The time of Christ's death


GaleG
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hello,
 
Would you help me understand these verses.
 
According to 1 Nephi 19:10, 3 days of darkness was given by the prophet Zenos to  
be a sign of Christ's death.
 
What sign was given of his resurrection?
 
Matthew 27:46 says Jesus died at approximately the 9th hour.  By this time, it  
was already dark on the America continent.
 
For the sake of simple calculation, let's assume that Jesus died on a Friday  
at 6pm in Jerusalem.  This would be about Friday midnight on the American
continent.
 
What day did the Nephites realize Jesus was crucified?  Monday morning or Tuesday
morning America time?
 
According to 3 Nephi 8:5,20-22 "And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in  
the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such  
an one as never had been known in all the land ... And it came to pass that there  
was thick darkness upon all the face of the land, insomuch that the inhabitants  
thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness; And there could be no  
light, because of the darkness, neither candles, neither torches; neither could  
there be fire kindled with their fine and exceedingly dry wood, so that there could  
not be any light at all; And there was not any light seen, neither fire, nor glimmer,
neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, for so great were the mists of darkness
which were upon the face of the land."  
 
Does this mean Jesus died on the first day or fourth day of the first month?

Thank you,

Gale

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scott
1 hour ago, GaleG said:

Matthew 27:46 says Jesus died at approximately the 9th hour.  By this time, it  
was already dark on the America continent.

I have no idea where you are getting your calculations, but they are way off.

The 9th hour is 3PM.    That would make it the morning of the same day in the Americas.  

Quote

For the sake of simple calculation, let's assume that Jesus died on a Friday  
at 6pm in Jerusalem.  This would be about Friday midnight on the American
continent.

6 PM in Jerusalem would be 11 AM in New York, 10 AM in Mexico City or Lima Peru, and 8 AM in Los Angeles, all of them the same day. 

6 PM in Jerusalem would be midnight in Tokyo rather than anywhere in the Americas.   

Edited by Scott
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Scott said:

I have no idea where you are getting your calculations, but they are way off.

6 PM in Jerusalem would be 11 AM in New York, 10 AM in Mexico City or Lima Peru, and 8 AM in Los Angeles, all of them the same day.

You're right.  My brain was not working 🙂

So assuming it was Friday morning with the Nephites, when would they have realized Jesus
had been crucified?  i.e. when did the darkness begin and when did it end?  If darkness started
on Friday morning, that sounds like light returned on Monday morning. If darkness started on
Friday night, light would have returned as usual on Tuesday morning.

How does the start and end time of the sign correlate with the mention of the fourth day of the
first month?

Thank you,

Gale

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Mores
On 7/20/2019 at 9:54 AM, GaleG said:

You're right.  My brain was not working 🙂

So assuming it was Friday morning with the Nephites, when would they have realized Jesus
had been crucified?  i.e. when did the darkness begin and when did it end?  If darkness started
on Friday morning, that sounds like light returned on Monday morning. If darkness started on
Friday night, light would have returned as usual on Tuesday morning.

How does the start and end time of the sign correlate with the mention of the fourth day of the
first month?

Thank you,

Gale

I'm not sure where you're going with this.  Could you give some notion of why this piqued your curiosity?  We're not entirely certain of how the Ancient Jews' reckoning of time aligns with ours (or does not align as the case may be).  We're even less certain with the Nephites.

So, what would this tell us if we were to determine it?

Edited by Mores
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/20/2019 at 10:54 AM, GaleG said:

You're right.  My brain was not working 🙂

So assuming it was Friday morning with the Nephites, when would they have realized Jesus
had been crucified?  i.e. when did the darkness begin and when did it end?  If darkness started
on Friday morning, that sounds like light returned on Monday morning. If darkness started on
Friday night, light would have returned as usual on Tuesday morning.

How does the start and end time of the sign correlate with the mention of the fourth day of the
first month?

Thank you,

Gale

Jerusalem is +7 to +10 of Americas time.  Therefore, Jesus dying on the 9th hour would be somewhere around the 1st hour Americas time.  But that's assuming hours and days were counted the same in both continents.

Darkness started on the 4th day of the 1st month.

 

Edited by anatess2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/19/2019 at 6:21 PM, GaleG said:

For the sake of simple calculation, let's assume that Jesus died on a Friday  
at 6pm in Jerusalem.  This would be about Friday midnight on the American
continent.

This is incorrect for at least two reasons:

1. Israel is nine hours behind Guatemala (assuming there isn't some stupid Daylight Saving Time nonsense going on at Google), not ahead. Six pm on a given day in Israel would correspond to about nine in the morning of the same day in Guatemala (in today's way of reckoning days).

2. The Nephites almost certainly came across the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic. If they kept careful count of all days, they would have advanced their calendar. So instead of lagging Jerusalem time by about nine hours, they would have led Jerusalem time by about fifteen hours.

Taking both of these points into account, a 6 pm Friday death would correspond to a Nephite experience of an approximately 9 am Saturday (Sabbath). The darkness and destructions would have begun in the Sabbath mid-morning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Vort said:

The Nephites almost certainly came across the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic.

Well, that was a shocker to read.  I had no idea.  I wish The Book of Mormon Movie had used animated maps to segue between scenes... maybe then I'd have been clued in.  

Your reasoning seems sound to me, but I'm always nervous about smearing the Sabbath across lots of time zones.  A few years ago Samoa decided to bend the International Date Line the other way around so it would share the same day with Australia, New Zealand, and other neighboring nations.  Samoans went to sleep on December 29th and woke up on December 31st.  (I have an uncle who did the same thing once, but under different circumstances.)  The loss of one day wasn't too painful, but the Seventh-day Adventists in Samoa had a real dilemma, since the next Sabbath would be only 6 days away from the previous Sabbath, not the usual 7.  On the surface, this seems like a silly thing to worry about, but if you dig down you'd find that the real debate was whether they should follow the Eastern order or the Western order for defining the Sabbath.  I'm too lazy to Google for the details, but I seem to recall that it actually split the church.

I doubt this would have been an issue for the Nephites, because they didn't go all the way around the world (I guess) and probably didn't notice the shorter days as they sailed east.  But I think Magellan's crew returned to Spain after the first circumnavigation and found that one more day had passed than their own shipboard reckoning had claimed.  The same thing did happen in Around the World in 80 Days, but in reverse of course.

Edited by Texan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Texan said:

Well, that was a shocker to read.  I had no idea.

Take it with a grain of salt. The Book of Mormon doesn't specify the route they took past the eastern Arabian peninsula. An eastward route has always seemed somehow more reasonable to me, but that really doesn't mean anything.

4 hours ago, Texan said:

I wish The Book of Mormon Movie had used animated maps to segue between scenes... maybe then I'd have been clued in.

I wish nothing but good for those who made The Book of Mormon Movie, but...let's just say it was neither an artistic nor a doctrinal masterpiece.

4 hours ago, Texan said:

Samoans went to sleep on December 29th and woke up on December 31st.  (I have an uncle who did the same thing once, but under different circumstances.)

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/24/2019 at 4:00 PM, Mores said:

I'm not sure where you're going with this.  Could you give some notion of why this piqued your curiosity?  We're not entirely certain of how the Ancient Jews' reckoning of time aligns with ours (or does not align as the case may be).  We're even less certain with the Nephites.

So, what would this tell us if we were to determine it?

I had read the Nephites were given a sign of his death but not a sign of his resurrection
so there was no indication they even knew.  That is why I was curious around the timing
of the fourth day of the first month indicated.

Thank you,

Gale

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/19/2019 at 7:21 PM, GaleG said:

 
What sign was given of his resurrection?
 

There was no sign mentioned as being given.

There was the sign of his birth...  A night without darkness...

There was the sign of his death...  A day without light...

Note the symbolism of both.

For is resurrection their was no sign promised... just the promise was that he would visit after it happened.  Which he did.

As for the timing of his visit... any time after works for that.  But note that Mormon 400 years after the events had some questions himself about the time frame as it was recorded.  We do not know why he was questioning it... only that he did and that he went with what was recorded.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Mores
On 7/27/2019 at 10:37 AM, GaleG said:

I had read the Nephites were given a sign of his death but not a sign of his resurrection
so there was no indication they even knew.  That is why I was curious around the timing
of the fourth day of the first month indicated.

Thank you,

Gale

Ok.  If I understand you correctly, you're only asking about a sign of his resurrection, and the calendar days are... a curiosity?

There was no "sign" of His resurrection any more than in the old world.  You are correct.  Just as in the New Testament, no one knew of His resurrection until they saw him.

In CH 11, the Nephites saw Him.  Then they knew.

I have no idea what the calendar has to do with this.  And I'd really appreciate it if you would elaborate why that part of your question is so important.

Edited by Mores
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/28/2019 at 9:38 AM, Mores said:

Ok.  If I understand you correctly, you're only asking about a sign of his resurrection, and the calendar days are... a curiosity?

I have no idea what the calendar has to do with this.  And I'd really appreciate it if you would elaborate why that part of your question is so important.

The Book of Mormon made a reference to a specific month and day.  I thought there would
be some reason for it.

Thank you,

Gale

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, GaleG said:

What do you mean?

Gale

3 Nephi chapter 8 verse 1&2

Quote

And now it came to pass that according to our record, and we know our record to be true, for behold, it was a just man who did keep the record—for he truly did many miracles in the name of Jesus; and there was not any man who could do a miracle in the name of Jesus save he were cleansed every whit from his iniquity.

And now it came to pass, if there was no mistake made by this man in the reckoning of our time, the thirty and third year had passed away;

See the bold.... Until Mormon made his comment we had no reason to doubt the time frame.  But Mormon himself seems to be hedging the time frame and we do not know why.  Space on the plates were valuable so what take up space with that unless he felt it was necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Mores
2 hours ago, GaleG said:

The Book of Mormon made a reference to a specific month and day.  I thought there would
be some reason for it.

Thank you,

Gale

There may very well be a reason for it.  But it is not something that is commonly known or discussed. Perhaps in some future date someone will find a meaning or reason for it.  There are times when some apparently meaningless passage or phrase actually was found to be something quite interesting.  Not that it necessarily had salvific importance.  But there was something otherwise significant about it.  I won't go into it today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share