Talk:Crucifixion darkness

message: The article currently states the date of composition of Matthew as a fact, relying on Harrington. The Gospel of Matthew article, however, carefully following its own source, says most scholars favour 80–90. This is the date and the wording we should use here. (This probably means splitting the sentence in two.) Similarly, the date of Mark's gospel is stated as fact (70) whereas the Gospel of Mark article says "probably around AD 60–70". And it's the same situation with Luke, though the dating of that gospel has even less consensus. StAnselm (talk) 19:58, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I have reworded for neutrality, using Scholz as a source, though other sources have slight variance of the dates that "most scholars think" the gospels were written. Perhaps we could give a longer bracket (e.g. 80-90 for Matthew). StAnselm (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dating of the gospels. 

message: I was advised that to avoid an edit war, I should post my position on this talk page.
It has recently come to my attention a historical fact that seems to have direct relevance to the crucifixion darkness. This fact is that many ancient naturalists seemed to have the opinion based on eyewitness accounts of strange weather phenomena, preceding earthquakes. For two thousand years ancient European and medieval (including islamic) natural philosophers have considered a dry, warm gas, the "pneuma" ( breath, exhalation), escaping from the earth, as precursor and trigger of earthquakes. Also in China an escaping gas or breath (the qi) was considered the cause of earthquake, first in a document from 780 BC. We know today that escaping gas is not causing earthquakes. But it may be that natural phenomena that supported such a pneuma-concept have again and again been observed. The unpolluted environment and the largely absence of distracting artificial stimuli may have allowed the recognition of distinct earthquake precursors, such as described by ancient observers: 
1) the sun becomes veiled and has a dim appearance, turns reddish or dark 
2) a narrow long stretched cloud becomes visible, like a line drawn by a ruler, 
3) earthquakes preceded by a thin streak of cloud stretching over a wide space. 
4) earthquakes in the morning sometimes preceded by a still and a strong frost, 
5) a surf - line of the air sea is forming (near the horizon). 
The described phenomena may be interpreted as a kind of smog forming above the ground prior to an earthquake, a smog exhaled from the ground, which is triggering water condensation, releasing latent heat, changing visibility, temperature, heat conduction and radiation properties. This could perfectly match the phenomenon, which is at the origin of satellite monitored temperature anomalies preceding earthquakes. 
Anaxagoras (according to Aristotle [Aristot. Meteor. II. 7, 365 a 14 ff. (Aristotle, 384–322 BC).]), in the 5th century B.C. already assumed that a gaseous ether forces its way through the porous earth and through the contained air from below the earth’s disc thus generating earthquakes. Aristotle based his earthquake concept on this pneumatic mechanism communicated by Anaxagoras. His elaborated ideas have been conserved in his famous book on meteorology [18]. Basically he assumes, that a compressed dry and warm gas, pneuma, escapes from the earth thus producing earthquakes. The same origin has also a sign that according to Aristotle used to precede the earthquake: “In clear weather during the day and shortly after sunset, a narrow long stretched cloud becomes visible, like a line drawn by a ruler, because the pneuma is disappearing. What remains is a kind of surf line of the air-sea”. Aristotle also describes some of the fog’s properties: “Besides the weakening of the sun and the (relative) darkness that comes about without clouds, the calmness and great cold that occasionally occur before earthquakes, that happen in the morning, confirm the cause”. The strange cloud or fog, which appears before the earthquake, and is described by Aristotle, has also received attention during a later historical event and Pliny the Elder explicitly mentions it as one of four possible earthquake precursors [Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, 2:84. (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23–79 AD)]. 
There have been a number of eyewitness accounts reporting the same anomaly, such as the one reported in the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-12. These quotes are on record in different places, from books to sites dedicated to that earthquake. They report that "The skies turned dark during the earthquakes, so dark that lighted lamps didn’t help. The air smelled bad, and it was hard to breathe. It is speculated that it was smog containing dust particles caused by the eruption of warm water into cold air. 
All this is supported by a number of Scientific articles on the subject of Meteorological Phenomena as Earthquake precursors, which the Crucifixion Darkness seems to be one such event. 
1) http://geospatialworld.net/Paper/Application/ArticleView.aspx?aid=999
2) http://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/3/1/274/htm  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremias19 (talk • contribs) 00:31, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems to be a personal theory. In order to be included, it has to be stated in a reliable published source. Otherwise, it is simply WP:OR original research. --Rbreen (talk) 18:05, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

text: That's not how this process works. You need to find a published, reputable source which describes this theory. The other natural theories are supported by published citations, whereas you are citing directly from sources and interpreting them in support of your own theory. In Wikipedia, this is known as Original Research (WP:ORIGINAL. I am not inventing this - it is basic Wikipedia Policy, and you need to inform yourself of it before criticising other editors. It does not matter how good your theory is, unless you can find a reputable published source that describes this theory, it cannot go in a Wikipedia page. Please read the Wikipedia page on Original research to inform yourself of this. And please do not accuse other editors of being biased for simply upholding Wikipedia policy. --Rbreen (talk) 22:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

text: Since there is one significant source which mentions this theory, I have added it in. Note, though, that all the supporting citations you mention are not in support of this theory - none of them refers to it. In adding them in and arguing that they support it, you are adding your own interpretation, which is Original Research. Also, this reference is to a very old - well over a century old - theory, in a popular (not scholarly) work, and as the article makes clear this no longer represents the opinion of modern biblical scholars. --Rbreen (talk) 01:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

text: Again, only one of these actually relates to the Crucifixion Darkness, and if you look into it you will find that this paper is not from a reputable scholarly journal. Apart from anything else, it does not refer to a single New Testament scholar and takes no account of the very considerable quantity of scholarly analysis of this question. None of the sources mentioned in this article - which is pretty comprehensive - are referred to. (It does, however, cite "Yahoo answers") The quality of the writing - you may not be a native speaker of English, so this may not be apparent to you - is poor, and the article shows no awareness whatsoever of the last century of New Testament scholarship. One author works in a music school, the other in an observatory. This source, the International Journal of Development Research, is not a peer-reviewed publication. It is to be found on Beall's list of predatory publishers:  . This is not the kind of source we can use on Wikipedia, unless we are to be made a laughing stock. Unfortunately, your search for modern, peer-reviewed, scholarly sources for this interesting theory must continue. Good luck! --Rbreen (talk) 23:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

text: "As long as it is printed, it is an acceptable resource." No, that is not how this works. It has to be a reliable printed source. There are lots of self-published, vanity books out there and we cannot cite any of them. The same is true of a pay-to-play predatory journal article. It is simply unreliable and even a cursory examination of the text will show various weird usages, basic misspellings and strange capitalisations. The quality of this article is simply not good enough to be a source for Wikipedia. We need reliable sources, published by mainstream and preferably academic publishers. There may be such sources which support this argument, but they need to be cited. --Rbreen (talk) 22:18, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naturalistic explanations, A further explanation and its Merit