Pictures of Rockshire before the houses were built.

 Rochshire pictures... Source:  Neil Bernstein and Mr. Viers 

Seven League Boots to Southern Cross: The Curtis Brothers, Buckingham Nicks and Stephen Stills

"Seven League Boots" was recorded as a demo by the Curtis Brothers in 1975 along with another song called "Blue Letter". "Blue Letter" was covered the same year by Fleetwood Mac and sung by Lindsey Buckingham on their mega-selling self titled Fleetwood Mac album  ( the same album that has "Rhiannon.")  These demos by the Curtis Brothers were apparently not released officially- though "Blue Letter" was included on the Curtis Brothers album that was released in 1976. I didn't realize that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (you can hear her voice on occasion in the video above) had worked with them on these recordings.                   

In the early 1980s, the Curtis Brothers offered "Seven League Boots" to Stephen Stills who was working on a solo project. Stills liked the melody but asked if he could rewrite the song which he did under a new title "Southern Cross". The Curtis Brothers agreed to this. The Southern Cross is a constellation used for navigation in the Southern Hemisphere.  Seven League boots are footwear found in European folklore that takes strides of seven leagues per step (a distance of about 21 miles).

Stephen Stills' new lyric totally transformed the song.  The 1982 CSN Daylight Again album on which the song is finally released was originally slated to be an album with a lineup of just Stills and Graham Nash-but their label had enough of CSN  solo projects and wanted a more lucrative album with the full Crosby, Stills, and Nash lineup. Eventually, Stills and Nash relented, but some of the songs on the album don't include Crosby because they were recorded before he was brought in. Instead, the CSN vocal style was created by Stills and Nash with additional backing vocalists. In this case, the vocalists were Timothy B. Schmidt and Art Garfunkel. Of course, you don't really notice it's them. However, the video recorded for the song features David Crosby even though he didn't sing or play on the recording.  The Curtis Brothers never made it big-but at least they had these two songwriting credits on two albums that sold over 6  million copies in total.

Above is the video of  "Southern Cross"-which was played a lot on video channels at the time. It was the last top 40 hit CSN had.

Originally published January 2, 2019

More about the origins of Southern Cross.

When did Jesus Die?

Ever wondered what year Jesus died?  There are no extant official records that verify an actual date of his crucifixion.  Still, historians are largely in agreement that Jesus did exist and was crucified, but they are not sure of the date.  They are fairly certain that he died within the term of the Judean prefect, Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. It is also assumed that Jesus died during the  High Priesthood of Joseph Caiphas who was in that position from 18 to 36 AD.

 It is also assumed that Jesus's ministry lasted from one to three years, (probably around three years)  and that Jesus was in his 30's when he died. The synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) and the Gospel of John seem to disagree on the length of the ministry-but the gospels are theological documents with theological purposes, so one can't always treat them as good chronology. 

The best candidates for a year that Jesus died are years that had Passover on a Friday.   The gospels indicate that he died on a Passover that was a Friday.  Both 30 AD and 33 have a Passover falling on or near a Friday. Passover is the Jewish festival commemorating the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

The traditional date of Jesus' death (though there was never was a  date treated as doctrine)  was originally assumed to be 33 AD.  One reason is that this simply fits neatly into the AD 0 plus thirty plus three calculation. Luke 3:23 tells us that Jesus was baptized by John and began his ministry at "about" the age of thirty.   So Jesus was assumed to be about thirty when he started his ministry and his ministry was about three years. So if Jesus was born around  1 AD, he would have died around 33 AD.

So when was Jesus born? As you may already know-scholars don't think Jesus was actually born on December 25 (a day that was picked simply to match up with Pagan winter festivals)-they think it is more likely he was born when shepherds were out in September.  Indeed it is said that John the Baptist was born in March-and that Jesus was born six months after him. Also if there had been a Roman tax census (and that is also questionable) then it most likely occurred around harvest time in the fall.   Whatever the month the year was probably 4 BC or before. However, we can't even be certain that Matthew's version of the nativity is entirely correct historically.  But some of the details are likely correct and Herod's death coming near to the Nativity would be a detail likely to be accurate.

 Dionysius Exiguus, a monk who died in A.D. 556, was  the man who determined the birthdate of Jesus  as the Roman year 753 (Roman years were then counted from the year Rome was founded) using the information available to him at the time. 754 was dated as 1 AD. However, later historians determined that for Jesus to have born under Herod the Great, he would have to have been born before Herod's death in March or April 4 BC. So scholars agree that Jesus was born not around 1 AD but in 4 BC or before.

 If Jesus was born in  5BC and died in 33 AD he would now have to be age 38 when he died. That age seems a little too old.   However, other factors still make 33 AD a good choice, the  Judean political situation had worsened enough by 33 AD to make the extreme action of killing a prophet that was taken by Pilate and the high priests seem more justified.  Also, there were astrological events in  Passover 33 AD that more closely fit the bill than 30 AD. Finally, there are a lot of three's!  April 3, 33 AD dying at three in the afternoon. The number three suggests the trinity.

Tiberius

However, April 7, 30 AD also remains a serious candidate.  The reign of the Roman emperor,  Tiberius is noted in Luke's gospel. Luke says that John the Baptist started preaching in the fifteenth year of Tiberius' reign. Some say that the 15th year of Tiberius reign would translate to 26 AD.  It is said that Jesus began his ministry soon after John's  So that would put the range of  Jesus ministry from around 26 to 30 AD.  However, Tiberius co-reigned his first two years which might change the calculation, Jesus also might not have begun his ministry the same year as John the Baptist-and finally as with all these things some of the events may have described incorrectly. 


So experts cannot pin down the exact year of the death of Jesus but in any event, Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the Sunday after Good Friday. The day they call Easter.

A historical timeline of the life of Jesus

Originally Published April 21, 2019.