THE LONG DAY

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> You remember the long day when Joshua needed more time to battle the enemies
> he was fighting with.  But did you know the rest of the story that follows
> behind that?

Bro Marion, I *always* enjoy reading your messages.  You are a
wonderful man to have on this list.  Keep 'em coming!

But....

> About fifty years ago, I read about a Professor Totten who was party to a
> discovery that the earth, the sun, and the moon are 24 hours out of synch
> with the stars.  The scientist who had discovered the fact was challenged to
> read the Bible to see if he could find the answer there.  

The Professor Totten story is an "urban legend."  This tale has many
variations -- the first one I heard was of NASA scientists using a
computer to calculate 24 hours missing.  But the Professor Totten one
cited here is close to the original.

Charles Adiel Lewis Totten was a professor of military science at Yale
from 1889 to 1892.  He published a book published in 1890 entitled
_JOSHUA'S LONG DAY AND THE DIAL OF AHAZ_.  This is what he wrote in
this book:

   We know from Daniel 9:27 and from various other passages
   (mostly in Revelation) that the public ministry of Jesus lasted
   three and a half years. Since He was crucified at the spring
   equinox, He must have begun to preach at the fall equinox.
   Since he began to preach when He was thirty years old, He must
   have been born at the fall equinox. Since the world was created
   4000 years before He was born, the world was created on

   September 22, 4000 BC. Therefore this day must have been a
   Sunday. But calculating back using a calendar, we find that
   this date was a Monday. Therefore there is a missing 24 hours.
   Since 40 minutes of this are accounted for by the story in 2
   Kings 20 (or Isaiah 38), we see that the "about a day" mentioned
   in Joshua 10 must account for the remaining 23 hours and 20
   minutes. End of proof.


These are Totten's calculations, not based on astronomical
observations, but on counting days recorded in the Bible.  No sceptical
astronomer or other scientist is mentioned in the book.  These are all
Professor Totten's calculations based on dates and other clues given in
the Bible.

Apparently, people repeated Totten's "proof" and the little details
were added such that the story changed completely, a lot like the game
we all played where we whisper a phrase into someone's ear, who repeats
what you said, who repeats it to the next person in line, etc.

Note that this is *not* a challenge of scriptural inerrancy.

You can find a little more discussion on this at:

http://www.ihi.aber.ac.uk/~spk/joshuas.longday

Richard Masoner, who's now waiting for the "Angel Hitchhiker" urban legend :-)