Luke 23:45, Mathew 27:45 and Mark 15:33 recounts that “the sun stopped shining” in mid-day at Jesus Crucifixion. Mathew 27:51 also reports that “the Earth shook and the rocks split.” Many have doubted these claims, arguing that such shocking phenomena would have been recorded in sources beside the Bible. As it turns out, record of it did survive in the works of Thallus a First Century, non-Christian, Roman historian in one of his few surviving writing fragments. In his account Thallus also relates that the darkness was not limited to Judea but was seen “all over the world.” Thallus was writing in the middle of the First Century, consequently the people who it was written for would have been alive at the time of the “darkness”, meaning that they themselves would have actually witnessed the event, eliminating the possibility of it being a false report.

Tallus attributed the “darkness” to what he thought was a solar eclipse. However today it is known from Computer Generated Reverse Solar Eclipse Paths that no solar eclipse occurred during the Crucifixion. Therefore the “darkness seen all over the world” does not have a known natural explanation.

The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus are central to Christian Faith. These verifications of the Biblical account in Tallus are important to Christians and skeptics alike because they provide further support to the reality of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as historical facts.

Source: F. Jacoby, “Fragments of Greek Historians” pp 1156-1158.