101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

246 101 Myths of the Bible
Logically, the commands to the sun and moon make no sense. Physically, the sun
already stands still. It is the earth that moves around the sun. But more to the point,
what purpose does this command serve? How does it help Israel to have these two
bodies stand still?
One traditional argument asserts that the longer day gave the Israelites more time
to massacre the enemy soldiers before they could escape under the cover of darkness.
Yet, the preceding verses show that the opposing army had already been wiped out.
And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to
Beth-horon, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto
Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom
the children of Israel slew with the sword. ( Josh. 10:11)
In support of the idea that the stoppage had nothing to do with the need for more
daylight, the narrative describes no additional actions taken as a result of halting the
motion of the sun and moon. Even if we accept the idea that Israel’s army needed more
daylight to complete their slaughter, why does the moon also have to stand still? What
possible difference could it make to this scenario if the moon moves or not?
As the text says, there was no day like it ever before or ever after. Such a miraculous
event should have been observed far and wide and remarked upon, especially among
Israel’s many neighbors who carefully studied the movements of the sun and the
moon, as did the Egyptians and Babylonians. Yet there is not a hint in any of their
known writings or legends that such a spectacular event occurred. As to archaeological
evidence, Gibeon, like many other battle sites in the Book of Joshua, had no occupants
in the time of Joshua. A settlement returned around 1200 B.C.
To the biblical scribes who wrote this story, the solar miracle demonstrated the
awesome powers of God to alter natural phenomenon, and it showed that the victory
of Joshua over the kings came as a gift from God. But these editors relied on earlier
sources, particularly the lost Book of Jasher, for this story about the sun and moon. We
don’t know what the original story said or in what context it took place.
The story raises some interesting problems from an interpretive point of view. For
one, it has the sun and moon standing still at two different earthly locations, upon
Gibeon and in the Valley of Ajalon. In what manner could an observer determine that