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Joshua's Long Day
Joshua's Long Day
Our reading includes the incident of Joshua 10 where the Sun (and moon) stood still 'for about a whole day' (vs. 13). In 1890 a book was said to have been written by a Professor Totten of Yale University. In it he claimed to have checked the records of eclipses and such and 'proved' that this happened. He combined this 'almost whole day' with the account of Hezekiah's sundial [to account for the other needed 40 minutes] and said it gave scientific proof that there was a missing day.
This was picked up and repeated by many as scientific proof of the accuracy of the Bible record. One of the first books I bought as a new Christian was "All About The Bible" by Sidney Collett. He included this story of finding the missing day in it (see pg. 285-286). Harry Rimmer included this story in his book "A Harmony of Science and Scripture" (pp. 281-282).
This was resurrected again in 1970 and was attributed to Harold Hill. He was said to be 'a space consultant' and hence had data out of the space center that showed this 'scientific proof' of the missing day.
This has been researched and shown to have no basis in truth over and over again. Yet, it still makes the rounds both in bulletins and on the internet. So, I believe the story in Joshua (and also the one concerning Hezekiah's sun dial). Manufacturing supposed 'evidence' only undermines the credibility of the one making the argument.
If you would like to read more on this here are a couple of links:
https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/226-the-scientific-proof-of-joshuas-long-day
Ferrell Jenkins also wrote a PDF article on this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/77168/longday.pdf
