— NASA Proves Bible Truth
An email that is being circulated has said that NASA (The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has discovered an evidence of the bible truth and have been able to piece together the puzzle of the missing day when Joshua made the sun stand still for about the space of a day.
According to the story, Mr. Harold Hill, President of the Curtis engine Company in Baltimore, and a consultant in the space programmes, relates the following incident.Astronauts and space scientists at NASA, Green Belt, Maryland were plotting the positions of the Sun, Moon, and other planets 100 years from now, and 1,000 years from now, in order to calculate spacecraft trajectories.
“We have to know this as we do not want a satellite to collide with any of these in its orbits. We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite and where the planets will be so the whole project will not bog down.”
Computer measurements and data were run back and forth over the centuries when suddenly it came to a halt, displaying a red signal, which meant that either there was something wrong with the information fed into it, or with the results as compared to the standards. They called in the service department to check it out, and the technicians asked what was wrong. The scientists had discovered that somewhere in space in elapsed time a day was missing.
No one knew why the computers were acting the way they were, or how to fix them. However, one scientist on the team had gone to Sunday school when he was a child, and, from the teaching he had received there, he recalled a story from the Old Testament in which God had made the Sun stand still for a day, or thereabouts. The other NASA engineers — profound disbelievers in God and His Word — ridiculed him for even suggesting that such “information” might provide a solution to their problem. However, the scientist turned to Joshua 10, and read the story. The engineers then reworked the data being fed into the computers, adding in the “lost day” of Joshua, and the computers whirred along perfectly — almost. The computers stopped again because they had not discovered a whole day; something was still missing. Apparently, the computers found only 23 hours and 20 minutes. In other words, 40 minutes were still missing. But, the scientist who had suggested that they look in the Bible for the answer in the first place once again suggested what might be the answer to this conundrum. He remembered something else he had been taught. In II Kings 20, the biblical record says that King Hezekiah, upon being promised a cure from his illness and thus a longer life, had requested a sign from God. The text indicates that God made the Sun move backwards ten degrees. Ten degrees, said the scientist, would be exactly 40 minutes! And that provided the entire 24-hour day the computers needed. The Bible had the answer all along!
The story, although seem perfect and would excite the average Christian believers but some have argued against the authenticity of the story with hard facts. This could have been in a bid to kill the story with a well worked out strategy in order to suppress the religious conflict — especially as it has to do with the media and the society — that such a story can cause; or on the other hand, the story may be simply false.
One of the arguments says the story has been around for more than half-a-century; As a matter of fact, an earlier version of the story is traced back to 1936 when a certain Harry Rimmer, in his book, The Harmony of Science and Scripture, first published in 1936, Harry Rimmer devoted the entire last chapter to “Modern Science and the Long Day of Joshua.” Dr. Rimmer mentions two scientists — Sir Edwin Ball, a British astronomer, and C.A. Totten, a Yale professor from 1890. He credits Ball with being the first to notice that “twenty-four hours had been lost out of solar time.” Rimmer then asks the questions: “Where did that go, what was the cause of this strange lapse, and how did it happen” (p 280)? In his very next paragraph, he suggests: “There is a place, however, where the answer is found. And this place is attested by a scientist of standing. There is a book by Prof. C.A. Totten of Yale, written in 1890, which establishes the case beyond the shadow of a doubt” (p 281). Rimmer then presents what he calls a “summary” of Totten’s book where, he says, information is provided which proves exactly how the “lost” day from the biblical record was discovered. Rimmer even goes so far as to give the exact day and month on which Joshua’s battle was supposed to have been fought — Tuesday, July 22 (p 266)!
Observations shows that Dr. Rimmer specifically states that he intends to “quote from” Ball and Totten, yet none of the statements he offers is placed in quotation marks. Second, the 1890 book which Totten allegedly wrote is never named by Rimmer, which seems a bit odd, considering the fact that this topic was so important to Rimmer that he devoted an entire chapter to it in his own book. Third, no bibliographic references of any kind are provided by Rimmer to the works of either Ball or Totten — again, quite unusual, seeing as how Rimmer based his whole argument on the validity of their respective cases. Fourth, other writers have made serious efforts to determine the validity of Rimmer’s claims, as well as those of Ball and Totten, but with little success. For example, Bernard Ramm, in The Christian View of Science and Scripture, specifically mentions Rimmer’s viewpoint and his reference to Totten. Ramm’s conclusion concerning the “proof” supposedly provided by Rimmer and Totten was couched in well-chosen terminology. He observed, “This I have not been able to verify to my own satisfaction…. Dr. Kulp has tried to check this theory at Yale [Totten’s employer — BT] and in England [Sir Edwin Ball’s home — BT], and has found nothing to verify it” (1954, pp 109,117).
Another argument for a 1969 version of the story says; Harold Hill mentioned in the story above, was a real person and he was the president of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, Maryland.
Harold Hill apparently told the story without much notice until October 1969, when a columnist for a small American newspaper was told about one of his speeches and was given some notes about the Missing Day. She was so intrigued, that she wrote it up and it was published.
The columnist’s name was Mary Kathryn Bryan and her column on the Hill’s story of how NASA proves bible truth appeared in the Spencer Evening World in Spencer, Indiana.
According to the newspaper, the results of that particular column were ‘simply unbelievable’. They started receiving requests from all over the world for reprints of the article, and finally stopped counting when the number of inquiries passed 1,500. The total number of cards, letters and telephone calls is now in the thousands.
From that article, the Missing Day story that says found its way into untold numbers of magazines, newspapers, gospel tracts, books and now emails. Harold Hill himself included it in a Christian book which he wrote. The story has several problems, however.
One problem is that apart from Harold Hill, there is no known source for the NASA story. For many years, whenever anyone wrote to him about it, he sent a form letter which said he had misplaced the source of the information, but would send everybody a copy when he found it. The source never materialized. In his subsequent book, Hill dismissed all skepticism about the story and said that no substantiation was needed. His attitude was that if people believed it and it drew them to spiritual things, it was justified.
Another problem is that NASA has denied that Harold Hill was ever one of its consultants. James S. Lacy, from the Office of Public Relations for NASA, wrote in a letter to a journalist that the only trace they could find of a Harold Hill having any connection with NASA was a person who was involved in contracting for the operations and maintenance of some diesel engine operations.
Reason & Revelation, a monthly Journal on Christian evidences concluded; all efforts to confirm the genuineness of this story have failed. Its origin is dubious; the facts do not fit the actual truth of the matter; and those who were supposedly involved in the finding of the “lost” day of Joshua 10 know nothing about such events. Furthermore, anyone claiming that computers could somehow “find” a lost day fails to understand how computers work. The only conclusion that one can draw, respecting the facts, is that this story is false. That being the case, it should not be repeated. We do a disservice to God’s Word when we attempt to “defend” it with stories such as these which, with a bit of common sense and the tiniest bit of in-depth research, are easily shown to be without any factual foundation whatsoever. The Word of God can, and must, be defended. But let us make sure we do not defend it with a “broken sword.”
NASA Proves Bible Truth
– Sources: Truthorfiction, Naturalmedicinebox, Creation.com, Reason & Revelation
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