Eclipse at the time of the crucifixion

[patrick457]

Rolltide, that is really interesting.

However, it wouldn’t explain why there was darkness from noon to 3, because this would only happen if there was a solar eclipse, or if there were dark storm clouds. And if it were storm clouds, I would have thought the gospel would have said, there were clouds of darkness from noon to 3, and not mentioned the sun not shinning. It just seems out of place.

I still believe something happened to the sun, whether it was recorded or not, just as something happened to the sun when Moses raised his arms, or when the sun spun in the miracle at Fatima.

Not to say I don’t appreciate all the other fine explainations.

Also the centurian at the foot of the cross also expressed, “he is truely the son of God.” Now why whould he say that out of the clear blue? I think he saw something that impressed him deeply. Maybe it was the sun or the earthquate, or both.

According to Matthew, the centurion and his men confessed Jesus as God’s Son “when they saw the earthquake and all that had happened” and being terrified as a result. Mark says that the centurion proclaims Jesus “when he saw that He thus breathed His last;” here it is not so much the supernatural phenomena but the way Jesus dies that prompts the declaration (a dramatic irony is in play here, since Mark’s Jesus dies somewhat ignobly with a scream). Luke’s centurion confesses Jesus as “righteous” (Luke stresses in his passion how innocent Jesus actually is) “when he saw what had happened.” Of course here Jesus says the ultimate prayer of resignation: “into your hands I commit my spirit.”

I think it is also worth mentioning that the synoptics are also making Scriptural allusions when they refer to the darkness: for example Amos 8:9-10 (the most obvious allusion); Jeremiah 15:9; or even Isaiah 13:10 and Exodus 10:22. Not to mention that there’s also an apocalyptic element here. What does Jesus say when He talks about the endtimes? “But in those days, after that tribulation, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.’” (Mark 13:24-25, quoting Isaiah 13:10; cf. Matthew 24:29). The evangelists want to show this darkness as being eschatological: in other words, Jesus’ death is an apocalyptic event marking the end of the old age and the beginning of the new.

 

[fred_conty]

Patrick, thanks for your reply.

Amos 14;9+
“That day–it is the Lord who speaks – I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I am going to turn your feasts into funerals…”

This sounds exactly what happened. It sounds like psalm 22 giving us an image of the suffering saviour, which is what actually a description of what happened.

So maybe this too is an actual description of what happened. I don’t know that we may be able to explain it scientifically, but then lots of events happened in our history of salvation which can’t be explained scientifically. Like Moses rasing his arms and the water separating, and Moses lowering his arms and the walls of water returning.

To me all of creation and all of nature would have “felt” and expressed the effects of the son of God dying. If the earth shook and split, then why not the heavens?

I agree with you on the fact that this is certainly a sign, but in that sign I think there was reality as well.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

April 3, 33 AD is probably the correct crucifixion date because we know from ancient sources that Christ was crucified on a Friday and that he was crucified during the reign of Pontius Pilate as governor in Judea (26 AD-36 AD).

There’s a problem that even the Bethlehem Star movie did not address;
There is more than one calender in effect at the time, and neither of them are precise.

The Jewish calendar, besides being lunar, is based on observation ; the night “begins” when something is “seen” ; and also, it was not precise in the sense that ours keeps track of a leap day every four years. Nor were feast days always at the same time every year for the moon does not divide up the year evenly ; and “fixup days” had to be inserted throughout the year; and the high priest is the one deciding when to do so (at his discretion) – So: it’s not a mathematical calendar.

In 66A.D. in the Jewish rebellion, the Jews executed Ananias (the priest owning all the records) and burned his records; because they thought him a schill/puppet of the Roman empire. So much for accurate determination of what happened in the years before…

Friday on our Gregorian calender, extrapolated backward, could be any day of the week on their calendar; Basically, we can compute the year correctly; but the actual day is very likely off, depending on what the priests decided.

The Romans, on the other hand, still only had a 10 month year at the time. And there was a large section of time in winter that had no defined month. another “fixup”; So the same problem arises… although, at least on the Roman calendar – there may still be records.

We also know that he was killed the day before Passover. With this information in mind, there are only two possible dates. April 7, 30 AD and April 3, 33 AD.

Perhaps… but without the Friday restriction, there may be more possibilities.

If you’re right – it’s not because of the exactness of logic…

Also, what’s even more compelling, is that last year geologists found evidence of a major earthquake that occurred on April 3, 33 AD in the land of Judea. Matthew tells us there was an earthquake while Christ was on the cross. A link to their claims can be found in the link below:

dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2149750/Jesus-died-Friday-April-3-33AD-claim-researchers-tie-earthquake-data-gospels-date.html

Interesting… but anyway, God bless.

 

[patrick457]

Also, what’s even more compelling, is that last year geologists found evidence of a major earthquake that occurred on April 3, 33 AD in the land of Judea. Matthew tells us there was an earthquake while Christ was on the cross. A link to their claims can be found in the link below:

dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2149750/Jesus-died-Friday-April-3-33AD-claim-researchers-tie-earthquake-data-gospels-date.html

Heard it, still not conclusive.

Geologist Jefferson Williams responded to Bible History Daily about the online attention given to the geological study. Bible History Daily has updated the article to reflect his commentary, and has copied a portion of his comment here that clarifies the initial report (read the full comment in the comments section below):

“I am the primary author of the research article and the original Discovery Article grossly misrepresented our work… Our article had very little to do with the date of the crucifixion. The article discussed Earthquake Geology and primarily how we arrived at a date for this earthquake (31 AD +/- 5 years). Because of uncertainties associated with the text of Matthew 27, we departed from previous Dead Sea Paleoseismology and dated the earthquake based purely on what we saw in the sediments. We then used an article by Humphreys and Waddington to compare our earthquake date with the date range of the crucifixion and the two years most commonly cited; 30 AD and 33 AD. If I had a do-over, I never would have mentioned those years since the only relevant textual information for our 3 conclusions was the date range of 26-36 AD. We are not New Testament Scholars and did not try to add textual information to come up with an exact date. Unfortunately, that was the impression of the Discovery article and this spread all over the internet.”

 

[patrick457]

**

Huiou,
You mentioned the god of Dagon. For the first time I know why when we were disapointed we used the phrase, “Dagon it”. I haven’t heard this said for a very long time, but when we were kids we said it all the time. And I’ve always wondered where that came from.

Just a thought.

I think you mean “doggone it,” which is just a minced oath (“a euphemistic expression formed by misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo term to reduce the original term’s objectionable characteristics”) for g*****n.

 

[buffalo]

According to Pastor Kong Hee, City Harvest Church, Singapore in the video clip “God in Ancient China”, Chinese Astronomers put the eclipse at AD31. Interesting clip, he also mentioned the birth of Christ. Won’t want to spoil the rest of the video though.

youtube.com/watch?v=RPtcMCSJVDA

This is in Chinese Mandarin and English. The birth is mentioned at around the 31:45 mark and the death at around the 36:33 mark. Being Chinese( but with an inadequate grounding i.e. zilch, in Chinese history and language), I find the video enlightening. I am assuming that the historic records he mentioned to be verifiable and accurate in his translation. Watch the whole video for other interesting bits of Chinese history and insights on Chinese thinking on Christianity which is labelled as a Western religion by many Chinese as well as other Asians.

Ancient Chinese Characters - Chinese - Language of God?

 

[fred_conty]

**

I think you mean “doggone it,” which is just a minced oath (“a euphemistic expression formed by misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo term to reduce the original term’s objectionable characteristics”) for g*****n.

Actually we said both.

 

[fred_conty]

**

I think you mean “doggone it,” which is just a minced oath (“a euphemistic expression formed by misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo term to reduce the original term’s objectionable characteristics”) for g*****n.

Actually we used both of them.

 

[patrick457]

Ancient Chinese Characters - Chinese - Language of God?

(Insert pained groaning here) Haven’t we gone through this two times before?

 

[patrick457]

Patrick, thanks for your reply.

Amos 14;9+
“That day–it is the Lord who speaks – I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I am going to turn your feasts into funerals…”

This sounds exactly what happened. It sounds like psalm 22 giving us an image of the suffering saviour, which is what actually a description of what happened.

So maybe this too is an actual description of what happened. I don’t know that we may be able to explain it scientifically, but then lots of events happened in our history of salvation which can’t be explained scientifically. Like Moses rasing his arms and the water separating, and Moses lowering his arms and the walls of water returning.

I should just make clear that I’m not pulling a John Dominic Crossan here and suggesting the passion narratives were ‘prophecy historicized’: in other words, the disciples, because they never really knew what happened to Jesus (since they, you know, ran away), just filled - or should I say, fabricated - most of the details by looking at the Old Testament and cobbling together any prophecy they thought applied to Jesus. No, instead I’m suggesting the model of ‘history scripturalized’, by which I mean, the disciples told the story of Jesus’ death using the language of the OT, so that every detail is ‘Scripturalized’. To put it in a more complicated language: the traditions about Jesus’ suffering (in other words, the ‘bare’ historical fact, the what-happened) generated Scriptural reflection, which in turn influenced the way the traditions were recast.

To me all of creation and all of nature would have “felt” and expressed the effects of the son of God dying. If the earth shook and split, then why not the heavens?

I agree with you on the fact that this is certainly a sign, but in that sign I think there was reality as well.

Just some thoughts.

All creation was changed by fear
when it saw you hanging upon the cross, O Christ.
The sun was darkened
and the foundations of the earth were shaken.
All things suffered with the creator of all.
Lord, you willingly endured this for us: glory to you!

To add: in Matthew as you mention, it is not just the temple veil (the heavens) that is torn, but also the rocks (the earth) and the tombs (under the earth): in other words, the whole universe symbolized by these three elements literally splits itself in half, as if to visibly mark the boundary line between the old age and the new.

Actually we used both of them.

Well, most minced oaths coexist with their original, more offensive forms. I mean, there are people who say ‘geez’ or ‘cripes’ or ‘crikey’ or ‘gosh’ or ‘goodness’ or ‘golly’, but we don’t see any shortage of folks who take the Lord’s name in vain.