Three Hours of Darkness

[a-seeker]

As an apologist, one of the things i hear a lot when I debate atheists is there is no evidence for the miracles.  There is no extra-biblical evidence, written about any of the things Jesus said or did.  But one thing I like to point to is the three hours of darkness that proceeded Christ's death on the cross.  3 of the 4 gospels write about it:

 

Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

Mark 15:33 And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Luke 23:44-48 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

⁴⁵ And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

⁴⁶ And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

⁴⁷ Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

⁴⁸ And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

 

How is this a miracle?

 

1) It wasn't an eclipse.  The crucifixion took place during the Passover.  Passover happens during a full moon.  Eclipses only happen when there's a new moon.  A new moon is when the moon is between the earth and the sun, so there is no reflection of light.  A full moon occurs when the moon is on the opposite end of the earth, fully reflecting the sun's light.  So being that it was a full moon during the Passover at the crucifixion, the darkness could not have been an eclipse.

 

2) It lasted for three hours.  Eclipses happen for only a few minutes. 

 

3) It was prophecied Amos 8:9 where it says: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.”

 

4)  There are extra-biblical sources:

This is one of many sites that lists the extra-biblical sources: http://daybydaywithjesus.com/three-hour-period-of-darkness-at-the-crucifixion/

 

What do you think of this phenomenon?

I do find that fascinating!

 

However, one thing about the rebuttal of miracles that always frustrates me is this:  over the last 100 or so years the Bible has been reduced to "just another piece of historical data" to be used like any other historical piece in reconstructing an image of the past.  And yet (how ironic) it is rarely consulted even as a secular book in that process.  If Josephus says something that contradicts the Bible, Josephus wins, every time (this is an exaggeration, but not by much).  The Bible is "guilty till proven innocent" whereas other works are given a fair hearing--why the prejudice?  If they insist on treating the Bible as "just another ancient document" then treat it as such.

 

Again, to require "extra-Biblical" evidence reveals a confusion.  The Bible was not written by a single author (excepting, of course, THE AUTHOR behind the authors) and at some point in history you had many pieces of evidence, not just "The Bible", as if it were written from start to finish in a single leather binding.  Thus Paul's revelation of Christ and the miracles recorded in the gospels should not be treated as a single testimony "from the Bible" but as two independent testimonies.  Luke speaks of following eye-witnesses (plural).  The author of John's gospel declares to be an eyewitness. The Bible was compiled centuries (I forget my Church history classes--4th c.?) after the events recorded in it.  Before the New TEstament was compiled, all we had were "extra-Biblical" testimonies of miracles.

 

clb

[Guest]

....The Bible was not written by a single author (excepting, of course, THE AUTHOR behind the authors) and at some point in history you had many pieces of evidence, not just "The Bible", as if it were written from start to finish in a single leather binding.  

 

Thus Paul's revelation of Christ and the miracles recorded in the gospels should not be treated as a single testimony "from the Bible" but as two independent testimonies.  

 

Luke speaks of following eye-witnesses (plural).  

 

The author of John's gospel declares to be an eyewitness.

 

The Bible was compiled centuries (I forget my Church history classes--4th c.?) after the events recorded in it.  

 

Before the New Testament was compiled, all we had were "extra-Biblical" testimonies of miracles.

 

 

The

 

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7

 

B

 

The first man Adam was made a living soul; 1 Corinthians 15:45(b)

 

I

 

I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Exodus 3:6(b)

 

B

 

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob Matthew 22:32(b)

 

L

 

But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, Deuteronomy 30:14(a-c ) 

 

E

 

The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: Romans 10:8(b-d)

 

Now

 

that there is no fear of God before his eyes. Psalms 36:1(b)

 

That's

 

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Romans 3:18

 

The

 

The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Psalms 110:1

 

Book

 

Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Hebrews 1:13(b)

 

For

 

I believed, therefore have I spoken: Psalms 116:10(a)

 

Me

 

I believed, and therefore have I spoken; 2 Corinthians 4:13(b)

 

~

 

Without The Holy Spirit

 

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Psalms 14:1-3

 

One Will Never Get It Until It's Too Late

 

There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Romans 10:3(b)-12

 

For God Is Not Ultimately, Is Not Eventually The Author Of The Bible

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3

 

He IS The Word

 

Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. Mark 13:31

 

Of God

 

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail. Isaiah 51:6 (NIV)

[Your closest friendnt]

As an apologist, one of the things i hear a lot when I debate atheists is there is no evidence for the miracles. There is no extra-biblical evidence, written about any of the things Jesus said or did. But one thing I like to point to is the three hours of darkness that proceeded Christ's death on the cross. 3 of the 4 gospels write about it:

Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

Mark 15:33 And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Luke 23:44-48 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

⁴⁵ And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

⁴⁶ And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

⁴⁷ Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

⁴⁸ And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

How is this a miracle?

1) It wasn't an eclipse. The crucifixion took place during the Passover. Passover happens during a full moon. Eclipses only happen when there's a new moon. A new moon is when the moon is between the earth and the sun, so there is no reflection of light. A full moon occurs when the moon is on the opposite end of the earth, fully reflecting the sun's light. So being that it was a full moon during the Passover at the crucifixion, the darkness could not have been an eclipse.

2) It lasted for three hours. Eclipses happen for only a few minutes.

3) It was prophecied Amos 8:9 where it says: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.”

4) There are extra-biblical sources:

This is one of many sites that lists the extra-biblical sources: http://daybydaywithjesus.com/three-hour-period-of-darkness-at-the-crucifixion/

What do you think of this phenomenon?

Jesus said " I am the light of the world"

In the Gospel of Jonh chapter one is repeated the same thing. Jesus was the light of the world from the beggining. This was a sign from God that the Light is gone from the world.

This darkness came at the same time Jesus died. The light left the world, descended to the very depths of the earth. But it will come back in three days. The three our, symbolize the three days the light of the world, won't be shining on the earth but it will light the underworld.

But the light will come out from there in three days.

The world will be without the light for three days, that's what the three hours of darkness means. It was a sign from God.

[JohnD]

Bravo to the OP for being an apologist. I once was one and was severely burned out for years as the result of going it alone. If you haven't already got it, get a support group of believers who help you with your needs (including and especially prayer). The enemies from hell are aimed specifically at you and those like you who give them answers they can't question and questions they can't answer. 

I have no doubt in my mind that God can simply turn out the lights everywhere whenever he wants to. Just like he could have spoken the universe into existence with a single word. But Genesis chapters 1 and 2 speak of how he chose to go about creating all things created. At times in his Earthly walk he spoke and people were raised from the dead. At times he smeared mud on blind eyes and told them to wash in a specific pool to be healed. There was no method to his miracles (eye-blinking, nose-twitching, arm waving, or spoken mantras). It was sheer divine will. 

According to an interesting theory (the orbital resonance hypothesis) a close encounter with planet Mars could have triggered the Noachian deluge by collapsing Earth's former vapor canopy and cracking the Earth's crust (bringing water from below and above). Does this de-miraclize God's bringing the flood to judge the antediluvian world? No. In fact, the timing of it speaks of the omniscience of the Creator who set in motion the events long before the time came.

Also possible in the case of the OP that a gas cloud or dust cloud in space could have passed between the sun and earth for an instant on the cosmological time scale. Would that relegate the occurrence to when Jesus was on the cross as a mere coincidence / happenstance?  No! It speaks again of the omniscience of the Creator who set the events of that three hour period into motion from the time he created the cosmic cloud to its pin point position at that precise moment. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2015 by JohnD

[kwikphilly]

Blessings Anthony,,,

    Wonderful OP,,,,,,,,a put together so eloquently,thank you for sharing this breathtaking Miraculous event for anyone who may have overlooked how spectacular it truly is........later you commented"Can you imagine the horror on the Pharisees faces?",,,,,,,,,Yeah,this sparked my imagination to move "fast forward" ,thinking of the looks on the unbelievers faces when we see Jesus returning................WOW!!!!

       All over the world ,in various places this time in history has been recorded & documented,,,,,,,the more research & study one does the more they will find that it is an actual ,factual,event,,,,,,,,,,,as one can find when looking for the day that the sun stood still,,,,,,,,,,,"we know the sun doesn't move" but we can find that moment in the life of Joshua  really did happen,,,,,,time stood still(& went backwards for Hezekiah!!!!),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,perhaps this should be a nice topic for another thread,right now I am just thrilled that you brought up this Topic!!!!!!Great stuff Brother,to God be the Glory!

                                                                With love-in Christ,Kwik

Edited August 17, 2015 by kwikphilly
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[Adam]

As I am Lutheran (ELCA, not true for LCMS) we diverged off from the Roman Catholic Church in 1517 before the Council of Trent settled the canon (72 books for them) and both plenary inspiration and verbal inerrancy.  So I'm not committed to, say, the first 11 chapters of Genesis.  Nevertheless I do believe there was a literal Adam and Eve (thus agreeing with papal interpretation by Pope Pius XII, as opposed to polygenism, a rather extreme racial version of physical anthropology).  I'm allowed to agree with current scientific beliefs that the first Adam (the "Y" chromosome that all human males do in fact share) first lived some tens of thousands of years ago as compared with the first Eve (the "X" chromosome that took longer to stabilize because each female is limited to a dozen or less children, as compared to an Old Testament male like Jacob who had children from four women) over 100,000 years back.  Beyond that there is plenty of evidence that we share more genes in common with the apes (presumably millions of years back), more genes in common with monkeys (like tens of millions?), with mammals (back at least to the mass extinction  65 million years ago)....

What I am leading up to telling you is that the Gospel is true, the gospels are true, but nevertheless written by men. I have studied the four gospels thoroughly for 55 years and can identify seven written eyewitness records contained (as sources) within the four gospels.  They're true.  But I have never seen any indication that the editing of these seven sources was preserved by God from human error.  Among the questionable additions is the darkness interpreted as as dark as an eclipse.  Some early Christians cite some early pagan writers that tell of an eclipse or something like it (but then there is the impossibility of an eclipse occurring at Passover), but the references are obscure and have not been preserved.

As myself a Charismatic, I have personal experience that Jesus is Lord and Savior. This does not prove three hours of darkness--maybe the cloud cover was appropriately dark and dismal the day Jesus died.

A