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posted by Fnord666 on Monday October 30 2017, @08:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the lights-out dept.

Researchers have pinpointed the date of what could be the oldest solar eclipse yet recorded. The event, which occurred on 30 October 1207 BC, is mentioned in the Bible, and could have consequences for the chronology of the ancient world.

Using a combination of the biblical text and an ancient Egyptian text, the researchers were then able to refine the dates of the Egyptian pharaohs, in particular the dates of the reign of Ramesses the Great. The results are published in the Royal Astronomical Society journal Astronomy & Geophysics.

The biblical text in question comes from the Old Testament book of Joshua and has puzzled biblical scholars for centuries. It records that after Joshua led the people of Israel into Canaan -- a region of the ancient Near East that covered modern-day Israel and Palestine -- he prayed: "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."

"If these words are describing a real observation, then a major astronomical event was taking place -- the question for us to figure out is what the text actually means," said paper co-author Professor Sir Colin Humphreys from the University of Cambridge's Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, who is also interested in relating scientific knowledge to the Bible.

Colin Humphreys and Graeme Waddington. 'Solar eclipse of 1207 BC helps to date pharaohs.' Astronomy & Geophysics (2017). DOI: 10.1093/astrogeo/atx178.


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  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday October 31 2017, @02:27AM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday October 31 2017, @02:27AM (#589831)

    I checked the Wikipedia entry on Joshua, and this bit stood out to me:

    The prevailing scholarly view is that Joshua is not a factual account of historical events.[19] The apparent setting of Joshua is the 13th century BCE,[19] a time of widespread city-destruction, but with a few exceptions (Hazor, Lachish) the destroyed cities are not the ones the Bible associates with Joshua, and the ones it does associate with him show little or no sign of even being occupied at the time.[20]

    So, not terribly accurate there then, also this from the Old Testament entry:

    The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors[4] produced over a period of centuries. In the most accepted hypothesis, the canon formed in stages, first the Pentateuch by around 400 BC, then the Prophets during the Hasmonean dynasty (140-116 BC), and finally the remaining books.[5][6]

    So, if Joshua is the oldest book of the old testament, it is still at least 800 years removed from its subject.

    Lets just stop trying to tie the bible to historical events shall we? There are so many better ways to do history.

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