{"id":53693,"date":"2019-04-14T21:31:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T18:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=53693"},"modified":"2022-11-06T16:27:31","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T14:27:31","slug":"mystery-meets-mastery-the-science-of-miracles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/mystery-meets-mastery-the-science-of-miracles\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Meets Mastery: The Science Of Miracles"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[444,471,756],"acf":{"old_id":"53693","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":53650,"related_cahpter":"197","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Moments of majesty, not the suspension of natural law","content":"

Biblical miracles are hard to explain scientifically. Indeed, a miracle, almost by definition, defies natural explanation. The splitting of the sea, manna from Heaven, the oil lasting eight days — these are the stories that form the foundation of Judaism…and are deeply problematic for rational, scientifically-minded people. Perhaps the most challenging is Joshua\u2019s commanding the sun and the moon to \u201cstand still\u201d in chapter 10, verses 12-13.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet perhaps we\u2019re asking the wrong questions. \u201cHow can we accept this violation of the natural law?\u201d would force us to either reject the Biblical account entirely or ignore scientific fact. Instead, let\u2019s think about both what a \u201cmiracle\u201d is, and a better understanding of the event described.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Hebrew word for <\/span>nes<\/span><\/i>, miracle, really means a sign, something that engenders awe and wonder. That\u2019s why we talk about \u201cthe miracle of birth\u201d or, in our daily liturgy, the <\/span>nisim b\u2019chol yom<\/span><\/i>, the \u201cmiracles of the every day\u201d which include getting dressed and walking. These \u201cmiracles\u201d don\u2019t suspend the laws of nature; they have easy and clear scientific explanations. Rather, they are designed to help us feel a deeper sense of majesty and gratitude. So let\u2019s start by assuming that this \u201cmiracle\u201d wasn\u2019t something that went against science, but rather, a moment that felt majestic or inspiring.<\/span><\/p>\n

If so, then a discovery in 2017 can also help us understand Joshua causing the sun to \u201cstand still.\u201d Using records from Egyptian records and astronomical data, in addition to Biblical sources, it seems that there was an annular eclipse in the Near East on October 30, 1207 BCE. As Colin Humphreys, one of the authors of the paper outlining this finding<\/span> notes<\/span><\/a> that:<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern English translations, which follow the King James translation of 1611, usually interpret this text to mean that the sun and moon stopped moving…But going back to the original Hebrew text, we determined that an alternative meaning could be that the sun and moon just stopped doing what they normally do: they stopped shining.<\/span><\/p>\n

So rather than trying to shoehorn science into a Biblical text, and try to read it in a way that was never intended, we can start with the <\/span>science <\/span><\/i>to help us better understand how and why the Biblical writers told this story.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all, the Bible had no sense of history or science as we understand them as disciplines today, and they didn\u2019t have the technology to understand how and why the world works the way it does. And to me, our human ability to combine linguistics, astronomy and history to help us understand our past is just as much of a miracle as what Joshua performed.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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