth. For instance, Orson Pratt, a close friend and associate of the
Prophet Joseph Smith, once argued that Jesus was born on 11 April, 4 BC, not 6th
April 1 AD (Journal of Discourses 15:261). Such a reading, post-Talmage, has been rejected by the likes of Bruce R. McConkie and James R. Clarke, as well as the vast majority of LDS scholars and apologists who have commented on this verse.
Furthermore, allowing for an
absolutist reading of this verse (which I do not recommend for any text;
such is eisegesis), one would have to argue that this verse is speaking, not of
the birth of Jesus, but his conception, or at least, ensoulment (where is
debate in LDS circles as to when this happens), as it speaks of the “coming of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the flesh” (emphasis added), that
is, his taking on humanity (cf. Luke 1:31-35; John 1:1-18; 1 John 4:1-3).
A good article summing up the issues
vis-à-vis the date of Christ’s birth is that of John A. Tvedtnes, one of my
favourite LDS scholars, “When was Christ Born?”
