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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Changing scripture... a lost art?
Message-ID: <4128@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Nov-84 16:02:39 EST
Article-I.D.: cbscc.4128
Posted: Tue Nov 20 16:02:39 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Nov-84 01:37:51 EST
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>[From John Nelson:]
>Refering to the Revised Standard edition we find...
>
>Joshua Chapter 10 Verse 12:
>
>Then spoke Joshua to the lord in the day when the lord gave the
>Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel
>"Sun, stand though still at Gibeon and though Moon in the valley
>Aijalon" and the Sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation
>took vengence on their enemies.  Is this not written in the book of
>Jashar?  The Sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to
>go down for about a whole day.  There has been no day like it before or
>since, when the lord harkened to the voice of a man; for the lord
>fought for Israel.
>
>Now if you're a true Chrisitan who believes in the literal
>interpretation of the Bible then of course you believe that Joshua
>stopped the sun...  A sun wich we all know is rock-steady to begin
>with.
>
>I would like to add that I am not ridiculing the Old Testiment because
>this task is "too difficult" for any God.  What I am saying is that there
>is a blatent contradiction here.  The author of this book (and
>apparently) Joshua too, believed that the sun revolves about the earth.
>If one were to interpret this passage literally then one would HAVE to
>conclude that the sun is the center of the solar system which is
>clearly not true.
>
>The Bible cannot be relied upon as as a totally accurate
>source of history or fact.  Not when taken literally.

How should the Bible have described the event?  I suppose that,
to be technically correct, it should have said that the earth's
rotation (with respect to the sun) stopped for a whole day.  But
how then would the readers understand the event?

Is it strange that the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" have persisted
in our language for so long?  Sure, we all know that the sun does
no such thing; but does the fact that Joshua and those who first read
his account didn't make the description of that event any less accurate?

From our perspective the sun does move and it makes sense to explain
events like sunset and sunrise that way to people with the same
perspective.  In essence, a description of an event does not always
have to be scientifically accurate to be correct, especially if
all those concerned share a similar perspective.

I think the literal meaning of this passage is not so much a matter
of actual contradiction as it is a matter of perspective.  To 
require that a description be scientifically correct to be accurate
is to be pendantic in any semantic environment execpt that of science
itself.  Science also approaches models from a fixed perspective.
John's statement that the sun is "rock-steady" may be true when we
consider only our solar system (That is the perspective he is assuming
for us).  If I include the whole universe in my perspective, it is certainly
false.

It's true that this is the very issue on which Galileo and others
offended the Church.  But the idea that the earth revolved around
the sun was probably new to just about everyone, because it
is not an obvious deduction from plain observation.  Belief in the
opposite is not necessarily dependant on "literal" (the way John is using
the word) interpretation in the above passage in Joshua.  All such a belief
requires is to live one's whole life with a certain perspective on
the relationship between the sun and the earth.  It's easy to see
the passage as supporting such a perspective as being actual in that
temporal setting.  From my own temporal perspective I have trouble seeing
what the Church was worried about.

There are plenty of other matters of perspective in Scripture that can
bring charges of errancy against it.  Some of them seem more plausible
than John's example here, yet are also unfounded by the same
principle.  C. S. Lewis deals with this in his book "Miracles";
especially in the chapter called "Horrid Red Things" (I think).

So, I can't accept John's apparent attempt to hold the inerrancy
doctrine hostage to the semantics of science and a given perspective.
The only "blantant contradiction" here is between two different
semantic environments or two different perspectives.  We tolerate
such contradiction all the time (apparently because we only work in,
or with, one at a time).  If we are going to make the semantics
of science the only valid ones--all the rest being contradictions--then
we best think up new words for "sunrise", "sunset", "up", "down", "east"
"west", etc.  Our use of these and many others could be rendered contradictory
if someone insisted on applying a different perspective in their use.

-- 
The "resurrected",

Paul Dubuc	cbscc!pmd