Christy
May 8, 2019, 2:25am
28
I’m cutting and pasting from an older thread, because I actually did some homework on this one once. I think it’s a good example of how we have to interpret what the Bible says in its context, and then it’s not this choice between believing the impossible and not believing the Bible.
In the ancient world the celestial realm was the realm of signs and wonders not physics. In Mesopotamia, the language describing the sun or moon “stopping” or “standing still” related to a full moon being visible while the sun was in the sky. If this happened on the the fourteenth day of the month, it was a good omen and the days of the month were said to be the right length. If it happened on the fifteenth or thirteenth day of the month, it was a bad omen, and could mean cities would be destroyed or enemies would overrun the land. I think Joshua was asking for the sun and the moon to be in the position that the pagan astrologers in the enemy camp would take as a bad omen for battle, giving the Israelites a psychological advantage. Joshua asked for a sign that was meaningful to the people watching, and God listened to his prayer. I don’t think any laws of nature were thwarted that day, but I don’t think laws of nature need to be thwarted for something to be miraculous. A miracle is something that is interpreted by the people watching as a sign of God’s power, it doesn’t matter if there is also a natural explanation.
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