Long Day of Joshua

Israel marches through the night to attack the invaders.  When Israel arrives and starts the battle as the enemy is retreating, God kills more of the enemy soldiers by hailstones (Meteorites) than the army of Israel were able to kill.  During the battle, Joshua asks God to extend the daytime so that Israel can finish the retreating enemy armies.
 

Joshua 10:12-15 (Long Day of Joshua)

12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!

Notice the reference also to the Book of Jashar, which is one of several "books" in the Old Testament that are referenced that are not part of the cannon of the mainline Judeo-Christian religions. 

Preface on Long Day of Joshua

There are many great books and internet links that describe the event in the scriptures where God extended the day hours during a battle so that Joshua could complete the task of defeating the enemy.

A few interesting points and theories:

• In Genesis 1:1-2, there is scriptural information that the Earth was formless and covered with water, where God in verse 2 "was hovering over the waters" to begin a creation process on the existing Earth, which is known as the Gap Theory. 
  (a) This means the Earth's core materials are older than the genealogy of the scriptures, but this does not necessarily mean there was life older than the proposed genealogy of the scriptures that can be found in the form of fossils. 
  (b) We also do not know how long Adam was alone and then how long Adam was with Eve before the exile of the Garden of Eden. 
  (c) Note that the Great Flood of Noah was the second time the Earth was covered with water.
• There are theories that the Earth's orbit at one point may have had as many as 400 days in a year at some point in the past based on 400 daily growth rings per years in some ocean fossil coral.  If this is true then there is more evidence to point to the Gap Theory of Genesis 1:2. 
• Currently, the Earth's Day is not exactly 24-hours and zero seconds depending upon what source of information is being read.  That is how long it takes the Earth to rotate completely on its axis.  From UniverseToday.com the day is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.0916 seconds.
• The current Earth's Moon cycle is approximately 27.322 days.  This is the number of days it takes the Moon to make one cycle around the Earth, where many Biblical Scholars assert the Moon was previously a 30-day cycle before the Long Day of Joshua and 10 Minutes of 2 Kings event.  Also, there is the evidence of ancient calendars basing months on the 30-day cycle of the moon besides the Scriptural Calendar of Israel.
• The Earth's Moon has a gravitational effect on the Earth's rotation, by slowing the rotation down.  It is estimated this causes about a two-millisecond loss per every century.  The Moon is also moving very slowly away from the Earth at a rate or roughly 1.48 inches per year.
• The Earth's Moon can appear in the sky during the day-time hours, which everyone has seen. 
• The predominate scientific theory for 2020, is the Earth's Moon was formed from a massive collision of a proto-planet, about the size of Mars, colliding with the earth.  There are proto-planets being discovered, where part off the observed theory is they can be formed by collisions of objects in outer-space. 
  (a) The Moon was not created by a collision as God created the Moon, as noted in Genesis 1:14, where some people may state that God could have used a collision. 
  (b) Genesis 1:14, indicates the creation of the universe, where everything was in a completed state, not in an intermediate state, but the creation did allow changes and new proto-planets, new stars and even the premature death of a star.
• Because of the 1/4 day on our existing 365.25-day year orbit around the Sun, we have what is commonly known as a leap year where we add an extra day to the calendar on February 29th to "catch up" an acuminated day.
• There are many changes occurring all the time in our Universe.  Even our Solar System is in a constant state of change, even if it is very small where we don't always notice the changes from our human perspective.  If we look into the arena of Astronomy, we learn that there are meteorites with all sorts of collisions that have collided with the Earth and the Moon, as evidenced by craters found everywhere. 
  (a) There are meteors that pass by the Earth, or cycle around in our Solar System, where we are glad that they do not collide with the Earth as there would be cataclysmic consequences.
  (b) In our Solar System, there are Asteroid Belts with potentially millions of asteroids orbiting in our Solar System, and others that come from other places in the Universe.  Some asteroids are very large.  In one NASA topic, more than 50,000 meteorites have been found on Earth.
• The Earth collects around 5,200 Tons of Space Extraterrestrial materials, often called Space Dust, every year.

From the scriptures of Genesis 1:14-19, we know that the Moon, Sun and other objects in outer-space that include stars and other planets were created by God on the fourth day of Creation.  This also means that the cosmological forces, created by God, in the universe do create and destroy stars, planets, meteors and other types of creations of God in the Universe.  The main point of Genesis 1:14-19, is God created the Earth's Moon and the Sun in our Solar System, where the Earth and Moon were not a cosmological accident.

Meteorites and Eclipse Used at Crucifixion

It is important to know a little about the meteorites reference in this scripture to follow the possible theories on how God used the laws of cosmology to work for His purposes.

The moon shows the evidence of Meteorites, literally all over the surface.  There is scarcely a place on the Moon that does not show the signs of ancient and recent collisions.  The Earth's atmosphere protects the earth so that most meteoroids are burnt up before they reach the surface at speeds near 200 miles per hour.

There are many famous meteorite collisions on Earth, use of Meteorites in the Scriptures besides the Long Day of Joshua and God using eclipses for His purposes:

1. In the United States, there is Meteor Crater in Arizona, which this author has visited multiple times.  This photo shows the author (me) at the observation platform looking down to the center of the crater through a telescope.  The Diameter is approximately .737 miles wide with a depth of approximately 560 feet.
2. On June 30th, 1908, there was an asteroid that hit Tunguska in Siberia that was estimated to be the size of a small building which devastated 2000 square km of a forest.  An interesting point of this meteor was the theory that it exploded roughly 5 miles in the atmosphere before hitting the surface.  The explosion was the equivalent of a 15-Megaton bomb.
3. Most likely the most famous crater is named Chicxulub that is located in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.  This crater impact is part of many theories that sent a shock wave of debris and dust into the Earth's atmosphere that supposedly could have been the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs.  This theory requires a great deal of conjecture where the Biblical reason for the extinction of the Dinosaurs was caused by the changing of the Earth's global ecology because of the Great Flood, which has literally thousands of proofs that the Great Flood did happen.  The Chicxulub event could have happened before Genesis 1:2 and during the void of Genesis 1:1
4. The best scriptural example of Meteorites, is the incident that happened at Sodom and Gomorra, where God used Hail Stone, which are meteorites that are on fire, to wipe out the two cities.

   Genesis 19:24-25

   24 Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven; 25 and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

5. At the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, there was the point when the Sun became darkened, where God was using an eclipse of the Sun but we do not know the method as this was not a normal type of eclipse.  This is of course a miracle, because God had the timing of the eclipse to coincide with Crucifixion.  BUT there is a major difference on this type of an eclipse of the Sun, as eclipses do not last that long, where this eclipse lasted 3 hours, so God probably used a Celestial Object to pass between the Earth and the Sun that was large enough to cause darkness around the Crucifixion area, but not large enough to cause a gravitational disturbance on Earth.

   Matthew 27:45

   Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

Six Theories

There are four theories that are seen on internet sites or read in commentaries on what may have occurred to allow Joshua to have the long day.  The primary four theories are listed as #2 through #5.  This author added #1 and #6 because they are also possibilities.

1. A miracle from God.
2. A re-fractional light coming from the Sun and/or Moon.
3. A wobble in the Earth's axis of rotation.
4. A slowing of the Earth's rotation.
5. A passing of a large outer space object, by the Earth, that changed the procession of the Earth around the Sun.
6. Earth's equator temporarily becoming North or South Pole

1. A miracle from God

Obviously, God can use any miracle to keep light in any area of the Earth.  From commentaries read, this is not the choice of some Biblical Scholars. If this was the method, then God could have simply had an Angel send light to the area of the battle.  There is a theory that the Star of Bethlehem was an Angel sending light down to guide and then illuminate the manger where the Baby Jesus Christ was resting, which this author does believe was the case in that particular incident in the scriptures.

2. A re-fractional light

This theory states that a reflection of the sun on the moon caused the area around the event to appear as if it were day time.  This is not what the scriptural text states.  We all have been outside at night-time when the moon is full, on a cloudless night that illuminates everywhere.  Even with this type of evening there would not have been the illumination to give the appearance to the battle as if it were still day-time.

3. A wobble in the Earth's axis of rotation

This theory states that the precession of the Earth around the Sun was wobbling that could have caused the Sun and the Moon to appear as if they weren't moving.  Without going into all of the reasons that this is not feasible from a science perspective, as no matter the wobbling, the earth is still turning on its axis that eventually the wobbles could not account for a day difference. 

Note that the Earth does wobble that causes a change of 37 feet, 12 meters, since wobbling of the Earth began being monitored according to an article from Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA

4. A slowing of the Earth's rotation.

This theory states that the rotation of the Earth slowed down and then sped back up.  In order for to account for the extra day then the Earth would have had to slow down to a speed of to equate to a 48-hour day, and then speed back up to the approximate 24-hours. 

This theory would require a miracle from God to not cause the Earth's oceans from having Tidal Waves, having major earth-quakes, and many other catastrophic events. 
(a) Trains, that have 100 freight cars, take miles and miles to slow down and finally stop.  A train cannot be slowed down very quickly.
(b) Take a glass full of water, that you are walking very quickly with, and then slow down to 50% of the speed.  The water will spill.

5 A passing of a large outer-space object, by the Earth, that changed the procession of the Earth.

This theory states that the Earth had a gravitational pull that changed the procession of the Earth's orbit to change from the 360 days to 365.25 days, which during the event, this temporarily changed one day's length from an approximate 24-hours to almost 48 hours.  The gravitational object, that caused the disruption in the Earth's procession, is theorized to be most likely the planet Mars or Venus. 

There are several papers and books written in this area such as "Worlds in Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky, that was published in 1950, where more is discussed further in this topic.

6 Earth's equator temporarily becoming North or South Pole

This author is bringing up this theory, because it is probably going to be thought up by someone in the future because of the awareness that at the North and South Poles of the Earth, there can be periods where the sun never sets giving continuous day-light or continuous night-time.  A possible future idea, is God, while changing the Earth's procession, had the poles become in the location of the equator and the equator becoming the poles of the Earth.  While this was occurring, the Earth's rotational speed of an approximate 24-hour day would stay the same.

Obviously, it has to be stated that if this were part of what God did use in conjunction with other theories, such as #5, then the regions that approached different new areas such as the equator or poles would have experience temperature changes.  Since the scriptures do not mention this, then this is not a probable theory.

Most Likely Method God Used - A Rolling Effect

In the scriptures, God always uses the natural processes that He created to perform His purposes.  God, on occasion, can handle miracles and events that go past the laws in nature that He created.  From the commentaries that this author has read, the prevailing thought is God used forces in the universe to give Joshua the extra day-time hours.  

This author believes that mostly a variation of #1, #3 and #5 above, in the previous section, is the most likely method used by God, where a celestial body caused the procession of the Earth's orbit around the Sun to change which caused the temporary extra day hours for Joshua's location of the battle.  This author is calling the event a "Rolling Effect", and it is slightly different from the Biblical Commentary theories that have been read by this author.

Five points, as part of the Rolling Effect theory:

1. God controlled the entire process, which is why #1 is part of the theory on how the event happened.
2. The Earth continued to rotate on its axis as to not change gravity and natural forces that God created.  The Earth's Moon also continued to rotate on its axis and around the Earth, but the moon's orbit around the Earth's was affected and changed also.
3. The Earth continued to revolve around the sun, but the force of the Celestial Object pulled the Earth's orbit out of the existing orbit.
4. Most likely the area around the Middle-East stayed near the equator, but other areas in the Earth did not for the period of the approximate 24-hours, where there was a longitude shift possibly from 15 to 45 degrees:
   (a) When the Celestial Object approached the Earth, the equator shifted upwards gradually for the whole Earth except for the Middle East.  The Earth still rotated on the same axis position but tilted more downward because of the pull of the Celestial passing object.
   (b) When the Celestial Object moved past the Earth, the equator shifted downwards gradually except for the Middle East.  The Earth still rotated on the same axis position but tilted more upward because of the pull of the Celestial passing object which was passing.
   (c) When the Celestial Object was no longer influencing the Earth by gravity, the force of the gravitational pull from the Sun had the Earth stop the 15 to 45 degree wobbling effect, and there was a stabilization back to the wobble of around 37 feet per Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA.
5. After the Celestial Object was gone:
   (a) The gravity pull from the Sun on the Earth stabilized the Earth's Orbit.
   (b) The procession path for the Earth, revolving around the sun, changed to an extra 5.25 more days to complete a year around the Sun.
   (c) The Earth's moon location in the orbit around the Earth changed from 30-days to the current orbit of 27.322-days.

As noted above in this topic, God most likely used a small Celestial Object to cause three hours of darkness, an eclipse of the Sun, at the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ that was not large enough to cause traditional problems on Earth.  This eclipse, at the pivotal center-point of human history, shows that God uses Celestial Objects for His purposes. 

Earth's angle change to new orbit during the transition

Some data to consider and making a guess type of estimation on the angle that the Earth moved out of the 360 day a year orbit while continuing to have the battle area face the Sun:

As a simple visual experiment to help understand this theory, noting that the Earth rotates counter-clockwise and has orbit that is counter-clockwise to the Sun: 

Setup:

1. Take a white sheet of piece of paper, and draw:
   (a) A circle that reaches the borders of the paper.
   (b) A second circle that is inside of the circle of step 1.a.
   (c) A small circle inside the circle of step 1.b. 
   The smallest circle, step 1.c, represent the Sun.  The two other circles represent the old and new orbits of Earth.
2. Take a golf ball, which will represent the Earth, and draw:
   (a) a line evenly around the whole golf ball.
   (b) a "X" slightly above the line drawn.  
3. Put the golf ball on the circle from step 1.b.

Old Orbit.

1. Put the golf ball on the circle of 1.b with the "X" facing the circle 1.c.
2. Slowly:
   (a) Turn the golf ball counter clockwise, and
   (b) Simultaneously move the golf ball on the circle from 1.b.
3. Continue to move the golf ball counter clockwise one full orbit around the Sun.
4. While you are moving the golf ball, the "X" will be moving to experience the day and night time cycle of the Earth's day as the "X" moves to not face the Sun and eventually returning to the same position facing the Sun..

Long Day Event:

1. Put the golf ball on the circle of 1.b with the "X" facing the circle 1.c.
2. Slowly move the golf ball almost perpendicular out of the circle of 1.b to the circle of 1.a.
3. Keep the "X" facing the Sun
4. The golf ball is still rotating like the Earth does on an approximate 24-hour day, but the angle of the golf ball moving nearly 77 degrees out of the 360-day orbit is matching the rotation of the golf ball which enables the "X" to remain facing the Sun.
5. Part of the Rolling Effect theory will have the golf ball's equator slowly moving upwards, downwards and then stabilizing while moving to the circle of 1.a

(Note) See this topic on Time Domains to help with visualizing the globe and longitude lines.

Note: Graphic is not to scale.  Earth's Moon not shown, but was also affected.

More Points

In order for Rolling Effect to occur, then it would have required a significant celestial object to have enough gravitational force to temporarily pull the Earth out of the established orbit, while the celestial object moved past the Earth.  On the few commentaries, that are available on this Long Day of Joshua event that believe in a variation of Rolling Effect, have the theory it was the planet Mars. 

Part of the basis of the Theory is the planet Mars in history had an orbit that would pass close to the Earth, and was apparently always moving closer until the scriptural event happened, which is often called a near-pass-by event.  This possibility can also explain the accounts for the ancient cultures being able to recognize the planet Mars and associated Mars with the god of war along with other pessimistic problems.  In order for ancient cultures to recognize Mars, then that means Mars in the past was a great deal more visibly close.  Today, without astronomy training, the planet Mars is not easily identifiable from other stars when looking into the night sky.

In Chuck Missler's excellent commentary on the Book of Joshua, this is the theory given in the commentary, which is also found in other commentaries.  The Chuck Missler Commentary is a highly recommended resource that includes a part on the Book of Joshua appears to be a small model of the Book of Revelation, as God always uses patterns in the scriptures.

If God, as believed by some Biblical Scholars and this author, did use the planet Mars to temporarily disrupt the Earth's procession then the following should be true:

• Mars' orbit would have changed, where this appears to be confirmed by ancient writing that had people being able to identify the planet Mars in the sky, where now it is difficult unless a person is a trained astronomer.
• Unlike some of the other theories listed above, other than #5, the event would have also affected all people on the entire Earth.  If this is the case then there should be historic evidence from writings and carried down myths from generation to generation of specific peoples in other parts of the world of either:
  (a) the long day,
  (b) long-night,
  (c) long dawn,
  (d) long dusk,
  which is similar to how people in the North and South Pole experience a period when it is constant day-time or night-time.
• There would be evidence of a year's calendar change all over the world.
• The Earth's Moon's orbit around the Earth changed.

At the time that Joshua would have prayed to God to extend the Day-Light, the Sun would be most likely shown below in the graphic with the night approaching soon before the event from God started.   It is this author's opinion that Joshua would not have asked God for the continuation of the day during any point earlier than mid-day because Joshua would not have known at mid-day that he needed more time.

Screen capture taken from: Day and Night World Map (timeanddate.com)

Historical Evidence

Chuck Missler made a comment in one of Biblical commentaries that has stuck with this author, where I am paraphrasing and adding an extra comment:

There are some ancient writings, which this author is still trying to locate more resources, which give accounts of a long day, long night or long dawn/dusk.  Note as part of the Rolling Effect theory, with the Earth tilting +/- 15 to 45 degrees because of the influence of the Celestial Object that is most likely the planet Mars, then areas in North America and South America could have experience short periods of day light, night-time, dusk and dawn, while other areas would experience the reciprocal.  This would explain some of the possibly myths from different places in the world that explain long nights when they most likely would have had a long day, when located in North America areas of Canada.

These are the top four of perhaps a dozen or more from researchers, links below, which have stated as evidence of the long day, night, dusk or dawn.  In this author's opinion, the greatest proof is:

• The scriptural evidence of a year being 360 days before the event,
• All of the world's calendars changing from 360-day years to 365-day years, which is discussed in the next section of this topic.
• Gulliver's Travels, discussed shortly, a fictional story on Political Satire, that speak about the two moons of Mars when they hadn't been discovered by modern astronomy until 151 years later.

Gulliver's Travels

As stated above in this topic, many people could not point out any planets when looking at the night sky.  This author remembers, when first getting involved with an Astronomy Group, that I couldn't tell the difference between stars and planets in the sky.  Depending upon what day of the year, there are several planets that are visible and not visible in the sky such as Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn.  The celestial objects can look like stars without a telescope and there is no possibility to see any of the moons of the planets in our Solar System without a telescope.

In the history of the Earth, people used the stars and the planets for many purposes that included navigation, religious worship and even astrology.  Apparently from ancient cultural myths, the planet Mars was a recognizable planet, and associated with the mythological god of war, which is possibly because of the times before the Long Day of Joshua that had Mars passing by close enough to the Earth to cause concern with possible Gravitational consequences to Earth that:

• Caused tidal waves on bodies of water.
• Earthquakes.
• Landslides on hills and mountains.
• Even the possibility of land moving on the ground similar to water like a tide.

A fascinating possible corroboration of the planet Mars having an ancient orbit that was near the Earth and eventually caused the Long Day of Joshua is the fictional writing by Jonathan Swift of Gulliver in Gulliver's travels, (full book in PDF).  The incredible aspect of one of the tales in Gulliver's travels is Gulliver meets the Laputian Astronomers who speak about Mars having two small moons.  The two moons of Mars were not discovered in modern-times until August of 1877, which is 151 years after Gulliver's Travels was written.  There is also additional information described in the book, which statistically is impossible for Jonathan Swift to have even guessed so accurately. 

This author is on a Board Member on one of the most awarded astronomy clubs in the United States, as of 2020, where there is no possibility to see the moons of Mars without advanced optics such as a telescope.  Gulliver's Travels was written in 1726, where the only possibility of Swift having the mention of the two moons is the data was taken from ancient lore that was told by word of mouth.  This was Chuck Missler and other commentaries points concerning Gulliver's travels, (full book in PDF).

Ancient Calendar all Changed

There are many Ancient Calendars across the entire Earth that suddenly changed all at the same specific point in history.  There are a few disagreements on the year that the calendars changed, but the questions are:

1. Why did the calendars have to be changed?
2. Why did so many civilizations all recognize the need for the change?

10 Minutes Change in Time - 2 Kings 20 event

In the book of 2 Kings chapter 20, King Hezekiah asked the Prophet Isaiah to receive a sign from God that he would be healed from a sickness unto death.   For a sign, God had Isaiah tell the King that the time would go backwards 10 steps, which Biblical Scholars state meant 10 minutes. 

Note:

1. In 2 Chronicles 32:24-26, the sign is also mentioned as additional confirmation of the "sign" event, where the scriptures often use or have two or more references or witnesses to confirm an event.
2. King Hezekiah, is in the Royal Bloodline of Jesus Christ.

Skeptics of the scriptures will pose the belief that clouds moved and the light of the sun caused the procession of light on the "stairway of Ahaz" to appear as though it changed the time of the day.  This goes against the Word of God.

The ten minutes difference caused a gain of an additional 10 minutes for everyone on the whole earth.  It would not have been noticeable except for King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah who saw it happen.

There are some Biblical Commentaries that have a theory that the Long Day of Joshua was an additional 23 hour and 50 minutes, where King Hezekiah's 10 minutes caused a full an approximate 24-hours of time change by God.

NASA did Not Find a Missing Day

This author remembers in the mid-1980s having a Christian pamphlet put under the windshield wiper of my car, which today I believe was a deliberate act of propaganda sabotage to discredit Christianity as the pamphlet was supposed to be supporting evidence of the Long Day of Joshua and 2 Kings Event. 

In the past and even today, Christian pamphlets were often called Tracks for Christianity, where this one supposedly had information that NASA had proven that there was a day missing from ancient history.  At the time, I was nearing completion of my Computer Science degree but it did not include much on Astronomy to know what I was reading was a complete fabrication. 

This story of NASA finding a missing day in history seems to resurface on either an email or website occasionally, where it warrants a mention as absolute propaganda.  There is absolutely no algorithm to program a way to find a missing day in history because it would require many bits of precise information such as planets' positions on a before and after the incident. 

In somewhat of a related area, there are many days in history for an event that can only be estimated.  Sometimes, we all might see a reference to the year zero, which does not exist.  The calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD in the Gregorian Calendar.   There is no year zero in the Astronomical Year reckoning.

While this fabrication of information on a missing day found by NASA is not true, the Long Day of Joshua and 2 Kings Event are written in the scriptures with enough additional historical accounts on the Long Day of Joshua to know the two events did occur.