leonarde

Ooooookay, how many times does Josephus mention eclipses in any context??? How many times does Herodotus mention eclipses in any context ??? How many times does Thucydites mention eclipses in any context? That is a standard (and a reasonable one) by which to judge mention (or in this case, lack of mention) of same from (alleged Crucifixion-related) eclipse of 30 to 33 AD......

spin

These are from old trasnlations available from the net and so are devoid of useful reference apparati.


spin

leonarde

Well, I was really looking for a number (ie historian X refers to eclipses 10, historian Y 5 times, historian Z 100 times). Observations:

1) in the first quotation concerning Xerxes one can at least approximate the date (ie during the time of Xerxes). Possibly the exact year, time of year.

2) some of the others, without further context (which may be there in the full original and/or translation), one cannot determine the date.

3) the important thing (to my mind) is: whether the writer is using a particular eclipse to add to (or highlight) the import of a particular battle or other incident, or the writer is citing an unusual number of eclipses over a limited period of time for the same general purpose (ie to indicate the portents) , no writer is pretending to remark on each and every eclipse in even the limited historical epoche covered by his history. Ergo, there's no necessity to think that a Crucifixion-related eclipse would get any particular attention (indeed the vast majority of Jesus' contemporaries were totally unaware of his existence and if they experienced (such) an eclipse would thereby not have attributed it to his death at all!)

spin

Both the examples from Herodotus supply enough information to get date info -- it would seem that there were only two examples, if my search was correct.

The references from Thucydides are also eminently locatable in time, again two specific eclipses. I did not do an exhaustive search of Josephus. One could also turn to other classical writers.

I personally have no comment to make about the matter. I just supplied a few examples of eclipses being cited in the literature.


spin

leonarde

Again the eclipses mentioned are, in many cases, being used to EMPHASIZE the significance of an event but the event must be known, and must be known to be concurrent with the eclipse(s) to even indicate this.

With only a minority of eclipses being recorded in writing, and those mostly connected chronologically with some momentous event, the relative obscurity of the Crucifixion would almost guarantee that there be no mention of it in that connection.

Cheers!

spin

What is your source for this assumption in the period in question?


spin

leonarde

Which "period in question"????? We've been all over the map from periods described by Heroditus , Thucydites, Josephus on the one hand and the Biblical writers on the other. I literally have NO IDEA what you mean by "the period in question". Or do you mean the one that allegedly occurred in the 30 to 33 AD period?????

But as to the larger point: from 1961 to the present there have been 32 "total solar eclipses" on the planet Earth (though of course not all of them visible in totality from every part of the Earth). Assuming that this "rate" is not inordinate, that means that they average (very very roughly) one every 1 to 3 years. Given the scope of the histories attempted by Heroditus, Thucydites etc. they would have had to mention dozens and dozens of eclipses if they thought an eclipse in and of itself warranted mention in a history. But we know that nothing of the sort was recorded: mentions of eclipses tended to be very selective: connected with well-known and established human events of particular importance. For a Mediterranean Greek or Roman, the death of one itinerant Jewish preacher who never traveled outside the Levant would not have been such an event.

(figures for eclipses from: p 663 The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003 ).

GakuseiDon

Toto and Peter Kirby: guys, many thanks for the links - that was exactly what I was looking for.

spin

I don't really understand why you are now just bull*hitting.

You gave no evidence for your intimations about eclipses in literature. I started the ball rolling by looking up a few of them for you, so that there was at least some evidence on the table. You either need to go on and dig into the evidence before making any more unfounded generalisations or get further into wasting time. It seems to me that you've gone for the latter. You've just taken the little bit of evidence I supplied as some general reflection of reality.

How long does a solar eclipse last? That should tell you just how much of the earth will be able to see it at one time. The answer is not long at all for the moon to move over the disk of the sun and off again, so solar eclipses are isolated events not seen by much of the earth at all. In any given general area of the earth's surface solar eclipses are relatively rare. To quote the Astronomical Society of South Australia ASSA,

From any point on Earth, on the average you will experience no more than one total solar eclipse in three to four centuries.

Of course with partial solar eclipses the situation is somewhat more frequent.

Now I'm sure we've both got something better to do.


spin

leonarde

Please go away!