Appendix “B3”

Existing Earthquake Records  (http://www.godswordexplained.com/?page_id=715 )

(An earthquake marked the hour when Christ laid down his life; and another earthquake signaled the moment when he took it up again in triumph. {3SP 192.1 1878})

Major earthquake in 31 BC with a Jordan Valley epicentre; 7 magnitude at least and among the largest in 2000 years. Josephus Flavius writes of 30,000 people killed. It damaged Emmaus and Caesarea in particular.

Geological, Geophysical and Geoscientific Evidence

Investigations into earthquake activity around the Dead Sea have occurred at a point which is around 13 miles from Jerusalem. This study took three cores [soil samples] from the beach of the Ein Gedi Spa adjacent to the Dead Sea. The study found an outcrop of laminated Dead Sea sediment at Wadi Ze’elim above the south-western shore of the modern Dead Sea near the fortress of Masada. From research into the deeper layers of the soil, two earthquakes were detected within the layers of annual built-up sediment. In this sediment outcrop was found a distinctive one-foot thick “mixed layer” of sediment that is tied strongly to the Qumran earthquake’s onshore ground ruptures of 31 BC. Thirteen inches above the 31 BC event bed was found another distinctive “mixed layer” less than one inch thick. This confirmed that there had been another earthquake which, from sedimentation rate knowledge, had occurred about 65 years later. [i.e. about 34 AD].

Through the direct physical evidence obtained via this thin layer of disturbed sediment from the Dead Sea we now know that there was a 5.5 magnitude earthquake which, together with our Biblical / Spirit of Prophecy knowledge, we can accurately date as occurring at the time of the death of Jesus in 31 AD.

Latest comments