Why was there darkness when Jesus was on the cross?

 

This darkness is a widely attested historical event that came from God’s judgement.

Jesus was crucified because humanity opposed God to such an extent that it murdered him when given the power to do so. This is the culmination of original sin, not merely disobeying God, but actually murdering him.

The onset of a profound darkness as this murder takes place is not only attested in the gospels which give a precise time for the darkness that afternoon, but secular literature also affirms a darkness at this very moment.

Evidence outside of the gospels leads to the conclusion that there likely was a darkness and blood moon. NASA has even given credible evidence that a blood moon emerged.

The evidence for this event from secular and scientific accounts will be enumerated once scripture has been analysed. The times attested in the gospels for the darkness of the sixth hour until the ninth have been understood as referring from about 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM.

Matthew 27:45

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

Mark 15:33

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

This next reference in Luke to darkness is particularly powerful, not merely confirming the timings of the other two gospels, but it gives the added information of the sun simply failing. Imagine the sun burning in the sky, but it fails to provide any light. This is not a solar eclipse.

Luke 23:44-45

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

The darkness is therefore a supernatural event which is similar to only one other moment in history. This other moment is when God sent a darkness over the land of Egypt.

Exodus 10:21–23

Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or move about for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

In the New Testament, Jesus takes the place of Moses with the fulfilled law. He becomes the passover lamb whose blood saves from death those who smear it over themselves. This is just like how the lamb’s blood saved the Israelites from God’s wrath against Egypt when he sent his Spirit to destroy the firstborn or pass over his judgement from those who believed in him.

Rameses in this narrative was the ruler who had his heart hardened and enslaved the people of God against Moses just as the Sadducees and other teachers of the law shut up the doors of heaven from those they enslaved in religious bondage. The parallels are intentional because Jesus was crucified on passover and the darkness is similarly profound.

This judgement of darkness was prophesied in scripture. The Book of Amos predicts the end of Israel with a fearsome darkness that covers over its land. God declares that even the songs of the temple will cease on this day and judgement will be delivered against religious leaders who are committing hypocrisy. This day of weeping will be like mourning for the death of an only son.

Amos 8:9-10

“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your religious festivals 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 Book of Joel repeats the divine judgement of Israel from a hilltop over Zion with darkness.

Joel 2:1-2

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand—a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come.

Joel 2:10

Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.

This immense prophecy then declares that salvation is for all people and there will be prophecy just as took place with the apostles and the early church.

Joel 2:28–29

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

There will be a profound darkness and the moon shall turn to blood.

Joel 2:31

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Upon the hilltop of Zion shall come deliverance.

Joel 2:32

And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

The Book of Isaiah repeats the prophecy of divine judgement and darkness.

Isaiah 13:9–10

See, the day of the Lord is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

This all affirms that the profound darkness which stormed on Golgotha when Jesus died was prophesied across Hebrew scriptures.

One of the most startling aspects of this darkness is that it has been affirmed by secular literature from the first century in surviving accounts. Those who wrote this literature believed the darkness came from a solar eclipse.

Thallus was a Greek and polytheist historian who lived in the first century. He refers to a darkness at the very time when Jesus was crucified. His account survives in the writings of Julius Africanus from the second and third centuries.

Julius Africanus in Chronography, fragment 18.

On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down.

A significant aspect of this citation from Thallus is that Africanus is not so much affirming it, but taking issue with how Thallus understood it.

Africanus is actually quoting it to attack Thallus’ so-called false attribution to a solar eclipse.

In the third book of his Histories, Thallos dismisses this darkness as a solar eclipse. In my opinion, this is nonsense. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on Luna 14, and what happened to the Saviour occurred one day before the Passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place when the moon passes under the sun. The only time when this can happen is in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last day of the old moon, when they are in conjunction. How then could one believe an eclipse took place when the moon was almost in opposition to the sun? So be it. Let what had happened beguile the masses, and let this wonderful sign to the world be considered a solar eclipse through an optical (illusion).

Africanus identifies that a solar eclipse could not have happened because these only take place with a new moon whilst Passover only takes place with a full moon.

Phlegon of Tralles was another Greek historian who lived in the early second century and preserves the historical event of a darkness at the time when Jesus was crucified. He gives a very precise date that aligns to the time which the gospels testify for the darkness.

This darkness and the earthquakes which followed it are not just localised to Judah, but cover other parts of the world. Julius Africanus also writes a similar rebuttal to Phlegon.

Julius Africanus in Chronography, fragment 18.

Phlegon records that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar there was a complete solar eclipse at full moon from the sixth to the ninth hour; it is clear that this is the one But what have eclipses to do with an earthquake, rocks breaking apart, resurrection of the dead, and a universal disturbance of this nature?

A similar account of Phlegon is cited by other Christian writers.

Origen, Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 33

And this feature evinces the nobility of the work of Jesus, that, down to the present time, those whom God wills are healed by His name. And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicles.

Another strange and startling aspect of this narrative is that NASA confirms that a lunar eclipse took place during this date of 33AD on the very day Jesus was crucified with a blood moon also being likely just as prophecy foretold. It has been strongly affirmed by its calculated modelling that there was a high chance of such an event.

NASA has called it the Partial Lunar Eclipse of 0033 Apr 03 and this may have created a blood moon, but it is not a solar eclipse as Phlegon and Thallus incorrectly understood it. A lunar eclipse cannot create an afternoon darkness, but such a darkness and blood moon is testified by secular literature and scientific modelling.

Christians therefore view this event as a supernatural occurrence that is confirmed by secular writers, scientific modelling, the gospels and prophecy. This event is so widely affirmed throughout historical and modern data that it is likely a darkness did occur.

The ramifications of this darkness are extraordinary. It confirms how the gospels wrote about real events and situated them in a period that modern science increasingly affirms, but the testimony of an afternoon darkness defies science. This darkness is so utterly profound and beyond rational explanation that little except the intervention of supernatural forces as prophesied centuries before can properly explain it.

Christianity is a religion of evidence.