Colin Humphreys

Education Humphreys was educated at Luton Grammar School, He was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Jesus College, Oxford.

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Biblical studies Date of Last Supper In 2011 Humphreys claimed in his book The Mystery of the Last Supper that the Last Supper took place on Wednesday (Holy Wednesday), not as traditionally thought Thursday (Maundy Thursday), and that the apparent timing discrepancies (Nisan 15 or 14) between the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke versus John are rooted in the use of different calendars by the writers. Mark, Matthew and Luke appear to use an older, Egyptian-style Jewish calendar (still used today by the Samaritans) while John appears to refer to the newer, Babylonian-style Jewish calendar (still in use by modern Jews). The Last Supper being on Wednesday would allow more time for interrogation and presentation to Pilate prior to the crucifixion on Friday than given in the traditional view. Humphreys proposed the actual date for the Last Supper to be 1 April 33.

Criticism In a review of Humphreys' book, theologian William R. Telford points out that the non-astronomical parts of his argument are based on the assumption that the chronologies described in the New Testament are historical and based on eyewitness testimony, accepting statements such as the "three different Passovers in John" and Matthew's statement that Jesus died at the ninth hour. In doing so, Telford says, Humphreys has built an argument upon unsound premises which "does violence to the nature of the biblical texts, whose mixture of fact and fiction, tradition and redaction, history and myth all make the rigid application of the scientific tool of astronomy to their putative data a misconstrued enterprise."

Eclipse made "sun stand still" In a 2017 paper written together with Graeme Waddington, Humphreys offered an astronomical explanation for the biblical story of the sun standing still over Gibeon during the Israelites' victorious battle against the Amorites , namely an annular eclipse which occurred on 30 October 1207 BCE.

Awards and honours Humphreys was elected in 1996 as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering He was knighted in the 2010 Birthday Honours and in 2011 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society In 2015 he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society. He is also mentioned in Debrett's People of Today.