Luke 23:45 Eclipse or Darkening

[jeidsath]

τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος or ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος?

A normal eclipse at the full moon (Passover) is impossible. Nor did anyone at the time record a universal planetary darkness. Origen suggests that enemies of the Church came up with the eclipse idea and inserted it into Luke, most copies of which have ἐσκοτίσθη:

Dicimus ergo quod Matthaeus et Marcus non dixerunt defectionem solis tune factam fuisse, sed neque Lucas, secundum pleraque exemplaria hebentia sic: Et erat hora fere sexta, et tenebrae factae sunt super omnem terram usque ad horam nonam, et obscuratus est sol. In quibusdam autem exemplaribus non habetur: Tenebrae factae sunt, et obscuratus est sol; sed ita: Tenebrae factae sunt super omnem terram sole deficiente. Et forsitan ausus est aliquis quasi manifestius aliquid dicere volens, pro: Et obscuratus est sol, ponere: Deficiente sole; existimans quod non aliter potuissent fieri tenebrae nisi sole deficiente. Puto autem magis quod insidiatores Ecclesiae Christi mutaverunt hoc verbum, quoniam tenebrae factae sunt sole deficiente, ut verisimiliter Evangelia argui possint secundum adinventiones volentium arguere ea.

(There are probably some typos in the above.)

https://books.google.com/books?id=CsZ6e ... &q&f=false

[Isaac Newton]

Apostle Mark records that there was darkness for three hours ,which is not consistent with an eclipse. If a city is in the "path of totality" then it experiences full darkness during the eclipse, which lasts for a maximum of about two minutes and 40 seconds .The maximum possible duration of a total solar eclipse going from partial to full eclipse to recession is roughly seven minutes and 30 seconds. A far more likely natural explanation is that it was due to some sort of dust cloud activity, which would be consistent with the time span we're talking about. Here are some pictures of dust clouds blocking out the Sun:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... d-sun.html

Quote:

"Within a matter of minutes, the storm had blocked out the sun, creating chaos on the city streets."

In the Revelation also it is written that the Sun was blocked, and no one believes that this is due to a solar Eclipse:

Καὶ ὁ τέταρτος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν· καὶ ἐπλήγη τὸ τρίτον τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ τὸ τρίτον τῆς σελήνης καὶ τὸ τρίτον τῶν ἀστέρων, ἵνα σκοτισθῇ τὸ τρίτον αὐτῶν καὶ ἡ ἡμέρα μὴ φάνῃ τὸ τρίτον αὐτῆς, καὶ ἡ νὺξ ὁμοίως.

[C. S. Bartholomew]

It doesn't get that dark with a total Eclipse. We had 92% here, hardly noticed it. It doesnt stay dark for several hours. So you can rule out Eclipse. A huge thunderstorm makes for serious darkness.

[jeidsath]

W&H: Καὶ ἦν ἤδη ὡσεὶ ὥρα ἕκτη καὶ σκότος ἐγένετο ἐφ' ὅλην τὴν γῆν ἕως ὥρας ἐνάτης τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλείποντος, ἐσχίσθη δὲ τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ μέσον.

RP Byz. Maj.: Ἦν δὲ ὡσεὶ ὥρα ἕκτη, καὶ σκότος ἐγένετο ἐφ’ ὅλην τὴν γῆν ἕως ὥρας ἐνάτης. Καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος, καὶ ἐσχίσθη τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ μέσον.

I think that all commentators are agreed that an eclipse is an impossible explanation here. But don't Luke's words τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλείποντος mean "while/because the sun was eclipsed?" (I'm not sure if it's genitive of cause, or an absolute, or of time.) Origen thinks that ἐκλείπει must mean eclipse and claims that it cannot be the original text for this reason.

[mwh]

τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλείποντος certainly refers to a solar eclipse. It’s the standard terminology. Aristarchus of Samos (3rd cent. BCE), the brilliant astronomer who anticipated Copernicus in propounding a heliocentric model of the solar system, credited Thales with recognizing the cause of solar eclipses: ἔφη τε ὁ μὲν Θαλῆς ὅτι ἐκλείπειν τὸν ἥλιον σελήνης ἐπίπροσθεν αὐτῷ γενομένης (P.Oxy. 3710 ii 37-40).

[Timothée]

And the English word eclipse (or the French éclipse) derives from ἐκλείπειν (via ἔκλειψις, Latin and French).

[Barry Hofstetter]

τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλείποντος certainly refers to a solar eclipse. It’s the standard terminology. Aristarchus of Samos (3rd cent. BCE), the brilliant astronomer who anticipated Copernicus in propounding a heliocentric model of the solar system, credited Thales with recognizing the cause of solar eclipses: ἔφη τε ὁ μὲν Θαλῆς ὅτι ἐκλείπειν τὸν ἥλιον σελήνης ἐπίπροσθεν αὐτῷ γενομένης (P.Oxy. 3710 ii 37-40).

There is significant manuscript variation, and for some reason, I'm being blocked from posting either the UBS apparatus or N-A (perhaps because there are a lot of embedded links).

Metzger:


23:45 τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος {B}

The words καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος (“the sun was darkened”) appear to be the easier reading, substituted by copyists for τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος [or ἐκλείποντος], which may mean either “the sun’s light failed” or “the sun was eclipsed.”


Metzger, B. M., United Bible Societies. (1994). A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition a companion volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) (p. 155). London; New York: United Bible Societies.

From a strictly semantic viewpoint, while ἐκλείπω certainly is used to describe an eclipse in the technical sense, can it be used in the more general sense simply of light failing, as Metzger suggests?

[Paul Derouda]

Herodotus already uses εκλειπω of an eclipse:

ὁρμημένῳ δέ οἱ ὁ ἥλιος ἐκλιπὼν τὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἕδρην ἀφανὴς ἦν οὔτ᾽ ἐπινεφέλων ἐόντων αἰθρίης τε τὰ μάλιστα, ἀντὶ ἡμέρης τε νὺξ ἐγένετο. ἰδόντι δὲ καὶ μαθόντι τοῦτο τῷ Ξέρξῃ ἐπιμελὲς ἐγένετο, καὶ εἴρετο τοὺς Μάγους τὸ θέλει προφαίνειν τὸ φάσμα. οἱ δὲ ἔφραζον ὡς Ἕλλησι προδεικνύει ὁ θεὸς ἔκλειψιν τῶν πολίων, λέγοντες ἥλιον εἶναι Ἑλλήνων προδέκτορα, σελήνην δὲ σφέων. ταῦτα πυθόμενος ὁ Ξέρξης περιχαρὴς ἐὼν ἐποιέετο τὴν ἔλασιν.

As it (the Persian army) was setting out, the sun left his place in the heaven and was invisible, although the sky was without clouds and very clear, and the day turned into night. When Xerxes saw and took note of that, he was concerned and asked the Magi what the vision might signify. They declared to him that the god was showing the Greeks the abandonment of their cities; for the sun (they said) was the prophet of the Greeks, as the moon was their own. Xerxes rejoiced exceedingly to hear that and continued on his march.

(This eclipse, which supposedly happened in the spring of 480, is probably at least partly fiction.)

I should perhaps start a new post for this, but I've been wondering about Herodotus 1.74.2:

διαφέρουσι δέ σφι ἐπὶ ἴσης τὸν πόλεμον τῷ ἕκτῳ ἔτεϊ συμβολῆς γενομένης συνήνεικε ὥστε τῆς μάχης συνεστεώσης τὴν ἡμέρην ἐξαπίνης νύκτα γενέσθαι. τὴν δὲ μεταλλαγὴν ταύτην τῇ ἡμέρης Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος τοῖσι Ἴωσι προηγόρευσε ἔσεσθαι, οὖρον προθέμενος ἐνιαυτὸν τοῦτον ἐν τῷ δὴ καὶ ἐγένετο ἡ μεταβολή.

"They were still warring with equal success, when it happened, at an encounter which occurred in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen."

If this account is accurate, it refers to the eclipse of May 28, 585 BC. Critics are generally skeptical about Thales having really been able to predict it. I don't know enough about astronomy to judge what is exactly at issue here. Does anyone know astronomy here?
1) Is it possible to predict the year within which an eclipse occurs, without being able to predict the exact date? Shouldn't you either be able to predict the exact date, or not at all?
2) What is the hard part about predicting eclipses? Predicting whether one occurs in the first place? Predicting which ones are full eclipses? Predicting the region where the eclipse is full? To my understanding, only total eclipses are impressive. As Stirling said, a 92% eclipse is barely noticeable - 8% daylight is still very bright. I suppose a 99% eclipse is still barely noticeable, especially if the sky is cloudy.

[jeidsath]

They had a computer that could do it a few hundred years later:

http://www.brepolsonline.net/toc/almagest/2016/7/1

If you know the orbital velocity of the moon and earth, which varies due to eccentricity, you can use this information to predict eclipses in a straightforward way, as the above device seems to do. Everything that we find out about the ancient's astronomical knowledge is surprising.

Of course, Thales did not live in such an advanced period. Panchenko's 1994 article on Thales' prediction is very good, and he gives a plausible account of how Thales might have predicted this particular eclipse.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//ful ... 5.000.html

[mwh]

The death of Jesus called for attendant symbolic prodigies, and the synoptic gospels duly provide them. (Only teleologically fixated John spurns them.) An eclipse of the sun makes a better one than mere darkness.

I think the eclipse must be the original version in Luke. του ηλιου εκλιποντος has to mean an actual eclipse (and a full one, obviously), not just the sunlight somehow failing. The astronomical impossibility of it may have led to its erasure and harmonization with Mk and Mt.

Prediction, as distinct from explanation, was surely impossible for Thales, but it’s just the sort of thing that would have been attributed to him. As the text I quoted shows, Aristarchus of Samos knew better. The thing to consult is Otto Neugebauer’s History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy.

Incidentally, that quotation occurs in a learned commentary on Odyssey bk.20, in an astronomically and calendarically complex note on αλλα μαλ’ ηρι νεονται, επει και πασιν ἑορτή (156), of the suitors’ expected early arrival for tomorrow's feast. Apparently Aristarchus the Homeric exegete (from Samothrace, not Samos) took it to be the new-moon festival of Apollo, who was identified with the Sun. And I guess there’s an underlying connexion with Theoclymenus’ famous vision of the suitors’ impending doom later in the book (351-7, … ηελιος δε | ουρανου εξαποπωλεν …), which was understood as indicating an actual eclipse and was related to Odysseus’ return at new moon.

[Timothée]

Peter Gainsford wrote a log text on Thales and his putative solar eclipse prediction a little while ago.

[mwh]

In his final paragraph Gainsford wrongly assigns the papyrus testimony to his (1) rather than his (2), and he misses its significance (see my previous post: this is Aristarchus of Samos, not just any old "report”!). He could have cut to the chase sooner, but I’m glad to see he comes to the right conclusion.

I thought Paul (the Finn, not the preacher man) might be interested in the Odyssey commentary. Hylander evidently doesn't visit here (which may be wise of him).

[Paul Derouda]

In his final paragraph Gainsford wrongly assigns the papyrus testimony to his (1) rather than his (2), and he misses its significance (see my previous post: this is Aristarchus of Samos, not just any old "report”!). He could have cut to the chase sooner, but I’m glad to see he comes to the right conclusion.

I did find it interesting, thank you! It's long time since I've read this part of the Odyssey. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "misses its significance".

Apollo was identified with the Sun later, but certainly not in Homer. In Demodocus' tale in Od. book 8 for instance we can clearly see that they are two distinct characters.

Here is the note on Od. 20.356-7 in Rutherford's Cambridge Green & Yellow commentary (I don't know how good the book is, since I haven't read it. The text was scanned with my iPhone - I'm sorry for any remaining mistakes):

356-7 The fatuous notion that these lines refer to a solar eclipse taking place at the time is mentioned in the scholia, and also by Plutarch (On the face of the moon 19, 93 IF); cf. M. W. Haslam on Ρ Oxy 3710.36 (p. 107). Obviously the darkness is symbolic of the suitors' sins. Further, the idea that the sun should vanish and abandon its function is reminiscent of the threat made by the sun-god at 12.382-3, when Odysseus' men have killed his cattle: if he does not receive recompense, he will go down to Hades and shine among the corpses. The companions of Odysseus offend against the gods and are duly punished; but in their case there are, as has often been pointed out, extenuating circumstances (cf. Fenik, Studies 208-32): they are starving and can neither escape from the island nor support themselves otherwise, and they intend to honour and build a temple to the sun when they return home, 12.345-7. The suitors are far more straightforwardly guilty. For them, it is as if Helios has fulfilled his threat.

I don't understand what exactly is meant by the notion being "fatuous". Is there any way of interpreting these lines other than that they refer to a solar eclipse? (On the other hand, I do think that it's "fatuous" to pinpoint the exact date of Odysseus' revenge on the suitors on April 16th 1178 BC, as some have done, just because there was a solar eclipse that day – Homer was composing half a millennium later, after all.).

Is there any way to read that Odyssey note in full?

[Paul Derouda]

I found this article on the astronomical dating of the slaying of the suitors interesting, even if I don't quite agree with the conclusions. Odysseus in book 5 on his σχεδιη watches the Bootes and the Pleiades, which are in the sky simultaneously only in spring and in early autumn - for some reason, the authors take it for granted that it must have been spring, although it seems to me that it's generally assumed the Odysseus' homecoming takes place autumn. Also, the theory about Hermes' journey to Calypso's island representing the movement of Mercury doesn't seem tenable to me.

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/26/8823 ... f189c719c7

[Paul Derouda]

They had a computer that could do it a few hundred years later:

http://www.brepolsonline.net/toc/almagest/2016/7/1

If you know the orbital velocity of the moon and earth, which varies due to eccentricity, you can use this information to predict eclipses in a straightforward way, as the above device seems to do. Everything that we find out about the ancient's astronomical knowledge is surprising.

Of course, Thales did not live in such an advanced period. Panchenko's 1994 article on Thales' prediction is very good, and he gives a plausible account of how Thales might have predicted this particular eclipse.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//ful ... 5.000.html

I had another look into this eclipse Thales supposedly predicted. Here's a reply to Panchenko article, addressing what I find to be its main flaw, i.e. the fact that partial eclipses are not really impressive, and often not even visible.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//ful ... 9.000.html

But Panchenko's article is stimulating. For one, he might well be right as to why Thales only predicted the terms of the year in which the eclipse took place: because the calendar was so rudimentary. Intercalary months were often added on an ad hoc basis - if you wanted to give the exact date for an event that was going to happen in exactly, say, 200 months from now, there was no way to do it, because it depended on the whim of the authority who decided whether an intercalary month was needed or not. This sort of problem is one reason why the Julian calendar reform was made.

[mwh]

I won’t repeat my previous posts, but I will say that I think it’s folly to start from reports that Thales could predict solar eclipses (or one in particular) instead of starting from Aristarchus of Samos’ unequivocal testimony that Thales recognized the cause of solar eclipses (i.e. the moon blocking the sun). That was a notable achievement, however elementary it seems to us today. If Thales had been capable of actually predicting a solar eclipse (most unlikely, to put it mildly, see Neugebauer), Aristarchus would have said so, instead of crediting him with only the lesser feat. Aristarchus was the foremost astronomer of the day, and knew what was what. That Thales came to be credited with actual prediction—by Herodotus (hardly the most trustworthy source) and then by others—was inevitable (I might say perfectly predictable). The predictive astronomical marvel that the Antikythera mechanism seems to have been came many centuries later, when astronomy was very much more advanced.

[Paul Derouda]

I had read the previous posts and I agree. Thanks also for having brought the papyrus fragment into our attention. As I tried to say in my previous post, I think Panchenko is ultimately wrong, because he doesn't take into consideration the fact that partial eclipses are not impressive to the layman.

Still, there are some interesting ideas in the article. For one, it gives a good reason why Herodotus uses such an imprecise formulation for the prediction: οὖρον προθέμενος ἐνιαυτὸν τοῦτον ἐν τῷ δὴ καὶ ἐγένετο ἡ μεταβολή. Why doesn't he give an exact date for the predicted date? From this site http://www.eclipsewise.com/solar/solar.html, I can find the information that on 5th December 2048 there will be a total eclipse in South America and Africa. Thales could not have given such a precise date, because there was no standardized calendar. If, for the sake of the argument, he had known that there would be an eclipse in exactly 1242 lunar months, he would have been unable to give a precise date for the event, because the date would have depended on how many intercalary months the authorities happened to add to the calendar in the meanwhile, which, as I said, happened more or less on an ad hoc basis. Add to that the fact that this was done independently in every city-state, all which had their own calendar - which, if I understand correctly, where out of sync with each other. Similarly, it would have been difficult to give an exact date for an astronomical event that had already taken place, because one would have to know what adjustments had been made to the calendar in the intervening time.

Could it be that Thales was just lucky? You make a good point that his most important discovery was the cause of solar eclipses. But if he was conscious that there was some regularity to them, he could have made educated guesses about possible eclipse years, and just gotten lucky with 585 BC, which just happened to be visible in Asia Minor. His other predictions would not have turned out so well, so this part of his work would not have been very impressive to posterity and would have been forgotten but for Herodotus, who has a way of aggrandizing things. This is speculative of course.

[jeidsath]

Gear e* on the Antikythera mechanism precisely tracks the precession of the lunar orbit (8.85 years instead of the correct 8.8826). It's extremely surprising to see that before the 17th century AD. The eccentricity of the lunar orbit, and the earth's tilt, are the two observational pieces that you really need to make good eclipse predictions. Everything else is (post-Newtonian) math. Even Paul's calendar problems fade into the background at that point, because you don't need hundreds of years of uninterrupted observations if you know about lunar eccentricity. You can make due with a private calendar and use a much shorter period of observation.

[mwh]

Paul, Just lucky, you suggest. But isn’t it wrong-headed from the start to give any credence to Hdt’s report? That Thales understood what was responsible for solar eclipses (the achievement Aristarchus credited him with) would automatically get perverted into an ability to predict them, which any astronomer (certainly Aristarchus!) would have known was a very different and more difficult thing. Hdt knew of an eclipse. The rest follows, as night follows day (and hopefully the reverse).

Joel, The Antikythera mechanism must represent the very best astronomical knowledge of the day (unlikely to be earlier than 1st cent. BCE, I should think; surely post-Hipparchan), and its extraordinary sophistication did indeed come as a big surprise, though perhaps bigger than it should have. Aristarchus of Samos was ahead of Copernicus (anyone could see that everything in the sky revolves around the earth), but this goes way beyond that.
However, it comes a good number of centuries after Thales. There seems no possibility of that anyone was capable of predicting eclipses in his time. Precession was an observed phenomenon that baffled all astronomers before Hipparchus. The Babylonians did in fact have hundreds of years of uninterrupted observations, but that couldn’t help them.

Tonight should be a good night for sky-watching, by the way!

[jeidsath]

Precession was an observed phenomenon that baffled all astronomers before Hipparchus.

That's the axial precession of the earth, or precession of the equinox. This is the apsidal precession of the moon. (And the nodal as well?) It's astonishing to find it modeled in the Antikythera mechanism.

[Lukas]

Was there an eclipse in that area around 30 or 33 A. D.?

[Paul Derouda]

Was there an eclipse in that area around 30 or 33 A. D.?

According to this https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSE/5MCSE-Maps-05.pdf, there was one that was pretty close 24th Nov 29 C.E., around midday. Looking at the picture, I don't know how dark it would have been in Jerusalem, as the total eclipse was somewhat further north. Anyway, there are so many historical events mentioned in the gospels that don't stand up to close scrutiny that I wouldn't get too excited about this.

mwh, you are right of course. But it is interesting, as Panchenko points out, that Herodotus thinks that solar eclipses are predictable events in the first place and not random occurrences. But here again I must confess my ignorance, as I don't know what the Greeks of that era generally thought about astronomical events and their predictability.

[Paul Derouda]

Anyway, I wanted to check Ρ. Oxy. 3710.36, but the university library informs me that the relevant volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1986) can't be delivered at present. They are inspecting the volume, whatever that means. Has anyone written anything interesting about this fragment after its publication? Characteristically, Asheri doesn't even mention it.

[mwh]

Try asking for it on for it on Interlibrqry Loan? There’s an image of the papyrus on the POxy site, and there should be a transcript in the catalogue of paraliterary papyri (which was not to be found last time I went to use it), but you really need the volume itself. I think you’d find it interesting. Quite a lot has been published on the piece, but understandably it’s mostly been concerned with the new Heraclitus quotation included in this same very lengthy note on Od.20.156, taken as a new moon festival.

The trouble with the Oxy. papyri series, and with editions of papyri in general, is that they're none too accessible. And the Oxy. Papyri volumes look as dull as ditch-water, bound in plain grey covers just as they were a hundred years ago, and the editions themselves are unenticingly austere, totally devoid of pizzazz. I think that's a good thing myself, but it does mean that they sit on library shelves and are rarely looked at, and their contents take a long time to filter down, if they ever do. But what treasures within!

[RandyGibbons]

Paul wrote:
But it is interesting, as Panchenko points out, that Herodotus thinks that solar eclipses are predictable events in the first place

Thanks all for this very interesting thread. Regarding Thales' prediction, I've enjoyed reading the Panchenko and Gainsford articles as well as reacquainting myself with resources I have on my shelf (e.g., Kirk-Raven-Schofield [KRS], undoubtedly dated). Unfortunately, to consult Neugebauer or Michael's (highly praised, I see) P Oxy LIII, I'd have to get off my duff and go to the library.

I would have to agree (without being willing to bet a nickel on it) with Michael and Gainsford, that it's highly implausible Thales made such a prediction, either to the day or, as Herodotus puts it, to the year. I only skimmed Panchenko, but that Thales or any Greek of that era would or could work through such cycles as he reconstructs strikes me intuitively at least as highly unlikely.

On this subject, I used to follow KRS (p. 82) and Charles Kahn (Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, p. 76 n. 2) - now that my memory has been refreshed - and believe that Thales based his prediction on Babylonian records. The impression I get from some of what I read today is that our knowledge of Babylonian astronomy has improved enough to make that unlikely. If I were to drill further down, that is one path I would follow.

But I do find Paul's observation intriguing, that Herodotus didn't seem to bat an eye at the notion of a (solar) ecliptic prediction.

Perhaps the most important point is what the reality but more likely myth/legend of such a prediction (and of Thales himself) meant to the Greeks symbolically and what it tells us in turn about the change in Greek thinking - that the eclipse has a scientific explanation. Which takes us back to the New Testament ...

[Paul Derouda]

Now that Joel has done the public service of putting links to the Oxyrhynchus papyri on Textkit, I was finally able to locate the volume my university library was unable to deliver to me when I tried to obtain it a few years ago. So here's the link to Ρ. Oxy. 3710.36ff.

https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchus ... 6/mode/2up