What caused the darkness at noon on the Day of the Cross?
The darkness was not an ordinary solar eclipse. A solar eclipse cannot occur on the day of a lunar eclipse, as the Sun and Moon are on opposite ‘sides’ of the Earth. A lunar eclipse is Earth’s shadow, seen on the Moon. Here are some interesting clues which support plate tectonics as the cause of the darkness at noon. • Israel is in an active sheering subduction zone. • There was tectonic activity on the Day of the Cross, that is, an earthquake strong enough to break up boulders. • The Levant is studded with volcanoes (Israel’s Golan Heights is a string of extinct volcanoes). • Joel predicted something like billowing clouds of smoke, which Peter told a hostile crowd on the day of Pentecost: “You’ve seen!” • Particulate matter suspended in the atmosphere (an aerosol) tends to create red-colored lunar eclipses (blood moons), which Peter also asserted his audience had seen. So, one possible explanation of the darkness is a plume of volcanic ash, which would be consistent with these factual
