Bible Error: Did the Sun Stand Still for Joshua?

by JosephAlward 27 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  pomegranate

  >>The answer is still, yes, in my opinion.<<

  I'm glad you qualified the above with "my opinion."

  >>If Pom doesn't want to believe that his NIV correctly translated Jeremiah 20:7 as "deceived," I won't debate that small point with him; but, he still has to explain why Jeremiah wasn't misled by God<<

  See Joe, what you call the small point is actually the BIG point. The word should be translated as persuaded and induced or relative words, NOT deceived, as that is not contextual.

  >>Jeremiah was "pursuaded" to do something Jeremiah clearly didn't think would harm him,<<

  I do not believe that to be the case here. I see it no where in the surrounding context. point one, Jeremiah was fully aware of the prophets that preceeded him and the scorn and derision (sometimes death) that accompanied their message of doom and gloom (That was the prophets job). I can hardly believe Joe, that you think Jeremiah, coming with a message such as this:

  Jer 20:4-6
  For this is what the LORD says, "I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. I will hand all Judah over to the king of Babylon, who will carry them away to Babylon or put them to the sword. 5 I will hand over to their enemies all the wealth of this city--all its products, all its valuables and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. They will take it away as plunder and carry it off to Babylon. 6 And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.

  I can hardly believe that you think Jeremiah would think he wouldn't be victim of any harm after saying basically, God's gonna bash your head in Pashur and all your pals. Hmmm. Yeah. Jeremiah fully knew the consequences.

  Again the context denotes that it is NOT deceived but induced/persuaded by his LOVE and BURNING desire to speak God's truth:

  Jer 20:9
  9 But if I say, "I will not mention him
  or speak any more in his name,"
  his word is in my heart like a fire,
  a fire shut up in my bones.
  I am weary of holding it in;
  indeed, I cannot.

  >>but he *was* harmed, so that qualifies what God did to Jeremiah as trickery.<<

  Sorry Joe, your argument is Jeremiah thought he would not get harmed? Where does it say that in the Bible? He knew he would get harmed through and through. If you go back to the beginning of the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah was FULLY informed by God of the harm coming Jeremiah's way:

  Jer 1:17-19
  17 "Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. 18 Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land--against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

  They did fight against him. They beat him up. They shackled him, exactly as God said. He did not deceive in this regard as you argue. No. Rather, God informed him of the harm to come for the condemnation he was to pour out.

  No "deception" on God's part in that regard as you want to keep arguing.

  No evidence for you. God has cleared his name regarding YOUR deception.
• 

  rem

  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The bible is making an extraordinary claim, and yet there is no extraordinary evidence. Thus it would be silly to believe the account is factual until such evidence is provided. It is not the skeptic's responsibility to disprove an extraordinary claim. The onus is on the one making the positive claim to provide appropriate evidence. In this case, since the claim is so extraordinary, extraordinary evidence will be needed to persuade a rational person. Irrational people don't require a high standard of evidence to believe extraordinary claims. Hence, belief in UFO's, crop circles, alien abductions, special creation, and other such nonsense abound.

  rem
• 

  Scorpion

  JosephAlward,

  I did not think the site I posted or the material proved that there was a missing day. This was just some info I had read on this subject. I was basically waiting for yours and others reply.

  Thanks
• 

  dungbeetle

  Okay...here is my take on it...if this was already covered SOMEWHERE in this going-to-be-as-massive-as-the-UN-thread-soon thread, I apologize for missing it.

  I can find nowhere in the Bible where it can shown that the Israelites were of the opinion that the sun revolved around the earth. It would be nice if that were so as it would explain a lot of things better; unfortunately the scripture where 'the earth hangs upon nothing' (I can't remember exactly what it is--Job something maybe?) indicates an amazingly enlightened understanding of the situation--for its time.

  Anyway, some of the Bible at least appears to be written from the viewpoint of a human being observing from the planet surface. Now why is it that we usually don't see the moon during the day? It is often there, is it not? Because the sunlight obscures it.

  So, if light was need for something, it would be simple enough for the being who created the planet to place some kind of light source close enough to shine light upon the battlefield during the night, and whatever source it is was bright enough to obscure the sun just as the sun can obscure the moon. In fact, the bible has a couple of cases where light(doubtless of some origin other than solar) from a supernatural source shone so brightly it affected the vision of onlookers.

  Just my 1/2 cents worth.

  BITE ME, WATCHTOWER!!!
• 

  Seeker

  I don't care what Joshua reported, or what other ancient texts claimed they saw in the sky. They also used to think there were monsters just beyond the known lands of earth, and they believed in lots of supernatural events that science now describes quite simply. I know the "Sun standing still" account didn't happen because of simple physics:

  Despite what Larsguy said, the Sun actually is moving in the sky. It is travelling through space at about 250 km/sec, and the earth going along right with it. The Earth is revolving around the Sun at about 30 km/sec. And the Earth is spinning around its axis at about a speed of 1670 km/sec (for those counting at home, that's about 1,040 mph).

  The reason we see the sun move in the sky, of course, is because the Earth is spinning. At 1,040 mph, as I said. That's quite fast. Now, if you want to stop the movement of the sun, you need to either make the Sun stand still, or make the earth stop spinning. It's much, much easier to stop the earth, so let's do that.

  The mass of the Earth is 6.0 x 10^24 kg. That's a lot of mass. It's an incredible amount of mass. Heavy stuff, man.

  Now, picture yourself on a train going along it's track at 80mph when the emergency brake is pulled. As the train lurches to a halt, what happens to you? Right, you get pushed forward. If you are not wearing a seat belt, you might go hurtling forward and hurt yourself. Your measly little mass, when accelerated to 80mph, has momentum behind it. Newton's First Law, and all that. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion until an opposing force acts upon it.

  Still with me? Good. Now, forget your measly mass. Let's talk MASS -- 6.0 x 10^24 kg -- Now THAT'S mass!

  Now, forget your measly 80mph. Let's talk SPEED -- 1,040 mph -- Now THAT'S speed!

  When the Earth is spinning around it's axis at 1,040 mph, and the mass of the Earth is gargantuan, what does Newton's First Law tell us? Right, this baby ain't stopping for nooooobody! And if God did step in and make the Earth suddenly stop, what would have happened? Right, UNIMAGINABLE MASS DESTRUCTION. At the very least, Joshua would have been ripped from the surface of the planet and hurled into outer space, where he would have had scant seconds to ponder the power of physics before having his life snuffed out by the vacuum.

  Beyond rapid geographical changes inflicted on prophets of God, the Earth itself would have been ripped to rubble, with tectonic forces like we couldn't imagine.

  In short, didn't happen.
• 

  rem

  Dungbeetle,

  The Israelites weren't any more enlightened about science than neighboring nations. Educated ancients knew the Earth was a sphere and even calculated its circumference.

  The point is that of course God can do anything, but is there any evidence that this really happened? If he really wanted to make the Sun stand still (or stop the rotation of the Earth or create a secondary light, or use reflection techniques, etc.) he could do this with no problem. The problem is that the only record we have of this comes from the Bible. We have found that the Bible contains many myths and legends that cannot be verified and are so fantastic as to be pure bunk. Obviously such an event as this should show up in the contemporary records of neighboring nations as it must have been an amazing phenomenon. So far there are no other corroborating reports of this happening.

  Thus we have an extraordinary claim (you would agree that the Sun standing still in the sky is extraordinary) with no extraordinary evidence (the record in the Bible is not very extraordinary since it is the only record of this event and there are many other false stories in the bible indicating the bible is an unreliable source for extraordinary claims). There is no reason to believe extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Otherwise we would still believe in bogeymen under our beds.

  rem

  'A scientific opinion is one which there is some reason to believe is true; an unscientific opinion is one which is held for some reason other than its probable truth.' - Bertrand Russell
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  Moxy

  i actually think lars' explanation is about as good as the innerrantist viewpoint can get, that this was a local phenomenon that appeared to be the sun standing still by an observer. that is certainly the way i interpreted to assuage myself while still a believer myself. im pretty sure the insight volumes mention that possibility too. and if i were a deity and had to provide light for some people for a little while longer than normal, thats the way id do it.

  i think an important point that hasnt been mentioned tho is WHY the sun stood still. such an incredible and powerful interevention, all because the israelites didnt have enough daylight to kill everyone in the enemy army. nothing but total annihilation was satisfactory. why do so many of the greatest miracles in the OT involve genocides?

  mox
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  JosephAlward

  Seeker is correct in stating that objects on the surface of the Earth (at the equator) are moving at a speed of about 1,000 miles per hour, and it’s true that if the Earth were “suddenly stopped” the effects would be catastrophic. However, the Bible doesn’t claim that the Sun’s motion was stopped “suddenly.” (We’re giving the Bible writer the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming that by “stopping the sun in the sky” he meant “stopping the Earth from rotating.”)

  Consider a car moving at 60 miles per hour braked to rest over a period of 60 seconds. That’s a deceleration of one mile per hour per second, and is less than what would occur if one just removed one’s foot from the accelerator pedal and let friction reduce the car’s speed. The point is, this is a very small deceleration, and would result only in the car’s occupants pitching forward very slightly.
  
  Thus, if the Lord had reduced the Earth’s tangential speed at the equator from its present 1000 miles per hour speed down to zero in 1000 seconds (about 17 minutes), the objects on the Earth’s surface at the equator would have had about the same deceleration as the occupants of the car described above, and would have been only slightly disturbed. The same slight effect would occur when the Lord raised the speed up from zero to its usual value at the end of Joshua's battle.

  I don't believe any of this actually happened, of course.

  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
  http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html