I was contemplating these verses:
Revelation 6:12-15 And when I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind. 14 The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.
When I suddenly realised that most of these signs accompanied the death of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 27:45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lemasabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
51At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52and the tombs broke open.
Now the crucifixion of Jesus happened at Passover which is a time of the full moon. This means that the moon being opposite from the sun and the earth in the middle, a lunar eclipse even a so-called blood moon might be possible, but not a solar eclipse. What caused the sun to darken at this time remains a mystery.
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1040
Narrated Abu Bakra: We were with Allah’s Messenger when the sun eclipsed. Allah’s Messenger stood up dragging his cloak till he entered the Mosque. He led us in a two-rak`at prayer till the sun (eclipse) had cleared. Then the Prophet (p.b.u.h) said, “The sun and the moon do not eclipse because of someone’s death. So whenever you see these eclipses pray and invoke (Allah) till the eclipse is over.”
Let us work on the hypothesis that some kind of parallel event is happening here and see where it takes us. We have an earthquake but then we have talk about the stars falling to the ground and the sky rolling up like a scroll. That didn’t happen at the time of Jesus’ death – right?
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2850/2850-h/2850-h.htm
The Wars of the Jews by Flavius Josephus
Book 5, Chapter Five, paragraph 4.
But then this house, as it was divided into two parts, the inner part was lower than the appearance of the outer, and had golden doors of fifty-five cubits altitude, and sixteen in breadth; but before these doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful. Nor was this mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation, but was a kind of image of the universe; for by the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by the fine flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple the sea; two of them having their colors the foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax and the purple have their own origin for that foundation, the earth producing the one, and the sea the other. [[what Josephus means here is that flax fibres come from the plant of that name, but the purple dye most like came from a type of sea snail called the spiny or purple dye murex which has been a source of purple dye since ancient times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolinus_brandaris ]] This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the [twelve] signs, representing living creatures. [[I believe he is here saying that the stellar constellations of the zodiac were embroidered unto the tapestry, but the usual illustrations of the animals associated with each sign was omitted.]]
Now Josephus is here writing 70 years after the crucifixion so either the veil has been replaced/replicated or it was repaired.
https://tapestryrestoration.com/4.html
Exodus 26:31 Make a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely spun linen, with cherubim skillfully worked into it. 32 Hang it with gold hooks on four posts of acacia wood, overlaid with gold and standing on four silver bases. 33 And hang the veil from the clasps and place the ark of the Testimony behind the veil. So the veil will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place.
At the time of the exodus, it must have been the case that there was a crossbeam spanning the four posts and upon which the veil was hung up by its hooks. Later on, when the posts were replaced by doors …
1 Kings 6:31 For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, Solomon constructed doors of olive wood with five-sided doorposts. 32The double doors were made of olive wood, and he carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold.
…the crossbeam must have been affixed to the wall not dissimilar to how we may do it today.
If we try to figure out how the veil tore, then the only way I can think of was that the crossbeam broke.
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2476
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Messenger said, “The Hour will not be established until the son of Mary (i.e. Jesus) descends amongst you as a just ruler, he will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolish the Jizya tax. Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it (as charitable gifts).
Quran 34:14 When We decreed that Solomon should die, no one knew of his death except for a creeping creature of the earth who ate-up his staff. When he fell down, the jinn realized that if they had known about the unseen, they would not have remained in such a humiliating torment for so long.
And maybe half the beam slipped from its bracket and fell, taking its share of the veil with it. Now we are limited by not knowing how many brackets there were to hold up the cross beam at this time. We can presume there were four to mimic the four posts that would have existed in the pre-Solomon tabernacle. And it is possible that one or more likely two brackets were dislodged from the wall, and the unsupported weight and vigorous shaking from the earthquake did the rest.
Visualise what this would look like. You have a tapestry of the sky, and it is torn in two maybe even straight down the zodiac. As half the veil falls to the ground, the stars upon it seem to fall too. And when the veil hits the ground, well, it is difficult to know if based on its weave if the fabric retains any natural curl.
https://www.worldwidetapestries.com/content/tapestry-care.html
Here are 5 ways to remove tapestry creases:
1 These are usually resolved when you lay out the tapestry or when you hang it.
2 If you need to remove a crease or curl in your tapestry before hanging a tapestry, you can simply lie it flat and place some books or weights on it for a period of time.
3 If you use a iron on the tapestry, use a low to medium heat, and avoid excessive heat as this may damage the tapestry. One option is to iron from the back. If you iron from the front, always use a cloth between the iron and the tapestry to avoid dirtying the tapestry.
4 If you have a steam machine (steamer), you can use it on the front while the tapestry is hanging. Note that excessive heat or moisture may damage your tapestry fabrics, so you should always do so carefully and avoid excessive heat or moisture.
5 Alternatively, when you hang your tapestry, you can insert a rod on the base of the tapestry if there is a rod pocket at the bottom, to help it to hang in a flatter manner.
Tapestries that do not come with a rod pocket at the bottom will have a rod pocket custom sewn.
Remember that since this is the Passover, the veil was probably taken down in the weeks before, in order to give it a good cleaning. And it had probably spent some time folded along its length and rolled up prior to being put up again.
Now it is possible that someone in the past began to think along the same lines that I did. That at some point in the future, the sky is going appear to be torn apart if not actually torn in some way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
In physical cosmology, the Big Rip is a hypothetical cosmological model concerning the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of the universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, and even spacetime itself, is progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future, until distances between particles will become infinite.
And began to promote:
Quran 77:9 When the heaven is cleft asunder (furijat);
but then had to caution people
Quran 50:6 Have they not looked at the heaven above them – how We structured it and adorned it and [how] it has no rifts (furūjin)?
😅
Now when I have read Revelation 6 in the past, I surmised that the stars falling was an optical illusion brought about by a sudden tilt of the earth. For we can see that if the earth:
Isaiah 24:20 The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.
… then the sky could appear to shift when it is really the earth moving under it. Of course, depending on where you are facing, the stars would rise suddenly on the other side.
But if the torn curtain is symbolic of the future, then this could also be a cosmological event and the shockwave of this is what hits the earth if not our entire local solar system.
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
Isaiah 16:9 Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming—cruel, with fury and burning anger—to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it. 10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. 11I will
😬
Markus Gorelli (not that Markus the other one!) 