The legends of the Aztecs, who once lived in Central America, tell about an unusual natural phenomenon: about the time when the Sun and Moon stopped in the heavens and the whole world plunged into darkness.
“The deities, in order to save the Universe and all living creatures inhabiting it, then took to the Sun from bows, and the wind god Eekatl blew on the luminary with all his might so that it would continue its run across the firmament. After some time, they managed to move the frozen in place Sun and Moon and the world was saved.
This is what is told in an ancient legend, also reflected in the chronicle, from the words of an Indian priest, recorded by a 17th century missionary, Fernando de Montesinos. What is especially remarkable about it is that the specific date of the day when the Earth plunged into darkness is indicated. This happened in the third year of the reign of the Inca king Yupanqui Pachacuti II, or, more simply, around 1391 BC.
“There was no dawn on that day for twenty hours,” that is what the chronicle says.
It would seem that one could not take these legends seriously. You never know what the Indians, who generally had very specific views of the world, could have written. Only here, we have a similar natural phenomenon, moreover, which happened at about the same time, is also mentioned in the Bible. Many people believe it unconditionally, and the official science believes that there is more truth in biblical stories than fiction.
In any case, many of the biblical characters actually existed and most of the cities and settlements mentioned in one way or another in the Bible existed in the past or still exist. In a word, you simply cannot dismiss the biblical chronicles: these are not “fairy tales” of Indians practicing human sacrifice, but more than a serious work.
But what does the Bible say about the day when the sun stopped and only after a while resumed its movement in the firmament?
The Day the Sun Stood Still
One of the High Testament books says the following:
“On the day that the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”
Isn’t this description very similar to what is said in the Aztec legends?
Now let’s figure out the dates. Aztec and Inca legends tell of an unusual phenomenon that people observed around 1391 BC. As for the events described in the Bible, the American historian Zechariah Sitchin calculated that the Israeli invasion of Canaan took place around 1393 BC. It was followed by the fall of Jericho, and after that – the battle, during which Joshua allegedly stopped the sun and moon.
The dates calculated by the American historian from two independent sources, practically coincide, and this is a reason to think about the fact that once in the history of our planet there really was a day “when the sun stopped.”
But why could this happen? The first thing that comes to mind when you read about the darkness that enveloped the Earth is that ancient legends and chronicles tell about a solar eclipse. But what kind of eclipse of the Sun will last for almost a day?
Scientists suggested that if such an unusual natural phenomenon as the sun and moon frozen in the firmament really were, then this is due to the violation of the precessional motion of the axis of our planet. It was most likely caused by the close passage of a large comet, which, like all its “relatives”, was moving counter clockwise in its orbit, and therefore could somehow slow down the Earth’s rotation.
An indirect confirmation of this version is the fact that everything in the same book of Joshua was told that during the battle on the Canaanites from the heavens, large stones suddenly fell, killing more soldiers than the swords and spears of the Israelites. It is possible that these stones were the fragments of the cometary nucleus that hit the Earth.
Why are there many similarities in the sacred books? Is it because the description of celestial processes really took place at that time? Something global, a phenomenon that was observed by all the nationalities existing then on earth. Something was happening in space; asteroids, fragments, then a worldwide flood – just each religion, wrote it down in its own way, taking into account its folklore and characteristic features of ethnicity, communication or poetry.
It is also surprising that these two stories describe events from the point of view of the Ptolemaic system, where the earth is the center of the world and the sun moves around it.
So it is very possible that both the Bible and the ancient Aztec legend tell about the same thing. About an unusual natural phenomenon that happened more than three thousand years ago.
