Sunday, November 19, 2023

The True Latter Day Saints' Herald (August 1, 1872): Jesus was Crucified April 6, A. D. 31

  

The Date of the Crucifixion

 

Herr Kalb, the German savant, in his work recently published, shows that there was a total eclipse of the moon concomitantly with the earthquake that occurred when Julias Caesar was assassinated on the 15th of March B.C. 44. He has also calculated the Jewish calendar to A. D. 41, and the result of his researches fully confirms the facts recorded by the Evangelists of the wonderful physical events that accompanied the crucifixion. Astronomical calculation proves without a shadow of doubt, that on the 14th day of the Jewish month Nisan (April 6), there was a total eclipse of the sun, which was accompanied in all probability by the earthquake, "when the veil of the Temple was rent from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake and the rock were rent."—(Mat. xxxii, 51). While St Luke describes the eclipse in these words: "And it was the sixth hour (12 noon), and there was a darkness over all the land till the ninth hour (8 o'clock p.m.), and the sun was darkened." (Luke xxii, 44.)

 

The mode of reckoning corresponds perfectly with the result of another calculation our author made by reckoning backward from the great total eclipse of April, 1818, allowing for the difference between the old and new styles, which also give April 6, as the date of new moon in the year A.D. 31. As the vernal equinox of the year fell on March 25, and the Jews ate their Easter Lamb, and celebrated their Frib Passoh, or Feast of the Passover, on the following new moon, it is clear April 6, was identified with Nisan 14, of the Jewish calendar, which moreover, was on Friday, the Paraskevee, or day of preparation for the Sabbath, and this agrees with the Hebrew Talmud. Thus, by the united testimony of astronomy, archaeology, traditional and Biblical history, there can be little doubt that the date of the crucifixion was April 6, A.D. 31. (“The Date of the Crucifixion,” The True Latter Day Saints' Herald 19, no. 15 [August 1, 1872]: 479)