David Mooney

DAVID
Hi John! I heard a fundamentalist explain the long day once by claiming that the globe did not cease rotating but the sun itslef began to rotate around the earth in such a fashion that the side of the earth facing the sun continued to face it. However, as you state, God can be evoked to explain anything but why isn't there any mentione of this long day in ancient European and Near Eastern writings and a long night elsewhere on the globe? I think you raise a valid point.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Apparently it was noticed!

Joshua 10:13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar.

Jashar noticed it! Whoever he may have been, and whatever his book may have been about…

Blessings,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Sorry. By "noticed" I meant someone else besides a mythical person (The most usual view is that Book of Jashar simply means Book of the Just). I was referring to the records of contemporay astronomers in India, China and Egypt which make no mention of this phenomenon. And, since all ancient peoples placed great emphasis on such matters as eclipses, comets, meteorite showers, etc., can you explain why they were unaware of this startling phenomenon?

lee_merrill

Hi John,

Well, it must have been some real person, though, even if Jashar is mythical, because there was apparently this statement in a real book. And if the book was mythical, too, that wouldn't have been much corroboration.

Well, making conclusions from silence in archaeology is rather inconclusive! Do we have complete enough records to be able to say much either way?

Do we even have to insist this was really moving the sun and the moon? That it would be visible everywhere?

2 Kings 20:11-12 Then the prophet Isaiah called upon the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

2 Chronicles 32:31 But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land...

Not, perhaps, in all the world...

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Read this over. Lee. Does this make any sense. How can a mythical person be real?




Sorry. It's not archaeology. It's written records, written by real people, living at the same time.

Think about it. If god moves the sun and the moon, don't you think it would be visible everywhere?

All these problems aside, Lee, do you really, honestly think the sun stood still when it wasn't moving in the first place?

lee_merrill

Hi John,

But I meant that some real person wrote it, if it was a real book, even if it was attributed to a mythical person.

That's fine, now I wonder, are they complete enough?

Well, that's what I was asking, given that it seems the sun going backwards was only reported to the Babylonians, and they were rather dedicated astronomers!

I do believe it stayed up in the sky, along with the moon, at least in the land of Canaan, on that day. Yes, God could do that!

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Ah, finally. An answer.

So god made the sun, which wasn't moving in the first place, stand still in Canaan alone.

And god made the sun, which was moving only slowly in the first place, stand completely still in Canaan alone.

So the sun over Egypt and over China didn't stand still, and the moon in those places followed its regular course.

This is an intriguing answer, since it means that there were two suns and two moons in existence that day. Complicated, yes, but certainly possible for an all-powerful god.

Were there in fact two suns and two moons involved? Care to answer that?

lee_merrill

Well, no, God could bend the light, or well ... many options, I'm sure! I'm not going to be able to say exactly what was done, even given that God exists, and can make the sun (seem to?) stop.

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Seem to!!!! I'm shocked. You are questionning the literal truth of the bible. Are you going to say that Jesus just "seemed to" perform miracles.

C'mon Lee. Stick by your guns. The sun stopped, period. The fact that it wasn't moving in the first place is totally irrelevant. The sun stood still. It didn't move. Read the passage again, oh ye of little faith.

EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THE BIBLE IS LITERALLY TRUE. Right?

Charles Bailey

I find it hard to fathom that grown men in the 21st centruy--in an age of scientific enlightenment--could seriously be discussing whether or not the "sun stood still" or whether the earth stopped spinning on its axis as the story in the book of Joshua implies.

Mr. Merril, speaking of arguments from silence--and the validty of miracle claims, do you give nearly as much consideration to Qur'anic claims that Allah rent the moon in twain as you do to this biblical claim that the sun stood still for a period of about 24 hours? If your answer to this question is no, then how do you justify the special pleading?

The splitting of the moon is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, Surah Al-Qamar:

“The hour drew nigh and the moon was rent in twain.
And if they behold a portent they turn away and say:
Prolonged illusion.
They denied (the Truth) and followed their own lusts.
Yet everything will come to a decision.�
Qur’an (54:1-3)

According to Maududi, the traditionists and commentators have agreed that this incident took place at Mina in Makkah about five years before the Holy Prophet’s Hijra (migration) to Madinah.
The Moon had split into two distinct parts in front of their very eyes. The two parts had separated and receded so much apart from each other that to the on-lookers (in Makkah) one part had appeared on one side of the mountain and the other on the other side of it. Then, in an instant the two had rejoined. This was a manifest proof of the truth that the system of the universe was neither eternal nor immortal, it could be disrupted.

On a program aired on the BBC, there was a debate between three "experts" as to whether the amount of money paid by NASA to send a human to land on the surface of the moon to study the "inner structure" of the moon was worth it or not. It was alleged that the American government authorized a budget of $100,000,000,000 (one hundred thousand million dollars) for this project. One of the alleged discoveries of that project was that there is a "layer of material" that "splits the moon into two halves" and it was asserted that the "only explanation" to this discovery was that the moon was split apart and "rejoined" at some point in its history.(Subhan Allah)

My question for you Lee, is how would you set out to disprove such an assertion?

A far cry from "all the world" I would say. Why would you for one moment think of citing synoptic passages from the Torah and then attempt to pass them off as some sort of external corroboration of an extraordinary event? Scholars have known for a long time that the authors of Samuel/Kings/Chronicles/Ezra/Nehemiah borrowed from a common source.

The challenge was to supply some external corroboration from other parts of the world who have no theological interest in supporting the advancement of Jewish tradition?