Crucifixion eclipse - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

According to the Christian synoptic gospels, on the day Jesus Christ was crucified, darkness covered the land for hours, an event which later came to be referred to as the "crucifixion eclipse". Although medieval writers treated the darkness as a miracle

Miracle

A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...

, various Christian historians have associated it with prophecies and other reports of eclipses or periods of darkness. Using this period of darkness as a marker, and interpreting it as a solar eclipse

Solar eclipse

As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...

or lunar eclipse

Lunar eclipse

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes behind the Earth so that the Earth blocks the Sun's rays from striking the Moon. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, a lunar eclipse can only occur the night of a...

, writers have suggested dates for Jesus' crucifixion.

Biblical account

See also Chronology of Jesus
Chronology of Jesus
The chronology of Jesus aims to establish a historical order for some of the events of the life of Jesus in the four canonical gospels. The Christian gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than historical chronicles and their authors showed little interest in an absolute...

and Gospel harmony
Gospel harmony
A Gospel harmony is an attempt to merge or harmonize the canonical gospels of the Four Evangelists into a single gospel account, the earliest known example being the Diatesseron by Tatian in the 2nd century. A gospel harmony may also establish a chronology for the events of the life of Jesus...

According to the Synoptic Gospels

Synoptic Gospels

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...

, a period of darkness occurred during Jesus' crucifixion, which took place on the first day of Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

. The crucifixion narrative of the Gospel of John

Gospel of John

The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

does not mention this. The Synoptic Gospels describe darkness beginning around noon ("the sixth hour") and continued until 3 o'clock ("the ninth hour"):
A verse in the Book of Amos

Book of Amos

The Book of Amos is a prophetic book of the Hebrew Bible, one of the Twelve Minor Prophets. Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, was active c. 750 BCE during the reign of Jeroboam II, making the Book of Amos the first biblical prophetic book written. Amos lived in the kingdom of Judah...

predicts an earthquake during which the sun will set at midday. This has been interpreted by some Christians as a prophecy of the crucifixion darkness.
According to the beginning of the Book of Amos, an earthquake took place two years later; this was taken as a fulfillment of the prophecy. The earthquake is referred to in the later Book of Zechariah

Book of Zechariah

The Book of Zechariah is the penultimate book of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew and Christian Bible, attributed to the prophet Zechariah.-Historical context:...

New Testament Apocrypha

The divisions in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, known as the Acts of Pilate, Christ’s Descent into Hell, and The Paradosis, refer to a variety of physical phenomena accompanying the crucifixion and the subsequent executive responses by Caesar. According to Chapter XI of the Acts of Pilate, the darkness had started at midday; lasted three hours, and had been caused by the darkening of the Sun. It also stated Pilate and his wife were disturbed by a report of what had happened. The Judeans he had summoned said it was an ordinary solar eclipse. The Christ’s Descent into Hell described the many dead who had arisen and had appeared to many in Jerusalem shortly after the resurrection of Christ. And, the Paradosis presented the interrogations in Rome by Caesar and his subsequent decree of severe punishment against both Pilate and the Judeans for causing the darkness and earthquake that had fallen upon the whole world.

Other apocryphal works contain briefer accounts of the crucifixion darkness. The Gospel of Bartholomew
Gospel of Bartholomew
The Gospel of Bartholomew is a missing text amongst the New Testament apocrypha, mentioned in several early sources. It may be identical to either the Questions of Bartholomew, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ , or neither....

stated darkness had accompanied the crucifixion of Christ. The division of The Acts of John known as the Revelation of the Mystery of the Cross stated the darkness had started at the sixth hour and had covered the whole world.

Letters

The purported Letter from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius claimed the darkness had started at the sixth hour, covered the whole world and, during the subsequent evening, the full moon resembled blood for the entire night. The Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Peter
The Gospel According to Peter , commonly called the Gospel of Peter, is one of the non-Canonical gospels which were rejected by the Church Fathers and the Catholic Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon, as apocryphal...

stated that the darkness began at midday, covered the whole of Judaea, and led people to go about with lamps believing it to be night.

In letters written under the name Dionysius the Areopagite

Dionysius the Areopagite

Dionysius the Areopagite was a judge of the Areopagus who, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, , was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul during the Areopagus sermon...

the author claims to have observed a solar eclipse from Heliopolis

Heliopolis (ancient)

Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, the capital of the 13th Lower Egyptian nome that was located five miles east of the Nile to the north of the apex of the Nile Delta...

at the time of the crucifixion. According to the Orthodox Church in America, Dionysius, who is mentioned in Acts 17:34, was from Athens and received a classical Greek education. He studied astronomy at the city of Heliopolis, and it was in Heliopolis, along with his friend Apollophonos where he witnessed the solar eclipse that occurred at the moment of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ by Crucifixion. (The connection between the events was surely realized by him at a later date.) But even so, at the time of the eclipse he said, "Either the Creator of all the world now suffers, or this visible world is coming to an end."

The Archko Volume, a 19th-century forgery purporting to be a collection of ancient documents concerning Jesus, contains a report by Pontius Pilate about the crucifixion events.

Ancient historians

The 3rd-century Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus

Sextus Julius Africanus

Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian traveller and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He is important chiefly because of his influence on Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers.His name indicates that...

, in a section of his work surviving in quotation by George Syncellus

George Syncellus

George Syncellus was a Byzantine chronicler and ecclesiastic. He had lived many years in Palestine as a monk, before coming to Constantinople, where he was appointed syncellus to Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople...

, stated that the chronicler Thallus

Thallus (historian)

Thallus , sometimes spelled Thallos, was an early Samaritan historian who wrote in Koine Greek. Some scholars believe that his work can be interpreted as the earliest reference to the historical Jesus, written about 20 years after the Crucifixion. Around the year 55, he wrote a three-volume history...

had called the darkness during the crucifixion a solar eclipse. Africanus objected based on the fact that a solar eclipse could not occur during Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

; the festival is held at a full moon

Full moon

Full moon lunar phase that occurs when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. More precisely, a full moon occurs when the geocentric apparent longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180 degrees; the Moon is then in opposition with the Sun.Lunar eclipses can only occur at...

while a solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon

New moon

In astronomical terminology, the new moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the Moon, in its monthly orbital motion around Earth, lies between Earth and the Sun, and is therefore in conjunction with the Sun as seen from Earth...

. It is unclear whether Thallus himself made any reference to the crucifixion.

Africanus also cites the 2nd-century chronicler Phlegon of Tralles

Phlegon of Tralles

Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer and freedman of the emperor Hadrian, who lived in the 2nd century AD.His chief work was the Olympiads, an historical compendium in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th Olympiad , of which several chapters are preserved in Eusebius' Chronicle, Photius...

: "Phlegon records that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar there was a complete solar eclipse at full moon from the sixth to the ninth hour". The church historian Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...

(264 – 340), in his Chronicle
Chronicon (Eusebius)
The Chronicon or Chronicle was a work in two books by Eusebius of Caesarea. It seems to have been compiled in the early 4th century. It contained a world chronicle from Abraham until the vicennalia of Constantine I in 325 AD...

, quotes Phlegon as saying that during the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad

Olympiad

An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....

(AD 32/33) "a great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour that excelled every other before it, turning the day into such darkness of night that the stars could be seen in heaven, and the earth moved in Bithynia

Bithynia

Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...

, toppling many buildings in the city of Nicaea". It has been suggested that this was the eclipse of November 24, 29 AD in the first year of the Olympiad, the number Α' (1st) having been corrupted to Δ' (4th). In a 2005 paper, Nicolas Ambraseys

Nicolas Ambraseys

Professor Nicolas Neocles Ambraseys Dip.Eng DIC PhD FICE FREng is a Greek Engineering Seismologist...

points out that the sources do not mention Jerusalem in connection with the earthquake.

Tertullian

Tertullian

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...

, in his Apologeticus, tells the story of the darkness that had commenced at noon during the crucifixion; those who were unaware of the prediction, he says, "no doubt thought it an eclipse". He suggests that the evidence is still available: "You yourselves have the account of the world-portent still in your archives."

The early historian and theologian, Rufinus of Aquileia (between 340 and 345 – 410), in his expanded work of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, includes a part of the defense given to Maximinus

Maximinus

Maximinus II , also known as Maximinus Daia or Maximinus Daza, was Roman Emperor from 308 to 313. He was born of Dacian peasant stock to the half sister of the emperor Galerius near their family lands around Felix Romuliana; a rural area then in the Danubian region of Moesia, now Eastern Serbia.He...

by Lucian of Antioch

Lucian of Antioch

Saint Lucian of Antioch , known as Lucian the Martyr, was a Christian presbyter, theologian and martyr. He was noted for both his scholarship and ascetic piety.-History:...

, shortly before he suffered martyrdom in 312. Lucian, like Tertullian, was also convinced that an account of the darkness that accompanied the crucifixion could be found among Roman records. Ussher recorded Lucian's corresponding statement given to Maximinus as, “Search your writings and you shall find that, in Pilate’s time, when Christ suffered, the sun was suddenly withdrawn and a darkness followed.”

The next prominent Christian historian after Eusebius, Paulus Orosius (375 – 418), wrote c. 417 that Jesus "voluntarily gave himself over to the Passion but through the impiety of the Jews, was apprehended and nailed to the cross, as a very great earthquake took place throughout the world, rocks upon mountains were split, and a great many parts of the largest cities fell by this extraordinary violence. On the same day also, at the sixth hour of the day, the Sun was entirely obscured and a loathsome night suddenly overshadowed the land, as it was said, ‘an impious age feared eternal night.’ Moreover, it was quite clear that neither the Moon nor the clouds stood in the way of the light of the Sun, so that it is reported that on that day the Moon, being fourteen days old, with the entire region of the heavens thrown in between, was farthest from the sight of the Sun, and the stars throughout the entire sky shone, then in the hours of the day or rather in that terrible night. To this, not only the authority of the Holy Gospels attest, but even some books of the Greeks."

Historicity

Various writers have said that the account in the synoptic gospels is mythical. During the nineteenth century, Kersey Graves

Kersey Graves

Kersey Graves was a skeptic, atheist, spiritualist, Nontheist Friend, reformist and writer.-Life:Kersey Graves was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on 21 November 1813.. His parents were Quakers, and as a young man he followed them in their observance, and then later moved to the Hicksite wing...

argued the biblical account was “too incredible and too ludicrous to merit serious notice.” His arguments stemmed from Gibbon’s comments on the silence of Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

and Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

about the crucifixion darkness. Burton Mack suggests the story was an invention originated by the author of the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

.

The unusually long length of time the eclipse is supposed to have lasted has been used as an argument against its historicity, as has the lack of mention of the darkness in secular accounts and the Gospel of John

Gospel of John

. One view is that the account in the synoptic gospels is a literary creation of the gospel writers, intended to heighten the sense of importance of a theologically significant event by taking a recent remembered event and applying it to the story of Jesus, just as eclipses were associated in accounts of other historical figures:

"It is probable that, without any factual basis, darkness was added in order to wrap the cross in a rich symbol and/or assimilate Jesus to other worthies".

In the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

, the miraculous darkness accompanies the temple curtain being torn in two. Some scholars question the historicity of the darkness in the Gospel of Mark and suggest that it may have been a literary creation intended to add drama. To Mark's account, Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

adds an earthquake and the resurrection of saints. The Gospel of Luke

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

and the Seven Books of History Against the Pagans by Orosius refer specifically to the darkening of the sun. The Gospel of John

Gospel of John

does not report any wondrous miracles associated with Jesus' crucifixion.

Dating the crucifixion

Astronomical determinations of the date of the crucifixion have been derived from calculating the dates when the crescent of the new moon would be first visible from Jerusalem, which was used by the Jews to mark the first day of a lunar month, for example Nisan 1. Popular estimates have been April 7, 30 AD, April 3, 33 AD, and April 23, 34 AD.

Extra-biblical records have been incorporated with the determinations of the year of the crucifixion. Eusebius connected the solar darkening with the 18th year of Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

’ reign and the earthquakes to the year of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Since Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD) ascended the throne in 14 AD, the 18th year of his reign would have occurred in 32 AD, or, using Jewish ecclesiastical reckoning, between Spring of 32 and Spring of 33. Also, the darkening recorded by Phlegon

Phlegon of Tralles

yielded 32 or 33 AD. The fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad

Olympiad

An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....

ran from summer of 32 to summer of 33 AD because the first Olympiad occurred in 776 BC. The Olympics were conducted every four years from 776 BC until 393 AD.

Total solar eclipse

Records of solar blackouts exceeding a half hour have been attributed to total solar eclipses. For example, the T’ang Dynasty and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

’s accounts of the hour long solar darkness of 879 were attributed to the total solar eclipse of October 29, 878. 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. 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.

Astronomer Mark Kidger compared the apocryphal Gospel of Peter

Gospel of Peter

The Gospel According to Peter , commonly called the Gospel of Peter, is one of the non-Canonical gospels which were rejected by the Church Fathers and the Catholic Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon, as apocryphal...

passage with historical eclipses. 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 ) 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. 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), indicates the onslaught of darkness had transpired too rapidly for a solar eclipse. It takes approximately an hour for the darkness to reach the beginning of totality. The Greek phrase, ΣΚΟΤΟΣ ΕΓΕΝΕΤΟ (darkness came about) appears in the crucifixion accounts of the Codex Alexandrinus

Codex Alexandrinus

The Codex Alexandrinus is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early history of Christianity...

, Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, and the Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...

. Most English versions of the Bible do not describe a sudden darkening.

Some have explained the crucifixion darkness in terms of heavy cloud cover. Another possible natural explanation is a khamsin

Khamsin

Khamsin, khamseen, chamsin or hamsin , also known as khamaseen refers to a dry, hot and dusty local wind blowing in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Similar winds in the area are sirocco and simoom...

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. Humphrey

Colin Humphreys

Professor Sir Colin John Humphreys, CBE is a British physicist. He is the former Goldsmiths’ Professor of Materials Science and current Director of Research at Cambridge University, Professor of Experimental Physics at the Royal Institution in London and a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge...

s' and Waddington's reconstruction of the Jewish calendar, associating the crucifixion with a lunar eclipse

Lunar eclipse

rather than a solar eclipse

Solar eclipse

, has been used to infer the date of the crucifixion.

Lunar eclipse

Humphreys

Colin 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. Humphreys and Waddington went further and also reconstructed the scenario for a lunar eclipse on that day. 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.

In Acts 2:20

Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...

, the Apostle Peter mentions in the context of a prophecy from Joel

Book of Joel

The Book of Joel is part of the Hebrew Bible. Joel is part of a group of twelve prophetic books known as the Minor Prophets or simply as The Twelve; the distinction 'minor' indicates the short length of the text in relation to the larger prophetic texts known as the "Major Prophets".-Content:After...

that "the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood". 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 this statement by Saint Peter. The investigation by Humphreys

Colin 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. However, they fail to address the preceding reference to the darkened sun.

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. Ruggles also supported Schaefer's views. However, using different computational mechanisms, based on the approach originally used by Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

, 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.

Gaskel argued a lunar eclipse during the day of the crucifixion could have received significant attention.

Miracle

Because it was known in medieval times that a solar eclipse could not take place during Passover (solar eclipses require a new moon

New moon

while Passover only takes place during a full moon

Full moon

) it was considered a miraculous sign rather than a naturally occurring event. The astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco

Johannes de Sacrobosco

Johannes de Sacrobosco or Sacro Bosco was a scholar, monk, and astronomer who taught at the University of Paris and wrote the authoritative mediaeval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera.-Origins:Although described as English, his birthplace is unknown because Sacrobosco is...

wrote, in his The Sphere of the World

De sphaera mundi

De sphaera mundi is a medieval introduction to the basic elements of astronomy written by Johannes de Sacrobosco c. 1230...

, "the eclipse was not natural, but, rather, miraculous and contrary to nature".

Similar accounts of darkness

The same phenomena and portents of the sudden darkness at the sixth hour, a strong earthquake, rent stones, a temple entrance broken in two, and the rising of the dead have been reported by multiple ancient writers for the death of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

on March 15, 44 BC. Medieval accounts of large solar eclipses often described them as having very long duration, such as the one seen at Reichersberg

Reichersberg

Reichersberg is a municipality in the district of Ried im Innkreis in Upper Austria, Austria.-External links:* Official Homepage...

in 1241, which was said to have lasted four hours; modern estimates suggest the period of total darkness lasted around 3 minutes and 30 seconds. A solar eclipse took place on 3 June, 1239, visible from many parts of Europe. This was documented in Coimbra

Coimbra

Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...

, Toledo

Toledo, Spain

Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...

, Montpellier

Montpellier

-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....

, Marola

Marola

Marola can be one of several villages in Italy:*Marola in the comune of Torri di Quartesolo, in the province of Vicenza, Veneto.*Marola in the comune of La Spezia, in Liguria....

, Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Siena

Siena

Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...

, Arezzo

Arezzo

Arezzo is a city and comune in Central Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 km southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 m above sea level. In 2011 the population was about 100,000....

, Cesena

Cesena

Cesena is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, south of Ravenna and west of Rimini, on the Savio River, co-chief of the Province of Forlì-Cesena. It is at the foot of the Apennines, and about 15 km from the Adriatic Sea.-History:Cesena was originally an Umbrian...

and Split

Split (city)

Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...

. Accounts of the duration vary considerably, from Cesena (one hour), to Coimbra (three hours) and Florence ('several hours'). However, an astronomer of the period, Restoro d'Arezzo

Restoro d'Arezzo

Ristoro or Restoro d'Arezzo was an Italian monk of the thirteenth century, author of the Composizione del Mondo of c. 1282.This is the first astronomical work to be written in Italian...

, wrote an eyewitness report, which has been described as "the earliest known which gives a meaningful estimate of the duration of totality". He described seeing the Sun "entirely covered for the space of time in which a man could walk fully 250 paces," which is consistent with the modern estimate of 5 minutes and 45 seconds. Although total darkness in an eclipse never lasts more than a few minutes, it has frequently been recorded that observers perceive it as having lasted as much as two or three hours. The astronomer F. R. Stephenson suggests that the long durations described in medieval, European accounts may have been influenced by the Passion narrative in the Synoptic Gospels; several texts closely resemble the wording of the Vulgate (Latin) gospel account. He does not however apply that explanation to the other records of large solar eclipses from non-European countries.

Biblical account

New Testament Apocrypha

Letters

Ancient historians

Historicity

Dating the crucifixion

Total solar eclipse

Lunar eclipse

Miracle

Similar accounts of darkness

See also

Further reading