When scientists look at the Bible or ancient texts like it, they are always trying to quantify its stories into historical fact, often from a perspective that mainstream science finds acceptable.

Using the technique of trying to match an eclipse to the biblical Israelite conquest of Canaan, scientists are claiming that Joshua’s victory in seizing a part of Canaan was referencing an eclipse that occurred on October 30, 1207 BC.

The biblical passage reads:

“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,” Joshua prayed.

Of course scientists took it literally, and it was pointed out that the Sun cannot just stop in the sky. Several centuries ago, religious authorities allegedly claimed the Sun moved around the Earth, to oppose Copernicus in a debate about the nature of our Solar System.

Professor Sir Colin Humphreys of the University of Cambridge claims that the original Hebrew text may have meant the Sun stopped shining, not moving. Is that a stretch? If it’s not a stretch, that could be considered a solar eclipse.

In Astronomy and Geophysics, the professor noted that the ancient people drew no apparent distinction between total eclipses and annular eclipses, an annular one of course being a yearly, more subtle occurrence.

On October 30, 1207 BC, the annular eclipse happened to occur directly over the Middle East.

According to IFL Science:

“Humphreys links the eclipse to Egyptian chronology through a famous inscribed granite block, which refers to the Pharaoh Merneptah having conducted a military campaign in Canaan, including a victory over the Israelites. This is considered to establish their presence there by that time. Humphreys explained to IFLScience he regards another Biblical verse as indicating Joshua’s victory roughly coincided with an intervention from Egypt. He thinks this was Merneptah’s campaign, dating his reign and therefore that of his immediate predecessor, Ramesses the great.

Humphreys’ conclusions are certainly open to questioning, even if the passage does refer to an eclipse. For one thing, calculating eclipses prior to 1000 BC is considered questionable, as slight changes to the Earth’s rotation could throw things out.”

Scientists interpret the bible this way, but other independent researchers and spiritual thinkers interpret it a completely different way. Others (who don’t have to be Christian or any particular religion) believe the Bible contains coded information, about the nature of life, mathematics, and more.

The Septenary Cipher is a system of numerology that is encoded into the English alphabet. The Freemasonic “G” equals 7 in this cipher, and when you use it to translate parts of the Bible, it seems as if the Bible is laced with messages about the mathematics of life and the nature of existence.

These fascinating, deeper level insights about the encoded messages in the Bible are regularly explored by researcher Marty Leeds, on his YouTube channel MartyLeeds33.

Here is a video he made. For more interesting insights on the codes of the bible, find his YouTube channel here.