The Continuous Priestly Cycles of Jehoiarib in AD 70 to Aviyah in 3 BC.
Yehoiariv would have therefore been appointed to conduct services from noon on the Sabbath of the the 4th of August, AD 70 to the 11th at noon, 7-days later.
These dates can be translated numerically using the Julian Dating system as 1746841 to 1746848 while confirming them here.
Let’s now rollback time in 7-day increments till we have located the first, 8th-cycle of Aviyah and then every 168-days (24 priestly cycles x 7-days) till we reach 3 BC, our pre-selected, candidate year. First by weekly rotations.
Then by 168-days till we reach 3 BC . . . . and our three options, only one of which will fit.
Download the full Julian Secular Biblical excel file here:
And a full-scale granular tabulation here:
The 24 Priestly Rotational Courses.
Jack Finegan, adds in pg 133 / 241, 242 of The Handbook of Biblical Chronology.
241. As for the length of the periods of service in the temple of the twenty-four priestly courses, the scriptures do not explain how this matter was arranged, but Josephus (Ant. 7.365) states that in the original institutions of the divisions of David, ‘he further arranged that one family should minister to YHVH each week from Sabbath to Sabbath.
And in the Tosephta (t. Sukka 4. 24 – 25)
Mishna (m. Sukka 5.8; Danby 181; m Tamid 5.1; Danby 586 – 587)
. . it is learned that in the Sabbath-day changeover from one course to the next the outgoing priests offered the morning sacrifice and the incoming priests offered the evening sacrifice.
The Mishna (m. Sukka 5.7) also states that at the three great festivals of the year – i.e., at Pesach, Shavu’ot and Sukk’ot – all the courses of priests performed service together. This presumably means that, because of the heavier-than-usual duties involved, the course normally on duty at the time was assisted by all the others. Since each course served for seven days and a new course came on duty each Sabbath day, it is evidemt that it would take exactly 24 weeks or 168 days (7 x 24 = 168) to complete one rotation of the whole cycle of twenty-four courses, figures that are important for chronological calculations.