bwcourtn

I've seen many people reference josephus and tactitus as possible attestations to the historical jesus, but what about julius africanus' Thallus quote? why isn't it at least as deserving of argument/refutation? I remember when I first believed in christianity, this apologetic about the darkness covering the land during the crucifixion was instrumental in me deciding to have faith (which has since been shaken, to say the least)...........even if we reject his "darkness", we are still left with a pretty early reference to jesus. Here's the Julius Africanus quote:

"This event followed each of his deeds, and healings of body and soul, and knowledge of hidden things, and his resurrection from the dead, all sufficiently proven to the disciples before us and to his apostles: after the most dreadful darkness fell over the whole world, the rocks were torn apart by an earthquake and much of Judaea and the rest of the land was torn down. Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, without reason it seems to me. For....how are we to believe that an eclipse happened when the moon was diametrically opposite the sun?"

I remember the apologetic used the fact that Thallus tried to explain it away as an eclipse made it probable that it was a legitimate historical detail (and due to the idea that a judean earthquake attended this "eclipse," it could reasonably be inferred that thallus was mentioning the same darkness that the gospel authors recorded). Anyway, any insight?

Steven Carr

We only have Africanus word for it that Thallus was talking about a darkness at a crucifxion. We don't even have a quote of Thallus!

Surely if somebody is going to be put forward as evidence, the least we can expect is to be able to read what he wrote. Non-existent evidence is pretty worthless in my opinion.

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/thallus.html has an article about Thallus

The Africanus passage continues 'In fact, let it be so. Let the idea that this happened seize and carry away the multitude, and let the cosmic prodigy be counted as an eclipse of the sun according to its appearance. Phlegon reports that in the time of Tiberius Caesar, during the full moon, a full eclipse of the sun happened, from the sixth hour until the ninth. Clearly this is our eclipse!'

So after dissing the idea that it was an eclipse, Africanus cites Phelgon to show that an eclipse occurred. This is baffling.

What Phlegon actually wrote was '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."

No mention of Jesus at all.

So Africanus is not to be trusted, and the non-existent quote from Thallus cannot be regarded as evidence, even if Africanus had actually quoted Thallus.

bwcourtn

Thanks for responding. Damned, that Phlegon quote is even more interesting and makes this "darkness" even more exceptional if it actually occured. I googled "Phlegon darkness" and found this most interesting tid-bit:

http://www.neverthirsty.org/pp/hist/phlegon.html

Steven Carr

I think they get off to a bad start by saying that Phelgon lived in the 1st century AD.

bwcourtn

actually, though he wouldn't have been a contemporary to the event itself, he supposably was born in the latter half of the first century. Scroll a little below half-way down the page:

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../2/022abs.html

S.C.Carlson

This sounds like the eclipse of Nov. 24, AD 29. NASA has a picture of its path. The path of its totality went right through Bithynia and almost over Nicaea (long. 29.7211, lat. 40.4286) at around 10:50 am local time.

Sometimes astronomy gives us an idea how accurate the dates and times of these historical notices are.

Fortuna

Well, hopefully most of you here realize that the following is ridiculous ;
What is ridiculous about this is where it says that, "during the full moon, a full eclipse of the sun happened". That is astronomically not possible. During a full moon, the moon cannot be in a position between the earth and the sun. For a full moon to occur, the moon must be in a position such that it reflects sunlight such that the reflection can be viewed from the dark side of the earth, that part not facing the sun. Thus, the moon would have to be in a position opposite to between the earth and sun. That is, it would have to be in a position behind and/or only a few degrees offset from behind the earth, relative to the sun. They would have to be aligned as Sun--->earth -->moon.


For the moon to be in a proper position for a solar eclipse to occur, the moon cannot be seen from earth as full. It must be in fact between the Sun and earth, and aligned as Sun----> moon -->earth. Thus, these 2 statements are mutually exclusive. It was either in a position for a solar eclipse, OR it is in a position such that it is seen as "full". Never both at the same time.

The overall statement has got to be false. There is no possible way that it is true as written. One or the other, but not both !

For some diagrams, and a more graphical explanation see this Site

I recently on another forum dealt with this same issue. Even after I presented this explanation, one evangelical christian continued to argue that I was wrong about this. :banghead:

Steven Carr

I wonder why Christians take reports of an earthquake in November as confirmation of a crucifixion in Passover.