It wasn’t simply the heavens weeping.
A jaw-dropping discovery by NASA could lend cosmic credibility to one of many Bible’s most dramatic moments — the crucifixion of Jesus Christ — and the spooky sky present that adopted.
The house company’s astronomical fashions counsel {that a} lunar eclipse turned the moon crimson over Jerusalem on Friday, April 3, 33 AD — a date many students tie to Jesus’ dying.
And that eerie celestial occasion? It certain sounds acquainted.
“From midday till three within the afternoon darkness came to visit all of the land,” reads one translation of Matthew 27:45 — a Gospel verse describing the surreal skies as Jesus held on the cross.
The eclipse idea, initially floated by Oxford College researchers Colin Humphreys and W. Graeme Waddington, is now catching hearth on TikTok — simply in time for Good Friday.
“Christian texts point out that the moon turned to blood after Jesus’s crucifixion — probably referring to a lunar eclipse, throughout which the moon takes on a reddish hue,” NASA famous, including that their sky-tracking tech pinpointed the traditional eclipse seen in Jerusalem shortly after sundown.
For believers, it’s a putting echo of prophetic passages within the Bible.
A translation of Acts 2:20 reads: “The solar can be turned to darkness and the moon to blood earlier than the approaching of the nice and superb day of the Lord.”
That passage, spoken by the Apostle Peter 50 days after the crucifixion, quotes one other fire-and-brimstone forecast from the Previous Testomony, as Joel 2:28-31 warns:
“The solar shall be became darkness, and the moon into blood, earlier than the nice and horrible day of the Lord comes.”
Whereas some students argue these verses predicted the second coming, others — like Humphreys and Waddington — consider they described the eerie occasions unfolding on the day Jesus died.
Their analysis factors to one more chilling verse from historical Christian texts exterior the Bible’s canon.
“At his crucifixion the solar was darkened; the celebrities appeared and in all of the world folks lighted lamps from the sixth hour until night; the moon appeared like blood,” reads a passage from the Report of Pilate — a part of the New Testomony apocrypha.
Humphreys and Waddington say that helps the concept that the lunar eclipse was the very one seen and recorded in historical scripture.
They argue Peter’s quote — “the solar shall be became darkness” — straight references Matthew 27:45 and aligns with the three-hour blackout reported within the Gospels.
NASA’s information, they are saying, helps put the items collectively.
And whereas the Bible and science don’t at all times see eye to eye, this uncommon overlap has believers and skeptics alike doing a double-take — particularly on Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion.
Good Friday at all times falls two days earlier than Easter Sunday, which is decided by the primary full moon after the primary day of spring — a system meant to align with Passover, the Jewish vacation throughout which Jesus is believed to have been crucified.
In accordance with the Gospels, Jesus rose on the Sunday after Passover — and early Christians made certain Easter would at all times observe go well with, linking the vacation not simply to the Bible, however the moon itself.
This yr, a heavenly nudge from NASA has some questioning: Did the skies above Jerusalem inform the story all alongside?
