I called out this piece both on the idea that the darkness at Jesus' crucifixion as portrayed by the Synoptics was literal, as well as trying to hook Jesus' death to Passover either the Synoptic way or the Johannine.
Here's what I said in a quote-Stack, after first thinking against it. (I had come across him before, also from Ben the Amateur Exegete, and held off that time. That's another reason for possibly deblogrolling Ben.)
This all assumes two things, neither of which are guaranteed: A. That the darkness of the three synoptics is something actual and not a literary trope: B. That Jesus was crucified either on the day of OR, as in this piece, the day before, Passover. After all, the Eucharist, as invented by Paul, is NOT a Passover seder, as such things didn’t exist 2,000 years ago, and Hyam Maccoby, etc etc. No need to be a paid subscriber.
He claimed that he eventually got to the idea of it being a literary trope. I said, why waste your time.
And, actually looking at the last three paragraphs:
Where then does this leave us with the darkness that covered the land? As Humphreys observes, there are genuine reasons to think that a darkness could have a natural explanation, even if it has nothing to do with an eclipse. Yet we must also note that omens of darkness are scattered throughout ancient literature. Thus, if we want to know the meaning of the gospels’ darkness, it is to this that we must take heed.
In the Hebrew Bible, darkness often has strong apocalyptic edge. In texts like Joel 2 and Amos 5, it is used as a symbol of God’s divine judgement. Perhaps in this case then, it is the judgement over Israel for putting God’s anointed one to death. (For a fuller explanation of this motif with respect to Mark, see The Destruction of Jerusalem).
For a more direct parallel, however, we might turn to Graeco-Roman literature, where eclipses could portend a King’s death (Philo, Prov. 2.50). This is illustrated by Virgil’s poetic account of the death of Julius Caesar, which precipitated sixteen unusual phenomena, including prolonged darkness (Georg. 1.466-488). On this reading, the darkness that covered the land fits well with Jesus’ death as ‘King of the Jews’. There, it serves to confirm that Jesus truly is – as the centurion says – the ‘son of God.’
No, he doesn't do so much as what he claims, especially since he winds up working back to literal darkness.
On the latter issue, he poo-poohed Maccoby, while saying he himself talked about the crucifixion as being "around Passover." That's not the same as Sukkoth, whether Maccoby is right or wrong. He also poo-poohed the issue of Paul as creator of the Eucharist and pushed for an early date of the invention of the seder, leaving open the possibility of it coming before the First Revolt.
In reality, per Jonathan Klawans, Jesus almost certainly wasn't engaged in a Passover seder. And, if you know Paul wrote first, he invented the framing of what Jesus did. And, if you agree with me, with my more modern twists on the likes of Joseph Fitzmyer, you know Paul invented the Eucharist, and as part of a cosmic Gnosticizing event.
In addition, per this piece from a Jewish institute, the seder itself may have borrowed from Greco-Roman traditions, like the symposium. (And, riffing on my link above, that's another alternative to the monthly dinners of communal guilds for having influenced Paul. Or, perhaps the seder was influenced by guild dinners. Or both were influenced by both.) That said, yes, argument from silence, but that link notes that neither Josephus nor Philo mentions seders. Personally, I think it dates at least a minimum after the Second Revolt, which really led to Judaism rethinking itself. It was clear, especially after Hadrian planning to create Aelia Capitolina, that the temple wasn't coming back, and that Bar Kokhba thinking along the lines of Jeremiah and 70 years after the First Revolt was just wrong. (Messianism was alive between the two revolts, per the writing of books like Fourth Ezra.)
Otherwise, he strikes me as being a bit like Alan Garrow anchoring the date of Revelation on the eruption of Vesuvius. It's not exactly the same, but it is the same ballpark.
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