Steven Carr

But just after Africanus dismisses it is not an eclipse, he claims Phlegon said it was an eclipse. (Without of course, doing anything so crass as quoting Phlegon's exact words)

Why dismiss the idea of it being an eclipse and then quote people saying it was an eclipse? Very strange.

Eusebius, another Christian writer did quote Phlegon.

'Jesus Christ..underwent his passion in the 18th year of Tiberius [32 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." All these things happened to occur during the Lord's passion. In fact, Phlegon, too, a distinguished reckoner of Olympiads, wrote more on these events in his 13th book, saying this: "Now, in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad [32 AD], a great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour [noon] that excelled every other before it, turning the day into such darkness of night that the stars could be seen in heaven, and the earth moved in Bithynia, toppling many buildings in the city of Nicaea."'

Nothing about this eclipse lasting three hours, and nothing about the eclipse occuring at a full moon, which people knew was unprecedented.

Juma

There are only two ways I could think of fora a planet top seem to stop above a place on earth:

1) The retrograded motion is exact compensating for the change of angle due the rotation of the earth. wich of course is impossible.
2) The position of the planet is only measured at some specific time/occasion as f.ex. sunrise or sunset.

Anycase: the star would never indicate a certain position, only an direction, and a direction that would differ due to the location of the viewer....

rjf

Where are these records? We seem to have only his word on this. I can look up historical records regarding the Declaration, but I have nothing about earthquakes in Bithynia.

Also, there was no eclipse in the mediterranean in 32 CE. The closest one was through Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and the far eastern edge of Saudi Arabia on 11-24-29 CE.

Seeker2000

You could be right that the reference at Wikipedia is to Thallus not to Tacitus. It doesn't give a reference, so maybe the person who added it confused the two names. Maybe.

I already discussed Thallus in a thread here last year: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=126901

It's difficult to tell if there really was some kind of darkness during the crucifixion. I would tend to see it more as a stylistic device used in the synoptic gospels. What the quoted ancient historians refer to is also difficult to tell, but it also could be some other eclipse like the one from 29 AD or simply heresay that is brought into connection with the story of Christ. But it's really difficult to come to a definite conclusion here.

John Kesler

Michael "Vorkosigan" Turton notes additional parallels which I had not thought of:

Seeker2000

I have to say that I am also a bit doubtful about the darkness at the crucifixion being a reference to the Amos passage. The "mourning for an only son" seems to be an expression to describe a very sincere mourning, but not a literal expression to describe the mourning for a "son", or even for the son of God/messiah.

Of course passages like that could have been an influence or inspiration for the general theme of darkness during an important event like the crucifixion, but I'm doubtful that the gospel authors had that specific Amos passage in mind or were even refering to that.

Seeker2000

Thank you for your comment.

I was quite sure that there was something to that retrograde motion argument, as the concept was mentioned on several websites, including Wikipedia. You give a date of Dec 27 2BC instead of Dec 25 - could you tell from what source you got this information? Or did you calculate those dates for yourself?

BTW, I think that the dates for the major conjunctions in 3/2 BC in the table at the bottom of http://askelm.com/star/star004.htm are probably correct - at least two of the dates (12 Aug 3BC and 17 June 2BC) and the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Regulus are also mentioned in the German version of Wikipedia.

Of course you are correct: A star could only give an approximate direction and is not an indicator for a specific place. It could maybe have given the direction from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

I nevertheless regard the star more as a mythological symbol rather than historical fact.

rjf

You're welcome.

Most people who have no actual training in astronomy are surprised to hear anything about retrograde motion, so it is understandable that you felt there was something to it. In actuality, that sort of thing happens so often that it would draw little attention from a regular stargazer.

Extensive googling (try to ignore the astrology sites--they tend to ignore the fact that we haven't used the same calendar for the last 2000 years) coupled with some good old fashioned number crunching. I should also note that, in order to save myself some work, I only included dates when Jupiter began retrograde motion, although the same effect is produced when it ends (~4 months later).

A. I never trust anything on Wikipedia that I cannot verify with a legitimate independent source, but it does say permission of Griffin Observatory, so, eh.

B. The author of the book makes the claim that since Jupiter, King of the Gods was in conjunction with Regulus, Star of the King, this is proof positive that that is when the King of Kings was born. I do not have the knowledge and skills necessary to calculate conjuntions (which is quite difficult), so let's use his calculations.

19 May 3 BCE--The Messenger of the Gods is in conjunction with the Father of the King of Gods.

12 June 3 BCE--The Goddess of Love is in conjunction with the Father of the King of Gods.

12 August 3 BCE--The Goddess of Love is in conjunction with the King of Gods.

31 August 3 BCE--The Goddess of Love is in conjunction with the Messenger of the Gods.

14 September, 17 February, & 8 May 3 BCE--The King of Gods is in conjunction with the Star of Kings (but can only be seen on one of those three dates)

17 June 2 BCE--The Goddess of Love is in conjunction with the King of Gods.

26 August 2 BCE--The King of Gods is in conjunction with the God of War.

With very little imagination, any one of these could be turned into proof of Jesus' birth--god sent his messenger to tell us he loves us, etc. The whole thing is made simple by the fact that the Christians began with an auspicious event and then deduced Jesus' birth from it. It's always easier to prove something when you begin with the end in mind and have no limitations placed on what constitutes evidence.

As well you should.

rjf

Nice catch, but I still say Mark would have had a hard time selling Jesus as a fulfillment of Amos 8 (if that is what he was trying to do), if for no other reason than that the whole chapter is about the Lord abandoning Israel and refusing to speak to/help them any longer, which is the exact opposite of what Jesus was supposedly all about.

John Kesler

How do you think the events of 66-70 AD were interpreted? Read the parable of the vineyard in Mark 12:1-9 and the "little apocalypse," Mark 13. See also Matthew 22:7.