Ancient Egyptian and Biblical Texts Reveal Oldest Known Solar Eclipse—and Secrets of Ramesses the Great's Rule
This is significant on several grounds. First the finding helps date historical events. That alone would make it significant.
But special interest for RF, it shows a middle ground between those who reject the Bible as pure fantasy and those who take every aspect literally. Personally I was particularly interested by this and here I go to the original scientific report which is to me clearer Solar eclipse of 1207 BC helps to date pharaohs | Astronomy & Geophysics | Oxford Academic I'm not for the moment asserting that everything in the Bible is historical but that some parts are, but allowing for faulty translations and understanding. And without confirming evidence I don't accept as historical various passages which appear to describe historical events.
This records that, after Joshua had led the people of Israel into Canaan, he prayed: “Sun, stand still [Hebrew dôm] at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” The passage continues: “And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped [Hebrew 'amad], until the nation took vengeance on their enemies,” (Joshua 10:12–13, New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]).
If these words are describing a real observation, then a major astronomical event was being reported (“There has been no day like it, before or since”, Joshua 10:14), but what does the text mean? The Hebrew word dôm means to be silent, dumb or still. The term 'amad is a broader word meaning to stop or stand. Modern English translations of this passage, such as the NRSV quoted above, have all followed the King James Authorized Version (KJAV) of The Bible, translated in 1611, and assumed that the Hebrew text means that the Sun and Moon stopped moving. However, a plausible alternative meaning is that the Sun and Moon stopped doing what they normally do: they stopped shining. In other words the text is referring to a solar eclipse, when the Sun stops shining. As a solar eclipse can only occur when the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun, the Moon itself is not visible and so it is not reflecting sunlight to the Earth – like the Sun, it has “stopped shining” as well.
The first person to suggest that Joshua 10:12–14 was referring to a solar eclipse seems to have been the linguist Robert Wilson (1918), who almost 100 years ago gave the following translation:
Be eclipsed, O sun, in Gibeon,
And the moon in the valley of Aijalon!
And the sun was eclipsed and the moon turned back, while the nation was avenged on its enemies.
Wilson claimed that in Babylonian cuneiform texts there are words with the same root as the Hebrew dôm that are used in Babylonian astronomical tablets in connection with eclipses, meaning “to be dark”. However, at that time, 100 years ago, it was not deemed possible to investigate this further because of the laborious nature of the calculations required
This is significant on several grounds. First the finding helps date historical events. That alone would make it significant.
But special interest for RF, it shows a middle ground between those who reject the Bible as pure fantasy and those who take every aspect literally. Personally I was particularly interested by this and here I go to the original scientific report which is to me clearer Solar eclipse of 1207 BC helps to date pharaohs | Astronomy & Geophysics | Oxford Academic I'm not for the moment asserting that everything in the Bible is historical but that some parts are, but allowing for faulty translations and understanding. And without confirming evidence I don't accept as historical various passages which appear to describe historical events.
This records that, after Joshua had led the people of Israel into Canaan, he prayed: “Sun, stand still [Hebrew dôm] at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” The passage continues: “And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped [Hebrew 'amad], until the nation took vengeance on their enemies,” (Joshua 10:12–13, New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]).
If these words are describing a real observation, then a major astronomical event was being reported (“There has been no day like it, before or since”, Joshua 10:14), but what does the text mean? The Hebrew word dôm means to be silent, dumb or still. The term 'amad is a broader word meaning to stop or stand. Modern English translations of this passage, such as the NRSV quoted above, have all followed the King James Authorized Version (KJAV) of The Bible, translated in 1611, and assumed that the Hebrew text means that the Sun and Moon stopped moving. However, a plausible alternative meaning is that the Sun and Moon stopped doing what they normally do: they stopped shining. In other words the text is referring to a solar eclipse, when the Sun stops shining. As a solar eclipse can only occur when the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun, the Moon itself is not visible and so it is not reflecting sunlight to the Earth – like the Sun, it has “stopped shining” as well.
The first person to suggest that Joshua 10:12–14 was referring to a solar eclipse seems to have been the linguist Robert Wilson (1918), who almost 100 years ago gave the following translation:
Be eclipsed, O sun, in Gibeon,
And the moon in the valley of Aijalon!
And the sun was eclipsed and the moon turned back, while the nation was avenged on its enemies.
Wilson claimed that in Babylonian cuneiform texts there are words with the same root as the Hebrew dôm that are used in Babylonian astronomical tablets in connection with eclipses, meaning “to be dark”. However, at that time, 100 years ago, it was not deemed possible to investigate this further because of the laborious nature of the calculations required
