[asa] Turning back the sun

I have a question, that I know has probably been discussed but I don't
recall any definitive answer in the last year or two on this list.

Assuming we can say that the earth's rotation is relatively fixed, due to
its angular momentum, etc., how can we interpret Josh 10:12-13 and Isa 38:8
in a way that honors the truthfulness of scripture? Meaning, interpreting
those verses in anything close to what would preserve the integrity of the
intended meaning. I don't see any way to interpret these literally with a
modern understanding of planetary motion, without violating quite a few
things that we know about physics. Further, with the Chinese and others
having been watchers of the skies in those days, I would think certainly
that if there had been a literal halt or reversal of the planet's spin,
others would have noted it in some ancient records that are now available.

I can almost see the verse in Joshua to be interpreted in a way as to mean,
the Israelites were in battle and prayed for help, and Joshua commanded the
sun to stand still -- then for what SEEMED to them like a whole day, they
prospered mightily in battle with divine assistance, in such a way that they
could only have interpreted that the Lord caused the day to prolong. In
reality, it could have been a local miracle of divine intervention in
destroying their enemies in a moment, unable to be described by them in
other terms, but which didn't involve the literal reversal of planetary
motion.

The verse in Isaiah I find to be more difficult to interpret in this way,
because it's described as bringing the sun's shadow backward on the sundial,
as a sign to Hezekiah that the Lord had heard his request. I can't think of
any reaonable interpretation for this, except that maybe the Lord was
playing with the shadows or Hezekiah's perception of them so that it SEEMED
to Hezekiah that the shadow had moved because of the sun, or maybe some real
phenomenon caused this appearance, not involving actual planetary reversal.
Ten degress on the sundial, if I'm calculating correctly, would be over a 6
hour reversal, which actually might be roughly equivalent to the "whole day"
in Joshua, depending on how you interpret that statement.

These are questions which probably trouble most modern scholar who holds a
strictly literal view of scripture (if they think about it), but which may
also impact the views of OEC or TE believers. Any thoughts would be
appreciated.

Jon Tandy

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Received on Thu Sep 27 15:39:43 2007