From a netfriend:

[Note: I do not agree with the basic stance of this writer. RC].

First: “What is Science?”:

<http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-1/e1-3.htm>

It submits the following definition for science:

~ [T]he field of study which attempts to describe and understand the ~

nature of the universe in whole or part. [JP Siepmann, Editor of ~ Journal]

Now quite obviously theory may be used to try to help us understand and in doing so must be accommodated in the definition of science. The

above site actually does specifically provide among the definitions, theory. That is where the hypotheses have been validated but not unequivocally.

~~~

http://www.AnswersinGenesis.org From their first screen you can enter search topics, in this instance ‘Joshua’s Long Day’.

This is irritating. If we are being invited to go your source sites, why not provide a link? Your reasons for not providing links have never made any sense.

Here is what [another poster] originally wrote:

~ In the folklore of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Andes, New ~ Zealand and China there are accounts of a longer than usual night ~ which could match the longer than usual day in the book of Joshua in ~

the Bible. The Maori legend is published in an English Comprehension ~

book for Primary school children. [Gladys]

Response:

I went to AnswersinGenesis.org and did a search for ‘Joshua’s Long Day’ and came up with 49 hits. This is not what someone wants when they are responding to particular points made by a poster. The first page contained no mention of these various legends and though the second one did provide more details it provided less than your own brief mention. Anyway, I have complied your directions and given your silly refusal to provide a specific location, I will select this page as supporting your case.

Joshua’s Long Day:

<http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/longday.asp>

The writer (Russell Grigg) cites the Maori and Mexican legends. The problem is that at the time of Joshua, there were no Maoris or Mexicans. The Maoris are Polynesians who came to New Zealand around 800-100 AD. They, like the Hawaiians, Marquesans and Tahitians, all originally came from Samoa. So this legend should be a Samoan based legend rather than a Maori based legend. As for the Mexicans, they only came about after the arrival of the Spanish in 1492 and interbreeding with the native Indians. One of the purposes of the Spanish Christians (apart from murdering and conquering) was to convert the heathen to adopting their own myths/superstitions. So any legends that have any remote resemblance to Christianity are just as likely to have been seeded by Christianity itself:

<http://www.trincoll.edu/~tosorio/mexicans.htm>

The “Long Day” page by Russell Grigg also cites a legend Phaethon, the

son of Apollo:

~ Many cultures have legends that seem to be based on this event. For ~ example, there is a Greek myth of Apollo’s son, Phaethon, who ~ disrupted the sun’s course for a day. [Russell Grigg]

This is quite dishonest. The episode is NOTHING like what is described

in Joshua. Here is the Phaethon story:

<http://www.oldteach.com/Myth%20Question-Answers.htm>

It doesn’t describe Phaethon stopping the sun for a day. It describes Apollo’s son Phaethon being unable to follow his father’s instructions

to keep the sun on its normal path. As a result he brought the sun too

close to the earth (twice), thus setting houses on fire, water boiling

and sending people running. Then Phaethon flew too high and the earth froze. He eventually got back on track but flew the chariot too fast. As a result, night and day passed too quickly. It’s describing the day

as being very hot and then very cold and the solar transition as being

very fast. It never describes the day as being long. It describes exactly the opposite! See how easily Creation ‘Science’ can highjack and manipulate stuff to its own end?

This Phaethon story, along with the different Joshua 10:11-13 story, provides an insight into how attractive the sun has always been as a basis for mythologies. Egypt, for instance, had the sun god, Re. Baal,

in the Old Testament, was a sun god. Here is a site that will give one

an idea of how popular solar mythology has been with different peoples:

<http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_myth_gods_sun.htm>

It is hardly surprising that sun miracles have ended up in the Bible (OT and NT) and in the legends of the heathen. Because there are only so many things that the unscientific mind can impose upon the sun, so one should expect that there would be similarities between themes. Speeding up, slowing down, getting hotter and/or getting colder, are four obvious parameters for the mythmaker to play with.

Not even Christianity has escaped the fascination for the sun. The Christian Sabbath is on Sun-day. Jesus birthday just happens to be the

birthday of Sol Invictus, an official Roman sun god. One may have wondered about the golden orbs behind the heads of Jesus and saints in

paintings and icons. It represents the sun. Here are examples for you to look at:

<http://www.spiritdaily.com/picture1.htm>

Even in modern times one hears of Christians claiming that the sun is doing strange stuff – when know it wasn’t. Here are some more recent examples of sun hysteria.

Fatima: See “Miracle of the sun”:

<http://www.fatima.org/miracle.html>

Medjugorje, sun miracle: Read about people permanently damaging their eyesight:

<http://www.cephasministry.com/cath_medjugorje_2.html>

Toronto Blessing: Read about the spinning, pulsating, colour changing sun that did an impression of a Eucharist. Do a search on “Katie”:

<http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/tops.htm>

I even heard reports of similar nonsense coming from Berrima, a town in my region in N.S.W.

Now think how much harder it is today to sell a sun miracle story. Think about how much easier it would have been when for someone

writing about the past to a bunch of primitive, ignorant and intensely

superstitious people. The amazing thing is that there are people who still swallow it today.

If the earth stopped rotating, gravity would still be there, so people

wouldn’t be propelled into space. As long as it didn’t stop suddenly they wouldn’t even be propelled forward violently. The problem is things like the ocean and the even the atmosphere. They would want to keep moving (at supersonic speed). Andrew attempts to overcome this by

having the earth’s rotation undisturbed. He instead disturbs the whole

solar system (except for earth), so that it suddenly starts rotating around the earth in sync with the earth’s angular rotational velocity.

This would make the sun appear to stand still to observers on earth. After 12 hours the sun would be on the opposite side of the earth with

respect to the cosmos. Then, with the sun stopped again, the earth would resume orbiting the sun but would do so in the reverse direction

with respect to the other planets. Andrew proposes that there was more

than one such reversal.

I don’t see the parsimony in this variation of the miracle. I don’t see why this would be any less demanding on divine intervention than having God fixing up problems like the ocean’s and atmosphere’s (and anything not nailed down) wont to keep moving. One would think that that is more divinely economical than shoving around the whole solar system. There are other problems with Andrew’s model that I may take up with him. Anyway, neither model can rely on a single miracle and as

you said:

The trouble is, that with a bag of miracles at his disposal, the true-believing theorist can prove anything.

With miracles one doesn’t really need a scientific explanation and Andrew’s ‘explanation’, where the solar system suddenly goes from heliocentric to geocentric and remains so for twelve hours, excludes itself from the science of physics and astrophysics. I don’t know why he went to so much trouble trying to scientifically rationalise Joshua’s long day. All the true believer has to say is, “Miracle!”. He

then doesn’t have to worry at all about the shackles of science. He is

free.

Though I recognise some ingenuity in Andrew’s imaginary model, I still

find his notion of a solar system that alternates between heliocentric

and geocentric no more credible than a steady geocentric (earth centred) universe – and I consider geocentric universe science to be close to being in the company of flat-earth science.