What constitutes good historical evidence? The second quote is recorded by Philopon. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. And upon my servants indeed, and upon my handmaids will I pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. 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. On the Circumstances Connected with Our Saviours Passion and His Life-Giving Resurrection, The Wheels of the Formal Correction turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. But it is a challenging issue to unravel. In sum, the words of Tertullian and Africanus show us that in ancient times onlythe explanation of the causeof the three hour darkness was in dispute,not the fact of it. His boyish face was flush and confident now. earthquake! There were Jewish, Christian, and Roman writers from the first and second centuries that refer to Christ and the crucifixion. (LogOut/ He has written apologetic articles and is working on a historical-adventure trilogy, set during the time of the Arian crisis. This may seem hard to accept for some. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, and the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? [1] There are two books credited to his name:Chronicles and the Olympiads. 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. At New Moon, the Moon is positioned between the Sun and the Earth with the dark side of the Moon facing the Earth. Is there any evidence of global or regional darkness in 36CE? It is an important event to all Christians. 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. 3: 32-07-28/29: Athene : 4: 32- . First, there are differences between the synoptic gospels in the New Testament and the gospel of John that have puzzled Bible scholars. Christ still changes lives like he did in the first century. Every person needs to deal with the questions of who Jesus is and what his death means. Tertullian, Apologeticus, Chapter 21, 19, Christian Evidence was created to enable Christians to defend their faith, and to open their eyes up to the overwhelming evidence for Christianity. Ye men of Israel, hear these words:Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him, in the midst of you,as you also know: This same being delivered up, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain. The answer is a resounding yes.Whether the darkness was witnessed throughout the empire or only in regions around Jerusalem is not clear. Fr. We believe that the event referred to by Phlegon is the same event that is recorded in the New Testament. Check it out for yourselfhttp://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/SE0001-0100.html. Even more fascinating is the mention of an earthquake. Phlegon of Tralles was a first century secular Greek historian born not long after the Crucifixion. In the verses above, Peter cites a scripture which speaks of various signs which God did by Him, inclusive of thesun being darkenedand the moon turning red. 3) the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad; being commonly associated with the March 19, 33 CE solar eclipse. The gospel references where Jesus predicted he would rise in three days are Matt. It even mentions buildings collapsing in Nicea, which would be over 1,000 miles Northwest from Jerusalem by land. There is only one period of darkness lasting for three hours in the history of the world. 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. And finally, if the crucifixion was on 3rd April AD 33 (Julian) then it is 490 years (70 . Historical Testimony We only have fragments left to us of this monumental work and quotations of it from other writers. And just for fun, who could possibly falsely place this earthquake during the time of Tiberius Caesar and roughly the time period of the 202nd Olympiad (and I fully grasp the weight of the word roughly)? This historical puzzle shows the historical accuracy of the New Testament in a number of ways. The Formal Correction is on the way! The earthquake on the other hand was a natural process miraculously timed to occur at the crucifixion. Thankfully we have a more detailed fragment from Phlegon's Olympiades: We know from the Bible that on the day of Crucifixion the Sun was darkened for three hours, and there was a great earthquake. Even if there is speculation on whether this is the correct eclipse referenced, there is only one more that would have been visible by the Persian Gulf and Rome during the Olympiad: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/0001-0100/29-11-24.gif. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day: But this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass, in the last days, (saith the Lord,) I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad. No, but again, it doesnt have to either. On the subject of unusually long eclipses of the sun, Pliny states the following: Eclipses of the sun also take place which are portentous and unusually long,such asoccurred when Csar the Dictator was slain, and in the war against Antony, the sun remained dim for almost a whole year(Pliny the Elder,Natural History,II, 30) [Italics added]. This example underlines the point that Matthew did not have a similar need to defend the truth of the three hour darkness, precisely because it was a well known, accepted and indisputablefact. AD 33 is a generally accepted year of His crucifixion. Africanus refutes the attempt of Thallus to explain away this darkness as being a regular solar eclipse. Though it is almost impossible to deny that this strange event truly happened, on the same day our Lord died on the Cross, I strived for years to find a natural astronomical explanation about it but in vain. April 13, 2017 (Steven OReilly) Good Friday approaches. This earthquake did not center near Jerusalem exactly but it was strong enough to be very noticable in effects at Jerusalem if it did damage in Nicea. Or will you go to the place of separation from God in the afterlife? 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad. Of all these verses, only Matt. In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e., AD 33) there was 'the greatest eclipse of the sun' and that 'it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i.e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. The question is: should we accept the historicity of this Crucifixion darkness? Martinus Nijhoff. It cannot be denied that Pliny the Elder wrote on topics like eclipses of the sun. The timing of this "eclipse" referred to by Phlegon is similar to the event described in the Gospels. There is a silence of historical sources with regard to this Crucifixion darkness. this objectionis something of a fallacious argument. The ancient world still has historical buildings standing to this day built two millennium ago; wouldnt it be logical to build an extremely strong building that could withstand an earthquake in an earthquake-prone location? And calculation makes out that the period of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel, is completed at this time." I will also point out that the Roman historian Thallius also recorded these events. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nica. To me it seems the place to start with deduction from all the available information is with John the Baptist. I speak of the midday or Crucifixion darkness which the gospel accounts assert fell over the earth between noon and 3 pm. The written testimony from outside the Bible confirms some of the main events, people, and places mentioned in the New Testament. Phlegon of Tralles, a Greek historian who lived in the second century, has been referenced by Christian apologists for over a thousand years now as confirmation of the events surrounding the Crucifixion. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFRobertsDonaldsonCoxe1896 (, Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_chronicle_03_part2.htm, http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=00291124, Fragments of Phlegon on the passion phenomena, William Smith, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology" (1870) v. 3, page 336, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phlegon_of_Tralles&oldid=1125623921, Articles needing additional references from April 2019, All articles needing additional references, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2022, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2013, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 5 December 2022, at 00:29. At Fatima, the miracle was localized though still within many miles of the town. Just for reference, Nicea is in western Turkey, approximately where the city of Bursa is. In October, I will perform a miracle here so that all may believe. At some time during that twelve months occurred the darkness over Asia in which lay Bithynia and Nicea to which Phlegon refers. Thirteen inches above the 31 B.C. 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. Felix Jacoby. Some Christian scholars argue Jesus was crucified on Thursday and some even hold to a Wednesday crucifixion. Thepoint is that thedestruction of the discovered earthquake had to be catastrophic in order to destroy buildings there, which leads to the conclusion that the big one that hit Jerusalem also hit Turkey along the fault line at the same time. However, such an explanation for the Crucifixion darkness is absurd because solar eclipses are counted in minutes, not hours. This argument is sufficient to diffuse the skeptics argument with regard to Pliny. Thesestatements reveal several key things: 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keeps a database of what are called "significant" earthquakes. Moon phase and solar year events are shown on the day in Athens. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. 776 BC = Olympiad 1, not 0. Only the Nov. 24, AD 29 eclipse over Asia Minor can match that, and Joel's prophecy (Acts 2, 14-21) that ``the sun will be turned to darkness and moon to blood." The gospel of Luke mentions that John the Baptist began his ministry in the 15th year of Ceasar Tiberius (Luke 3:1-3). The San Andreas fault is 800 miles long, running along the California coast; Israel and Turkey sit onyou guess ita major fault line! document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Age of Isaiah Scroll Scientifically Predates Jesus, Earliest Records of the Gospel Accounts of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Corroborate the Modern Text, http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/calendars/202.html, http://www.deadseaquake.info/was-there-really-an-earthquake-on-the-day-that-jesus-died/, Mara Bar Serapion Confirms Early Reference to Jesus, Rome Confirms the Existence of Christianity, Phlegon of Tralles Scientifically Established as a Credible Source on Jesus. The reader should note that Phlegons comment that an eclipse of the sun occurred during Jesus death was impossible (see Thallus) since the Jewish Passover occurs during a full moon. 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