Geologists Say Yes To Crucifixion

GodSaidManSaid is a proof text. This is proof feature #506 that certifies the inerrancy of holy writ. These articles are archived in text and streaming audio. Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. The Holy Bible is proven here scholastically and pragmatically, employing the fields of ancient history, archaeology, paleontology, geology, microbiology, medicine, probability, and comparative outcomes, etc. But there is a greater proof than all of these, and it is the personal certification of the Spirit of God, the creator of all the above. Romans 8:15-17:

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Would you like to experience this personal proof that God is? Would you like to know of a certainty that you are a child of God? Jesus Christ calls this secret place of personal revelation "born again." John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Have you been born again? Let today be your day of salvation. Click onto "Further With Jesus" for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT. 

GOD SAID, Matthew 27:45-54:

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

47 Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.

48 And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.

49 The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

54 Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

MAN SAID: There is not one stitch of evidence that a man called Jesus Christ ever lived.

Now THE RECORD. The historicity of Jesus Christ has been roundly challenged by Christ deniers for some time, but not during the time of Christ. The Jewish authorities in the time of Jesus did not deny His existence, they just attempted to discredit Him. The official Jewish position was and still is that Jesus Christ was not the Messiah, but a bastard and a sorcerer. The descriptive rhetoric — bastard and sorcerer — may have changed but not the official Jewish position. For the unbelieving Jews, the two descriptions above are acutely critical. First, if Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, then He fulfilled the marvelous Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Immanuel means "God with us." The apostle Matthew quoted the virgin prophecy in chapter 1:23:

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Therefore the official Jewish position must be that Jesus Christ was a fatherless child (bastard) and not virgin-born, or they would have crucified the Christ — their Messiah. Second, if Jesus Christ performed the marvelous miracles, of which only a small number are listed in the scriptures, then these miracles were God’s endorsement of His ministry. Jesus said, John 14:10-11:

10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

The authorities did not deny the miracles. They attributed them to sorcery, or if not sorcery, they had crucified their Messiah. 

We don’t wish to lump together all of Hebrew people with their Jewish leaders, for many Jews are washed in the blood of Christ. Romans 11 speaks of the spiritual blinding of the nation of Israel which was a result of its disobedience, which also opened the doors of redemption to the gentiles. The prophet Zechariah pointed to the time of Armageddon when Israel as a nation will once again surrender their hearts to the scriptures and to their Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. Nevertheless, the Jewish hierarchy of today is true antichrist. I John 2:22-23:

22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.

I John 4:3:

And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

Unfortunately for the Christ deniers there is a plethora of historic fact that shouts a resounding "YES!" to the Biblical record of this Jesus. New research published in the October 2010 issue of Acts & Facts is another addition to the overwhelming empirical evidence stacked up against the enemies of the cross of Christ. The feature was written by renowned geologist Dr. Steven Austin, under the title of "Greatest Earthquakes of the Bible." Several paragraphs follow:

Recently, geologists have investigated the 4,000-year chronology of earthquake disturbances within the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediment of the Dead Sea. Hypersaline waters preserve seasonally laminated sediment because organisms cannot live or burrow in the bed of the lake. As a result, only a nearby earthquake (or very large distant earthquake) can homogenize the lake’s uppermost sediment layers, producing a "mixed layer" devoid of laminations. A sketch of a sediment core from the west side of the Dead Sea appears in Figure 1. The sketch shows the depth of the "mixed layers" within the laminated sediment sequence. Two deeper mixed layers in the Dead Sea are datable from historical, archaeological, and geological associations with faulting—the earthquakes of 31 B.C. (the Qumran earthquake) and 750 B.C. (Amos’ earthquake). Other earthquakes are represented in the Dead Sea sediment core with dates approximated by assuming a steady rate of sedimentation.  [End of quote]

Under the heading, "Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah," Dr. Austin writes:

A disaster called an "overthrow" was delivered in about 2050 B.C. on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-28). That event was so spectacular, swift, and complete that it became proverbial for the severity of judgment that God’s righteous anger could deliver.

Two Early Bronze Age archaeological sites southeast of the Dead Sea (Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira) reveal evidence of catastrophic collapse and burning along the eastern border fault of the Dead Sea Transform Fault. These two sites are likely the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah. A thick disturbed zone within the Dead Sea sediment core, assignable to the Sodom and Gomorrah event, occurs at a depth of about 18.5 feet. [End of quote]

Beneath the heading, "The Fall of Jericho," the feature continues:

The wall of the fortified city of Jericho collapsed suddenly after the Israelites marched around the city seven times (Joshua 6). The biblical account does not specifically mention an earthquake, but the earth would have been shaken by the wall’s collapse. Archaeological excavations at Jericho confirm that the massive wall made of mud bricks did collapse at the time of the conquest, about 1400 B.C. The site of the ancient city of Jericho sits directly on top of a very large fault associated with the Jordan Rift Valley. Surprisingly, the Dead Sea sediment core has a distinctive mixed sediment layer at a depth of 15.1 feet that is evidence of a big earthquake at about 1400 B.C. [End of quote]

The following excerpts are found under the headings of "Qumran Earthquake of 31 B.C." and "The Crufifixion in Jerusalem, April 3, 33 A.D.:"

About sixty years before the ministry of Christ, a small group of Levites copied Scripture onto scrolls at the small village of Qumran in the desert northwest of the Dead Sea. In 31 B.C., a large earthquake occurred along the Jericho Fault on the western side of the Dead Sea. The earthquake dried up Qumran’s main spring and severely cracked the architecture. Spectacular evidence of the earthquake is seen at recent excavations at Qumran in cracked stair steps within the ritual baths. Grooved fault surfaces (what geologists call "slickensides") and ground rupture within lake sediment can be observed just south of Qumran. Josephus wrote of the regional devastation from the earthquake, and he said 30,000 men perished. The survivors buried the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran lay abandoned after the earthquake. The Bible, of course, is completely silent concerning this earthquake and other events during the intertestamental period. No doubt, everyone in New Testament times knew of ancestors killed in that event.

After three hours of darkness at midday on April 3, 33 A.D., the Lord Jesus exclaimed the words "It is finished!" as He died on the cross. Immediately, the curtain of the sanctuary of the temple was torn, a great earthquake occurred, rocks were broken, and many dead saints were resurrected from their tombs (Matthew 27:51-54). The earthquake upon the death of Christ called attention to the great salvation that had been accomplished that day on the cross.

An outcrop of laminated Dead Sea sediment can be seen at Wadi Ze’elim above the southwestern shore of the modern Dead Sea near the fortress of Masada. In this sediment outcrop is a distinctive one-foot thick "mixed layer" of sediment that is tied strongly to the Qumran earthquake’s onshore ground ruptures of 31 B.C. (see Figure 2). Thirteen inches above the 31 B.C. event bed is another distinctive "mixed layer" less than one inch thick. The sedimentation rate puts this second earthquake about 65 years after the 31 B.C. earthquake. It seems that the crucifixion earthquake of 33 A.D. was magnitude 5.5, leaving direct physical evidence in a thin layer of disturbed sediment from the Dead Sea. [End of quote]

For more amazing information concerning the earthquake that occurred immediately after the Lord had given up the ghost, click onto the GodSaidManSaid feature, "The Day Jesus Died."

Jesus Christ was and is and will be for evermore. Wise men still seek Him. 

GOD SAID, Matthew 27:45-54:

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

47 Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.

48 And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.

49 The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

54 Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

MAN SAID: There is not one stitch of evidence that a man called Jesus Christ ever lived.

Now you have THE RECORD. 




References: 

Authorized King James Version

Austin, S.A., Ph.D., "Greatest Earthquakes of the Bible," Acts & Facts, October 2010, pp12-14

 

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