Amos 8:9-10 (New International Version)

9 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious feasts into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.


The prophet Amos states that the sun will go down at noon. Amos was a prophet who lived in the times of Isaiah, Micah and Hosea.

Many scholars think this refers to the sun going down at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Do we have any historical records of this? Yes through 2 ancient Greeks: Thallus and Phelgon of Tralles.

Thallus mistakenly attributes the darkness to an eclipse but another notable historian Julian Africanus comes along and corrects this notion. He indicates it is a supernatural event because it occurred at the time of the full moon and an eclipse is not possible when the moon is full.

William Lane Craig has an interesting link in which he handles a question on this: Question number 160.

Thallus on the Darkness at Noon: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/...rticle&id=8157

Did everyone wear sackcloth and shave their heads on that day, too?

Oh you can't see the time continuum by reading the above closely.

It says:

I will turn your religious feasts into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.



Will turn sounds like future tense to me.

So does will make the sun go down...

What's your point?

The point isn't debating the prophecy.

The point of the thread is the evidence of a supernatural event.

We have ancient historians documenting that the Gospels are correct on the point of the earth darkening for several hours at the time of the crucifixion and since an eclipse was not possible it looks supernatural. Also eclipses are brief. This darkness lasted for hours.

It reads to me like these things are supposed to happen simultaneously, and if part of it has come true, wouldn’t the rest have to have happened as well?
This would make it all past tense.

Two different events don't have to happen simultaneously because they are prophesied together.

A lot of prophecy scholars explain that multiple prophecies that occur at different times can be contained within one prophecy.

But this is an evidence thread.

It would be absurd to read that prophesy, which begins with "in that day" and conclude it is just referring to a random list of unrelated things that will occur in the future, thousands of years apart.

Nice try, though. (not really)

Once again this is an evidence thread. You can ignore the prophecy. I'm not debating it. It is just background.

The Gospels relate darkness at the crucifixion and we have 2 ancient Greeks validating it occurred.

Those that wrote the Gospels knew the prophesy about darkness. The validity of the rest of the prophesy is a relevant component to whether this event actually occurred or not. All we're going by is a handful of people's word as evidence of extraordinary supernatural events. If there are inconsistencies or signs of "cherry-picking" elements of the prophesy, that could cast doubt as to the validity of these extraordinary claims.

So? Can you be sure they knew about it...Do you know if they paid any extraordinary attention to it?

Even if they did we have physical confirmation from outside the bible.

No, we don't have physical confirmation of a supernatural event.

We have confirmation the darkness occurred and we are fairly sure scientifically that it couldn't be an eclipse.

It just happened to coincide with the Cross.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifi...ss_and_eclipse

Further, using eyewitness accounts to make claims of supernatural periods of darkness is fraught with error.

There is no way to confirm that the darkness recorded by a couple Greeks corresponds to the exact particular time of the year that Jesus supposedly died (thus ruling out eclipse), nor to confirm the unusual length of the darkness. Based on similar accounts which have occurred in history, there is a high probability this is just another common case of people embellishing or outright making **** up, not a case of physical confirmation of the supernatural. Of course, this should already be obvious. Especially since this long and unusual darkness somehow went completely unrecorded by all the Roman scholars of the day.

Phlegon, Thallus and Africanus are all very solid historians:

http://creation.com/darkness-at-the-...r-real-history

Granting the darkness occuring (which is a pretty big concession), we then have the problem of verifying that the Crucifixion itself took place, or took place at that time.

But the real problem is that history can only ever be an approximation. Consider:


Hail Caesar?

Some Christians find Pliny's (Pliny the Younger) work questionable:

Secular References to Jesus: Thallus
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/thallus.html

Pliny was biased. Pliny said "I deem it a mark of human weakness to seek to discover the shape and form of God."

And Appian? And Plutarch?

Then there's the sheer irrelevance of the Pliny quote...

But perhaps the most striking thing is the claim of Thallus as constituting a 'secular reference to Jesus'. LOL.

So, Georgie sez that Julie sez that Thallus mentioned 'a darkness'. Georgie sez that Julie swears up and down that Thallus was talking about the darkness at the Crucifixion.

That's weak even by your liberal standards, Splendour. Seriously.

What do Appian and Plutarch have to do with this?

Pliny was someone involved. Were these others involved?

Do you think all historians notice all historical events or can they be focused on something else.

Christianity was a small movement at the time do you really think all historians noticed all claims?

The truth is Christians have their evidence.

Evidence is weighed by the individual.

They're also mentioned as having observed the volcanic eruption around the time of Caesar's death.
Involved in what? My first post ITT is not about the darkness at the Crucifixion. I've no idea what you're trying to say.

Bah?

Do you really think my posts ITT in some way hinge on that supposition?

Answer truthfully: did you read my first post?

A diegetic transposition, huh?

Why should a transposition have occurred?

How does one know that many events didn't occur upon Caesar's death and at Christ's crucifixion and resurrection?

I don't see the basis for accepting that a transposition occurred other than wishful thinking.

In fact it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of things happened to signal a change of the Ages.

If you read the Book of Revelation the change from one Age to another one tends to generate "weather" events.

Clearly a tsunami can happen in Hawaii or Japan then a few years or decades later another one can go down in Indonesia. The events don't cancel one another out or replace the other event in modern times so why in ancient times?

Maybe you can pick up a copy of Collins' The Origins and Empire of Ancient Israel. It doesn't deal with Thallus but he shows how reliable the bible is on ancient history. While you're at it check out David Rohl's Pharoahs and Kings. Rohl found the Hebrews in ancient Egypt.

http://www.davidrohl.com/israelites_18.html

Excellent. Now you just need to apply that same mentality to the kinds of things you tend to start threads about. I mean, I don't consider it at all likely that Caesar and Christ were the same person. Caesar had a noted sense of humour, for example.

To me it sounds more like the description of the day that someone, who was pride (13 "In that day
"the lovely young women and strong young men
will faint because of thirst and more telling is: A Basket of Ripe Fruit ), dies and the Bible and the Koran have lots of passages like this. "An only son" visualizes the sorrow ("when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.)

"Thallus mistakenly attributes the darkness to an eclipse but another notable historian Julian Africanus comes along and corrects this notion. He indicates it is a supernatural event because it occurred at the time of the full moon and an eclipse is not possible when the moon is full."



Lunar Eclipse?