Joshua asked God to let the Sun stand still.....and he did it? How? Why?

by Witness 007 33 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Mr. Majestic

  So this "phenomena" was observed elsewhere?

  The claim that Velikovsky makes is that in many other ancient peoples myths and folk law the same incident was written about, but from their perspective, so some writings have claims of unusually long nights, some writings claim that dusk lasted for a prolonged time. He also links his claim into the 'fact' that the actual calendar changed around this time as well, being that many nations counted 360 days for a year, Velikovsky claiming that at that time the rotation of the earth changed dramatically also. He also links into the equation that in the biblical account more people died from the hail than from the sword and attributes this to the cause of the sun standing still.

  His books are a very interesting read, although quite a lot of his claims have been proved false, although some of the claim he made proved true, but were very controversial to the science of his day. Fascinating to look into though…..
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  Witness 007

  In 2 Kings again Hezzkiah asks for a miricle and God rolls the suns shadow 10 degrees up and down stairs.....this seems to be a recurring theme, God spinning the world backwards even!!!!!
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  PSacramento

  Thanks Mr.Majestic.
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  JWoods

  It might be of interest to note that when the Tsunguska comet struck Siberia, the amount of atmospheric dust thrown into the sky caused refraction of sunlight as far away as London to make it almost appear to be daylight throughout the nights for about 2 days.
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  Narkissos

  An interesting aspect of this episode (possibly from the lost book of Yashar -- not to be confused with the modern fabrication by this name -- v. 13, cf. also 2 Samuel 1:18) is that it appears to be poetry historicised -- made (hi-)story as it were.

  The whole narrative seems to derive from the first of two older poetical lines (which in themselves belong to the ordinary cosmical stuff of theophanies, e.g. Habaquq 3:11f) in v.12bc: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, / and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon". Compare the similar astral references in the (apparently very old) song of Deborah, Judges 5:20: "The stars fought from heaven / from their courses they fought against Sisera," which the corresponding narrative in Judges 4--5 doesn't use (as that of Joshua doesn't use the second poetical line it quotes), which otoh is somewhat reminiscent of Joshua 10:11 ("As they fled before Israel, while they were going down the slope of Beth-horon, Yhwh threw down huge stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword" -- making the additional miracle of the sun standing still look unnecessary). Even without a knowledge of modern astronomy the redactor seems to be aware of the enormity of the story, as shown by the commentary in v. 14: "There has been no day like it before or since, when Yhwh heeded a human voice; for Yhwh fought for Israel." Although it has some parallels in the sign given to Hezekiah (the shadow or sun, by the LXX, moving back).

  The later reading of ben Sirach (46:4) is also worth noting: "Was it not through him (Joshua/Jesus) that the sun stood still and one day become as long as two?"
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  elder-schmelder

  Joshua asked God to let the Sun stand still

  BS

  B as in B and S as in S !!

  elder-schmelder
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  PSacramento

  Between what JWoods mentioned and Narkissos, we get an interesting picture of what COULD have happened, interesting indeed.
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  Farkel

  :God stops the earths rotation

  But the Bible doesn't say God made the earth stand still. It says he made the sun stand still. Since the sun is pretty much stationary with respect to the earth, making it stand still wouldn't give a second more of daylight.

  reniaa,

  :It's a miracle that you either believe or don't!

  It's a pretty big overkill for a miracle, given that it was supposedly done so some chicken shit little tribe in the Middle East could fight some other chicken shit little tribe in the Middle East. Making hours and hours of extra daylight all over the earth would have screwed up civilizations all over the planet. The superstitious people of the time would have viewed it as some sort of punishment from God, say in China, or India, or the Americas. No doubt there would have been worldwide panic and mayhem, perhaps suicides and even murders over it. All that trouble worldwide for some chickenshit little tribe in the Middle East.

  As I've stated before, BibleGod could have easily solved their problem in several easy ways:

  1) Told those anxious idiots to wait until the next morning. What freakin' difference would a few hours have made for their chickenshit little battle, anyway.

  2) BibleGod could have made it rain down flashlights from heaven for the Jews. Imagine the terror in the enemy when they saw a bunch of Jews running at them with flashlights in their hands. They would have dropped their weapons and ran away like hell! That would have been a simple little miracle and no one would have been hurt. But, NO! BibleGod had to mess with the entire PLANET for his chickenshit little tribe and their chickenshit little battle.

  :Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

  That's not true. Can God make a rock so big he cannot lift it? If the answer is no, not all things are possible with God. If the answer is yes, not all things are possible with God.

  Farkel
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  JWoods

  Perhaps we should also remember that the whole motive for this little fable is crap...

  What was the purpose of this so-called "miracle"? Not to save lives - oh, no - but to kill more of the philistines!!!

  The Jehovah God loves to kill the enemy! Even when Jesus tried to implant some peaceful tendencies upon this culture, the JW world has brought back the war-god and soon, very soon, he will come back and KILL EVERYBODY. Except, of course, the chosen few.
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  AllTimeJeff

  Well, it appears from the narrative that YHWH will break his own laws to make sure he kills every last person. No wonder the Governing Body follows this god!