Correcting a possible mistranslation in the Old Testament has perhaps revealed the earliest ever recorded solar eclipse – and solved an ancient Egyptian mystery to boot.
In a paper in the journal News and Reviews in Astronomy and Geophysics, Colin Humphreys, from the department of materials science and metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, UK, and colleague Graeme Waddington, refine earlier attempts by scholars to tie a perplexing reference in the Book of Joshua to an actual astronomical event.
The text reads: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies."
Humphreys and Waddington are not the first to suggest that the verse is not a report of a miracle, but could be a reference to a solar eclipse. Previous studies went so far as to narrow the time-period during which it was possible for the event to have occurred.
A stone inscription known as the Merneptah Stele – named after a pharaoh thought to have ruled Egypt between 1213 and 1203 BCE – contains lines that indicate the Israelites were in the region of Canaan between 1500 and 1050 BCE. Gibeon was a Canaanite city. Recommended DNA vs the Bible: Israelites did not wipe out the Canaanites Archaeology
With the possible dates thus constrained, and the movements of the Earth, sun and moon readily calculable, however, historians failed to find any eclipses.
In their new research, Humphreys and Waddington challenged two assumptions: first, that the translation of the verse from Hebrew was accurate, and second that the eclipse was a total one.
The verse translation fundamentally hadn’t changed since the King James Bible of 1611.
"But going back to the original Hebrew text, we determined that an alternative meaning could be that the sun and moon just stopped doing what they normally do: they stopped shining,” explains Humphreys.
“This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Hebrew word translated 'stand still' has the same root as a Babylonian word used in ancient astronomical texts to describe eclipses."
The second challenge also bore fruit. Instead of searching only for total solar eclipses – where the moon temporarily blocks the whole of the sun – they also searched for annular eclipses, where the moon moves in front of the sun but does not obscure it completely, leaving a “ring of fire”.
The method paid off. Taking into account changes in the Earth’s rotations over time, the pair calculated that an annular eclipse took place on October 30, 1207 BCE. (Although, of course, no one alive at the time called it that.)
Being able to precisely pin the date of the eclipse also allowed the researchers to refine the dates of the reign of one of Egypt’s most famous rulers, Rameses the Great – Merneptah’s father.
"Solar eclipses are often used as a fixed point to date events in the ancient world," says Humphreys.
Using the fresh calculations, the researchers established the Merneptah’s reign must have started later than previously held, in 1209 or 1210 BCE. Egyptian texts already established how long Rameses ruled for, but are hazy when it comes to start and stop times.
Humphreys and Waddington are confident those dates can now be stated as 1276 to 1210 BCE with a possible variation of only one year.
Abram1769 on October 30th, 2017 at 17:32 UTC »
Their whole study is dependent on changing what the Bible says and re-translating a single verse to fit their hypothesis. What about the verses after it that use another verb that means to stand still? What about the portion specifying the sun didn't move for a whole day? What about where it says there was never a day like it before nor since? The concept of the sun "being darkened" is all over the old testament, so why wouldn't they use the same wording here if that's what it was? All pretty damning when your entire argument hinges on whether the verb for stop/cease/forbear was referring to the sun halting or no longer shining.
This is by the same guy that wrote an article saying the Bible was proven wrong because they found Canaanite DNA in an old corpse, so they weren't all wiped out... Except the Bible never says they were all wiped out. The Bible even says specifically that the Sidonians were left in the land and the body they were testing was found in friggin' Sidon. Not to mention the apostle called Simon the Canaanite in the New Testament. Wow, real shocker the Canaanites weren't all killed in the OT.
tyvonty on October 30th, 2017 at 16:11 UTC »
I'm a little late to the party but I have an intermediate understanding of biblical hermeneutics. As some peeps have pointed out, this study fails to even read the story and in so doing completely ignores what is said about the sun. Context is a crucial thing and they ignored the contextual detail of the phenomenon in the sky that was reported. Whether you believe the story or not, Joshua says the sun stayed up longer so they had more time to defeat their enemies, the opposite of the sun being hidden. Not a "checkmate atheists," just a failure to read the whole text. Compare it to Job 9:7 which is believed to be one of the older books, so closer in age to Joshua, which describes a dark sun and moon.
Edit: I might be the only to care, but due diligence and all. The word used in Joshua 10:13 comes from the Hebrew root yid-dom which is used 20 times in the Old Testament, primarily with a sense of ceasing or halting. It DOES have connections to ancient assyrian words meaning to wail in some odd verb forms, but lets be smart here. Did the sun stop shining, have a good cry, or just chill in a spot? Apparently it just depends on how much you want it to fit your study.
ProgressivePun on October 30th, 2017 at 14:25 UTC »
This is an interesting study. The main issue I have with it is that it relies on an assumption. The portion of Joshua which it refers to does not specifically mention an eclipse. It refers to the sun/moon "stopping".
Eclispes were recognized in ancient times. You'd think if they meant eclipse they'd have said eclipse. Or in this case, an annular eclipse can be even more interesting looking than a total eclipse because you see a ring of fire around a black circle in the sky. You'd think this would have been of note to the author of Joshua rather than merely referring to the sun/moon "stopping".
There's just a lot of assumptions here and using the Bible as an historical reference seems dubious at best. I want to believe that it's accurate.
Edit: Here is the passage in question:
So they take this to mean an eclipse. They then refer to an Egyptian carved granite block that gives a ~500 year period (1500-1050 BC) when the Egyptians identified the Israelites as living in Canaan. They ran computer models to determine if any total or annular solar eclipse occurred during that period and arrived at only one possibility: October 30, 1207 BC.
But this whole thing relies on what they were referring to in Joshua being an annular solsr eclipse.
Here is a better more detailed article: http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/june-2013/article/oldest-recorded-solar-eclipse-helps-date-the-egyptian-pharaohs