“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land…” (Mt 27:45). Some skeptics claim that there are no non-Christian accounts of Christ and the early Christians. This is patently false. Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus and the Jewish Mishnah, among others, speak of Him. One of the most interesting citations attests to the great darkness at noon when our Lord hung on the cross. Paul L. Maier writes: “This phenomenon, evidently, was visible in Rome, Athens, and other Mediterranean cities. According to Tertullian…it was a “cosmic” or “world event.” Phlegon, a Greek author from Caria writing a chronology soon after 137 a.d., reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e., 33 a.d.) 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. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea” (Pontius Pilate, p. 101).
Recent Posts
Categories
- Apologetics
- Bible Geography
- Bible Truth
- Charts
- Christ
- Christian Living
- Church
- Comfort
- Devotional
- Doctrine
- Exhortation
- Explanations
- Featured
- Fireside Friday
- God
- Good Question!
- Gospel
- Gospel
- Heart-warmers
- Holiness
- Holy Spirit
- Illustrations
- Little Lifechangers
- Megatruth series
- Mini-Message Monday
- Poems, Quotes
- Prayer
- Ready Answers
- Scripture Snapshot Charts
- Scripture Snapshots
- Sermon Helps
- So Great Salvation
- Study Helps
- Through the Bible Thursday
- Top Ten Tuesday
- Topics/Books of the Bible A – I
- Topics/Books of the Bible J – M
- Topics/Books of the Bible N – Z
- True Stories
- True Stories
- Word Studies
- Worship