What Really Stopped in the Sky? The Sun, Moon, or Earth?

What Really Stopped at Joshua's Command? The Sun, Moon, or Earth? For nearly 3,000 years, one of the Bible's strangest passages has puzzled believers and scientists alike: the day the sun and moon reportedly stood still during Joshua's battle at Gibeon. In this video, we dig into the original Hebrew text, a 2017 scientific breakthrough linking the story to a real solar eclipse, and three very different thinkers — a Cambridge physicist, a literary scholar, and a controversial catastrophist — who each explain the event in a completely different way. Along the way, we ask a deeper question: is the sun even truly "still" in the first place? Topics covered: the Book of Joshua 10:12–14 • the 2017 Ben-Gurion University and Cambridge University eclipse studies • the Hebrew words "dom" and "amad" • the lost Book of Jasher • Sir Colin Humphreys • Gordon Mitchell • Immanuel Velikovsky • the heliocentric model and the sun's own motion. Sources consulted Primary text • The Bible: Joshua 10:12–14; Psalms 37:7; 2 Samuel 1:18 (King James Version and modern translations) Books • Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. Random House, 1980. • Humphreys, Colin J. The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist's Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories. HarperCollins, 2003. • Mitchell, Gordon. Together in the Land: A Reading of the Book of Joshua (JSOT Supplement Series 134). Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. • Velikovsky, Immanuel. Worlds in Collision. Macmillan, 1950. Scientific papers and academic sources • Humphreys, C. J., and Waddington, W. G. (2017). "Solar eclipse of 1207 BC helps to date pharaohs." Astronomy & Geophysics, 58, 5.39–5.42. • Yizhaq, H., Weistaub, D., and Avner, U. (2017). Study on the Joshua 10 solar eclipse hypothesis. Beit Mikra (Hebrew-language biblical studies journal). • Sawyer, J. F. A. (1972). "Joshua 10:12–14 and the Solar Eclipse of 30 September 1131 BC." Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 104(2), 139–146. • Wilson, R. D. (1918). "What Does 'The Sun Stood Still' Mean?" The Princeton Theological Review, 16(1), 46–54. • Sagan, Carl (1977). Scientific critique of Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, published in Scientists Confront Velikovsky (Cornell University Press). • Astrophysical Journal background and James E. Keeler biography (Britannica; Encyclopedia.com; Osterbrock, D. E., James E. Keeler: Pioneer American Astrophysicist, Cambridge University Press). News and academic summaries referenced for verification • Evangelical Focus, Israel365 News, The Alabama Baptist, Christian Today — reporting on the 2017 Cambridge and Ben-Gurion University findings. • The Velikovsky Encyclopedia — summary of scientific criticism of Worlds in Collision. AI Disclaimer: This script was researched and written with the assistance of an AI language model (Claude, by Anthropic), based on publicly available books, academic papers, and news sources listed above. The content reflects a synthesis of existing scholarship and includes the presenter's personal interpretation of the evidence. Viewers are encouraged to consult the original sources directly for further study.