Did the sky really go dark as biblical inerrantists insist?

This may have been discussed, but I saw no reply to this.I'm assuming that by saying this, you think that most, or at least many, Bible believers would answer that the same logic doesn't apply, but applying that logic to the flood is probably more common than not, even among Bible believers, though not among fundies.There's even a whole segment of Christianity (Calvinists) that apply it to Christ dying on the cross.You can't apply the idea of "every doesn't mean every" or "the whole world doesn't really mean the whole world" to every instance, but there's many places in the Bible and in everyone's communication where you do apply it. We all make that choice here and there, but not everywhere.Personally, I think it would be silly to apply the Gospel's "darkness over all the earth" to places like Germany. How would the Gospel writer know that? It seems obvious he meant "as far as the eye can see," or at least that he probably meant that.

Thank you, yes, though the pictures are from about 3 years ago. You don't have to differentiate it. Jer 15:10 has a man saying he is "a man of contention to the whole earth." Clearly he did not mean China, or even Ethiopia. Later, in Jer 50:23, Babylon is described as a hammer of the whole earth, yet we can be assured that most Celts had never heard of them. In Ez 32:4, God says he'll fill the beasts of the whole earth with the fallen of Egypt. Again, it's doubtful that he meant to include the tigers of India or the tasmanian wolf in that.A great example of this sort of speech is in Psalm 14, where there is none that does good "no, not one," but it goes on to say that God is with the generation of the righteous.There is much all inclusive speech, even Biblically, that is not all inclusive. There are those that take inspiration to extremes and thus deny some pretty obvious science. There are others who believe the morals of Scripture are really from God. Just because one believes that the moral teachings of Scripture are inspired by God does not in any way suggest that they're obligated to believe that "the whole earth" always means the entire globe.

I have no vested interest in this argument. Whether there was a supernatural solar eclipse, a bad thunderstorm rolling in, or nothing at all makes no difference to me whatsoever.However, are you sure this is true? Would there really be something available documenting a severe afternoon darkness in Judah? Do we really have some sort of daily or thorough historical record of Pontius Pilate's governorship?I'm not so sure that the Romans had the kind of thorough record keeping that you suggest, or it seems like we wouldn't rely on folks like Tacitus and Josephus so much. I would think that you'd had enough discussions with me to know that folks like us are perfectly happy ascribing supernatural sources to some seemingly mundane events. I have always read that passage as unusually heavy cloud cover, since the first time I read it in 1982. I've surely read it 40 or 50 times since, and I don't think I've ever considered anything else, though I admit it's never been at the forefront of my thought.