How Should Joshua Ch. 10 Be Interpreted?

[Merlin475]

How does a Christian explain Joshua 10 correctly? Did the earth stop moving, and how did that not shake the entire planet? Did Earth only slow down? What is the truthful way to explain this passage?

 

[d taylor]

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The way the event is stated in Joshua 10. Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stop and God listen to Joshua request and stopped both the sun and moon.

This account in The Bible does not need interpreting, just to be believed.

 

[trophy33]

How does a Christian explain Joshua 10 correctly? Did the earth stop moving, and how did that not shake the entire planet? Did Earth only slow down? What is the truthful way to explain this passage?

There are basically just two options:
a) you can dismiss it as a legend, a colorful addition to the text
b) you can think its literal

If its literal, the text does not say how it technically worked, so there is nothing more to say about it. However, it seems its written from the ancient flat-earth perspective.

The "correct, truthful Christian way" to explain such passages is simply agnosticism - we do not know.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

How does a Christian explain Joshua 10 correctly? Did the earth stop moving, and how did that not shake the entire planet? Did Earth only slow down? What is the truthful way to explain this passage?

I think there is a tendency to try to explain the event using natural phenomena. You are correct... if the earth simply stopped turning, the oceans would overrun the land, there would be force 10 earthquakes, and the axis of the planet would change, if not worse. I would suggest there is no natural explanation. God did this impossible thing to show He can do the impossible, inexplicable things with ease.

 

[Carl Emerson]

If the shadow went backwards it would be becoming shorter.

Not too hard for God to shine 'a torch' on the steps to make the shadow on those steps disappear.

No need for a Global event.

 

[d taylor]

If the shadow went backwards it would be becoming shorter.

Not too hard for God to shine 'a torch' on the steps to make the shadow on those steps disappear.

No need for a Global event.

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That is not Joshua 10.

 

[Carl Emerson]

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That is not Joshua 10.

Sorry - you are correct.

Regarding the Joshua 10 passage I believe God can change the rate of time and extend a day in that way.

When He does that, the sun and the moon will appear to stay motionless.

Graphing the age of the patriarchs comes out to close to a growth curve suggesting time itself has grown and this explains the apparent age of the universe by carbon dating etc.

Einstein concluded that time was not a constant.

 

[Apple Sky]

It is the sun & the moon that move in the sky not the earth.

 

[Carl Emerson]

All three actually...

 

[ViaCrucis]

How does a Christian explain Joshua 10 correctly? Did the earth stop moving, and how did that not shake the entire planet? Did Earth only slow down? What is the truthful way to explain this passage?

For those Christians who take this event literally, the majority would understand this (based on our modern understanding of the relative motion and position of the earth to the sun) as the earth being made still--the naturalistic effects that such would cause are waved away by simply acknowledging God's supreme power and authority over His creation. If God wanted to make the earth stop spinning without the problems that would cause, He can certainly do that.

In other words, God can do what God wants to do, He's God.

Other Christians may take a less literal approach to the story, or have other explanations.

Those Christians who insist on a geocentric (or even flat earth) perspective would argue that the sun literally stopped moving because the sun, not the earth, is what moves.

As for me, personally, I don't worry too much about how literal or non-literal the event is; though I would be fine with a simple acknowledgment that God did something to help the Israelites. Perhaps it only appeared that the sun stopped moving, or perhaps this meant something we don't fully understand now to the ancients who wrote about it. Or perhaps God literally compelled the earth to stop moving about its axis and because He's God, He can do that. Whatever the case may be, it's not one of those things that I think is particularly important to the overarching divinely inspired narrative of Holy Scripture.

The importance of Israel's entrance into the land of promise is ultimately about Jesus. Because the Bible is always about Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Carl Emerson]

For those Christians who take this event literally, the majority would understand this (based on our modern understanding of the relative motion and position of the earth to the sun) as the earth being made still--the naturalistic effects that such would cause are waved away by simply acknowledging God's supreme power and authority over His creation. If God wanted to make the earth stop spinning without the problems that would cause, He can certainly do that.

In other words, God can do what God wants to do, He's God.

Other Christians may take a less literal approach to the story, or have other explanations.

Those Christians who insist on a geocentric (or even flat earth) perspective would argue that the sun literally stopped moving because the sun, not the earth, is what moves.

As for me, personally, I don't worry too much about how literal or non-literal the event is; though I would be fine with a simple acknowledgment that God did something to help the Israelites. Perhaps it only appeared that the sun stopped moving, or perhaps this meant something we don't fully understand now to the ancients who wrote about it. Or perhaps God literally compelled the earth to stop moving about its axis and because He's God, He can do that. Whatever the case may be, it's not one of those things that I think is particularly important to the overarching divinely inspired narrative of Holy Scripture.

The importance of Israel's entrance into the land of promise is ultimately about Jesus. Because the Bible is always about Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

I am not sure why we immediately think that to change the shadow on a flight of steps has to mean some enormous cosmic event.

It may have been a cloud over the sun combined with a bright light from a naturally occurring 'fireball' that cast a shadow backwards.

So a local event may have been the cause.