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[Gabriel]

I had an argument with some christian co-workers yesterday about the Joshua's long day, but I couldn't reason what they were saying (pretty fundamentalist pentecostal, I guess) about leap years, lost day in the history of mankind, etc. Can anyone here enlighten me ? Is this really possible (sun and moon stopping) ? How does this apply to the gregorian calendar we use today ?

[jimwalton]

Christians who claim to read this text "literally" (always a problematic word) are already defeating themselves. When explaining, they cavalierly explain that the earth stopped rotating for 24 hours, but the text says the "sun stopped." Then they make adjustments for a geocentric world view, which means they are no longer taking the text literally. And all the baloney about leap years,lost days, and blah blah are exactly that. Instead, we need to read the text as it was intended to be read in the ancient mindset.

The story pertains to Amorite omen beliefs. In the Amorite culture, the omens of the sun and moon were consulted for victory or defeat in battle. What they would have been looking for is an opposition (rising sun and setting full moon in the sky at the same time) on the 14th of the month, as a good omen. If it was the 15th of the month, the Amorites would regard an opposition as a bad omen. Joshua knew the Amorites would be watching the skies for a sign. Though he himself was not swayed by omens, he knew of their significance to the enemy. As a good general, he would have been hoping that the enemy would receive a bad omen and be demoralized. The terminology of v. 12 ("Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon") suggests that it was the 15th of the month, and he was praying for a cloudless sky, an obvious opposition, a demoralized enemy, and therefore prayer for victory for Israel. So he's not asking for the earth to stop spinning, but for the sun and moon to "hang" there for the enemy to see.

Now, v. 13 says "the sun stood still, and the moon stopped...and the sun delayed going down about a full day." The Bible Backgrounds Commentary says, "The Mesopotamian celestial omens use verbs like 'wait', 'stand' and 'stop' to record the relative movements and positions of the celestial bodies. When the moon and/or sun do not wait, the moon sinks over the horizon before the sun rises and no opposition occurs. When the moon and sun wait or stand, it indicates that the opposition does occur for the determination of the full moon day. The omens in the series known as Enuma Anu Enlil often speak of changing velocities of the moon in its course to effect or avoid opposition with the sun. Likewise in v.13 the text here reports that the sun did not hurry, but instead stood in its section of the sky. It should be noted that the text does not suggest the astronomical phenomena were unique, instead, v. 14 says plainly that what was unique was the Lord accepting a battle strategy from a man ('the Lord listened to a man,' v. 14). A Mesopotamian lamentation (first millennium) shows this same type of terminology for divine judgment when it speaks of heavens rumbling, earth shaking, the sun laying at the horizon and the moon stopping in the sky, and evil storms sweeping through the land. Joshua's knowledge of the Amorites' dependence on omens may have led him to ask the Lord for one that he knew would deflate their morale—for the opposition to occur on an unpropitious day."

Using the terms in their technical astronomical senses, the best understanding (translation) of Josh. 10.13 would be:

Sun in Gibeon, and moon in the valley of Aijalon, locked in opposition
So the sun and the moon stood in opposition, a sign of divine blessing
Until the nation took vengeance on its enemies
Is it not written in the book of the righteous?
So the sun ran its course as a curse on our enemies.

What's happening here is not particularly a miracle (and a pretty wild one at that!), but an answer to prayer to demoralize the enemy using their own faulty religious beliefs. The prayer is answered, and victory went to the Israelites that day.