Joshua's Long Day

If we abandoned the literal account, are there any celestial phenomenon that might produce a light in the sky that looked like the sun? A comet perhaps? I'm aware that a comet would not be visible for only one day, but I'm quite willing to ignore the one day claim.[i.e., my suggestion is, it probably was observed by the Chinese say, but appears as something else. Can we get a probable chronological match-up with a comet? That would make a strong circumstantial case for the biblical account being distorted]Edit: for people without a regular concepot of time, surely one day = one rising and setting of the sun. Maybe this 'day' was a week long.This message has been edited by contracycle, 07-07-2004 10:36 AM

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You're joking? no? A day (apprx. 24 hours) from one sunrise or sunset to the next. A week would be 7 of those. They didn't have clocks, maybe sundials? time for them would be solar time.

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No. The 1066 appearance of Halley's commet, for example:

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It is shown on the Bayeux Tapestry, and the accounts which have been preserved represent it as having then appeared to be four times the size of Venus, and to have shone with a light equal to a fourth of that of the Moon.

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The comet was recorded by the Chinese in 239 BC. so what I am suggesting is that there is another object - it would have to be outside of earths orbit for this to work - shedding enough light to give the impression of a 'long day'.

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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?

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Specifically, I think that it is likely that such long narratives contain real events that have been massaged for a doctrinal purpose. I don't theres anything supernatural going on, but there was likely some event that formed the kernel of this story.

I would like to know what the alleged Chinese long day is. Becuase as far as I am aware, most Chinese astronomical observations were burnt as state secrets during the Mongol conquest. Not all of them, certainly, and we have grave goods and so on, but far and away the vast majority.

However, does Herodotus actually say this? I've just word-searched a translation of the Histories found over here: Herodotus' Inquiries...and the best I can find is this:

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Then in that time on four occasions they said that the sun rose up out of its customary dwelling; that where now it sinks down, thence twice it rose up rather and from where now it rises up, there twice it sank down, and nothing of what’s all over Egypt in those days became another in kind, neither what was produced for them from the earth nor what from the river, neither illnesses and their effects nor matters concerning death.

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This is a reversal, not an immobility, of the sun. The site you refer to certainly makes the claim that Herodotus said this, but does not quote him nor give a reference. Did Herodotus say it at all?This message has been edited by contracycle, 09-09-2004 05:28 AM

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If we don't know what we are looking at, how you can you possible assume that?

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But we do know it. We know it so well we can send probes to Mars etc.Geocentrism is a fiction. And becuase we know that, we know the bible is wrong in at least that regard.