SUN
Astro of the day. God created it (Gen. 1:16; Ps. 74:16; 136:8), maintains it and directs it (Jer. 31:35; Mt. 5:45; Ps. 104:19). Vegetation grows, but it also withers under the heat of the sun (Deut. 33:14; 2 Sam. 23:4; Jon. 4:8).
The Bible says that the sun rises, sets, and travels along its course in the heavens (Ps. 19:4-6). These expressions are still used today.
It has been tried to show as an argument against the Scriptures that they present the sun as moving in relation to the earth. However, this position is, from the point of view of cosmology itself, unsustainable.
Based on mechanics, all the movements of the universe are mutually relative, and the reference point taken as fixed to measure the movements of all other objects with respect to this point is totally arbitrary from the point of view of physics. .
This is due to the failure in the attempt to prove an absolute Newtonian space and, therefore, an absolute movement with respect to this space.
Modern conceptions of Relativity also assume the arbitrariness of the choice of the point of rest, with respect to which the equations of the motions of other objects can then be derived.
Thus, the earth can be taken, like the sun, like the moon, like any celestial object, from a physical-cosmological point of view, as the center of movements of the entire universe, each of these points being, in the words of Sir Fred Hoyle, “no better or worse than the others.”
The Scriptures compare premature death, the sudden loss of possessions, to the setting of the sun at noon (Jer. 15:9; Am. 8:9; Mi. 3:6).
The pagan peoples contemporary with the Hebrews worshiped the sun, in particular the Babylonians in Sippar and Larsa (or Samas) and the Egyptians under the invocation of Ra, in On (cf. Bet-shemes, “house of the sun”, or Heliopolis , “city of the sun”, other names given to On, Jer. 43:13; Gen. 41:45). (See PAGAN DIVINITIES, EGYPT, d.)
The prophets warned the Israelites against all these forms of paganism, but the solar cult nevertheless gained followers among them (cf. QUMRÁN [MANUSCRIPTS OF], f).
The apostate Israelites erected altars to the army of heaven (2 Kings 21:5), offered incense to the sun, and dedicated horses to it (2 Kings 23:5, 11; cf. the Persian cult, Herodotus 1:189; 7: 54). The idolaters sent kisses to the stars, throwing them with their hands (Jb. 31:26-27).
For the stopping of the sun over Gibeon, see JOSHUA (BOOK OF); see also SUNDIAL.
The Hebrew term. “hammãnîm” has been translated “images” (or columns, stelae) consecrated to the sun (Lev. 26:30; 2 Chr. 14:5; 34:4; 7; Is. 17:8; 27:9; Ez. 6:4, 6).
But in Palmyra an altar has been discovered that bore a name related to Heb. “hammãnîm.” Thus, the “images” or “columns” dedicated to the sun could rather have been altars where incense was burned (cf. Hos. 4:13).
Similar altars were found in Megiddo, prior to the 10th century BC, and which were used for the cult of Baal.