[meteorite-list] Ensisheim: What is the TRUE FALL DATE??

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 15:48:35 -0600
Message-ID: <055901c869d3$31b3c4e0$a12f4842_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Francis, Darren, List,

    The problem with arbitrarily assigning dates pre- and
post-1582 is that, while it works for you, others do not
necessarily do it, nor do you have any way of knowing
whether they do it. And contemporary sources did not
do it all, as the date of the acceptance of the Gregorian
calendar varies by centuries from one country to another,
and each country keeps its history according the calendar
in use, even after the change. In English, writers started
out adding "(Old Style)" to dates, then dropped the usage
in fifty years or so. Not a big help.

    Complicating the problem is that the year did not
"begin" on January 1st; it began on March 25th most
places and other dates in other places or in other times.
So, January 1st is part of the "previous" year. In colonial
America (and England) March 24, 1704 is the day before
March 25, 1705, not one year earlier. I said it was messy.
Sorting out historical chronology is horrendous; Isaac
Newton spent far more effort working out a correct
historical chronology than he did on the comparatively
trivial problem of gravity.

    Take a look at my long and colossally boring post
to the List on November 18, 2007 for the top level of
the calendrical mess.

    Now...

    Wading into real trouble, I'd like to point out first that it
is absurd to assert that everything in a source ("The Bible")
must be true for anything in that source to be true, or that
one error in a source means that everything in that source
is an error.

    Secondly, while the text asserts the fall of "great stones"
and "hailstones" as direct narrative, the solar standstill is
not directly asserted but is quoted from another source as
an defensive attribution ("Is not this written in the book of
Jasher?"). Anybody got a copy of the Book of Jasher?
Me neither. (I must have loaned mine out.)

    Thirdly, even the narrative hedges the time; it says "about
a whole day." Fourthly, without the movement of the Sun,
how do you know a day has passed? Figure Joshua and his
boys brought their Timex's out of Egypt's Land? The passage
of time is a subjective judgment under these circumstances.
What are the circumstances?

    Well, you're an Amorite, trapped in an ambush, being
slaughtered to the last man. Or, you're an Israelite who's spent
all of last night on a forced march, has chased the retreating
Amorites for miles, running on foot, and is now busy hacking
hundreds of trapped panicky guys to death with a dull bronze
sword; it's hard sweaty work.

    Either way, I figure that, as far as you're concerned, this is
a Day That Will Not End, or it sure as heck seems like it. Find
somebody who's been in a 22-hour firefight and ask'em, but
I'm fairly certain that time basically stands still.

    Lastly, I don't see the dual reference to "great stones"
and "hailstones" as ambiguous. Fresh falls are often observed
with a "rind" of frost. I tuck that datum into a folder labeled
"If it wasn't for real bad luck, the Amorites wouldn't have
no luck at all."

    Besides being a crackerjack general and a master of the
nighttime ambush, Joshua was very skilled in psychological
warfare, as the Jericho story demonstrates: a days-long exhibition
of sympathetic ritual magic designed to utterly freak out the
enemy.

    It goes on for days to wear down and exhaust the sleepless
defenders with continual alert status, because the Jerichoans
already know that Joshua is a sneaky bastard who likes those
night attacks. It gives the defenders lots of time to worry
about what Joshua's going to do, destroying their own morale
in the process.

    It is also a gimme that Joshua's orders to his men to kill
every living thing inside the walls gets "leaked" to the city
and cooks up a week's worth of panic in the populace
and the soldiery. The popular panic probably diverts forces
back into the city to control the citizens, thus diminishing
the forces available for direct defense. See, I said Joshua
was sneaky; no better quality in a general.

    If the "wall" is a temporary palisade manned by long-
pikes-men (which is what I would use against foot soldiers
equipped largely with nothing but short-swords), then a panic
and retreat of the defenders would result in the wall "falling
down flat." Please note that the walls do not, in the words
the song, "tumble" down as a fortification wall would and
as wild-eyed inventive literalists who write their own Bible
envision. Only a thin, light, and poorly supported wall
"falls down flat" (Joshua 6:20).

    Taken by categories, the Bible's geography is excellent,
pinpoint. Explanation of military tactics is superb, if you
think like a murderous and devious Bronze Age warlord.
Large scale history? pure political propaganda. Small scale
history? Many tiny verisimilitudes that sound like witness
reports. Storytelling? Sweeping and pretty good even for
propaganda. Cosmology? Virtually none compared to the
contemporary books of other cultures in the area and is
obviously a second thought. The Bible is a practical book;
cosmology is not practical. Religion?

    Religion? What? There's religion in the Bible? Where?
Calm down. I'm just kidding. Just. Kidding. It is surprising
how little there is, though. What have I learned about the
Nature of God? Hmmm. He's touchy. I get that. You don't
want to get on His bad side. Let me think... He doesn't like
shrimp. Pretty sure of that. Didn't He make shrimp?


    To save the look-up for those inclined to look up, here's
the relevant verses, Joshua 10 : 9-14.

9 Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly,
and went up from Gilgal all night.

10 And the LORD discomfited them before
Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at
Gibeon, and chased them along the way that
goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to
Azekah, and unto Makkedah.

11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before
Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron,
that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven
upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were
more which died with hailstones than they whom
the children of Israel slew with the sword.

12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when
the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the
children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon,
in the valley of Ajalon.

13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,
until the people had avenged themselves upon their
enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher?
So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and
hasted not to go down about a whole day.

14 And there was no day like that before it or after it,
that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man:
for the LORD fought for Israel.


    My impulse for this suicidal post is finished. I wish
I was in Tucson.



Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Ensisheim: What is the TRUE FALL DATE??


On Thu, 7 Feb 2008 06:46:58 -0800 (PST), you wrote:

>Dear List,
> I do not know if this is a universally adopted
>rule, even among scientists, but I have adopted the
>following rule: dates before the Gregorian reform of
>1582 are to be stated in the Julian system, dates
>after the reform are to be stated in the Gregorian
>System.

> NASA adopts this rule as well.

And, of course, NASA has to also account for the missing day.

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=%22missing+day%22

(Of course, people who believe in science reject the "missing day" in Joshua
as
silly-- but some of those same people accept from the same book (Joshua) the
story of "stones from heaven sent to smite the Israelites enemy" because
that
bit of literature can be intepreted in a modern sense to mean meteorites-- I
tend to think that if the "stopped sun" in Joshua is bunk, the "space rocks"
are
bunk, too.)
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Received on Thu 07 Feb 2008 04:48:35 PM PST