A sufficiently large comet (or other wandering celestial body) flying close to the Earth could cause the rotation of the planet to malfunction and stones to fall on the slopes of Mount Biforon. This possibility was realized in 1883 by the eccentric American theorist Ignacio Donnelly . This idea lies at the heart of the arguments presented by the great catastropheist Immanuel Velikovsky in his first book, Worlds in Clash (1950), which his British publishers sensationally advertised as "a book about the day the sun stopped". The combination of stone rain and an obvious break in the rotation of the Earth formed the starting point of Velikovsky's reasoning:
"The author of Joshua's book certainly did not suspect the existence of a connection between these two phenomena. He could not possess any knowledge of the nature of the aeroliths (meteorites), the forces of attraction between the celestial bodies and other similar things. Since it is written in the text that these events occurred simultaneously, it is unlikely that they are a figment of the imagination.
It turns out that the story of Joshua's "long day" has analogies in the legends of other cultures of the Old World. For example, the Chinese chronicles say that a miracle occurred during the reign of Emperor Yao: "The sun did not move for ten days; the forests were lit up and many harmful creatures appeared.
A long day in one hemisphere, in Velikovsky's reasonable opinion, should have been a long night in another hemisphere. In the legends of the North American Indians, he found mention of an unnaturally long night when the world was full of misfortunes. The Mexican Aztecs kept a curious story about one morning, when the sun froze over the horizon and rose into the sky only a few hours later.
The reason for this global shock, according to Velikovsky, was a huge comet, which was very close to the Earth. It brought down a hail of meteorite debris from its tail and influenced the Earth's rotation with its gravitational or electromagnetic field.
When biblical fundamentalism and evolutionary theory converged face to face in court during the famous trial in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 (see Introduction to the section on "Mystification"), the problem of Joshua's "long day" was brought up for discussion again. Lawyer Clarence Darrow, who advocated teaching evolutionary theory in schools, asked his opponent, Jennings Brian, "Did you ever think about what would have happened to the Earth if it had stopped spinning? Brian replied, "The God I believe in would have taken care of this. Then Darrow exclaimed: "Did you know that the Earth would then turn into a mass of molten matter? Darrow's assertion was completely unfounded, but it was characteristic of popular "scientific" beliefs, which were also common in the 20th century - certain things are scientifically impossible simply because scientists say so.
Frank Edmondson, director of the Goethe Observatory (Indiana State University), was one of several scientists who raised such an objection:
"Velikovsky is not embarrassed by the fact that if the Earth had stopped, the power of inertia would have thrown Joshua and his companions into space at a rate of 900 miles per hour.
Edmondson's remark reveals an amazing lack of common sense in a professional astronomer. It is as if he had forgotten about such trifles as gravity, which keeps people (and everything else) on the surface of the planet.
However, Edmondson and other early Velikovsky's detractors overlooked the fact that he never claimed that the Earth's rotation had ever stopped. In fact, he offered two possibilities to create the illusion of a "long day": either the Earth's rotation temporarily slowed down or its axis suddenly turned - perhaps even 180 degrees. According to Carl Sagan's calculations, a gradual slowdown of the Earth's rotation (even to zero speed) can theoretically occur in less than one day without the mass death of its inhabitants.
Velikovsky also found it difficult to answer this question. He put forward a number of hypotheses, but rather in the form of theoretical sketches, as they were related to the electromagnetic interaction between the two planets in close proximity to each other - an event that has never been observed and hopefully will never happen, at least to our planet. According to Velikovsky's more general theory, electromagnetic forces are no less, if not more important for heavenly mechanics than gravity. This argument is rejected by most astronomers as biased and one-sided.