Signs in sun, moon, stars and sky; unexpected light and darkness – Part two: table and footnotes

This blogpost discusses several fragments of New Testament and early Christian writings which describe signs in sun, moon, stars and sky (‘heavens’ in their terms), and unnatural light/darkness changes. Part one gave the texts themselves. This second part gives the essence of the texts in a table, not only the ‘signs’ information itself but also additional information which is divided in three categories: accompanying phenomena, messianic information and political/chronological information. Additional information is provided in footnotes. Part three will give a general discussion of the subject.

Footnotes

1. I translate γῆ as ‘region’ instead of ‘earth’ or ‘land’. This translation is supported by a clear message in the Gospel of Peter 15: But is was midday, and darkness held fast all Judea.

2. See part 7 of the Didache series on this blog (‘An intermezzo on the relation between Didache XVI and Matthew 27:51-53’), in which I argue that all these supplementary phenomena are related to the final stage of the war against the Romans.

3. The disappearance of the stars from the firmament during that night is mentioned by different authors in different wording: ‘stars falling (from heaven)’, ‘the sky vanishing like a scroll that is rolled up’ (which makes disappear the stars sticking to that scroll), ‘the stars leaving the vault of heaven’.
When the firmament is seen as a huge dome, the disappearance of the stars is interpreted as this dome being opened. When it is imagined as a huge canvas or scroll, it means that this scroll is rolled up. Or if the stars have been fixed to the vault of heaven, their disappearance is interpreted as their falling down from that vault.
The fire related phenomena at the basis of this disappearance can be twofold. The firestorm of Jerusalem caused such light pollution that the stars were not visible anymore. In a later stadium of the fire a huge cloud of smoke and dust formed above the region, also hiding the stars.

4. Because of the loss of their Temple and their capital.

5. Matthew is even more specific than Mark. The catastrophe is the fall of Jerusalem, with ‘immediately after’ to be understood as ‘the immediate effect of the catastrophe being…’. I only mention the chronological indication in these ‘signs in sun and moon’ verses. There are much more chronological indications in the Synoptic Apocalypse, as the war of the Jews against the Romans is the dominant subject of these writings.

6. The use of underground hide-outs is mentioned here and also in Matthew 27:52: starving inhabitants of Jerusalem hid in memorials and underground passages, and they appeared again after the fall of the city.

7. Explicit mention that the sign is spread out. It refers to the mushroom form of the smoke cloud over Jerusalem and its environs.

8. The salpinx announcing the final victory of the Romans.

9. Jerusalem and its environs were lighted by the burning city. This phenomenon is described as the sun shining during the night in Ascension of Isaiah 4:5.

10. The great noise occurs only once but it fits perfectly, as it describes the roar of the firestorm consuming Jerusalem. It corresponds with Josephus’s mention of the ‘deafening din’ at the burning of the Temple (War V:274).

11. The ‘day of the Lord’, not in the sense of a Sabbath, but as the pivotal moment of the start of the messianic era. As the ‘day of the Lord’ can only be connected with the end of the war (which they thought to win, of course), it is a sure chronological marker. See the discussion in part 3.

12. The cloud of dust is an interesting and elucidating addition. In a firestorm ashes, dust and smoke are sucked into the air. The mist of Sibylline Oracles 3:806 can also point in that direction.
Josephus mentions a similar cloud of smoke and dust in an earlier stage of the siege (War V:471): At first there arose a dense cloud of smoke and dust as the flames were smothered by the debris, but as the mass of timber was burnt away, a vivid flame burst forth.

13. Cf. Josephus War VI:288 for the sword and VI:298 for the battle. The imagery here is identical to Josephus’s description of the portents of the fall of Jerusalem.

14. Wild beasts: the Greek θηρίον is also used for wicked persons with a ‘bestial’ nature. Roman soldiers belong to this category. In War VI:404 Josephus describes the man-hunt of the Roman soldiers at the fall of Jerusalem: They poured into the alleys, sword in hand, massacring indiscriminately all whom they met.

15. Here the subjugation to Vespasian is formulated neutrally. The enormous disappointment and humiliation of the Jews are more overtly worded in the last verse of the 4 Ezra fragment.

16. ‘Fire gained the mastery in the night’, says Josephus in War VI:407.

17. Resurrection of the dead like in Matthew 27:52 and Didache XVI:6.

18. Cf. Mt 11:5; Lk 4:18-19; Lk 7:22; 4Q521.

19. The ‘lawlessness’ label seems to have been reserved especially for Titus. Cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and Didache XVI:4.

20. Lapis in the Latin version; λἰθος is the Greek equivalent.

21. I see these verses as messianic. The blood on the wood is a down-to-earth description of Jesus’ crucifixion. This is explicitly confirmed in the Epistle of Barnabas XII:1. Similarly, again, he describes the cross in another prophet, who says, “And when shall all these things come to an end? says the Lord. When the tree shall fall and rise, and when blood shall flow from the tree.” Here again you have a reference to the cross, and to him who should be crucified.
In my opinion the stone using his voice again is a veiled description of Jesus’ resurrection/survival. In one instance in the New Testament (1 Peter 2:4) Jesus is also called λἰθος: Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious. (I believe λἰθος should preferably be translated as gem here.) Jesus using his voice again when leaving his hide-out is also described in 4 Baruch chapter 9:14: And after three days, his soul came into his body and he lifted up his voice in the midst of (them) all and said, ‘Glorify God, all (of you) glorify God.’ These messianic wood and stone verses are enclosed by the signs in sun and moon on one side and the falling stars on the other, showing a close connection between Jesus’ execution and survival and the ultimate days of the war.

22. Referring to the great fire of Rome in 64 CE and/or the chaos of the civil war after Nero’s death (68/69 CE).

23. The same time of day as in the Passion narrative of the synoptic gospels and in the Gospel of Peter 15.

24. It is Titus, the ruler looking like the emperor, who gives the command for the destruction of Jerusalem, with a firestorm during the night and a huge cloud of smoke that dims the light in the middle of the day to the intensity of a moonlit night. There is also a clear reference to the imperial cult in one of the following verses of Ascension of Isaiah (chapter 4:12).