EARTH LACKS A DAY OF ROTATION FACTS OF JOSHUA 10:12-14
A few years ago, a space scientist, Harold Mills of Maryland, U.S.A. and his companion in the space program discovered through computer analysis that the earth "lacks a day of rotation." This means the earth somehow "stops moving" for one whole day.
"...those days shall be shortened.[Matthew 24:22]
Reviewing
the Bible: "On the day that the Lord gave the men of Israel victory
over the Amorites, Joshua spoke to the Lord. In the presence of the
Israelites he said: 'Sun, stand still over Gideon; Moon, stop over
Ajalon Valley.' The sun stood still and the moon did not move until the
nation had conquered its enemies. This is written in The Book of Jashar.
The sun stood still in the middle of the sky and did not go down for a
whole day. Never before, and never since, has there been a day like it,
when the Lord obeyed a human being. The Lord fought on Israel's side!"
(Joshua 10:12-14).
If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;(Job 31:26)-----Moon walked or Orbited around the EARTH
The MOON did not Move-- The Moon STOP MOVING or Rotate (orbit ) around the earth --The Moon completes its orbit around the Earth in approximately 27.32 days (a sidereal month). The Earth and Moon orbit about their barycentre (common centre of mass), which lies about 4600 km from Earth's centre (about three quarters of the Earth's radius). On average, the Moon is at a distance of about 385000 km from the centre of the Earth, which corresponds to about 60 Earth radii. With a mean orbital velocity of 1.023 km/s,the Moon moves relative to the stars each hour by an amount roughly equal to its angular diameter, or by about 0.5°. The Moon differs from most satellites of other planets in that its orbit is close to the plane of the ecliptic, and not to the Earth's equatorial plane. The lunar orbit plane is inclined to the ecliptic by about 5.1°, whereas the Moon's spin axis is inclined by only 1.5°.
The SUN stood still----- remain motionless or steady in hebrew is "Damam" Which means to be dumb (silence); by implication, to be astonished, to stop---TO STOP --therefore there is a motion or Movement in reality the SUN MOVE or orbits around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy .
Does the Sun move around the Milky Way?
Yes, the Sun - in fact, our whole solar system - orbits around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. We are moving at an average velocity of 828,000 km/hr. But even at that high rate, it still takes us about 230 million years to make one complete orbit around the Milky Way!
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. We believe that it consists of a central bulge, 4 major arms, and several shorter arm segments. The Sun (and, of course, the rest of our solar system) is located near the Orion arm, between two major arms (Perseus and Sagittarius). The diameter of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years and the Sun is located about 28,000 light-years from the Galactic Center. You can see a drawing of the Milky Way below which shows what our Galaxy would look like "face-on" and the direction in which it would spin as viewed from that vantage point. Also shown, is the location of the Sun in the big picture view of our Galaxy.
If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;(Job 31:26)-----Moon walked or Orbited around the EARTH
The MOON did not Move-- The Moon STOP MOVING or Rotate (orbit ) around the earth --The Moon completes its orbit around the Earth in approximately 27.32 days (a sidereal month). The Earth and Moon orbit about their barycentre (common centre of mass), which lies about 4600 km from Earth's centre (about three quarters of the Earth's radius). On average, the Moon is at a distance of about 385000 km from the centre of the Earth, which corresponds to about 60 Earth radii. With a mean orbital velocity of 1.023 km/s,the Moon moves relative to the stars each hour by an amount roughly equal to its angular diameter, or by about 0.5°. The Moon differs from most satellites of other planets in that its orbit is close to the plane of the ecliptic, and not to the Earth's equatorial plane. The lunar orbit plane is inclined to the ecliptic by about 5.1°, whereas the Moon's spin axis is inclined by only 1.5°.
The SUN stood still----- remain motionless or steady in hebrew is "Damam" Which means to be dumb (silence); by implication, to be astonished, to stop---TO STOP --therefore there is a motion or Movement in reality the SUN MOVE or orbits around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy .
Does the Sun move around the Milky Way?
Yes, the Sun - in fact, our whole solar system - orbits around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. We are moving at an average velocity of 828,000 km/hr. But even at that high rate, it still takes us about 230 million years to make one complete orbit around the Milky Way!
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. We believe that it consists of a central bulge, 4 major arms, and several shorter arm segments. The Sun (and, of course, the rest of our solar system) is located near the Orion arm, between two major arms (Perseus and Sagittarius). The diameter of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years and the Sun is located about 28,000 light-years from the Galactic Center. You can see a drawing of the Milky Way below which shows what our Galaxy would look like "face-on" and the direction in which it would spin as viewed from that vantage point. Also shown, is the location of the Sun in the big picture view of our Galaxy.
For the sun and the moon to
stop moving, the Earth would have to stop moving, since it revolves
around the sun on a fixed orbit. So, the earth did stop for one whole
day and that was written in the Book of Joshua thousands of year ago!
There is an account in the book of Joshua which records the Sun as “standing still”. The story often circulates that NASA scientists, using computers to calculate orbits for the Earth and Sun, discovered that there was a “missing day”. Upon further examination, so the story goes, these scientists used their computers to find this missing day, proving the biblical record to be accurate. Is this story true?
Since 1970 various versions of an exciting "science apologetics" story have appeared in books, newspapers, and magazines across the U.S. and beyond. Many people have read the story or heard it and passed it along to others, thinking it a credible account. As a Christian and a scientist, I felt an obligation to check out the story's veracity for myself and to share my findings with others. My findings will serve, I hope, as both an exhortation and caution.
According to the story, usually entitled "The Space Program Proves the Bible" or something similar, Harold Hill, president of Curtis Engineering and a consultant to the space program, reports that space scientists in Greenbelt, Maryland, bumped into a big "problem'' when checking their computer data for future orbital positions of the sun, moon, planets, etc. The problem supposedly proved to be a missing day somewhere in the past, a day which one of the religious team members identified for the unchurched others as the day the sun stood still for Joshua (Joshua 10:12-14).
The problem persisted, however, according to the story, because only 23 hours 20 minutes was missing at the time of Joshua, leaving 40 minutes unaccounted for. Then the same fellow remembered that the sun's shadow moved backward ten steps -exactly 40 minutes, the story says - on the stairway of Ahaz at the time of Hezekiah's illness (2 Kings 20:10-11). The story ends with an exultant declaration that God is rubbing scientists' noses in the truth of His Word.
Naturally, many Christians were and still are excited about the story. We love to read and hear how scientific findings support our faith, but we are also commanded in Scripture to "prove all things; hold fast to that which is good" (1 Thess 5:21). Often, however, we are too rushed and eager to undertake such testing. We certainly don't want to appear to our fellow believers as harshly skeptical or critical.
William Willoughby, the religion editor of the Washington, D. C., Evening Star was the first, I think, to follow up this story and publish what he found. In his "Washington Perspective" column of August 8, 1970, Willoughby reported that when he contacted NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, no one knew anything about the events recorded in the story. Willoughby then contacted Harold Hill in Baltimore. Hill stuck to his story, which he claimed to have on good authority, but he said he could not locate his documentation.
These facts by themselves cast a shadow on the story, but doubt increases when certain details of the story itself are examined. The story credits computers as the error detectors. Is such detection possible? Consider that for either computers or their human programmers to detect a missing day, the programmers must input a fixed time marker predating the missing day. Moreover, the story suggests that the scientists found not a day, exactly, rather 23 hours, 20 minutes at one place in history (between 1400 and 1250 BC, according to most scholars) and the remaining 40 minutes in another (about 700 BC). So, in this case, we need two fixed points: one before the time of Joshua and another between the times of Joshua and Hezekiah. These fixed-points must be known to astronomers and historians with an accuracy of a few minutes to make possible the detection of such a precise discrepancy.
One method that could produce some accuracy would be recorded observations of solar eclipses of the sun; for these are total only along narrow paths and only for a few minutes at any specific locality. However, the earliest datable eclipse of the sun occurred in the year 1217 BC, after the time of Joshua (see "Eclipse," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970 edition). In any case, ancient eclipse observations are not given with an accuracy of a few minutes even by local time. Therefore, confirmation of Joshua's 23 hours 20 minutes or even 24 hours remains, to date, beyond the reach of human or computerized calculations. On this basis alone, I must regard the computer story as a hoax.
Even without these computer questions, however, I found another basis for my conclusion: the main features of this story are older than either NASA or electronic calculation. In his Harmony of Science and Scripture, published in 1936, Harry Rimmer recounts the following story (pp. 281-282):
There is a book by Prof. C. A. Totten of Yale, written in 1890 which establishes the case [for biblical reliability] beyond the shadow of a doubt. The condensed account of his book, briefly summarized, is as follows:
Professor Totten wrote of a fellow-professor, an accomplished astronomer , who made the strange discovery that the earth was twenty four hours out of schedule! That is to say, there had been twenty-four hours lost out of time. In: discussing this point with his fellow-professor, Professor Totten challenged this man to investigate the question of the inspiration of the Bible. He said, "You do not believe the Bible to be the word of God, and I do. Now here is a fine opportunity to prove whether or not the Bible is inspired. You begin to read at the very beginning and read as far as need be, and see if the Bible cannot account for your missing time."
The astronomer accepted the challenge and began to read. Some time later, when the two men chanced to meet on the campus, Professor Totten asked his friend if he had proved the question to his satisfaction. His colleague replied, "I believe I have definitely proved that the Bible is not the word of God. In the tenth chapter of Joshua, I found the missing twenty-four hours accounted for. Then I went back and checked up on my figures and found that at the time of Joshua there were only twenty-three hours and twenty minutes lost. if the Bible made a mistake of forty minutes, it is not the Book of God!"
Professor Totten said, "You are right in part at least. But does the Bible say that a whole day was lost at the time of Joshua?" So they looked and saw that the text said, "about the space of a whole day."
The word "about" changed the whole situation, and the astronomer took up his reading again. He read on until he came to the thirty-eighth chapter of the prophet Isaiah. In this chapter, Isaiah has left us the thrilling story of the king Hezekiah, who was sick unto death. In response to his prayer, God promised to add fifteen more years to his life. To confirm the truth of His promise, God offered a sign. He said, "Go out in the court and look at the sundial of Ahaz. I will make the shadow on the sundial back up ten degrees!" Isaiah recounts that the king looked, and while he looked, the shadow turned backward ten degrees, by which ten degrees it had already gone down! This settled the case, for ten degrees on the sun dial is forty minutes on the face of the clock! So the accuracy of the Book was established to the satisfaction of this exacting critic.
Comparing Rimmer's account with the NASA computer story, notice that both include the same numbers: one day missing overall, 23 hours and 20 minutes at the time of Joshua and 40 minutes at the time of Hezekiah. Here, too, we have a dramatic tale of a skeptic's coming to see the truth of Scripture.
There is an account in the book of Joshua which records the Sun as “standing still”. The story often circulates that NASA scientists, using computers to calculate orbits for the Earth and Sun, discovered that there was a “missing day”. Upon further examination, so the story goes, these scientists used their computers to find this missing day, proving the biblical record to be accurate. Is this story true?
Since 1970 various versions of an exciting "science apologetics" story have appeared in books, newspapers, and magazines across the U.S. and beyond. Many people have read the story or heard it and passed it along to others, thinking it a credible account. As a Christian and a scientist, I felt an obligation to check out the story's veracity for myself and to share my findings with others. My findings will serve, I hope, as both an exhortation and caution.
According to the story, usually entitled "The Space Program Proves the Bible" or something similar, Harold Hill, president of Curtis Engineering and a consultant to the space program, reports that space scientists in Greenbelt, Maryland, bumped into a big "problem'' when checking their computer data for future orbital positions of the sun, moon, planets, etc. The problem supposedly proved to be a missing day somewhere in the past, a day which one of the religious team members identified for the unchurched others as the day the sun stood still for Joshua (Joshua 10:12-14).
The problem persisted, however, according to the story, because only 23 hours 20 minutes was missing at the time of Joshua, leaving 40 minutes unaccounted for. Then the same fellow remembered that the sun's shadow moved backward ten steps -exactly 40 minutes, the story says - on the stairway of Ahaz at the time of Hezekiah's illness (2 Kings 20:10-11). The story ends with an exultant declaration that God is rubbing scientists' noses in the truth of His Word.
Naturally, many Christians were and still are excited about the story. We love to read and hear how scientific findings support our faith, but we are also commanded in Scripture to "prove all things; hold fast to that which is good" (1 Thess 5:21). Often, however, we are too rushed and eager to undertake such testing. We certainly don't want to appear to our fellow believers as harshly skeptical or critical.
William Willoughby, the religion editor of the Washington, D. C., Evening Star was the first, I think, to follow up this story and publish what he found. In his "Washington Perspective" column of August 8, 1970, Willoughby reported that when he contacted NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, no one knew anything about the events recorded in the story. Willoughby then contacted Harold Hill in Baltimore. Hill stuck to his story, which he claimed to have on good authority, but he said he could not locate his documentation.
These facts by themselves cast a shadow on the story, but doubt increases when certain details of the story itself are examined. The story credits computers as the error detectors. Is such detection possible? Consider that for either computers or their human programmers to detect a missing day, the programmers must input a fixed time marker predating the missing day. Moreover, the story suggests that the scientists found not a day, exactly, rather 23 hours, 20 minutes at one place in history (between 1400 and 1250 BC, according to most scholars) and the remaining 40 minutes in another (about 700 BC). So, in this case, we need two fixed points: one before the time of Joshua and another between the times of Joshua and Hezekiah. These fixed-points must be known to astronomers and historians with an accuracy of a few minutes to make possible the detection of such a precise discrepancy.
One method that could produce some accuracy would be recorded observations of solar eclipses of the sun; for these are total only along narrow paths and only for a few minutes at any specific locality. However, the earliest datable eclipse of the sun occurred in the year 1217 BC, after the time of Joshua (see "Eclipse," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970 edition). In any case, ancient eclipse observations are not given with an accuracy of a few minutes even by local time. Therefore, confirmation of Joshua's 23 hours 20 minutes or even 24 hours remains, to date, beyond the reach of human or computerized calculations. On this basis alone, I must regard the computer story as a hoax.
Even without these computer questions, however, I found another basis for my conclusion: the main features of this story are older than either NASA or electronic calculation. In his Harmony of Science and Scripture, published in 1936, Harry Rimmer recounts the following story (pp. 281-282):
There is a book by Prof. C. A. Totten of Yale, written in 1890 which establishes the case [for biblical reliability] beyond the shadow of a doubt. The condensed account of his book, briefly summarized, is as follows:
Professor Totten wrote of a fellow-professor, an accomplished astronomer , who made the strange discovery that the earth was twenty four hours out of schedule! That is to say, there had been twenty-four hours lost out of time. In: discussing this point with his fellow-professor, Professor Totten challenged this man to investigate the question of the inspiration of the Bible. He said, "You do not believe the Bible to be the word of God, and I do. Now here is a fine opportunity to prove whether or not the Bible is inspired. You begin to read at the very beginning and read as far as need be, and see if the Bible cannot account for your missing time."
The astronomer accepted the challenge and began to read. Some time later, when the two men chanced to meet on the campus, Professor Totten asked his friend if he had proved the question to his satisfaction. His colleague replied, "I believe I have definitely proved that the Bible is not the word of God. In the tenth chapter of Joshua, I found the missing twenty-four hours accounted for. Then I went back and checked up on my figures and found that at the time of Joshua there were only twenty-three hours and twenty minutes lost. if the Bible made a mistake of forty minutes, it is not the Book of God!"
Professor Totten said, "You are right in part at least. But does the Bible say that a whole day was lost at the time of Joshua?" So they looked and saw that the text said, "about the space of a whole day."
The word "about" changed the whole situation, and the astronomer took up his reading again. He read on until he came to the thirty-eighth chapter of the prophet Isaiah. In this chapter, Isaiah has left us the thrilling story of the king Hezekiah, who was sick unto death. In response to his prayer, God promised to add fifteen more years to his life. To confirm the truth of His promise, God offered a sign. He said, "Go out in the court and look at the sundial of Ahaz. I will make the shadow on the sundial back up ten degrees!" Isaiah recounts that the king looked, and while he looked, the shadow turned backward ten degrees, by which ten degrees it had already gone down! This settled the case, for ten degrees on the sun dial is forty minutes on the face of the clock! So the accuracy of the Book was established to the satisfaction of this exacting critic.
Comparing Rimmer's account with the NASA computer story, notice that both include the same numbers: one day missing overall, 23 hours and 20 minutes at the time of Joshua and 40 minutes at the time of Hezekiah. Here, too, we have a dramatic tale of a skeptic's coming to see the truth of Scripture.
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