According to Oxford University scholars, a NASA discovery could validate the biblical account of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Some historians believe that the Bible’s description of the sun turning into darkness and the moon turning into blood alludes to events that happened after Christ’s death.
According to NASA’s models, which chart the movements of the sun, moon, and earth across time, a lunar eclipse took place on Friday, April 3, 33 AD, which is the year that is typically associated with the death of Jesus.
The moon’s location would have given the cosmic event a crimson hue, and it would have been seen in Jerusalem shortly after sunset.
Biblical historians think the NASA-identified lunar eclipse was the same one mentioned in the Bible.
Since today is recognised by Christians as the day that Jesus was crucified, the NASA finding, which was made in the 1990s, is currently trending on TikTok.
“After Jesus was crucified, the Moon turned to blood,” according to Christian sources, “possibly alluding to a lunar eclipse, when the Moon turns reddish,” NASA said.
The American space agency also stated that due to a lunar eclipse, researchers have narrowed down a potential date for the crucifixion to Friday, April 3, 33 AD.
“The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord,” reads Acts 2:20, the Bible passage that addresses the moon.
According to the Bible, the apostle Peter spoke the words fifty days after Jesus was crucified, which led some scholars to surmise that he was reciting what he had seen when Jesus was crucified.
Many historians contend, however, that the verse was intended to foretell Jesus’ second coming.
It is because Peter was quoting Joel 2:28–31, which talks of spiritual awakening and cosmic signs: ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and awful day of the Lord approaches.’
Many historians think Peter was describing how Joel had already prophesied the crucifixion because the Book of Joel was written centuries before the event.
Biblical experts Colin Humphreys and W. Graeme Waddington of the University of Oxford contended that the moon did indeed become crimson blood after Jesus’ death based on NASA’s findings and biblical allusions to the crucifixion.
According to their theory, Peter was telling the audience that Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled rather than predicting the arrival of Jesus.
The researchers found that the Gospels’ account of darkness falling over the region between noon and three o’clock when Jesus was hanging on the cross closely matched the imagery found in Joel’s prophecy.
Peter’s use of the phrase “the sun shall be turned into darkness” was cited by Humphreys and Waddington as a reference to Matthew 27:45, which states that “darkness came over all the land from noon until three in the afternoon.”
The scholars also cited lesser-known works in the New Testament apocrypha, which includes accounts of Jesus’ birth, divinity, and interactions with his family and followers.
However, because the New Testament apocrypha was not regarded as divinely inspired, it was excluded from the conventional biblical canon.
Humphreys and Waddington, however, cited a passage known as the “Report of Pilate” as more proof of strange heavenly occurrences during the crucifixion.
According to the passage, “the sun was darkened at his crucifixion; the stars appeared and people lit lamps from the sixth hour until evening; the moon appeared like blood.”
They claimed that this further supports the idea that Jesus died on the day of the historic lunar eclipse.
Good Friday is observed by Christians worldwide to remember Jesus’ crucifixion and death.
According to the first full moon after the first day of spring, Good Friday always occurs two days before Easter Sunday, which is the first Sunday after that full moon.
The practice dates back to early Christian attempts to coordinate the celebration with astronomical phenomena and Jewish Passover.
According to the Hebrew lunar calendar, Jesus is thought to have been crucified around Passover.
On the Sunday after Passover, Jesus resurrected from the dead, according to the Gospels.
Early Christians looked for a method that would maintain Easter’s connection to Passover and Jesus’ resurrection in order to make it represent this chronology.
