So, I went to church yesterday for "research" purposes and while the music reminded me of my evangelical Christian days in high school, I was appalled by the ignorance that was expressed in the sermon.
The sermon was based on Joshua 10.1-15 and a summary of this passage is that the Israelites are fighting against 5 kings of the Amorites who have united to destroy Gibeon for making a peace treaty with Israel. Joshua, the commander of the Israel army, receives divine help from the Warrior-Deity of Israel in the sky. The deity sends down giant hailstones to kill the Amorites and then, at Joshua's request, stops the sun from moving so the Israelites can continue to slaughter the Amorites.
Now, the preacher of this sermon went nuts about the miracle of G-d stopping the sun in the sky, declaring it the second greatest miracle next to the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The passage literally states:
"On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel, “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. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in mid-heaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded a human voice; for the Lord fought for Israel." (Josh 10:12-14 NRSV)
The "preacher" then attempted to explain using modern cosmology that G-d would have to stop the Earth from spinning and maintain gravity OR cause the sun to stay still, which would cause the rest of the solar system to be thrown off course and part of the earth to scorch while the other half was freezing. At this point in the sermon, I lost it because the book of Joshua was not written with a modern cosmology in mind, it was written with an ancient three-tier cosmology in mind. A picture of the ancient three-tier cosmology is at the beginning of this post in the upper-left corner. Now, if you closely examine that picture (a larger one can be found here: http://www.aarweb.org/syllabus/syllabi/g/gier/306/OTcosmos.jpg) you will see that the sun and moon are just objects that are moved within a solid firmament or glass dome. Therefore, it would not be impossible for the warrior-deity to reach down and keep the "sun and moon" still for a whole day. There would be little to no implication for this ancient cosmology.
So next time you hear a preacher say something incredible about the "miracles" of G-d in the Old Testament, just remember, it was written in a completely different time in a prescientific time and just like you would never kill an individual for adultery in modern society, you really shouldn't listen to the cosmology/worldview represented therein either.
-SkepticalSparrow
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2 comments:
So, a deity that knows all and created all has to wait until such a time as you feel comfortable about scientific revelation before He can perform a miracle that can be explained by that revelation. Is that really your premise? And why do you classify scientific revelation as being so much more in abundance in this day rather than a few thousand years ago? Where is your proof that science is more superior today than back then? I believe all can be traced to YOUR belief in evolution and your misguided notions of such absurdities rather than a true, provable scientific approach.
Majockus,
My statement deals with the differing cosmologies at hand here: we have a heliocentric cosmology in which the earth and all the planets rotate around the sun while simultaneously spinning on an axis.
In the ancient cosmology, the one in which the Hebrew Scriptures were written, the earth had a solid firmament as the sky and all the celestial objects followed a path in said firmament. Therefore, with the deity resting on top of the firmament, it would be no great task for it to say "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.” I can back the picture of the three-tier ancient cosmology up with citations from the Hebrew Scriptures: Psalm 18, Genesis 1, and other examples.
Check these citations from the NRSV:
"And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day" (Gen 1:6-7 NRSV).
"God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:16-18 NRSV).
I could continue but I won't. One can clearly see that this view of the universe is inept and was replaced by the geocentric cosmology by the Greeks and then the heliocentric cosmology by Galileo. Therefore, it is absurd to think that a cosmology based off of limited observation, tradition, and mythology is superior to the modern cosmology that has been used to travel in outer-space by humanity.
If we all still believed in the ancient, three-tier cosmology and it was true, then our satellites and space shuttles would have crashed into the solid dome known as the "sky" in antiquity.
The true absurdity is trying to explain a "miracle" using the modern cosmology that supposedly took place to people who still believed in an ancient three-tier cosmology, complete with a hard dome for a sky and celestial accessories that could be stopped by the hand of a warrior deity.
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