Joshua's Long Day

The Bible talks about how Joshua's battle to help Gibeon went on for a full day that was the duration of 2 days because God stopped the sun's travel accross the sky (Joshua 10:12-14).
"12 Then spoke Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Ai'jalon." 13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. 14 There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD hearkened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel."Now, that would require stopping the significant momentum of the Earth's rotation, and subsequently starting it back up again. I can not even imagine the violation of physics that this would necessitate. Just the shear-force of braking down the Earth would tear the planet apart.So how can this be justified as literally true?

Your reply doesn't make sense. The sun goes along in its normal path, reaches zenith, and then STOPS and stays there for a whole extra day, before continuing and setting. That is NOT "refractions," which frankly sounds like a desperate attempt at explaining what really can't be explained. If the claim is that the Bible is literally true on this point, then the laws of physics would be completely destroyed for 24 hrs, then stared up again as if nothing had even happened.THAT is clearly nonsense and so pathetically reaching for justifiaction that it is illogical to even try for. The LOGICAL explanation is that the Bible simply is wrong.

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Is it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven?

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Well, that's the inherent socialism in Jesus' teachings. It really doesn't have relevance to the impossible physics of abruptly stopping the Earth in its rotation.

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But do you think God could do this if he is the one who invented the physics?

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Funny that the Bible doesn't make that claim. Again, we seem to have to rely on INTERPRETATIONS to make the Bible seem literal?

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Christ says it's easier for the laws of physics to be broken, than it is for a richman to enter heaven

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Nope, just that rich people can't go to heaven.

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[I would say] that the one who made the laws can manipulate them to his heart's content

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AH, the famous "God could just change the rules" argument that completely removes it from anything even remotely relevant to observation or science.God could indeed have done so, but then by that reasoning, God could have created the world 5 minutes ago, implanting false memories in all of us, which makes the Bible an outright lie.So exactly HOW does this argument of God wildly manipulating everything around us actually help your argument of the Bible being literally correct? If God completely counteracts basic natural laws, by should God not also have wildly counteracted everything else, including something as basic as time?By your argument, the event, and indeed all the events of the Bible might never have happened because God just made everything up and claim that we actually had a past in our actual 5 minutes of existence.For arguments NOT to descend into nonsense, we do need some parameters such as what we can see, feel, touch, smell and otherwise sense is actually there, that our entire existence is not a mythical creation in our mind by God.Now, we can go forever on the philosophical issue of whether what we see or feel actually exists, which is a rather old issue, going all the way back to Plato's cave and other nonsense.But in the REAL world, if you suddenly stop a spinning ball with a surface circular velocity of many thousand mph, then the shear-forces will cause significant shift at the surface of that ball. If that ball was the Earth, techtonic plates would shift, G-forces on any non-liquid substance (including humans) would rip these to shreads and so on.So once again, how is Joshua's extra day an actual possibility, unless the Bible took certain liberties with facts and events?

So you are saying that the Bible is wrong, that the idea of the sun "standing still" for 24 hrs needs to be interpreted, based on what we know today?

That does match well with my view of the Bible. It is not a science textbook of ""what" or "how," but rather a guide to interactions among people, the "why."

Velikovsky's arguments have problems, and as such is not exactly an "authority." He seems to forget the physics involved.And arguments regarding the extra day have been shot down many times:
CE010: Missing day
Imagine the Universe!

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The talk.origins FAQ/FGU system is not a believable source.

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ANd I guess that you convenietly "forgot" the other source? Yes, NASA is a hotbed of "evolutionism," right!This message has been edited by Steen, 07-12-2004 06:38 PM

{quote"Goddunit" sounds good![/quote]Well, it would relieve you of actually having to prove the weird claims you make.

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But perhaps deceleration through magnetic feild inversion could be the mechanism?

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Kind of like a Singularity inversion? Yes, that is one of the predominate thoughts on this hypothesis.

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This would also cause a greater extension of the magnetic field into the surrounding space stopping or redirecting the amount of solar radiation that would get to the earths lower atmosphere which would otherwise have an extra days worth of heating up! Man that would be hot!

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Not really, as there is no evidence of the Earth existing until about 10 bill years after the Singularity Inversion.But aren't we getting a bit off-topic as to how the Erath was NOT shredded to pieces if it suddenly stopped one day for 24 hours, then abruptly started up again?After all, the issue is accuracy/inerrancy of the Bible. Is the Dewsxription of Joshua's day accurate?

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Kind of like a Singularity inversion? Yes, that is one of the predominate thoughts on this hypothesis.

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Is that sarcasm? mr Sheen!

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?? Who is "sheen"? And no, the dominant hypothesis at this time is that the Big Bang arose from a Singularity inversion. I would have thought that you knew this, given that you ARE talking about the Big Bang. Sorry, I had assumed that you knew what you were talking about

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Like I said, you would have to channel away the kinetic energy involved in the earths revolution. Because a magnetic field affects matter at an atomic level you could, in affect, put the brakes on at that level also.

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Really? You can stop motion without friction by transforming the momentum into electromagnetic radiation, and then reverse it back into the Earth 24 hrs later? I am truly baffled that none of the Earth's physicists have come up mwith this yet.I tell you what, you are definitely on the fast-track to the next Nobels Price in physics here.

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The kinetic energy could be changed into electromagnetic energy, as the field lines interact with the matter, strengthening the field (which has temporarily reversed, as it does on occasion)and causing a gravatational offset to nulify the change
of motion!

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Ah, but what would that have done to Joshua and his men, who alegedly were fighting during this time. Shouldn't their motin have been converted as well?

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This would make the earth a temporary self generator no longer absorbing electromagnetic energy from the sun.

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But then, the Erath's rotation is not driven 100% by the sun, is it now

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Istead the sun would absorb ours!

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Still doesn't explain the change in momentum, how it arose, why it hasn't happened since and so on. This is about the lamest attempt at an explanation I have ever seen. It is even worse than Goddidit

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Did you know that the sun changes it's magnetoshpere polarity quite frequently!

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Yet, the Earth doesn't stop and start quite frequently, so that kind of sinks your patently nonsense claim.

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as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
Jos 10:14 There has never been a day like it before or since

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It doesn't mention a deceleration time, but for the sake of reconciling a long day scientifically it seemed appropriate! I doubt that anything on the earth would notice a gradual deceleration from 1000km/h over the space of hour, certainly not over 2-3 hours!

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You are right, that it doesn't mention a deceleration. Now, you apparently seek to impose something that was not in the Bible, thus stating that the Bible is false in its literal depiction.That is what started this whole discussion in the first place. We are really not interested in the interpretation, but rather in the actual text.The sun reaches zenith, and then the SUN stops. Now, we are already working on the assumption that the Earth is what must have stopped, not the sun, so you have already accepted that the Bible is NOT correct. Now, that is because you "know" that it really is the Earth that rotates around the sun. Funny enough, that very basic knowledge is equivalent to stating that the Bible is in error.Now, when the Bible says that the Sun stood still, is it accurate? Is it innerant?And, once we go beyond that outright ERROR of the Bible, we'll look at the attempted explanation. We do not hear about decelleration/acceleration. We do not hear of the mechanism that allows a stop of the Earth's crust through deceleration, while not also stopping the rotation of the more fluid core of molten material.. And if not, we do not hear of the massive disturbance this would cause both per vulcanic activity and wild and crazy nelectromagnetism. Not even a small thunderstorm is mentioned anywhere there, even though the Bible is not shy about the throwing around of lightning. Hmm.But still, the overarching, really HUMONGOUS error, an outright FALSEHOOD of the Bible is the claim of the SUN stopping its movement. Guess God didn't know that it was the Earth rotating around the sun and not the other way around? Did God have amnesia and forget how he created the universe? or could it truly be that the Bible is NOT accurate in all miniscule details and frankly should NOT be taken as a Science Textbook? (In which case, the creationist arguments are all shot to Hell, pun intended.)