What really happened on the day the sun stood still?: Joshua 10 revisited.

  June 21, the longest day of the year or summer solstice, is right around the corner. In order to mark this astronomically important event I decided to take a look the longest day ever recorded in history, which appears in the 10th chapter of the book 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!

  Before we can move ahead with this passage some background information would be helpful. The book of Joshua records the conquest wars fought by the armies of Israel under the leadership of a man called  Joshua. These wars were fought in Canaan, what we call today Syria and the “holy land”. When these wars were started, the armies of Israel were nothing more that a rag tag group of warriors, but with the help of Yahweh, and Joshua’s leadership, this group of warriors were able defeat, time and time again, the armies of much bigger and older cultures. One of the cities in Canaan, Gibeon, made an alliance with Joshua. Five other surrounding cities were not happy with this arrangement and decided to join forces and attack Gibeon. When this lone friend of Israel's heard of the approaching armies, they called on Joshua to honor their alliance and help them defend their city. We take the story right at the moment in which Joshua is departing with his army to defend Gibeon.
  This story has been used to make an argument against the Bible as the word of God. It is an argument which goes like this: how can a book supposedly inspired by God, get the way the universe works so wrong? We are talking about how Joshua asked God to “stand still the sun”; you see in Joshua’s mind the Sun moved across the sky, East to West every day, although we know this is not the case. How can the book of Joshua make such a horrendous mistake about the way the universe works?  The problem with this question is that makes invalid assumptions about the book of Joshua; that is that the primary intention of the author was to present how the universe worked that day.
  This book of the Old Testament is just an historical account of how Joshua and his small band of warriors, time and time again defeated much larger armies, until they gained control of all the land of Canaan. It presents what Joshua did and how God helped him. This book is not a cosmology treaty. It tries to put into context events which were out of the ordinary and that were not understood by the writers. What we read in it is basically the authors' attempt at describing a miraculous event using their understanding of the way their universe behaved.
 So the question is then... what happened that day, which caused Joshua to ask for God to “stop the movement of the sun” and what happened that day to make Joshua and his men believe that God had answered their prayers. Lets take a closer look at the reading and see if we can find answers
to these questions.
  Now keep in mind that, there are a lot of things happening in this reading, there is a lot of movement and action, so I’ll try to briefly point the important details that might pass unnoticed. The first few verses tell us that after receiving the request for help from Giveon, the Lord assured Joshua that he will defeat his enemies. Now keep in mind, Joshua was confronting the armies of five whole cities, so most likely this army was much larger than Joshua’s little band of warriors; so Israel’s warriors marched all night. From a previous verse we know they started this march in Gilgal, so the distance Joshua and his men had to walk at night was about 18 miles, which in the mountainous terrain of their march, could be accomplished in about 8 hours. This means that there is a very strong possibility that the surprise attack to defend
Gibeon started under the darkness of the early morning. Joshua’s element of surprise threw his enemies in disarray and caused them to flee all the way down to Azeka and Mechadda, through the pass of
Beth Horon, a trip of about 20 miles. It was during this retreat, according to the story that “God sent great hailstones” which killed most of the enemies of Joshua, and reduced the number of his enemies to a more “manageable” size. The reading implies that Joshua engaged his enemies after the hailstorm
which means that Joshua's army had to march 20 miles after an 18 miles overnight trip. That is 38 miles! Which, by the way would place the final battle in the late afternoon. It is at this time which Joshua makes his prayer to God to stand the Sun still so he can finish what we would call in modern times a "mop up" operation. Now lets do an assessment of Joshua and his army here, they have walked all night, they attacked early in the morning and now after another 8-10 hours of marching they find themselves battling their enemies again. They were tired, hungry and most likely they were operating on pure adrenaline but more importantly...They wanted to finish the job started so many hours ago.
  It being the late afternoon, Joshua realized he was running out of daylight so in his mind, the Sun needed to be stopped in order to make this day longer and finish disposing of his enemies. Many years ago I worked with a brilliant mathematician, who told me that he had lost his faith because of this story, he reasoned that if God were to stop the earth rotation, everything that is not literary nailed to the ground would come out flying because of the change on rotational speed; not to mention the catastrophic effect in plate tectonics, and ocean tides. My friend's literal interpretation of this story he could not conceive of a God so powerful that he would take into consideration all the effects of stopping the earth rotation. At the end of the day, this interpretation could only be applied to a less than infinitely powerful being.
  Another mistake my friend made was that he limited himself to just ONE potential explanation, the most literal of all. But, the thing is... there are other explanations that could cause Joshua and his men to think that the day was longer than normal and that the Sun stood in the middle of the sky, these are the ones I would like to explore.
  Since Joshua was asking the wrong thing God acted in a way that might have looked as if that the Sun had stopped in the western sky.  Some people have speculated that, since the sun was in the West, perhaps there was some type of meteorological phenomena which reflected the light of the sun after it had set, something like Sun Dogs or a phenomenon know as “noctilucent” or “polar mesospheric” clouds. Which might be related to the strange “hailstone” storm which killed many that day. Others have speculated that perhaps a meteor appeared bright as the sun before it disintegrated in the atmosphere.
    To me some of the most interesting theories have to do with “time” itself. One of these goes like this: Since we know now (Thanks to Albert Einstein) that time is not constant, an all powerful God would have the power of locally “slowing down time” making it seem as if everything moving outside of this
bubble is moving slowly.* So the Sun would appear as if it was standing in the sky.
  Another theory I find interesting is based on “Time perception”. There is a well known psychological phenomenon in which a person in a high level of stress becomes so focused that it looks as if time has slowed down around them. With Joshua and his men having been for such a long time in a high level of stress, it is possible that they lost track of time itself (After all, in the times of Joshua there was not reliable way of measuring time) so after repeated cases of feeling time slowing down they might have thought the day was much longer and in their minds the only way this could be possible was by divine intervention.
   Now I would be remiss if I were not to mention another interpretation based on the type of language used by writers of this book. Looking at the text we can see that the story changes "styles" when quoting Joshua’s prayer, also after this quote, the reading mentions the Book of Jashar, which scholars believe was a book of poems and songs about great Jewish heroes of this time (a book now lost). Because of these some scholars believe that this event never really happened and it is just a poetic way of saying that on a long day of fighting a superior enemy, God was helping the armies of Joshua to such a degree that “The sun and the moon stopped” to bring Israel victory.
    Of course we can speculate more but the reality is that we will never know what happened that day, only that it felt as if "The sun stood in the sky" for a whole day.  Like I mentioned before, some people have used this story to point out that the Bible is not reliable because it makes an error in the assumption that the sun rotates around the earth;  but this story is not about celestial mechanics but about how God responded to Joshua’s prayer. Even when He was asking for the wrong thing God graciously responded to his prayer.This in it self should be a source if great consolation, for how many times we have found ourselves asking God for the wrong thing, without knowing or understanding what we were talking about? God's eternal mercy is manifested on these moments, we might not have any idea what is he doing but we can be sure that he is making the universe work in the most beneficial way for all of His children.
 

* Now this reminds me of an old Start Trek episode titled “Wink of an Eye” in which a group of aliens, existing in a high level of acceleration attempted to take over the Enterprise. While they were moving everyone else appear static.

"Viva Cristo Rey!!"
"Ya Rabbi Yassou!!"

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19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

   Today’s first and second readings are very similar. They both give an answer to the question: What is Faith?  In the first reading, taken from the Book of Wisdom, we are told that faith is the sure knowledge of the promises of God and of their eventual fulfillment. In the second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, we are told that faith is “the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen”. Both readings point to the fact that faith is just the certainty of things we cannot see with our eyes, the certainty of spiritual realities, of the desire we have for justice, for the happiness we will feel when we meet our departed loved ones again, of heaven and eternal life.
   With all this talk about faith, it occurred to me that it is rather strange the Church decided to group these two readings with a Gospel which starts by Jesus proclaiming “Do not be afraid”. What does faith has to do with fear?  To answer this question we have to take a look at the context in which Jesus spoke these words.
    Today’s Gospel is taken from a section of Luke which is known as “the travel narratives”. It is called like this because these were stories of Jesus and his disciples as they traveled towards Jerusalem, to celebrate the Passover. The same Passover, in which Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified.
   The apostles sensed that something was going to happen the moment they arrived to the city. Perhaps he would reveal himself as the Messiah, perhaps we would use his divine power to defeat the Roman tyrants and establish the Kingdom of God.  Jesus, on the other hand, knew very well what was going to happen; He also knew the effect these events were going to have in the faith of his friends and followers. So in preparation for what was waiting in Jerusalem, the Lord gives a lesson about how to always be ready for Him to appear, and about how, regardless of what our situation is, we must keep our faith on Him and avoid fear, because fear is the great enemy of those who wait for His promises; faith gives us courage and consolation. Fear turns us inwards, to look inside of ourselves for strength that only God can provide.  Fear makes us forget that God is always, always in control, and that when we least expect it He sends his angels to help us.

Sketch Artist Depiction of "Mystery" Priest

   In the last few days, there is a news story been reported which, in my opinion gives a perfect example of today’s message. There is this young woman; her name is Katie Lentz, who was hit head-on by a drunk driver this past Sunday morning on an isolated highway in Missouri. She was seriously injured and trapped inside her car.  For close to 45 minutes the emergency personnel tried to pull her out of the wreckage but couldn't free her.  During this time, Katie which had multiple fractures in her body and must have been in an incredible amount of pain, prayed out loud. After an hour of struggle, the responders realized that to use the words of one firefighter “Katie was slipping way” and that the only chance they had to save her was by turning the car upside down, a move which could very likely, kill her. When they inform Katie about their very dangerous plan, instead of sinking into despair, she asked them if they would pray with her out loud. It was at this moment, eyewitnesses’ report that right out of nowhere a priest appeared, even though the road had been blocked off for two miles and they were in an isolated stretch of highway. The priest said that he will pray with her and anoint her with the oil of the sick.  Eyewitnesses tell that while this was happening, a sense of peace fell over Katie and the men trying to save her life. After the anointing the priest also blessed the rescuers and told them not to worry as they will now be able to release her, which in fact they were. When she was safely out of the car the rescuers tried to locate and thank the priest for what he had gone, but could not find him. To this day no one knows who this priest was. The archdiocese of Missouri has said that none of their priest was at the accident that day. The strangest thing about this story is this: in more than 80 pictures taken during the time this was going on, not one of these captured the image of this mysterious priest.
   Some people are calling this a miracle; they are saying this priest was just an angel in disguise. I think that it does not matter if this was an angel or just a priest from another diocese, on vacation out for stroll. The real miracle is this: at a moment in which many people would sink in despair and fear, the faithful prayer of a young woman in need was answered.
    My brothers and sisters faith is the great antidote against fear. Fear is the great enemy of the faithful. I pray that no one ever in this community of St Michael’s has to deal with a situation such as Katie Lentz experienced, but I also pray that if we ever find our faith tested, we remember Jesus words today: Do not be afraid. Trust in your faith, trust in the power of God’s consolation, and be open to his wonderful care and you too will be the witnesses of miracles. Amen!

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Here are some links to the "Mystery" Priest story:

 Story 1, Story 2, Story 3

UPDATE: The Mystery Priest has stepped forward. Here is the link.

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Miracles, Science and Divine Intervention

Miracles have been in the news lately. The Vatican just announced the approval of a bonafide miracle (after a long investigation by doctors and theologians) of a woman in Costa Rica who was healed by the direct intercession of  Blessed John Paul II, as the second miracle needed for his canonization. The Catholic Herald website reports that:

   A Costa Rican woman has told how she recovered from a brain aneurysm after praying to Blessed Pope John Paul II – the second miracle attributed to the pontiff, who died in 2005.
   According to Floribeth Mora Diaz, she was told by doctors in May 2011 that her condition meant she only had days to live. After receiving the news she returned to her home in Costa Rica’s Cartago province and while praying to John Paul II in her small bedroom she heard him say: “Rise! Don’t be afraid.”
   Mora said that the incident occurred after she returned from the doctor’s and watched the beatification of the former pope on television. As she prayed, she heard his voice speak to her from his picture on the cover of a magazine.

  After the incident, Mora’s condition rapidly improved and doctors could not explain the reason for this. According to Reuters, her neurosurgeon, Alejandro Vargas, admits Mora’s condition was potentially fatal, but says he predicted only a two percent chance that it would kill her.

Not only JPII is getting a miracle attributed to his intercession but also the Venerable Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, the second leader of Opus Dei, has been credited with a miraculous healing.  It was reported that in 2003 a newborn who suffered a major cardiac arrest and was declared dead, came back to life after his parents prayed for Bishop del Portillo's help. This time it is EWTN News who gives more information.

The miracle involves the August 2003 healing of Chilean newborn Jose Ignacio Ureta Wilson. A few days after his birth, the boy suffered a 30-minute period of cardiac arrest and a major hemorrhage.
The medical team treating the baby thought he had already died, but his parents prayed for healing through the intercession of the bishop.
The baby’s heart started to beat again and he recovered to live a normal life.

Of course the media commentators did not miss the opportunity to give their "expert" opinion on these cases, which could be reduced to "What is all the fuss, this happens all the time". The LA Times published an article by Lawrence Krauss, which was linked to by no other than the Richard Dawkins web site (The internet hub for all things atheist). The article stated:

There are many medical results we do not understand. Spontaneous remission of cancer, for example, occurs in a reliable but small fraction of the population; no immediate explanation can be presented on a case-by-case basis.

The problem, however, is that when one examines the spontaneous remission rates in the general population from diseases such as cancer, the rate is actually higher than that reported among the Lourdes pilgrims. (*Sagan pointed this out, but others have also compared medical reports and Lourdes reports.) Thus, if you bathe in the Lourdes waters, you apparently have a smaller likelihood of being spontaneously cured than others who have not.


*NOTE : That would be Carl Sagan of NOVA and Cosmos fame)

Blessed JPII and Venerable Bishop del Portillo

The LA Times article makes some very good points... about the wrong things. If you go back and read closely Ms. Mora's and young Jose Ignatius' healings were not a random event, like the spontaneous cures used as counter arguments by the LA times. These miracles were the result of prayer triggered by the desperation of the faithful. Completely different events than say someone who wakes up one morning and finds themself free of cancer.

The point I'm trying to make is that the LA Times explicitly uses a rather limited definition of miracle, first proposed by medieval philosopher's Baruch Spinosa; for whom a miracle was "a violation of the order of nature" ("Tract. Theol. Polit.", vi). Catholics have a much broader view of what constitutes a miraculous event. To quote Aquinas: "Those effects are rightly to be termed miracles which are wrought by Divine power apart from the order usually observed in nature" (Contra Gent., III, cii). The LA Times focuses the attention of the reader on the seeming violation of natural order; the instantaneous healing of a sick (or dead) person, while for the Church this violation is not enough to be declared a miracle. The event needs to happen within a religious context.

As a man of science, I'll admit there is some probability that there is a natural mechanism we do not yet understand, perhaps a sort of biological trigger, which, under the correct set of conditions would actuate the spontaneous healing of  a brain aneurism or even jump-start a heart that was paralyzed for 30 minutes. Who knows if in the future doctors would be able to use this mechanism routinely.

As a religious person I understand that God uses what we call "randomness" to interact with His creation, at His own will and pleasure. I also understand that God hears the prayers of all those who call for his help, even those without faith. Who knows, perhaps all those unexplained healings referred to by Krauss are just the result of this type of "unbeliever prayer".

As a Catholic I know that the intercessory prayers of many or even a few (In these cases the few included JPII and Bishop del Portillo) have a tremendous influence on the way God interacts with His creation.  I also understand that the miracles approved by the Vatican were not just spontaneous healings but the results of faithful prayer from those seeking God's help, and actuated by God's desire to bring glory to Himself through His creation.

For Catholics, it is not enough to have an unexplained event to be able to declare this event as a Miracle. Events which are seen to depart from the usual order observed in nature, although strange and even beneficial in some cases are not in themselves miracles. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Miracles expresses this idea:

In referring the miracle to God as its efficient cause the answer is given to the objection that the miracle is unnatural, i.e., an un-caused event without meaning or place in nature. With God as the cause, the miracle has a place in the designs of God's Providence (Contra Gent. III, xcviii).

The difference between these two understandings of miracles (Spinosa vs Aquinas, LA Times vs Catholic Church) is very important.  Think about this for a second: what would happen if in 20 years or so medical science were to discover how to trigger a currently unknown biological mechanism which will cause the healing events Ms. Mora and young Jose Ignatius experienced? According to Spinosa's and Mr. Krauss's idea of a miracle, since now we understand and can repeat the natural conditions to trigger the healing for someone with the same type of condition, this event was just an act of incredible luck, which did not require divine intercession. This will put into question the infallible sainthood declaration (Canonizations are considered infallible declarations) of two servants of God, JPII and Bishop del Portico.

By using Aquinas idea of a miracle the Church avoids the dependency on an inexplicable event which could be explained later as our understanding of the natural world expands. Under this view the healings of  Ms. Mora and young Jose Ignatius were not triggered randomly, they were the result of a direct petition for intercessory help.

There is nothing miraculous about the result of some random event. But when a perfectly rational person receives a divine command to, "Rise! Don’t be afraid" after praying for healing, or parents ask in desperation for the life of a dead baby, and these prayers are clearly answered precisely in the way the petition was made, regardless what mechanisms God uses, the final result still remains a miracle, given to us by the mercy of God, who answered the prayer of His children in a moment of need.

Of course atheists would claim that prayers can not be taken seriously because it cannot be reliably shown that they are answered. The LA times implies this when they report that on the average there are more unexplained healings than the type of healing reported by the Vatican. But perhaps this is caused because the effort the Vatican places in finding a natural explanation is more stringent than those, like the LA Times, who attach the word miracle to every un-explainable healing they find.  

I hope this helps put in perspective the criticism of the secular media, which wastes no time to misinform and confuse all things Catholic-wise.


Viva Cristo Rey!!

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