Thank you, Ive just been looking for information about this In the same hour, too, the light of day was withdrawn, when the sun at the very time was in his meridian blaze. Many Christian scholars have come to question either the synoptic gospels or the gospel of John because of the difficulties of resolving questions about exactly when Jesus was crucified. One of the strengths of Humphrey's book is the way it clarifies calendar issues and the way the Jews counted months, days, and nights. In telling the story of the guards, Matthew takes into account what his Jewish audience would already knowi.e., there was aclaimbeing spread abroad that the body of Jesus had been stolenand then he proceeded to provide facts to explain the true origin of that lie. He wrote extensively about natural phenomena earthquakes and such. Those issues do not change the conclusion for various reasons. Even if the darkness had not been seen throughout the whole empire, word of it would have spread to Rome as the center of government and commerce. Jerusalem is another place where we might have expected there to be records of the events of Matthew 27, and to hope that individual residents of Jerusalemcontemporaneous to the eventsmight have commented on these wondrous happenings in personal records, etc. The difficulty in this is that it mentions three nights as well as three days. Is this a powerful confirmation of the events described in the New Testament? For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Saviour fails on the day before the passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. Thesestatements reveal several key things: 1. Thus the darkening of the sky at the crucifixion is very extraordinary. The speaker continued The 53rd chapter of Isaiah, written over 700 years before the birth of Christ, describes the most important aspect of the ministry of Jesus Christ!! April 13, 2017 (Steven OReilly) Good Friday approaches. opif. Then from Saturday evening after sunset till early in the morning on Sunday was a portion of a 24 hour cycle so it also counted as a day and a night, even though Jesus apparently resurrected before Sunrise. Indeed Phlegon, who is an excellent calculator of olympiads, also writes about this, in his 13th book writing thus: "However in the fourth year of the 202nd olympiad [32 CE], an eclipse of the sun happened, greater and more excellent than any that had happened before it; at the sixth hour [around noon] day turned into dark night, so that the . His chief work was the Olympiads, an historical compendium in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th Olympiad (776 BC to AD 137), of which several chapters are preserved in Eusebius' Chronicle, Photius, and George Syncellus. (below) says it took place in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, which was 33 A.D. - which can be verified by clicking on the link following Phlegon's quote in red below. There are few historical records that are actually from the time of Christ but there are some records from historians from the second century AD. Moon phase and solar year events are shown on the day in Athens. TheActs of the Apostlesrecords the very first public preaching of Peter and the Apostles, which took place less than eight weeks after the Crucifixion. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This is a text widget. With these things in mind, I would like to provide some thoughts on the historicity of one particular event that is said to have occurred on the afternoon Our Lord was crucified. /**/ Christian Evidence. One day it occurred to me that there were physical events that were extraordinary that WOULD most likely be preserved in historyand here are some very awesome references. The darkness and earthquake were evident not just in Jerusalem but also in Nicea which is over 300 miles away from Jerusalem! To home he may gobut, it must be with his tail between his legs. All rights reserved. Even more fascinating is the mention of an earthquake. Your email address will not be published. We have no need to be dogmatic about precise numbers regarding His age at the time of His crucifixion. Colin Humphreys estimates that Jesus' ministry began in 30 A.D. Furthermore, the greatest number of Christian scholars through history have held to AD 33 as the year of the crucifixion, though they may have had various views on the exact date and day of week on which it happened. And finally, if the crucifixion was on 3rd April AD 33 (Julian) then it is 490 years (70 . 26:61, Matt. Roman historical sources confirm that Jesus Christ lived on Earth and died by crucifixion. . "However in the fourth year of the 202nd olympiad, an eclipse of the sun happened, greater and more excellent than any that had happened before it; at the sixth hour, day turned into dark night, so that the stars were seen in the sky, and an earthquake in Bithynia toppled many buildings of the city of Nicaea." Picking on Pliny Being written within a dozen years of the Crucifixion, many of Matthews readers would have been witnesses to the three hour darkness which had fallen over the earth (cf Matthew 27: 45) years before. This is writing from an early Christian apologist named Jerome. However, history provides a sufficient answer as to why such documentary evidence has not survived on these topics of great interest. Rome had a Jewish community, and it is probable that word of the darkness would have reached and been known within it. Your email address will not be published. Are you sure that you will enter heaven to be with God in the afterlife? Sixty thousands people could witness with awe the sun dancing in the sky. What constitutes good historical evidence? Here, the skeptics case isseeminglymore plausible on first glance. To recap, according to Eusebius' Chronicon tables, the 2nd year of the 202nd Olympiad is equated alongside the 16th year of Tiberius. Pliny then proceeds and gives only two examples. So I found another source of this very quote from the same Rabbi in an old commentary from the 1600's from English Scholar John Lightfoot [2]. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nica. The evidence for Christ's resurrection is also historical evidence of a miracle. Those who were not aware that this had been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it an eclipse. Properly working out the Jewish calendar shows this to work for AD 33 (see C. Humphreys). Phlegon provides powerful confirmation, identifying the year and the exact time of day. Only one earthquake in this span of years came up in the results, in 33 AD The database showed two published geological sources regarding this earthquake. Or has it been changed and contaminated by ambitious Christian defenders? It was not until the sixteenth century that the Jewish calendar was formally defined precisely. Certainly, other ancient writers, most notably Pliny the Elder (23 79 AD), would have written of a three hour darkness had it really happened. Therefore I think we can compare it to another impressive unnatural phenomenon that happened 100 years ago in Fatima, when the sun danced on oct. 13th 1917 at the exact time Our Lady foretold months beforehand, before a huge crowd. Now consider if this were either all fake or unauthentic; Christian historians have used this writing to cite as an extra-biblical account of the Gospel accounts and opponents have used the writing to discredit the theory as contrived. Los Angeles is approximately 380 miles from San Francisco, by comparison. The answer is a resounding yes.Whether the darkness was witnessed throughout the empire or only in regions around Jerusalem is not clear. Eusebius of Caesarea (265-340) quoted Phlegon as follows (as translated by Jerome): However in the fourth year of the 202nd olympiad, an eclipse of the sun happened,greater and more excellent than any that had happened before it; at the sixth hour, day turned into dark night, so that the stars were seen in the sky, and an earthquake in Bithynia toppled many buildings of the city of Nicaea. These things the aforementioned man (says). (Jerome, Chronicle (2005), 256/258, as found onwww.tertullian.org) (Emphasis added). The darkening of the sky I suspect was just a pure miracle, not caused by any natural phenomena. He lived up to the death of the emperor Augustus in 14CE and we know from Luke that his ministry began in the 15th year of Augustus successor, Tiberius. For example, the first year of Olympiad 140 began in the summer of 220 BC and lasted until the middle of . So, we have evidence as strong for these miracles at the crucifixion and resurrection as we have for many other events in history that no one ever questions. Bursa is approximately 600 miles from Jerusalem. We believe that the event referred to by Phlegon is the same event that is recorded in the New Testament. Another historian, Philipon (with Origen), confirms the historicity of Phlegon's statement by writing, "And about this darkness - Phlegon recalls it in the OlympiadsPhlegon mentioned the eclipse which took place during the crucifixion of the Lord Christ, and no other (eclipse), it is clear that he did not know from his sources about any (similar) eclipse in previous times and this is shown by the historical account of Tiberius Caesar.". Note that I am oversimplifying a number of calendar complications that are worked out in Humphrey's book. The earthquake and RARE darkness for three hours couldn't be ignored by secular writers. Thus, if the quote is accurate, and Phlegons eclipse has not been conflated with one which occurred in 29 A.D., then Phlegon is another source who supports the Crucifixion darkness. Africanus does this by noting that the eve of Passover falls on a date of a near full moon, i.e., when the moon is opposite the sun in relation to the earth. In either case, many would have witnessed it. On this day, Christians recall especially that part of the Creed in which we affirm of Jesus Christ: for our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered, died and was buried. These things we affirm to be historical facts. We will analyze from two perspectives: one that asserts both Phlegons writing to be uncompromised and authentic, and one that assumes Phlegon has been compromised and is unauthentic. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. Peter reminds his hearers these things were done in the midst of you, as you also know. Clearly, Peter referenced an eventthe three hour darkening of the sunwhich waspreviouslywitnessed by all hearing him that day. The 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad was 32-33AD: HMEPA Hellenic Month Established Per Athens The 202nd Olympiad Last Olympiad Next Olympiad Last Olympiad source: http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/calendars/202.html Modern context of the calendar of ancient Olympics would put the 4 th year of the 202 nd Olympiad at July 32-33AD. However, unlike the New Testament, of which there are 25,366 early copies, many of these ancient writer's manuscripts are fragmented. "[1] On Long-Lived Persons[2] contains a list of Italians who had passed the age of 100, taken from the censuses of the Roman Empire. Well, for starters, it places a high degree of scientific precision for a writing that could considered to be hearsay or speculative because of its inference from another source. . The written testimony from outside the Bible confirms some of the main events, people, and places mentioned in the New Testament. While Pliny tells us there have been unusually long eclipses, he then says such asindicating he means to giveexamplesandnota comprehensive list of them. The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years for almost 1,100 years. "In the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was a great eclipse of the Sun, greater than had ever been known before, for at the sixth hour the day was changed into night, and the stars were seen in the heavens. Why has it been so difficult to determine the exact date of Jesus' death and the dates of the last week of his life? Last month: Next month: new 11:37 32/06/26 UTC : 1: 32-06-27/28: Noumenia kata Selene : 2: 32-06-28/29: Agathos Daimon : 3: 32-06-29/30: Athene : 4: 32- . In October, I will perform a miracle here so that all may believe. It would be absurd to think that Peter would have asserted that his hearers had witnessed the darkening of the sun if they in fact had not. Phlegon's greatest work was the writing of a history book, called The Olympiades. This eliminates most of the years in the range from AD 26 to 36, leaving primarily just AD 30 and AD 33 as candidates. . Origen, Against Celsus, Book 2.33, Phlegon mentioned the eclipse which took place during the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and no other (eclipse); it is clear that he did not know from his sources about any (similar) eclipse in previous times . The last known Olympic celebration was held in the year 261 CE ( Common Era, also known as "AD" from the Latin Anno Domini which means In the Year of the Lord in English). I am not convinced by this even though I believe in the darkness over the land when Jesus was crucified. Why preach something that was manifestly untrue? 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