Did the sun and the moon really stop rotating?
score:18
Yes it was a miracle. It is clearly stated that God did this for Israel. There is no need to fall back on "illusion" if this is marked as a miracle. When a miracle happens, "natural laws" might as well no longer apply, because God applies. That is part of what "miracle" means.
You've made a number of assumptions that I think are unwarranted. The passage states that both the sun and the moon stopped moving. Their orbits around the earth are not synchronized, so we can rule out the possibility that God only stopped the rotation of the earth. Though even if He did stop its rotation, why would there be a problem? Imagine the even application of a force to every single particle on the entire planet.
He might have stopped the rotation of the earth and then moved the moon as well. Or He might have turned space around the earth to counteract its rotation, and then turned space again at some point past the moon, to counteract its rotation.
Alternatively, God may have swung the sun and moon and stars around the earth. This would have caused the distant galaxies to move at far, far, far beyond the speed of light. Again, no acceleration forces if God were "putting His hand on" every particle. This would have been trivial for God, who created everything and is infinitely powerful. That's not mathematical infinity. It's Divine infinity.
Or He might have done it in some way far, far, far beyond our comprehension. It is a miracle, and marked as such. What's the problem, again?
Upvote:1
Remember that in the minds of the Hebrews (and pretty much all of humanity for most of our existence), the Earth has always been stationary and the various lights in the sky moved around us on some variation of a crystal sphere or firmament
Upvote:6
Similar to this question (Where did Noah find polar bears and penguins in Palestine?), there are two distinctly different answers, depending on your underlying assumptions.
- Everything in the bible is literally true as written. In this case the answer is simple: God made it so because God made it so. Reason, causality, laws of physics, and logic can be disbanded at will. If God can stop the earth (or moon, or sun) he can surely deal with physical side effects of this as well.
- The bible was written (and edited and translated) by humans that were trying to make a point to the best of their abilities and within their frame of reference given by their times, society, and environment. In this case the answer is equally simple: neither sun, moon, nor earth did actually stop and it’s just a metaphor, allegory, or symbolism used by the author to convey his/her message.
I don't think there are a lot of view points in between that hold together without internal contradictions, so you probably just have to have pick one.
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