This time last year I published Test-of-Time: Resurrection Faith. As Holy Week (for Christians) progresses, I set out to better understand historic events relative to Good Friday. There's a highly testable data point that leaps off the page.

Test: Is there extra-Biblical evidence supporting or contradicting HOURS of darkness when Jesus was crucified? [Turns out there is]

Thallus (historian) is of such prominence he has a WIKIPEDIA page. So feel free to research the darkness event yourself. It was less than 20 years after Jesus death by crucifixion that Thallus wrote about the coinciding darkness.

Due to the close timeframe (crucifixion eyewitnesses would still be alive) of Thallus reporting on this (50-52 AD), we can safely accept the Good Friday detail that darkness did cover the land. But, a skeptic would rightly point out, correlation doesn't mean the same thing as causation. Okay then. Could this have been pure coincidence?

Well, turns out, the coincidence hypothesis fails and fails lopsidedly. (1) It is impossible the darkness was a solar eclipse. The timing of Jesus death (and even atheist scholars agree Jesus of Nazareth lived and died on a cross) was right at the Passover. Since the Passover was timed to the lunar cycle we can 100% rule out a solar eclipse, as the timing of the two are 100% incongruent.

And (2) There has never been a solar eclipse lasting 10 minutes, much less 120 to 180 minutes ( Matthew 27:45). Coincidence of darkness ruled out.

Even if one were to disbelieve #2 on grounds Matthew exaggerated the darkness time, there's no getting around rule-out factor #1.

In conclusion there's supporting evidence (more than Thallus) that darkness during daylight hours took place at Jesus death. Moreover the support that such aforementioned darkness was caused by natural forces of nature is zero/zilch. The historic evidence just continues to stack up for Jesus death by crucifixion and his Resurrection from the dead.