Jesus' crucifixion and a lunar eclipse?

BELATEDLY EASTER/GOOD FRIDAY-RELATED: Lunar eclipse over Jerusalem may mark date of Jesus's crucifixion, NASA reports. some believe that the new data from NASA, paired with Biblical text, could pinpoint the day Jesus was crucified (Jerusalem Post Staff).

This is an old idea. I commented on it in one of my earliest blog posts. I was going to ignore this one, but when I saw how dreadful this article is, I thought I'd better comment on it.

The suggestion, which has been around for a very long time, is that the reported period of afternoon "darkness over the whole land" (or "earth") on the day of the crucifixion of Jesus (Mark 15:33 par. Matthew 27:45 and Luke 23:44-45) was due to a lunar eclipse of the sun. The third-century church father Julius Africanus argued that the lunar celestial configuration at Passover made this impossible. Briefly, if the moon is full, the sun is shining full on it from the perspective of the earth, which means the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun. It is not in a position to occlude the sun.

Be that as it may, the Jerusalem post article consists largely of misconceptions.

NASA scientists believe that a lunar eclipse occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus, based on data from its astronomical models.

An article from the space agency noted that the Christian Bible wrote that the moon turned to blood in the skies over Jerusalem after Jesus's crucifixion.

“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land,” reads one iteration of Matthew 27:45.

The NASA article Eclipses: History does say that "Christian texts" (not "the Christian Bible") say that the moon turned to blood:

Eclipses also appear in religious texts. Christian texts mention that the Moon turned to blood after Jesus’s crucifixion – potentially referring to a lunar eclipse, during which the Moon takes on a reddish hue. Using this textual source, scholars narrowed down a possible date of crucifixion to Friday, April 3, 33 C.E. because a lunar eclipse occurred that day.

The passage in Matthew, quoted in the JP article, says nothing about the moon, only that there was darkness over the whole land.

Matthew's text is "one iteration" of the story, which also appears in Mark and Luke, as noted above. None of them mention the moon. The Gospel of John doesn't mention the darkness at all.

But there's more evidence, right? The JP continues:

Additionally, early Christian texts prophesied that on the day of Jesus's crucifixion, the sky would look eerie.

In a gathering 50 days before Jesus's death, the apostle Peter predicts in Acts 2:20: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”

Peter's reported speech took place on Pentecost (Shavuot), 50 days after the crucifixion. He is speaking about the end times.

But there's still more:

Supposed eyewitness events of the situation also note that the skies looked strange after Jesus died on the cross.

“At his crucifixion the sun was darkened; the stars appeared and in all the world people lighted lamps from the sixth hour till evening; the moon appeared like blood,” notes Pontius Pilate's report of Jesus's crucifixion.

This is not exactly wrong, but it's reproachably misleading. This "supposed eyewitness" account is from the Anaphora Pilati, a late work from the Pilate apocrypha cycle. J. K. Elliot thinks it is an expansion of the Letter of Pilate to Claudius, which he dates to the end of the second century. You can read it here. This account is a "Christian text," but it has zero eyewitness (or even living memory) value.

I have no view on the proposed date of the crucifixion. Most specialists seem to think that it was in 30, not 33, but we just don't know.

Enough. I didn't mean to spend so much time on this.

The darkness in Matthew's Gospel is a miraculous event, like the "walking dead" episode and, probably, the earthquake, both in the same passage. John doesn't refer to it and none of the other Gospels mention the other two. No need to look for naturalistic explanations, although one is possible for the last one.

Jerusalem Post, what happened? There is potentially a story here, but the treatment in this article is just careless.

I want to blame it on AI generated content, but the article doesn't give any indication of that. If it was actually produced by "Jerusalem Post Staff," the JP, which is usually good at articles about archaeology and history, should stop using them for those purposes and stick to named authors who know what they are talking about.

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