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He apparently used computer modeling to determine what was happening in the skies of Jerusalem at the time. He also does quote scripture:

Quoted From the website:

From the Book of Acts with Peter quoting Joel: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”

From Mark: ”At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour."

From non-Biblical source: Phlegon Trallianus in Olympiades: "In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad [AD 32-33], a failure of the Sun took place greater than any previously known, and night came on at the sixth hour of the day [noon], so that stars actually appeared in the sky; and a great earthquake took place in Bithynia and overthrew the greater part of Niceaea,"

Again, I do not state that the theory at this website is correct. However, I personally find it interesting when archeologist come across evidence showing that these “myths” in the Bible did actually happen. Getting back to the original posting, even some church leaders consider the story of the Star and the visit from the Magi to be a “myth.” I liked the theory at this website because he shows that the points in the Bible can be explained within the context of a natural occurrence. While God is certainly able to create an occurrence out of the ordinary natural occurrence, I find it even more awe-inspiring that He created the universe in such a manner that He knew when the stars would align with history. The website ends with a quote from Revelation 13:8 that Jesus is "the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world."

One on-line English translation of Jerome has the quotation from Phlegon of Tralles under Ol. 202,2, where Phlegon in his "Olympiads" mentions a solar eclipse and an earthquake under Ol. 202,4, but on Tertullian.org there is a scholarly note about this fragment of Phlegon which says that the "4" must be a corruption of "1" (easy error to creep in using Greek capital letters as numerals--an alpha was corrupted into a delta); the eclipse is that of Nov. 24, A.D. 29.

Phlegon doesn't say that the eclipse and the earthquake happened on the same day.

Already early Christian writers pointed out that the darkness at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus could not have been a solar eclipse, which can only happen at new moon.

See the exceprts from George Syncellus at:

www.tertullian.org/rpease/syncellus/index.htm