NASA’s recent research, which compared the Jewish calendar, lunar cycles, and biblical accounts, has shed new light on the possible date of Jesus’s death.
For centuries, the timeline of Jesus’s crucifixion has been debated by scholars, theologians, and historians alike. While some biblical artifacts—like the Shroud of Turin—have been studied and carbon-dated, and evidence for events such as Noah’s flood continues to spark discussion, the precise date of Jesus’s death has remained elusive.
Many Christians have traditionally observed Good Friday as the day Jesus was crucified, and the general consensus points to early April, around Passover. Yet maintaining historical accuracy over two millennia is no easy feat.
Now, NASA’s astronomical models seem to support the long-held belief: that Jesus died on Friday, April 3, 33 AD, at approximately 3 p.m.—just hours before Passover and the Sabbath began.
This conclusion comes from cross-referencing biblical references, the Jewish calendar, and the patterns of lunar eclipses. NASA’s findings align closely with the scriptural account in Matthew 27:45: “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land,” describing the sky as Jesus was crucified.
Remarkably, historical records show that a lunar eclipse occurred on Friday, April 3, 33 AD. In the 1990s, NASA noted that ancient Christian texts mention the Moon turning to blood after the crucifixion—a poetic way to describe the reddish hue of the Moon during a lunar eclipse.
Biblical scholars, including Colin Humphreys and W. Graeme Waddington from Oxford University, have also pointed to the Old Testament prophecy in Joel, which predicted the moon would turn to blood on the “day of the Lord.” This detail appears to fit with the events described in the Gospels.
While the exact year and day of the Crucifixion have long been disputed, advances in astronomy have made it possible to reconstruct first-century lunar calendars and cross-check them against historical and biblical records.
As NASA’s website explains, “Christian texts mention that the Moon turned to blood after Jesus’s crucifixion—potentially referring to a lunar eclipse, during which the Moon takes on a reddish hue. Using this textual source, scholars narrowed down a possible date of crucifixion to Friday, April 3, 33 CE, because a lunar eclipse occurred that day.”
NASA’s discovery, therefore, provides new scientific backing for one of history’s most significant events, linking biblical tradition with celestial phenomena.