THALLUS

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Thallus detailed events in ancient history around 52 AD. Early Christians highly valued his work because it discussed Jesus’s existence and verified events in the Gospels. For instance, Thallus describes the darkness at the time of Jesus’s death (mentioned in Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44, and Matthew 27:51-53) as a solar eclipse. Unfortunately, the works of Thallus have primarily been lost over time and are only found through quotes by other ancient historians, like Julius Africanus.

 

In evaluating Thallus’s claim about a solar eclipse at the time of Jesus’s death, Julius Africanus verified events surrounding Jesus’s death, even though he disputed Thallus’s characterization of them. Africanus stated, “This event followed each of his [Jesus’s] deeds, and healings of body and soul, and knowledge of hidden things, and his [Jesus’s] resurrection from the dead, all sufficiently proven to the disciples before us and to his apostles: after the most dreadful darkness fell over the whole world, the rocks were torn apart by an earthquake and much of Judaea and the rest of the land was torn down. Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, without reason it seems to me. For... how are we to believe that an eclipse happened when the moon was diametrically opposite the sun?” 

 

Given this independent verification by another ancient historian who lived at the same time as Thallus, Thallus’s statements about Jesus and his death remain credible, confirming that Jesus was a real person who lived and died where the Bible says he did.