Evidence for God from Science

dayage wrote:I read through the first half of this forum. When I got to the list of people who never wrote about Jesus I had to make some comments. Hopefully I'm not covering old ground too much.

I looked into this years ago, so I'm going on memory. There are two early copies of Josephus. One is in Greek and has been disputed to some degree, but the other is in Aramaic and is phrased in a way that suggests one author and contains the same basic references. This one is not disputed.

I started going through a list, much like, if not the same, years ago. I finally quite when I started seeing a patern. Many did not live during the lifetime of Jesus, wrote about things like agriculture and one of the individuals had hired one of the others in the list to follow him around and write about his own life. Some, like Philo, did not live in the area. Philo lived in Egypt and died about 20 yrs. after Jesus' ministery. Maybe I'm missing something.

robyn hill wrote:Totally agree Danny. The bible, and new testament specifically since that is what is being discussed right now, is intertwined with so many details that show up in other places, it would take genuis to make sure all i's were dotted and t's were crossed! Not to mention, if it were written merely out of political persuasion, as some sceptics claim, where is the bias? There is no bias or alterior motive whatsoever! In fact, it is purely unselfish! To be this intelligent, and generous, and yet be full of untruths, just doesn't add up. I think if people really study the word they will discover it for themselves. It is those people who make assumptions without actually studying for themselves, who are led to believe the sceptisism out there. That is why I just ask people if they really are "open minded", to make sure they truly study both sides before drawing any conclusions.

DannyM wrote:

Gman wrote:Thanks Danny..

No eyewitness to the accounts of Christ? I think this video clearly refutes that....

How Many People Really Saw Jesus Alive? Eyewitness Accounts of Christ

Brother I really don't know how you do all this stuff, but a big, big thank you! You know what, we don't get nearly enough atheists participating on here, but I really do hope that there are many who browse the boards and see all this stuff. And Rich's latest slide show via your link on the "New Page Critique" forum was another masterpiece. We should invade an atheist forum with all this stuff I'll watch that video now...

rare96ws6 wrote:It would be interesting to see some of the more knowledgable Christians here debate the atheists on one of their forums...

rare96ws6 wrote:Some athiests are interested in learning.

rare96ws6 wrote:I have known a few [atheists] who have become Christians.

Gman wrote:There are different ways we can tackle this.. As an example, take a Biblical claim and see if it is backed up by other historians, science, or other sources. As an example, Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44... Also addressed in Acts 2:20 (by Peter as a prophecy for Christ), Joel 2:31 and Revelation 6:12.

Apparently there were two events at the death of Christ.

1. A darkness.
2. A red blood moon.

The darkness can easily be explained by a surging of dark clouds or some other miraculous event, but it was most likely clouds that would have appeared about 3:00 pm in the afternoon. These clouds, however, would have to disappear somewhat by nighttime in order to record our next historical event, a red blood moon.

Acts 2:20 ...and the moon to blood (red blood moon), before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

It appears that during Christ's crucifixion, there was a red blood moon. So let's see if there was an eclipse or something that happened around that time.. Well, it turns out that there was a lunar eclipse with a red blood moon that happened in Jerusalem around 33 AD. By using the astronomical software called "Starry Night" we can see that on April 3, 33 AD, the moon rises as a full red blood moon about 6:00 pm (on the Jerusalem horizon), then about 9:15 pm it goes back to a full moon (looking east) just as depicted in the Gospels and Acts 2:20.

Red Moon eclipsed


Full Moon



As for the darkness (clouds), apparently it was widespread...

But this is also confirmed by sources outside of the Bible. As an example, Phlegon Trallianus records in his history, Olympiades:

"In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad [AD 32-33], a failure of the Sun took place greater than any previously known, and night came on at the sixth hour of the day, so that stars actually appeared in the sky; and a great earthquake took place in Bithynia and overthrew the greater part of Niceaea."

Or

Samaritan historian, Thallus, wrote his "Histories." In A.D. 52. Although no copies of him survive but we do have quotes of it from others. Thus Julius Africanus, writing about A.D. 220, refers to the "Histories" and says:

"Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, without reason it seems to me.."

Total solar eclipse

Records of solar blackouts exceeding a half hour have been attributed to total solar eclipses. For example, the T'ang Dynasty [7] and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's accounts of the hour long solar darkness of 879 AD were attributed to the total solar eclipse of October 29, 878 AD.[8] However, a solar eclipse could not have occurred on or near 14th of Nisan, because solar eclipses only occur during the new moon phase, and 14th of Nisan always corresponds to a full moon.

Solar eclipses are also too brief to account for the crucifixion darkness. The length of the crucifixion darkness described by biblical and extra-biblical sources was more than a full order of magnitude for the totality of solar eclipses. Seven minutes and 31.1 seconds has been the established maximum limit of solar eclipse totality.[34] The maximum duration of the total eclipse of November 3, 31 AD, was only one minute and four seconds. The maximum duration of the total eclipse of March 19, 33 AD, was only four minutes six seconds. Neither one had paths of totality passing near Jerusalem. Eclipses lasting at least six minutes, that were close to the crucifixion year, occurred on July 22, 27 AD, for a maximum duration of six minutes and thirty-one seconds and on August 1, 45 AD, for a maximum duration of six minutes and thirty seconds.[35]

Astronomer Mark Kidger compared the apocryphal Gospel of Peter passage with historical eclipses.[36] He indicated the total eclipse of November 24, 29 AD had the greatest geographical proximity to the site of the crucifixion. He determined its path of totality had passed slightly north of Jerusalem at 11:05 AM (see the NASA diagram of the path of totality for that eclipse [9]) Kidger indicated the maximum level of darkness at totality was just 95% for the eclipsed over Jerusalem. His research indicated that level of darkness would have been unnoticeable for people outdoors. His calculations indicated the eclipse had been total in Nazareth and Galilee for one minute and forty-nine seconds. Kidger concluded the population in Jerusalem lacked the necessity and the time to light their lamps for that total solar eclipse.[36] Their behavior, as described in the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter, had been caused by a considerably longer period of darkness.

According to Pollata, the Greek word, ΕΓΕΝΕΤΟ¸ (it-became),[37] indicates the onslaught of darkness had transpired too rapidly for a solar eclipse.[38] It takes approximately an hour for the darkness to reach the beginning of totality.[39] The Greek phrase, ΣΚΟΤΟΣ ΕΓΕΝΕΤΟ¸ (darkness came about) appears in the crucifixion accounts of the Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, and the Codex Sinaiticus.[40] Most English versions of the Bible do not describe a sudden darkening.

Some[citation needed]have explained the crucifixion darkness in terms of heavy cloud cover. Another possible natural explanation is a khamsin dust storm that tends to occur from March to May.

Jesus' crucifixion took place around Passover, the middle of the lunar month and the time of a full moon. Solar eclipses naturally take place only at the time of the new moon. For this reason, medieval commentators viewed the darkness as a miraculous event rather than a natural one. Humphreys' and Waddington's reconstruction of the Jewish calendar, associating the crucifixion with a lunar eclipse rather than a solar eclipse, has been used to infer the date of the crucifixion.[41]
[edit] Lunar eclipse

Humphreys and Waddington of Oxford University reconstructed the Jewish calendar in the first century AD and arrived at the conclusion that Friday April 3 33AD was the date of the Crucifixion.[33] Humphreys and Waddington went further and also reconstructed the scenario for a lunar eclipse on that day.[41] They concluded that:

"This eclipse was visible from Jerusalem at moonrise. .... The start of the eclipse was invisible from Jerusalem, being below the horizon. The eclipse began at 3:40pm and reached a maximum at 5:15pm, with 60% of the moon eclipsed. This was also below the horizon from Jerusalem. The moon rose above the horizon, and was first visible from Jerusalem at about 6:20pm (the start of the Jewish Sabbath and also the start of Passover day in A.D. 33) with about 20% of its disc in the umbra of the earth's shadow and the remainder in the penumbra. The eclipse finished some thirty minutes later at 6:50pm."

Moreover, their calculations showed that the 20% visible of the moon was positioned close to the top (i.e. leading edge) of the moon. The failure of any of the gospel accounts to refer to a lunar eclipse is, they assume, the result of a scribe wrongly amending a text to refer to a solar eclipse.[30]:150

In Acts 2:20, the Apostle Peter refers to a "moon of blood" in the context of a prophecy from Joel. A "moon of blood" is a term also commonly used for a lunar eclipse because of the reddish color of the light refracted onto the moon through the Earth's atmosphere. Commentators are divided upon the exact nature of the this statement by Saint Peter. The investigation by Humphreys and Waddington concluded that the moon turned to blood statement probably refers to a lunar eclipse, and they showed that this interpretation is self consistent and seems to confirm their conclusion that the crucifixion occurred on April 3, 33.[41]

Using his approach to computing "celestial glare", Bradley Schaefer opposed the views of Humphreys and Waddington with respect to the visibility of the lunar eclipse, since his computations of celestial glare would not allow a visible lunar eclipse during the Crucifixion.[42][43] Ruggles also supported Schaefer's views.[44] However, using different computational mechanisms, based on the approach originally used by Isaac Newton, John Pratt and later Bradley Schaefer separately arrived at the same date for the Crucifixion as Humphreys and Waddington did based on the lunar eclipse approach, namely Friday, April 3 33 AD.[45]

Gaskel argued a lunar eclipse during the day of the crucifixion could have received significant attention.[46]
[edit] Miracle

Because it was known in medieval times that a solar eclipse could not take place during Passover when there is a full moon, it was considered a miraculous sign rather than a naturally occurring event.[47] The astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco wrote, in his The Sphere of the World, "the eclipse was not natural, but, rather, miraculous and contrary to nature".[48]

Author Anita Meyer wrote: By the way all this is mentioned in my book.

Thanks Anita.. What is the name of your book?