#phlegon

At Jesus’ crucifixion, Matthew (27:45-54) reported “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (cf., Psalm 22)…And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the son of God!’”

Matthew’s passage includes two events that can be historically and geologically confirmed: (1) Darkness covered the land for three hours (c.f., Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44-45) and (2) An earthquake occurred.

“At that same moment about noontide, the day was withdrawn; and they, who knew not that this was foretold concerning Christ, thought it was an eclipse. But this you have in your archives; you can read it there. Yet nailed upon the cross, Christ exhibited many notable signs, by which his death was distinguished from all others. At his own free-will, he with a word dismissed from him his spirit, anticipating the executioners’ work. In the same hour, too, the light of day was withdrawn, when the sun at the very time was in his meridian blaze. Those who were not aware that this had been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it was an eclipse.” 

-  Tertullian (197 AD), Jewish Consul

“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 6th hour the day was changed into night and the stars were seen in the heavens. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nicaea.”

- Phlegon (2nd century AD) Greek historian, “Olympiads”

“With regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too I think has written in the 13th or 14th book of his Chronicles…Celsus imagines also that both the earthquake and darkness were an invention, but regarding these, we have in the preceding pages made our defense, according to our ability, adducing the testimony of Phlegon, who relates that these events took place at the time when our Savior suffered.” 

- Origen (184 – 253 AD), Greek scholar and early Christian father who confirmed Phlegon’s writings

“Jesus Christ underwent his passion in the 18th year of Tiberius [33 AD]. Also at that time in another Greek compendium we find an event recorded in these words: ‘the sun was eclipsed, Bithynia was struck by an earthquake, and in the city of Nicaea many buildings fell.”

- Eusebius (315 AD), Historian of the Emperor Constantine.

What Caused the Three-hour Period of Darkness?

Before determining that the three-hour period of darkness is due to supernatural causes, we must rule out the natural possibilities. We have experienced natural events that have caused darkness during the daylight hours. These include when volcanoes erupt and emit dark clouds and when storms occur and cover the sky with clouds. Yet no Biblical or secular sources indicate any support for a volcanic explosion or storms, so we can rule out those two natural events.

What about an eclipse? The positioning of the sun and moon is required to answer this question. We have much support for the dating of Jesus’ crucifixion on Friday the 14th of Nissan in the year 33 (April 3, 33). This date was further predicted in the book of Daniel (9). Passovers only occurred during a full moon, so an eclipse would not have been possible due to the moon’s location on the far side of the earth away from the sun. Even if the positioning were conducive to an eclipse, eclipses only darken the earth for short moments, not for three hours, so we have another reason to rule out that natural option.

Is the Best Explanation to Explain this Event a Supernatural Explanation?

I will let readers answer that question for themselves.

Geological Support for the Earthquake                                     

Scholars have reported that devastating earthquakes occurred in Jerusalem during Christ’s death (Mallet, 1853; Rigg, 1941). This occurred in a region that includes the Dead Sea fault, which is a plate boundary that separates the Arabian plate and the Sinai sub-plate (Garfunkel, 1981). This fault has been active since the Miocene (Kagan, Stein, Agnon, & Neuman, 2011) and the fault is still active today (De Liso & Fidani, 2014). The fault extends from the Red Sea in the south to the Taurus Mountains in the north.

Kagan and colleagues (2011) analyzed seismites in the Holocene Dead Sea basin by constructing two age-depth chronological models based on atmospheric radiocarbon ages of short-lived organic debris with a Bayesian model. Seismites are sedimentary beds and structures, which are deformed by seismic shaking. The scholars analyzed seismites in different areas of the basin, finding that several synchronous seismites appeared in all sections during particular years, including 33 AD (+/- 2 sigma; 95% confidence interval). Other years in which earthquakes occurred as evidenced by seismites are (AD unless otherwise noted): 1927, 1293, 1202/1212, 749, 551, 419, 33, 31 BC, and mid-century B.C.

After analyzing laminated sedimentary cores recovered at the shores of the Dead Sea, Migowski, Agnon, Bookman, Negendank, and Stein (2004) also confirmed an earthquake in 33 AD with a magnitude of 5.5. They documented earthquakes around 33 AD in 31 BC and 76 AD. The scholars analyzed seismites using radiocarbon dating.

Ben-Menahem (2014) conducted a literature review of empirical studies over 4,000 years of seismicity along the Dead Sea Rift. The scholar referenced the aforementioned studies along with one by Enzel, Kadan, and Eyal (2000) before concluding that earthquakes occurred in Masada in 31 BC, Jerusalem in 33 AD, and near Nablus in 64 AD.

In summary, the literature on seismicity along the Dead Sea basin supports the assertion that an earthquake occurred either in or very close to the year 33 AD.

We can pinpoint the date even closer – to April 3, 33. A United States government federal agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has documented the major earthquakes throughout history. According to their website (NOAA.gov), in 33 AD, an earthquake occurred at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Bithynia and Palestine and Palestine, Jerusalem.

Conclusion

In summary, we have extensive extra-biblical support for the accounts of darkness and the earthquake during Jesus’ crucifixion. Taken together, these events support the historicity of the account of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Your mention of the dinosaur bones that Augustus used as home decoration reminds me of a story about Tiberius! (I swear, everything recently has been reminding me about Tiberius!)

By the way, finding the ancient source for this story was shit! I remembered reading this like a year ago, and I had forgotten which ancient source this was from. Using my critical thinking skills ("hmmm tiberius hmmmm dinosaur"), I assumed that this story came from Pliny's Natural History.

It did not.

I was searching through the Natural History for so long that I was starting to wonder if I had made the story up!

After searching through the Natural History for ages, I finally used more critical thinking skill and was like "Hmmm. Maybe if I google this, I could find an article about the event and maybe possibly it would cite a specific part of the Natural History!"

I googled it, found an article about the event, and it cited Phlegon's Book of Marvels.

Whoopsie! I was looking through the wrong book this whole time! In my defense, Pliny and Phlegon actually are pretty similar names if you squint sooo...

(it was however worth it to look through the Natural History because I found the funniest story about Tiberius ever but that's a story for another day)

Now that I have the ancient source of this story, I can finally tell it!

Basically, there was an earthquake which opened up all sorts of cracks on the ground. And in those cracks, there were dinosaur bones!

The people were pretty spooked so they took a tooth and sent it to Rome. And this was a massive tooth.

The tooth was showed to Tiberius and he was asked if he wanted the rest of the bones. He was like "Well, I'm really curious about this thing, and I'm aching to get an idea of what size it was, but it feels like graverobbing to take the rest of the bones."

So Tiberius got some dude called Pulcher who was skilled in geometry. Tiberius asked him to make a face in proportion to the tooth. The dude estimated the size of the creature using its tooth as a reference and then showed Tiberius a construction of it he had made. Tiberius said that looking at the construction was good enough and sent the tooth back where it came from.

Tiberius and (especially) Pulcher, the world's first paleontologists!

I love this story. It's wild. Though I do wonder what happened to the construction. Did Tiberius keep it?

If Tiberius randomly showed up at my door one day, I'd bring him to Drumheller to go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Alberta is one of the most boring places in the world but we do have a banging dinosaur museum!

On the hours-long drive there, I will most certainly give him like a billion questions, though. "How was Caligula like? How was Augustus like? How were you like? How was Livia like? How was Sejanus like? Actually, scratch this. Name every single person you know and tell me how they were like and how they looked like. What did you do in Capri? Explain your entire life from beginning to end, giving extra attention to the personal parts! I don't want to hear about wars I want to hear about what people were like! Could you read Suetonius to me and point out parts where he's wrong? Could we watch Domina together and you can tell me if you like your characterization or not?"

For everyone's sake, it's good that dead Roman emperors usually don't randomly show up sometimes (not counting whatever the fuck was happening right after Nero died!)