The Passion Narrative depicting the death and supposed resurrection of Jesus is widely regarded as one of the most influential accounts in the history of western civilization. In some tellings of this narrative, an earthquake is reported to have occurred shortly after Jesus’ death on the cross and just before the discovery of his empty tomb. While the factual reliability and chronological accuracy of these descriptions remain uncertain, paleoseismic and archeoseismic evidence indicates that an earthquake struck Judea around this time and caused damage to parts of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

This earthquake is known in most catalogs as the 33 AD earthquake, though some designate it as a 30 AD event. Both labels refer to the same textual passage in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The difference in dates reflects uncertainty surrounding the year of Jesus’ death. For clarity, the event identified in paleoseismic and archeoseismic studies is called the Jerusalem Quake, while the earthquake described in the New Testament is called the Crucifixion Quake. The relationship, if any, between the Jerusalem Quake and the alleged Crucifixion Quake remains unresolved.