Without going into detail, we all know it would result in disaster. If that happened as read in Joshua 10:12-14, we wouldn't be here right now.
Joshua 10:12-14 New International Version (NIV)
12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel:
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!
12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel:
“Sun, stand still over Gibeon,
and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”
13 So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on[a] its enemies,
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!
There are a number of theories (the NASA missing day, an eclipse, different culture's reciting a similar event, poetic language). And of course each have their problems.
I don't actually see a real problem at all.
A friend of mine sometimes uses a term kairos (or kairos moment). The biblical meaning being
In Christian theology
In the New Testament, "kairos" means "the appointed time in the purpose of God," the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1:15: the kairos is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand).
I experienced something unusual upon my conversion. I was actually in the apartment I was living in, and for some reason I tried to convince myself that the Gospel is not true. I had been an agnostic all my life. I found that I could not do it. I didn't proclaim belief there, but decided to hike up a hill I often did for exercise at the edge of town. When I got to the top, it was there I made my proclamation of faith/belief. At about that point, my surrounding as I remember may have appeared brighter than usual, but more than that in the sky I saw a vision of Christ that lingered for quite awhile. I was filled with extreme joy. The hike up to the top of the hill was fairly long and steep enough to require utilizing a lot of energy. It would generally result in sweating, and feeling like you jogged something along the lines of a 10k. It seemed however that there was no effort in hiking back down. The hike up seemed effortless as well. The feeling was more like I floated. Time seemed insignificant.
But more than all of that, as adrenaline rushes can answer for something like that, the blissful feeling and the vision I had is what was particularly astounding. It was way out of the norm. I believe it was a kairos moment for me. A situation where an outside (of our dimension) agent (Jesus) intervened into my (created) world. And for those around me either on the trail or the nearby city, nothing unusual happened. God was able to limit the
kairos moment to myself.
To give a simplistic example, a fish in a human made fishbowl can only eat what is contained in it's small/confined world. Unless something from nothing (food) manifests, that fish will die if all that's in it's world is water, sand, and a seashell. So the fish needs an outside agent (of it's tiny world) to intervene by dropping fish food into the bowl. The fish doesn't doesn't know where the food came from. And if all that existed was it's tiny world,
there would be no avenue for obtaining food.
It's common for people to look for scientific evidence for events in the bible which is great (like the flood covering the earth in Genesis). In this case, I would like to steer the event recorded in Joshua to the event in the book of Luke where a mob attempted to throw Jesus off a cliff. As you may recall, it was not successful. As described, Jesus simply walked right through them. I've never heard any attempts to explain this one on natural terms. I can't even imagine what that would look like. I might call the event a kairos moment. An appointed time where God manipulated the environs of a
small location (the area of the cliff) that somehow allowed Jesus to walk through a mob that intended, and should have had the ability, to throw him off a cliff.
I would argue that the event in Joshua was a similar kairos moment. An appointed time where God intervened as an outside agent that affected those within a certain geographical location, like the fishbowl, my faith/belief conversion that only I experienced, Paul's incident on the road to Damascus that affected him and those following him, Jesus' cliff incident that affected him and the mob, and all those on the battlefield in the book of Joshua.
I believe these are instances where God somehow extends His timeless realm into ours allowing us to get a tiny glimpse of what his heaven/kingdom is like. I would go as far as to say everyone experiences a small taste of heaven on Christmas day. I don't think it's a coincidence many depictions of
Christmas in art consists of snow. The cheerful beautiful sight of white snow, a humble cabin, peacefulness, etc. It's a day where many are more generous than usual (although it should be that way everyday). It's a holiday where two opposing armies during WWI stopped fighting, and broke bread together. I don't know if that's the only time that has happened. But I think we have to admit that something like that is way out of the norm.