• Excerpt from Joshua Chapter 10 [NIV]

12
On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua
said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
"O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
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.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going
down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it
before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely
the LORD was fighting for Israel!
• Claim:
If the earth’s rotation slowed down it would be a catastrophic
event.
Examples: 1. The moon would fall out of orbit toward the earth.
2. Massive tidal waves would hit coasts to the east.
3. How is it possible to slow the earth and speed it up
again?
• Claim:
If the sun and moon stopped in the sky for almost a whole day it
would be recorded in other historical sources, not just the
Bible.
• The moon would fall toward the earth
The moon’s orbit and motion around the earth is due to gravity.

Gravity is the force that keeps the moon

in orbit around the earth.
F=GMm/R2

The moon’s speed around the earth is

kept at a constant acceleration.
ac=v2/R
• The moon would fall toward the earth
Has science been able to show any evidence of this happening?

The moon has a peculiar bulge on its far

side:
Planetary scientists have proposed a solution to
the centuries-old problem of why the Moon’s
far side bulges at its equator.

A team at MIT has an interesting

hypothesis:
Garrick-Bethell and colleagues now think that the
strange bulge can be accounted for if the
moon moved along a very different orbit than it
does now.
• Tidal waves would hit coasts to the east
Newton’s First Law of Motion applies to the rotating earth.

Water in motion from the earth’s rotation

would attempt to stay in motion as
the earth slowed. Is there any
geographical evidence of this?
There are huge deposits of sand in southern Utah
where large numbers of dinosaur skeletons
have been found. These sand deposits extend
through Colorado and Utah into California. It is
calculated that there is enough sand in the
Franciscan Range of California, a coastal
range, to cover the whole continental United
States with 600 feet of sand, and there is
much more sand than that all through western
United States.
• What could cause the earth to slow?
The earth would also need to speed back up to its original rotation.

Firstly, Newton demonstrated that the

earth could be suddenly slowed
without appreciable shock to people.
http://www.grmi.org/Richard_Riss/evidences/7long
day.html

Secondly, a plausible hypothesis for the

long day of Joshua is:
To examine the possibility of a huge meteor or asteroid
plunging into the earth's mantle slowing it down
about one revolution while the inner molten core
continued to rotate and eventually pull the mantle
back in speed.
• Other historical sources are needed
A major event such as this would be recorded all around the world.

According to one source Joshua supposedly lived around 1200 BC.

Civilizations that can trace history to this time period include:

-Chinese -Phoenicians -Incas

-Aztecs -Babylonians -Persians

-Egyptians
• Other historical sources are needed
The Chinese do indeed have an extended day story

David Nelson, The Cause and Cure of Infidelity (New York: American
Tract Society, 1841), pp. 26-27.

Chinese history speaks of Yao, their king, declaring that in his reign the sun stood so long
above the horizon that it was feared the world would have been set on fire; and fixes the
reign of Yao at a given date, which corresponds with the age of Joshua the son of Nun
• Other historical sources are needed
The Phoenicians have a very interesting long day story

David Nelson, The Cause and Cure of Infidelity (New York: American
Tract Society, 1841), pp. 26-27.

The Latin poet Ovid amuses the school-boy greatly, in his fanciful narrative of Phaeton's
chariot. This heathen author tells us, that a day was once lost, and that the earth was in
great danger from the intense heat of an unusual sun. . . . Our notice is somewhat
attracted, when we find him mention Phaeton--who was a Canaanitish prince-- and learn
that the fable originated with the Phoenicians, the same people whom Joshua fought.
• Other historical sources are needed
The Incas and Aztecs were obsessed with astronomy

Harry Rimmer, The Harmony of Science and Scripture (William B.

Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 269-270.
Immanuel Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1950), pp. 45, 46.

The Incas of Peru and the Aztecs of Mexico have a like record…
In the Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan--the history of the empire of Culhuacan and Mexico,
written in Nahua-Indian in the sixteenth century--it is related that during a cosmic
catastrophe that occurred in the remote past, the night did not end for a long time. . . .
Sahagun, the Spanish savant who came to America a generation after Columbus and
gathered the traditions of the aborigines, wrote that at the time of one cosmic catastrophe
the sun rose only a little way over the horizon and remained there without moving; the
moon also stood still.
• Other historical sources are needed
The Babylonians and Persians kept historical accounts

Harry Rimmer, The Harmony of Science and Scripture (William B.

Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 269-270.

There is a Babylonian and a Persian legend of a day that was miraculously extended.
• Other historical sources are needed
The Egyptians worshipped cosmic beings.

Harry Rimmer, The Harmony of Science and Scripture (William B.

Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 269-270.

Herodotus recounts that the priests of Egypt showed him their temple records, and that
there he read a strange account of a day that was twice the natural length.
• Other historical sources are needed
More stories from antiquity.

T. W. Doane, Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions, fourth

ed. (New York: Charles P. Somerby, 1882), p. 91.

There are many stories similar to this, to be found among other nations of antiquity. We
have, as an example, that which is related of Bacchus in the Orphic hymns, wherein it
says that this god-man arrested the course of the sun and the moon. An Indian legend
relates that the sun stood still to hear the pious ejaculations of Arjouan after the death of
Crishna. A holy Buddhist by the name of Matanga prevented the sun, at his command,
from rising, and bisected the moon. . . . The Chinese also, had a legend of the sun
standing still, and a legend was found among the Ancient Mexicans to the effect that one
of their holy persons commanded the sun to stand still, which command was obeyed.
• Scientific proof would be nice
Ok, these are just stories. More scientific proof is needed.

Astronomical data supports a missing day: Corroborated with

astronomical data by Charles A. L. Totten in Joshua's Long Day, and
the Dial of Ahaz (New Haven: Our Race Publishing Co., 1890).

It appears that one full day is missing in our astronomical calculations. On different
occasions, Sir Edwin Ball, the great British astronomer, and Professors Pickering of the
Harvard Observatory, Maunders of Greenwich, and Totten of Yale have traced this back
to the time of Joshua. If we disregard calendar changes and deal only with a chronology
based upon solar motion, and go back to the earliest available records, and trace the
calendar through to the time of Joshua, the day of Joshua's battle was on a Tuesday,
whereas if we compute backwards to the time of Joshua from the present day, the day of
the battle would have been on a Wednesday. The day of the month is the same, but it is a
different day of the week.
• Scientific proof would be nice
Does NASA have anything to say about this?

Article in the Evening Star of Spencer, Indiana, about Harold Hill,

President of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, Maryland, a
consultant to NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Maryland. (1960’s)

According to the article, computer calculations bearing upon the positions of the sun,
moon and planets were not coming out properly. These calculations were necessary, and
had to be exact, in order to lay out the orbits of satellites and manned space flights.
However, once the long day of Joshua and the retreat of the sun backward ten degrees in
II Kings 20:9-11 were taken into account, all of the calculations worked out perfectly.
• Conclusion
Should we take the Biblical account as historical fact?

The Bible is the infallible written word of God. It doesn’t embellish and it
doesn’t contain any errors.

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed…”

Proverbs 30:5 “Every word of God is flawless…”

We can trust that when the Bible says, “the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and
delayed going down about a full day” it actually means just that.