Oh boy, we have news stories out there claiming that the bible contains A TRUE FACT. ONE TRUE FACT. FOR ONCE. WOW. SO WOW.
What is this amazing TRUE THING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED? An eclipse on 30 October 1207 BC.1)
They said the discovery helps explain text in the Old Testament book of Joshua that has puzzled biblical scholars for centuries.
The book states 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.”
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Except, if you think about this even briefly, it doesn't mean anything. Eclipses were known to ancients. Ancients moved around and talked to one another. They'd remember it happening for a long time, because not much was going on back then. Also, the book of Exodus is entirely fiction backed by zero archaeological evidence, therefore we can safely assume that Joshua leading people into Canaan is also fiction. You can't just come up with a random fact and hammer it into place to fit the what you want to find. Yet again, some nut with a press release getting coverage where it's not deserved at all.
Let's pick this shit apart even further. NASA, you know, employers of actual scientists, not so much “believe” that this eclipse happened in 1207 BC, as they did calculations to prove it happened in 1206 BC2). This is not the earliest that astronomers know about. It is also not the oldest that historians know about from written records. There are tablets from the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit which mention one 1223 BC (or 1375 BC, depending on your interpretation)3). You can rest assured that this slightly older eclipse had a dramatic effect on the local population. Back to 1206/07: this was an “ECLIPSE” in the loosest sense. It was an annular eclipse. There may have been dimming, and it would have been noticed, but it wouldn't have been taken nearly as seriously as a total eclipse. If you think you can date a specific biblical event with this, you're an idiot. They likely shoehorned the day of their battle to fit the astronomical event much later if they didn't just lie about it entirely.
This hasn't stopped people from doing their best to claim that the bible is true by merit of it mentioning astronomical events before4). Lots of effort has been pored into trying fit any eclipse onto the darkness said to follow the crucifixion of Jesus. You run into a lot of trouble with that one because nothing fits. November 24, 0029? Way the fuck north of Palestine. May 20, 0049? Annular and also way north of Palestine. April 30, 0059? Also too far north, but still about the best candidate, I mean, granted you don't care about the rest of biblical chronology.
All of this makes me sufficiently upset to go into the TRUE SCIENCE of the bible. People try so hard to make science bend to the bible, let's turn the tables a bit…
Why? Because the bible says it's real.
Not only is it real, it works. I can, according to the bible, cast spells on my neighbors, their livestock, and their goods, and they will work. I can cause pestilence by saying magic words. There is a mechanism by which this works, unknown to science. It is true though, because it's in the bible.
Furthermore, witchcraft won't necessarily yield bad results. If I were to practice necromancy and talk to the dead, they wouldn't necessarily tell me lies.
God just doesn't like witchcraft is all. He also doesn't like shellfish and certain fabrics, so I would take this prohibition about as seriously as your present-day religion takes it!
Unfortunately, despite a great deal of effort, I have yet been able to afflict my neighbor's livestock with disease. Why would this be the case? The best reasonable answer I can determine is that Christians and other nefarious monotheists of every stripe are publishing FAKE witchcraft manuals. I'm not sure why that's the case aside from the usual global conspiracy. Is it that witchcraft is more effect than worshiping a god? We may never know due to all of the false and misleading witchcraft manuals on the market…