Joshua

10:13
In religio-mythology, Joshua 10:13, is section 10, line
13, of the Book of Joshua (aka Book of god Shu),
from the Old Testament, of the Bible, the first book
after the Pentateuch (five books of Moses), wherein,
in the physically-impossible riddled statement that
both the sun and the moon stood still for an entire day
is infamously found.

Overview
The Biblical KJV version (1611) of the Joshua 10:13
statement is as follows: [1]

“And the sun stood still, and the

moon stayed, until the people had
avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not Left: the Illustration from the Book of the Dead (1300BC) showing the Isis in the papyrus swamps, in the region
this written in the Book of Jasher [Book of god of Buto (), in nome 5 of Lower Egypt, suckling Horus, before he is stung by a scorpion, and stabbed by Aun-ab
Shu]? So the sun stood still in the midst of (slayer of the heart), per order of the evil Set, who is then brought back to life, by the cries of Isis, which stops
the sun boat of Ra and which brings the moon god Thoth to her aid. [4] This became re-told as Joshua 10:13
heaven, and hasted not to go down about a
in the Bible, to the effect that god (or Joshua) made the sun and the moon stand still for a day. Right: a
whole day.” depiction of Joshua, on horseback who, in the midst of a battle, commands the sun and the moon to stand still.
()
This, of course, is physically impossible. Prior to
Copernicus, however, people in large were geocentrists, meaning they believed the earth is immobile and at the center of the universe, and that the sun and
the moon went around the earth. Now we believe, a few Muslim enclaves aside, that the moon goes around the earth, but the earth goes around the sun, and
the sun goes around the milky way, all of which never stop moving.

Joshua | God Shu

An important point to the puzzling Biblical story of
Joshua making the sun and moon stand still for a day
originated as an astro-theology based story of actual
perceptual movements of the constellations, sun,
moon, and earth; the following passage gives a hint
of this:

“They say that the date on which this deed –

Set trapping Osiris in chest and throwing it into
the Nile – was done was the seventeenth day
of Athyr [Nov 13] when the sun passes
through the Scorpion, and in the twenty-
eighth year of the reign of Osiris; but some say
that these are the years of his life and not his
reign.”
— Plutarch (100AD), On Isis and Osiris (pg.
37); note: compare Horus being bitten by a
scorpion and Isis summoning the sun and
moon to heal him, as told in Sorrows of Isis
(line 205), and as rescripted in Joshua A depiction of the Zodiac () or 12 animal-shaped star constellations “apparent” to humans, each month, as the
10:13 earth completes its annual rotation around the sun; the period of the "sun passing through Scorpius", in Nov, is
said to have been, in Egyptian calendar terms, when Set trapped Osiris in his chest and also, supposedly,
Here we see that the story of Horus being bitten by a when Horus is bitten by the scorpion (see: Joshua 10:13)
scorpion is in some way a syncretism or aspect of the
time of the year when the sun passes thought the Scorpion constellation, variants of which can be seen in the Egyptian myth () of Orion battling the Scorpio.

Whatever the case, Osiris and Horus originally were different, non-overlapping, gods, Horus being the oldest of all gods, who later became synretized together
into one overlapping story, i.e. Osiris trapped in chest (when the sun passes though the Scorpion) and Horus being bitten by a scorpion (after which the sun
comes to his aid), as told in connected Egyptian Book of the Dead stories: Heliopolis creation myth, Passion of Osiris, and Sorrows of Isis.

In the late 19th century, following the translation of the Rosetta stone (c.1820),
noted religio-mythology scholars to have decoded the Joshua equals god Shu
etymology include: Gerald Massey (1881, 1907) (), Andre Austin (c.2015) (),
and Libb Thims (2016) while reading the story of the Sorrows of Isis in Muata
Ashby (1997) and later Wallis Budge (1904).

The adjacent Heliopolis creation myth diagram shows how, in the Hebrew
rescript of Egyptian religio-mythology, the god Shu became the prophet Joshua,
and in turn how the story of Isis, the grand-daughter of Shu, and great grand-
daughter of the sun god Ra (or Ra-Atum), using the power of Ra, by "stopping
his solar boat", i.e. making the sun stand still, and the power of Thoth, the moon
god, to bring Horus, her son, back to life, became the Biblical story of Joshua
making the sun and the moon stand still, so he could kill his enemy.

Egyptian | Sorrow of Isis

See also: Ennead
The name Joshua or Jo- “god” + -Shu “wind god”, meaning god Shu,
transliterates the so-called “Book of Joshua”, in the original form, as the “Book
of god Shu”. The story of the sun and moon stopping, accordingly, is the story
of the cry of Isis, the grand-daughter of the god Shu, making Ra the sun god
stop in his boat, and Thoth the moon god come to her aid. The Book of Joshua,
in short, on a rewrite or re-telling of the earlier Egyptian mythology story of the
Sorrows of Isis (line 205), which is shown below:

The gist of how the Egyptian gods became Judaic prophets (see: religious
prophets); about which, Galileo (1614) was queried to explain how Copernican
cosmology, with its "moving earth", could explain Joshua 10:13, based on the
model that it is the sun (Ra) and moon (Thoth) that "move" about a stationary earth
(Geb), according to Heliopolis cosmology (Heliopolis creation myth).

Prior to this, line 194 refers to Shu or Ja-Shua or "god Shu" in respect to the stinging of Horus by a poisonous scorpion sent by his evil brother Set as follows:
Hence, the "Sorrows of Isis", as Vladimir Golenischeff (1877) and Wallis Budge (1904) entitle the above tale, became the "Book of Joshua", or Joshua chapter
of the Bible, according to which, Joshua made (or bade) both the sun and the moon to stand still. Nearly the entire Old Testament and New Testament were
written in the manner.

The original text, from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (1300), which accompanies the above Isis in papyrus swamps vignette, below left, is compared to the
Joshua 10:13, from the Old Testament, rewrite, below right:

Tale of Osiris, Isis, and Horus Joshua 10:12-14

Book of Dead (2500BC) KJV (1611AD)
“O Isis, pray thou to heaven so that the sailors of Ra may cease rowing, so that Then spake Joshua [god Shu] ()() to the Lord in the day when the Lord
the Boat of Ra may not depart from the place where the child Horus is. Then delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel [Is-Ra-El], and he said
Isis sent forth a cry to heaven, and addressed her prayer to the Boat of Millions in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in
of Years; the valley of Ajalon.

and the [sun] Disk stood still, and moved not from the place where he was. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had
And Thoth [moon god] came, and he was provided with magical powers and avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the Book of
possessed the great power which made [his] word to become Maat (i.e., Law), Jasher [Book of the Dead]? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven,
and he said: 'O Isis, thou goddess, thou glorious one, who hast knowledge how and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
to use thy mouth, behold, no evil shall come upon the child Horus, for his
protection cometh from the Boat of Ra. I have come this day in the Boat of the And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened
Disk from the place where it was yesterday. unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.

When the night cometh the light shall drive [it] away for the healing of Horus for
the sake of his mother Isis, and every person who is under the knife [shall be
healed] likewise., In answer to this speech Isis told Thoth that she was afraid
he had come too late, but she begged him, nevertheless, to come to the child
and to bring with him his magical powers which enabled him to give effect to
every command which he uttered. Thereupon Thoth besought Isis not to fear,
and Nephthys not to weep, for said he, ‘I have come from heaven in order to
save the child for his mother,’ and he straightway spake the words of power
which restored Horus to life, and served to protect him ever afterwards in
heaven, and in earth, and in the Underworld.”

The same "Sorrows of Isis" story, where "Thoth stops the boat of a Million years, on which Ra was riding", to note, is found on the back text of the Metternich
Stele (380BC), from Alexandra. [4]

In 1997, Egyptian religio-mythology scholar Muata Ashby summarized the sun (Ra), moon (Thoth), and Isis parable as follows: [3]

“When Isis [Aset] found out about the evil scorpion [sent by Set] that stung and killed Horus [Heru], she was so grief stricken that her cry was heard to
the farthest reaches of the universe. When Ra [sun], the supreme being, heard it, he stopped his movement. This effectively brought the entire
universe to a standstill.” [6]

The sun and the moon in the Joshua version originally were either Ra (the sun) stopping his movement or the the eyes of Horus, one being the sun, the other
the moon, being gouges out by Set; the eyes (sun and moon) were later restored by the gods Hathor (Hethor) and Thoth (Djehuti). [6]

Maimonides
In c.1180, Maimonides asserted his patch opinion that events described in Joshua 10:13 occurred because of “extended local daylight”, without there having
been any change in the movement of the heavenly spheres. [7]

Gersonides
In c.1320, Jewish astronomer Gersonides (1288-1344) () gave his opinion that Joshua 10:13 occurred because the victory was so fast that it took place in
such a short time that the sun “seemed to stop” at the top of the sky, i.e. that the description was a literary device.

Luther | Copernicus
In Jun 1539, Martin Luther, after learning of Nicolaus Copernicus' newly-being popularized heliocentric model, via Philipp Melanchthon, who learned of it via
Georg Rheticus, said the following during a dinner meeting (possibly in the presence of Rheticus): [8]

“There is mention of a certain new astrologer who wanted to prove that the earth moves and not the sky, the sun, and the moon. This would be as if
somebody were riding on a cart or in a ship and imagined that he was standing still while the earth and the trees were moving.”

This is hilarious to the last. Luther continues:

“Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. I believe the holy scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still
and not the earth.”

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Galileo
In 1613, Galileo publishing work, based on his telescope
observations, supported Copernican cosmology, in opposition to
Ptolemaic cosmology (which is based on Heliopolis cosmology, aka
Heliopolis creation myth), therein asserting the Bible-contradicting
idea that the “earth moves”. The main passage from the Bible that
gave Galileo’s contemporaries the most trouble, as summarized by
Jennifer Hecht (2003), was Joshua 10:12-13. [6]

In late 1614, Tommaso Caccini, a young Dominican priest, drove

Galileo from the pulpit, insisting that Galileo explain the Joshua
10:12-13 passage? The gist of the debate that followed, as
summarized by Tamar Rudavsky (2001) reads as follows: [7]

“For Galileo, the question is one of straightforward biblical

exegesis and reflects his use of both PPD and PA, namely,
how to reconcile this passage with the new science. {68}
Galileo argues that under the Ptolemaic system, the example
“in no way can happen.” {69} For if the sun stops its own true
motion, the day becomes shorter and not longer and that, on
the contrary, the way to prolong it would be to speed up the
sun’s motion; thus, to make the sun stay for some time at the In 1614, priest Tommaso Caccini insisted that Galileo explain the Joshua 10:13 passage in light
same place above the horizon, without going down toward of his new telescope findings.
the west, it would be necessary to accelerate its motion so as to equal the motion of the Prime Mobile, which would be to accelerate it to about three
hundred and sixty times its usual motion. {70}

And so, if Joshua had wanted the day to be lengthened, he should have ordered the sun to accelerate its motion in such a way that the impulse from the
primum mobile would not carry it westward. On the Ptolemaic system, there-fore, we must reinterpret Joshua’s words: “given the Ptolemaic system, it is
necessary to interpret the words in a way different from their literal meaning.” {71} If we assume that Joshua had any astronomical knowledge, we can
say that his primary purpose was to demonstrate to the masses a miracle, and not to teach astronomy. Joshua simply stooped to their capacity and
“adapted himself to their knowledge and spoke in accordance with their understanding because he did not want to teach them about the structure of the
spheres but to make them understand the greatness of the miracle of the prolongation of the day.” {72} This is not a case in which the explicit meaning
of Scripture can be maintained on the basis of a geocentric model.

The question for Galileo, then, is whether the events in Joshua can be rendered consistent with the Copernican system. In fact, Galileo argues that only
heliocentrism can make sense of this example. Assume, he says, that the sun revolves upon its own axis (as Galileo had recently demonstrated in his
Letters on Sunspots). By this rotation, it infuses both light and motion into the bodies that surround it. If the rotation of the sun were to stop, so too would
the rotation of all these bodies. And so, when God willed that at Joshua’s command the whole system of the world should rest, it sufficed to make the
sun stand still. Upon its stopping, all the other revolutions ceased: “in this manner, by stopping the sun, and without changing or upsetting at all the way
the other stars appear or their mutual arrangement, the day on the earth could have been lengthened in perfect accord with the literal meaning of the
sacred text.” {73}

A fringe benefit of Galileo’s heliocentric interpretation is that he is able to give a clever reading of the next phrase, namely that the sun stood still “in the
midst of the heavens” (Joshua 10:13). Classical theologians have had a difficult time with this statement, for if it meant that the sun was at the meridian,
there would be no reason for a miracle at the time of Joshua’s prayer; but if the sun were setting when Joshua asked for cessation of movement, it’s not
clear how to explain the phrase “in the midst.” Galileo’s interpretation is that by “in the midst of the heavens” we should understand that the sun is at the
center of the celestial orbs and planetary rotations, in accordance with Copernican heliocentrism. Thus at any hour of day we can say that the sun
stands “at the center of the heavens, where it is located.” {74}”

In 1616, Galileo was banned by the Church from teaching heliocentric cosmology.

Spinoza
In c.1660, Benedict Spinoza also was drawn into the Joshua 10:13 puzzle;

“Do we have to believe that the soldier Joshua was a skilled astronomer, or that the sun’s light could not remain above the horizon for longer than usual
without Joshua’s understanding the cause? Both alternatives seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps something [strange] occurred, e.g., owing to excessive
coldness of the atmosphere.”
— Benedict Spinoza (1677), Treatise on Theologico-Politics [7]

Spinoza also argued, according to Hecht (2003), that the Book of Joshua might be untrue, per reason of multiple authors. In more detail, Tamar Rudavsky
(2001) summarizes Spinoza's take on this, as follows: [7]

“For Spinoza the Joshua example is used to bring home his rejection of supernatural miracles. Within his new mechanistic philosophy Spinoza argues
that every event falls within a comprehensive system of causal laws (there can be no random events), and that these causal laws possess the same
kind of necessity as the laws of mathematics and logic. He then shows how biblical miracles can be explained in naturalistic terms. {75}

But here, too, Spinoza had historical precedents in Jewish philosophy. {76} In the Guide, Maimonides had already eliminated supernaturalistic
interpretations of miracles and had begun the reductionist process of explaining miracles in naturalistic terms. In the context of demonstrating that the
miracles wrought by other prophets differ from those of Moses, Maimonides uses Joshua 10:11-12 as an example of a prophecy which occurs in front of
some, but not all, of the people. Maimonides goes on to explain the text as claiming that the miracle consisted in the prolongation of daylight without any
change in the course of the sun, so that in Gibeon the day was longest but in other places not. {77} Gersonides is even more explicit than Maimonides,
arguing that it is impossible for the sun to have stood still for Joshua. According to Gersonides, the miracle consists in the fact that the victory was
achieved during the short period of time in which the sun at its zenith appeared to be stopped. {78} And so what was implicit in Maimonides is spelled
out explicitly by Gersonides.

Against the backdrop of these medieval discussions Spinoza uses Joshua 10:12-13 in an attempt to rule out supernatural miracles. All the
commentators, says Spinoza, try to demonstrate that the prophets knew everything attainable by human intellect. He takes Joshua 10.11 as an
example, stating that do we have to believe that the soldier Joshua was a skilled astronomer, that a miracle could not be revealed to him, or that the
sun’s light could not remain above the horizon for longer than usual without Joshua’s understanding the cause? Both alternatives seem to me ridiculous.
{79}
 In contradistinction to Galileo who tried to grant Joshua the benefit of the doubt, Spinoza’s conclusion is that we cannot expect scientific knowledge of
the prophets. According to Spinoza, Joshua was a simple prophet who, confronted with an unusual natural phenomenon, namely “excessive coldness of
the atmosphere,” attributed to this phenomenon a supernaturalistic explanation. “Knowledge of science and of matters spiritual” should not be expected
of prophets.80 For Spinoza, then, there is no room for derash, for interpretative hermeneutics: the Bible must be interpreted literally. Scripture must use
Scripture itself to accomplish this. Either the biblical text is compatible with our rational conceptions or it is not; and if it is not, it must be rejected.”

(add)

Scopes Trial
In 1925, in the Scopes Monkey Trial, on the illegalness of teaching
Darwinian evolution in Tennessee high school biology classes, agnostic
Clarence Darrow famously interrogated theist William Bryan on the stand
on the Joshua 10:13 passage as follows: [9]

“After eliciting Bryan's profession of belief in every biblical miracle—

the creation of the earth in seven days, the swallowing and
regurgitation of Jonah by the whale (in the Bible, a "great fish," as
Bryan pointed out), god commanding the sun to stand still so that
Joshua and the Israelites would have enough time to slaughter their
enemies—Darrow closed in for the kill. How was it possible for the
sun to stand still, he asked Bryan, since it had long been known
that the sun does not move. Or did Bryan believe that the sun moved
around the earth because that was what people believed in biblical Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial (1925), famously asking William Bryan if
times? Bryan was naturally forced to concede that the earth moves he really believed that the sun stood still for one day, as it says in Joshua 10:13 of the
around the sun, which led to his acknowledgment that the Bible is Bible?
filled with metaphors appropriate to the limited knowledge of man in
the biblical era. He also conceded that each of the six days of creation might stand for millions of years. Bryan's exhausted admission that even he did
not interpret the Bible literally made him appear pathetic or traitorous to his adherents and ridiculous to his detractors, and the case went to the jury.”

(add)

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“It is really astonishing, that this fine passage (Joshua 10:6-14) has been so long misunderstood. We are expressly told that it is an extract from the
Book of Jasher—a collection of poems on the heroic deeds of leaders of the Israelites.”
— Johann Herder (c.1790), Source [5]

“This tale of the sun standing still upon Mount Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself. Such a
circumstance could not have happened without being known all over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun did not rise, and the other
why it did not set; and the tradition of it would be universal; whereas there is not a nation in the world that knows anything about it. But why must the
moon stand still? What occasion could there be for moonlight in the daytime, and that too whilst the sun shined? As a poetical figure, the whole is well
enough; it is akin to that in the song of Deborah and Barak, The stars in their courses fought against Sisera; but it is inferior to the figurative declaration
of Mahomet to the persons who came to expostulate with him on his goings on, Wert thou, said he, to come to me with the sun in thy right hand and the
moon in thy left, it should not alter my career. For Joshua to have exceeded Mahomet, he should have put the sun and moon, one in each pocket, and
carried them as Guy Faux carried his dark lantern, and taken them out to shine as he might happen to want them. The sublime and the ridiculous are
often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous
makes the sublime again; the account, however, abstracted from the poetical fancy, shews the ignorance of Joshua, for he should have commanded the
earth to have stood still.”
— Thomas Paine (1794), The Age of Reason (pg. 107)

“Science, which has disproved that the earth is the center of the celestial system, struck a great blow at religion. Joshua, we are told, stayed the sun,
and that stars will fall into the sea from heaven. What do I say? All the suns, and all the planets, etc.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (1817), “Dialogue with Gaspard Gourgaud”, Apr [5]

See also
● Genesis
● 2 Kings 2:24

References
1. Joshua 10:13 – BibleGateway.com.
2. (a) Golenischeff, Vladimir. (1877). Die Metternichstele (pl. 3. L. 48, ff). Leipzig: W. Engelmann.
(b) Budge, Wallis. (1904). The Gods of the Egyptians, Volume Two (§:14: The Sorrows of Isis, pgs. 222-40). Dover, 1969.
3. Ashby, Muata. (1997). Anunian Theology: African Religion, Volume One (pgs. 41-42). Cruzian Mystic Books.
4. Budge, Wallis. (1904). The Gods of the Egyptians, Volume Two (Isis suckling Horus, pg. 206-07; disc stood still, pgs. 209-10; Thoth stopped the boat, pg.
272). Dover, 1969.
5. Gourgaud, Gaspard. (1898). Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud: Together with the Journal Kept by Gourgaud on Their Journey
from Waterloo to St. Helena (translator: Elizabeth Latimer) (Herder, pg. 279; Joshua, pgs. 279-80). Nabu Press, 2012.
6. Rudavsky, Tamer M. (2001). “Galileo and Spinoza: Heroes, Heretics, and Hermeneutics” (abs) (pdf), Journal of the History of Ideas, 62:611-31.
7. Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (Galileo, pg. 319;
Maimonides, pg. 321; Gersonides, pg. 321; Spinoza, pg. 321). HarperOne.
8. Repcheck, Jack. (2007). Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began (pg. 159). Simon & Schuster.
9. Jacoby, Susan. (2004). Freethinkers: a History of American Secularism (pg. 248). Henry Holt and Co.

External links
● Book of Joshua – Wikipedia.
 Latest page update: made by Sadi-Carnot , Jun 3 2019, 9:59 PM EDT (about this update - complete history)

Keyword tags: Joshua 10:13

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