This has been sent to me by several church members and other friends. It addresses a real concern of Christians - is our faith dumb and unscientific or can it stand up to the toughest scrutiny out there? First the illustration, then a link to an excellent response, then a few of my own observations.
For all the scientists out there and for all the students who have a hard time convincing these people regarding the truth of the Bible...here's something that shows God's awesome creation and shows that He is still in control.
Did you know that the space program is busy proving that what has been called "myth" in the Bible is true? Mr. Harold Hill, President of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, Maryland, and a consultant in the space program relates the following development.
I think one of the most amazing things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Greenbelt, Maryland. They were checking the position of the sun, moon, and planets out in space where they would be 100 years and 1000 years from now. We have to know this so we won't send a satellite up and have it bump into something later on in its orbits. We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite, and where the planets will be so the whole thing will not bog down.
They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal, which meant that there was something wrong either with the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards. They called in the service department to check it out and they said, "What's wrong?"
Well, they found there is a day missing in space in elapsed time. They scratched their heads and tore their hair. There was no answer. Finally, a Christian man on the team said, "You know, one time I was in Sunday School and they talked about the sun standing still." While they didn't believe him, they didn't have an answer either, so they said, "Show us."
He got a Bible and went back to the book of Joshua where they found a pretty ridiculous statement for any one with "common sense." There they found the Lord saying to Joshua, "Fear them not, I have delivered them into thy hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." Joshua was concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy and if darkness fell they would overpower them. So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still! That's right - "The sun stood still and the moon stayed - and hasted not to go down about a whole day!" (Joshua 10:12-13).
The astronauts and scientists said, "There is the missing day!" They checked the computers going back into the time it was written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes - not a whole day. They read the Bible and there it was "about (approximately) a day." These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes you'll still be in trouble 1,000 years from now. Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits.
As the Christian employee thought about it, he remembered somewhere in the Bible where it said the sun went BACKWARDS. The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but they got out the Book and read these words in 2 Kings that told of the following story: Hezekiah, on his deathbed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah said, "Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degrees?" Hezekiah said "It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward 10 degrees." Isaiah spoke to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees BACKWARD! Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes! Twenty-three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in Second Kings make the missing day in the universe!"
Isn't it amazing? References: Joshua 10:8 and 12, 13 and 2 Kings 20:9-11. Forward this to as many people who you believe would think this is equally as cool.
The best response I have seen to this illustration is by a conservative Christian, Dr. Bert Thompson. You can read his article at http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/rr1999/r&r9902b.htm.
Now for some of my own comments. I am a serious amateur astronomer who owns three telescopes, and I'm also a conservative Evangelical Christian who owns far more than three Bibles. Joshua's "Longest Day" presents some sticky scientific problems and there are also some Bible interpretation issues involved which I will not go into here. My basic approach is to say God can do anything he wants to do, whether it is "impossible" or not. But this illustration involves some backward reasoning. Note especially paragraph 7. The Bible says "about a day." The illustration says, "The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes - not a whole day." Where do they get the 23 hours and 20 minutes? Not from Joshua, but from the fact that 2 Kings alludes to 40 minutes, so 23 hours and 20 minutes must be left. The Bible never gets specific about the length of Joshua's "day" so the illustration is being disingenuous.
Another factor is how scientists measure time and orbits. When an orbit is irregular a scientist looks for another object that is perturbing it (Neptune was discovered this way) or a special force (Mercury's irregular orbit is explained by Einstein's theory of relativity). They can only tell an orbit is irregular if they can measure a beginning point and a later point. That is not possible for the past unless the event was recorded by ancient people; conjunctions and eclipses can be picked out of historical records and scientists can calculate orbits back to the past to see if they correlate. The only way we could scientifically prove Joshua's day was missing (assuming it requires the solar system to "freeze" for just under 24 hours) is to know the exact location of each of the planets some time before that event. We can calculate where we think they should have been, but we cannot go back in time to see if we are correct. There simply is not sufficient data to prove something like that.
For another detailed review of this illustration, go to http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.htm. (Link was suggested by Al Kolff on January 30, 2003)
