At 06:41 PM 4/8/2001 -0600, gordon brown wrote:
>On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Vandergraaf, Chuck wrote:
>
> > Now I have a question for you, Gordon. Would you put the
> sun-standing-still
> > during one of the battles of the Israelites and the shadow moving backwards
> > (as a sign of the earth moving in the opposite direction), as a sign that
> > God would heal Hezehiah, in the same category as the floating axe head and
> > Jesus' walking on the water? The implication of the floating axe head are
> > rather minimal and involve a (temporary and local) suspension of some
> > physical laws while the earth moving in the opposite direction might have
> > all sorts of repercussions.
>
>
>Chuck,
>
>It is hard for me to categorize the sun-standing-still incident since it
>is not clear what really happened. It seems that the popular understanding
>of this passage (Josh. 10:12-14) is incorrect. Gibeon was in the hills to
>the east of the battlefield, and so this must have taken place in the
>morning, when no one should have been worried about the sun setting. Also,
>if Joshua had been concerned about not having enough light, why would he
>have thought to instruct the moon as to what it should do? The previous
>verses seem to suggest that the battle began while it was still night. The
>verb translated `stand still' actually means to be silent and is usually
>translated that way or simply to cease, and nowhere else has the
>stand-still translation.
I'm no Hebrew expert, but I've found that the root you mention is
translated "be still" in Ex 15:16 and 1 Sam 14:9 (stay where we are). I'm
not disagreeing with your point...just wanted to mention that. :-)
>The last verb in verse 13 is `go', rather than
>`go down'. It is also interesting that the aspect of this event that is
>deemed to be unusual is not what happened to the sun but the fact that the
>Lord listened to the voice of a man (vs. 14).
>
>I have seen several speculations about what happened. One of these is that
>what Joshua wanted was not more light but rather more darkness such as
>that that had resulted from the meteorological conditions that had been
>occurring. Thus the sunset could still have occurred at the normal time.
>Any interpretation that has been proposed probably still has problems.
>
>Gordon Brown
>Department of Mathematics
>University of Colorado
>Boulder, CO 80309-0395
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