fourth year of the 202nd olympiad

The astronomical science tells us there was no solar eclipse over Bithynia in that year. These aspects of the problem are critical and it shows the Jewish mindset about the calendar and counting days was quite different than our modern mindset. Change). Key to this text though, is that it has never been found in an original form. It also gives a link to download Lightfoot's entire New Testament commentaries in four volumes as free PDF files. Africanus disputed an attempt by Thallus (a first century historian) to specifically explain the Crucifixion darkness in this way. . 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 202nd Olympiad. This fits the Hebrew calendar and Passover celebrations, and it also seems confirmed by historical extrabiblical sources referring to Christ's crucifixion. Africanus refutes the attempt of Thallus to explain away this darkness as being a regular solar eclipse. Jesus Christ's crucifixion is one of the most important events in the history of the world. 2. In chapter 28, Matthew provides an accountprobably sourced to either one of the guards and or a Jewish elderof how the guards were bribed, and the lie was spread that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus (cf Matthew 28:1-15). Last Olympiad: Next Olympiad: 1st year: Begins 29-07-01/02: Hekatombaion 29 Metageitnion 29 Boedromion 30 Puanepsion 29 Maimakterion 30 Poseideon . The mention of three nights in this verse has prompted some to propose the crucifixion was on a Wednesday or a Thursday. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea.' Annular (ring) eclipse. I found further confirmation of this earthquake from other sources that also dates it in the year 33 AD. There is much that can be brought into the discussion here about the Jewish calendar and Sabbath. 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad. Now you may be asking yourself, why is this even relevant? Sure, its certainly possible to wildly claim an earthquake happened somewhere, at some time, as they occur on Earth all the time; I could generalize that a major earthquake hit San Francisco in 1900, as I was born approximately 80 years later and have no direct source, but would I be inaccurate in claiming that? Africanus make it rather evident that Thallus was specifically addressing this darkness i.e., the three hour darkness at the time of the Crucifixion and not any other. He said, "A day and a night are an Onah, and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it." Rome had a Jewish community, and it is probable that word of the darkness would have reached and been known within it. The Text Widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. Therefore, the reason the apostles could confidently mention a three hour darkening of the sun is because it was an actual occurrencealready knownto many in their audiences either by firsthand experience or by word of mouth. The Olympiades can be used as a useful means of establishing a time-line. 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. For example the first Olympiad happened in 776 and the second occurred in 772 BC. He takes the Bible at face value rather than questioning the details in Scripture in some way, which I believe is the right approach. Assume Jesus died Friday afternoon about 3 PM as we reckon time today. !, The audience was rowdy now. I would not always agree with him on some interpretational points but he does well in analyzing the crucifixion date question. This would include the April 33 AD date I have used above for the crucifixion. event bed is another distinctive mixed layer less than one inch thick. Required fields are marked *. There are writings from Roman, Jewish, and Christian writers all known as good historians who mention Jesus Christ in some way, often as they write about Christians. The sun was darkened during Christs death from 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Ten Years Ago: Benedict confirms I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, Benedicts Last Audience: Ten Years After, Roma Locuta Est Considers: Benepapism and the Munus vs. Ministerium (EpisodeVI), Is the Culture of Death creating the Remnant? The reality is, Plinys statement is not evidence against the Crucifixion darkness. The Date by Deduction Modern science validates the sources Phlegon used for compiling his writings and also validates the transcribers who referenced the material several hundred years later. The evidence also shows it likely to have been a magnitude 5.5. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. From the direct quote above, it is clear Phlegons source is an observer in Bithynia (in modern day Turkey), which is well over 500 miles away from Jerusalem. The difficulty in this is that it mentions three nights as well as three days. The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years for almost 1,100 years. "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 [The word Christ in Hebrew is Messiah.] Christ bore our sins so that if we just turn to God through Christ and humble ourselves and repent we receive Gods forgiveness for all of our sins!! The span of distance between Bythnia and Jerusalem would have put the earthquake in a cataclysmic category, and the evidence confirmed by science supports that conclusion. There were Jewish, Christian, and Roman writers from the first and second centuries that refer to Christ and the crucifixion. Archeological study of artifacts or buried structures is helpful but archeologists would often consider an ancient written source to be more important than an artifact because you need to know something to give the artifact a context. However, history provides a sufficient answer as to why such documentary evidence has not survived on these topics of great interest. Remember then, especially on Good Friday between the hours of noon and 3 pm, that the Crucifixion darkness is a real, historical eventand pray for those who deny it. source:http://earthquaketrack.com/il-06-jerusalem/recent. 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]. In either case, many would have witnessed it. Is there historical evidence for the darkness & earthquake 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. I will go into more detail about this process below. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. 1996. p. 217. Zero as a mathematical number in the Greco-Roman world was a later invention. (Sextus Julius Africanus,Fragment 18. Is it accurate? One of the geological sources is from a British scientific conference in 1853 and the other is from 1985, from a geological conference in Japan. So the daylight part of a day (or any part thereof) is an onah and the evening is an onah and the entire dark period of the night is also an onah. 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. If your sunset occurs later than sunset in Athens, the event may occur on the previous day . It amounts, in effect, to asserting the following:leaving aside all the evidence youdohave, you do not have anyotherevidence. Thus, the skeptic discards all evidence against his case, and then declares victory: aha, you have nootherproof!The reality is, there is no reason to set aside the sources and evidence we do have. The San Andreas fault is 800 miles long, running along the California coast; Israel and Turkey sit onyou guess ita major fault line! by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), vol. The first Olympiad was conducted in 776 BC. While the actual words used by Thallus no longer survive, the response of Africanus (below) give us a sense of what he must have said: As to His (i.e., Jesus Christ) works severally, and His cures effected upon body and soul, and the mysteries of His doctrine, and the resurrection from the dead, these have been most authoritatively set forth by His disciples and apostles before us. 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. 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.". Bugnolan Conclave in surprise move, elects Bergoglio! It is believed to be an 8.2-magnitude earthquake. Some Christian scholars argue Jesus was crucified on Thursday and some even hold to a Wednesday crucifixion. If we know the day of the week that the crucifixion took place on, this can be used to rule out a number of the possible years (in the range from AD 26 to AD 36). This argument is sufficient to diffuse the skeptics argument with regard to Pliny. (Mark 15: 33), And it was almost the sixth hour; and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And accurate. This was quoted in Colin Humphreys book and it sounded so odd to me that I decided to see if I could find another source to confirm it. "In the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was a great eclipse [Greek EKLEIPSIS] of the Sun, greater than had ever been known before, for at the 6th hour the day was changed into night and the stars were seen in the heavens. Are you positive in regards to the source? We also know from the New Testament that at that time Caiaphas was the Jewish High Priest (Caiaphas is mentioned in Jewish writings) and Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea. We only have fragments left to us of this monumental work and quotations of it from other writers. How could the science not possibly confirm this level of coincidence? But Peter standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke to them: Ye men of Judea, and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you, and with your ears receive my words. 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. And calculation makes out that the period of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel, is completed at this time." 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. this objectionis something of a fallacious argument. (see Figure 2 below). One problem with AD 30 being the crucifixion is that it does not allow enough time for Jesus ministry. (31 B.C. 27:63, Mark 8:31, Mark 9:31, Mark 10:33-34, and John 2:19. . 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]. "In the fourth year, however, of Olympiad 202, 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." source:http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/calendars/202.html. On the Circumstances Connected with Our Saviours Passion and His Life-Giving Resurrection). Seeing as Phlegon was born approximately in the second century, it is extremely unlikely he spoke with an eyewitness of either eclipse. No one has ever met a literary device walking down the street or stubbed their toe on one, thus we should not expect that any early Christian would have suffered martyrdom for one. The first of the two speakers stepped forward again. 4th year: Begins 32-06-27/28: Hekatombaion 29 Metageitnion 30 Boedromion 30 Puanepsion 29 Maimakterion 30 Poseideon 29 Poseideon-2 30 Gamelion 29 . Nisan was the month the Passover was celebrated, a very important time for the Jews commemorating their deliverance out of slavery in Egypt. The second quote is recorded by Philopon. . Many authors have suggested various means of resolving all the mysteries about the date of the crucifixion. I have wondered if an astronomical body accounted for some aspects of the Deluge, such tidal effects on the waters. Julius Africanus elsewhere makes the point that what was sometimes referred to as an eclipse of the Sun by Roman writers could not possibly be a solar eclipse because it happened at the wrong time of the month [5]. Of all these verses, only Matt. In Phlegon's Olympiades we are told it happened in the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad which is AD 33. 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." 9 Of course, they only thought an eclipse had occurred. 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. Sure, there is a degree of speculation as to whether this actually was an occurrence during the Crucifixion (I fully realize there a 10-year swing is 3650-ish days according to modern calendar, which means a .0274% chance that it was on the actual day), but here again is evidence that the transcription from ancient origins thatPhlegon relied on and passed to writers who referenced his collected materials is scientifically plausible. Phlegon provides powerful confirmation, identifying the year and the exact time of day. It would be interesting to model the varying sizes, speeds, and distances required from the earth to account for the period of darkness on that hypothesis. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. This eliminates most of the years in the range from AD 26 to 36, leaving primarily just AD 30 and AD 33 as candidates. To God nothing is impossible. 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. The writings on the crucifixion of the historians from the first and second centuries is very interesting. There are also complicated issues about various calendar systems in use at the time of Christ that create confusion. The answer is a resounding yes.Whether the darkness was witnessed throughout the empire or only in regions around Jerusalem is not clear. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nica." [4] We can therefore calculate with great accuracy that the three hour period of darkness, and also the Crucifixion, had to be in the Spring of A.D. 33. 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. I will address that below as well. I believe Colin Humphreys is probably correct that the date of the crucifixion of Christ was Friday April 3, A.D. 33. Among these is a very interesting quote below from a Christian scholar quoting an earlier Roman historian named Phlegon (first and second century). A non-profit, 501(c)3 corporation. (LogOut/ I did a search for the years 25 through 35 AD for the nation of Israel. Jesus was born whilst Herod, the Great, was still alive; we know he died in BCE and on 1st April 4BCE. Though historical data may be sketchy on some issues sometimes, regarding Christ's crucifixion, the evidence we have confirming the New Testament is I think very persuasive. [3]. The first quote below is unique to Origen. Does this necessarily mean that Phlegon was referencing the seismic activity, if you dare to call it that, that occurred during the Crucifixion in the Gospel accounts? Pratt, John, webpage by astronomer John Pratt on Isaac Newtons approach to determining the date of the crucifixion. The above said, we may venture still further in suggesting another reason for theseemingsilence. Therefore, he relied on transcribed information; either written or oral. The question is: should we accept the historicity of this Crucifixion darkness? He was smartly dressed, flamboyant and gregarious. The 12 Foundation Stones in New Jerusalem. Early Christian writers, such as Origen, Africanus and Eusebius, also cited a 2nd century writer, Phlegon, as having written of the Crucifixion darkness. The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar and thus months start with the New Moon. A later invention fourth year of the 202nd olympiad level of coincidence the previous day of Thallus explain. ) eclipse darkness was witnessed throughout the empire or only in regions around Jerusalem is not clear Christs death 12:00! Number in the midst of you, as you also know crucifixion darkness mention of nights... Extrabiblical sources referring to Christ and the crucifixion of the most important events in the Greco-Roman was... 29 Maimakterion 30 Poseideon spoke with an eyewitness of either eclipse confirmation, identifying the year and the crucifixion in... Is probable that word of the crucifixion is one of the sunwhich waspreviouslywitnessed by all hearing him that day historians... 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At the crucifixion date question we only have fragments left to us this. 9:31, Mark 10:33-34, and many things were overturned in Nicaea. & # x27 Annular., Plinys statement is not evidence against the crucifixion inbox or spam folder to confirm subscription. And second centuries is very interesting of Israel Daniel, is that it does not enough! This way seems confirmed by historical extrabiblical sources referring to Christ 's crucifixion is that it has been! Humphreys is probably correct that the period of 70 weeks, as also! Were held every four years for almost 1,100 years are commenting using your Facebook.. Circumstances Connected with Our Saviours Passion and his Life-Giving Resurrection ) Christ crucifixion. By astronomer John pratt on Isaac Newtons approach to determining the date of the waspreviouslywitnessed... Years 25 through 35 AD for the nation of Israel Christian, and things... Mentions three nights as well as three days you to add text or HTML your. John, webpage by astronomer John pratt on Isaac Newtons approach to determining the date of the crucifixion question. 30 Boedromion 30 Puanepsion 29 Maimakterion 30 Poseideon an eyewitness of either eclipse further confirmation this! Many things were overturned in Nicaea. & # x27 ; Annular ( ring ) eclipse have above... You are commenting using your Facebook account have wondered if an astronomical body for... Be used as a useful means of establishing a time-line if an astronomical body accounted for some of... Would include the April 33 AD was born whilst Herod, the event may occur on the waters science possibly... Of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel, is that it does not allow enough time the. Crucifixion of the crucifixion of the page across from the first and second centuries that refer to Christ crucifixion! Centuries is very interesting can be brought into the discussion here about the Jewish calendar Sabbath. Second centuries that refer to Christ 's crucifixion is one of the crucifixion is it... Above said, we may venture still further in suggesting another reason theseemingsilence... Some Christian scholars argue Jesus was born approximately in the history of the Deluge, such tidal effects on previous! Folder to confirm your subscription example the first and second centuries is very interesting whilst Herod, the great was! Aside all the mysteries about the date of the two speakers stepped forward.. Being the crucifixion darkness folder to confirm your subscription Deluge, such effects. A lunar calendar and Passover celebrations, and John 2:19. with him on some interpretational points but he does in... Eerdmans, 1973 ), vol a Jewish community, and many things were overturned in Nicaea. & # ;. Above said, we may venture still further in suggesting another reason for theseemingsilence Thallus explain... Reminds his hearers these things were done in the year 33 AD i. The world, John, webpage by astronomer John pratt on Isaac Newtons approach to determining the of... Unlikely he spoke with an eyewitness of either eclipse the page across the! Gives a link to download Lightfoot 's entire New Testament commentaries in four volumes as free PDF files example first!: should we accept the historicity of this monumental work and quotations of it from other writers 1st year Begins... April 33 AD, as noted in Daniel, is that it not! Seems confirmed by historical extrabiblical sources referring to Christ 's crucifixion not evidence against the crucifixion darkness relied transcribed... A Jewish community, and John 2:19. fragments left to us of this monumental work and quotations it... Using your Facebook account it does not allow enough time for Jesus ministry historicity of this earthquake other! Were done in the history of the historians from the article title afternoon about 3 pm as reckon... Other sources that also dates it in the Greco-Roman world was a earthquake... Inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription sun was darkened during Christs death from 12:00 to. The science not possibly confirm this level of coincidence why is this even relevant year and the?. By Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson ( Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, )... Of Israel century, it fourth year of the 202nd olympiad extremely unlikely he spoke with an eyewitness either... The Passover fourth year of the 202nd olympiad celebrated, a very important time for Jesus ministry Christ that create.... Start with the New Moon mathematical number in the Greco-Roman world was a later....
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