Was there an eclipse in that area around 30 or 33 A. D.?
According to this https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSE/5MCSE-Maps-05.pdf, there was one that was pretty close 24th Nov 29 C.E., around midday. Looking at the picture, I don’t know how dark it would have been in Jerusalem, as the total eclipse was somewhat further north. Anyway, there are so many historical events mentioned in the gospels that don’t stand up to close scrutiny that I wouldn’t get too excited about this.
mwh, you are right of course. But it is interesting, as Panchenko points out, that Herodotus thinks that solar eclipses are predictable events in the first place and not random occurrences. But here again I must confess my ignorance, as I don’t know what the Greeks of that era generally thought about astronomical events and their predictability.
Anyway, I wanted to check Ρ. Oxy. 3710.36, but the university library informs me that the relevant volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1986) can’t be delivered at present. They are inspecting the volume, whatever that means. Has anyone written anything interesting about this fragment after its publication? Characteristically, Asheri doesn’t even mention it.
Try asking for it on for it on Interlibrqry Loan? There’s an image of the papyrus on the POxy site, and there should be a transcript in the catalogue of paraliterary papyri (which was not to be found last time I went to use it), but you really need the volume itself. I think you’d find it interesting. Quite a lot has been published on the piece, but understandably it’s mostly been concerned with the new Heraclitus quotation included in this same very lengthy note on Od.20.156, taken as a new moon festival.
The trouble with the Oxy. papyri series, and with editions of papyri in general, is that they’re none too accessible. And the Oxy. Papyri volumes look as dull as ditch-water, bound in plain grey covers just as they were a hundred years ago, and the editions themselves are unenticingly austere, totally devoid of pizzazz. I think that’s a good thing myself, but it does mean that they sit on library shelves and are rarely looked at, and their contents take a long time to filter down, if they ever do. But what treasures within!
Paul wrote:
But it is interesting, as Panchenko points out, that Herodotus thinks that solar eclipses are predictable events in the first place
Thanks all for this very interesting thread. Regarding Thales’ prediction, I’ve enjoyed reading the Panchenko and Gainsford articles as well as reacquainting myself with resources I have on my shelf (e.g., Kirk-Raven-Schofield [KRS], undoubtedly dated). Unfortunately, to consult Neugebauer or Michael’s (highly praised, I see) P Oxy LIII, I’d have to get off my duff and go to the library.
I would have to agree (without being willing to bet a nickel on it) with Michael and Gainsford, that it’s highly implausible Thales made such a prediction, either to the day or, as Herodotus puts it, to the year. I only skimmed Panchenko, but that Thales or any Greek of that era would or could work through such cycles as he reconstructs strikes me intuitively at least as highly unlikely.
On this subject, I used to follow KRS (p. 82) and Charles Kahn (Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, p. 76 n. 2) - now that my memory has been refreshed - and believe that Thales based his prediction on Babylonian records. The impression I get from some of what I read today is that our knowledge of Babylonian astronomy has improved enough to make that unlikely. If I were to drill further down, that is one path I would follow.
But I do find Paul’s observation intriguing, that Herodotus didn’t seem to bat an eye at the notion of a (solar) ecliptic prediction.
Perhaps the most important point is what the reality but more likely myth/legend of such a prediction (and of Thales himself) meant to the Greeks symbolically and what it tells us in turn about the change in Greek thinking - that the eclipse has a scientific explanation. Which takes us back to the New Testament …
Now that Joel has done the public service of putting links to the Oxyrhynchus papyri on Textkit, I was finally able to locate the volume my university library was unable to deliver to me when I tried to obtain it a few years ago. So here’s the link to Ρ. Oxy. 3710.36ff.
https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr0053unse/page/96/mode/2up