Joshua make use of the expression to stop the Moon? Surely the Sun gave light enough without the Moon! I suppose nobody is so weak now as to take these texts to the letter.
The system of Shem was that of 608 years to a Neros, and when Joshua is said to have stopped the Sun and Moon, he dropped the use of the 608 and adopted the 600. He corrected the Calendar, as Cæsar did in a later day. In all these calculations I look upon the first books of Genesis as Hindoo works, and, for reasons which will hereafter be given upon the Mosaic and Hindoo systems, in their foundations or principles the same. The Mosaic has been shewn to be the same as the Persian, and Sir William Jones has shewn that the old Persian was the same as the Hindoo, which is also proved, by the Desatir of Moshani.
It is admitted that the Neros could not have been invented without a very great degree of astronomical knowledge, or till after very long and correctly recorded astronomical observations. As I have stated, the great Neros was probably the cycle before their increased knowledge enabled them to bring it to perfection, and was carried very early to the West, and is thus found with the Etruscans.
The cycles would require correcting again after several revolutions, and we find Isaiah making the shadow go back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz.[1] This would mean nothing but a second correction of the Neros, or a correction of some cycle of a planetary body, to make it agree with some other.
In the annals of China, in fact of the Chinese Buddhists, in the reign of the Emperor Yau, (a very striking name, being the name of the God of the Jews,) it is said, that the sun was stopped ten days, that is, probably, ten degrees of Isaiah,[2] a degree answering to a year, 360 degrees and 360 days.
As might well be expected, when Joshua stopped the sun it was observed in India, Mr. Franklin says, “1575 years before Christ, after the death of Cristna (Boodh the son of Deirca), the sun stood still to hear the pious ejaculations of Arjoon. This is the great leader of the Jews—Moses.”[3]
The author of the Cambridge Key says, that in the text of the Bible the sun is said to stand still in A. M. 1451, the year in which Moses died. This is the Cali year 1651, in which the sun stood still to hear the pious ejaculations of Arjoon for the death of Cristna.[4] The learned Jesuit Baldæus observes, that every part of the life of Cristna has a near resemblance to the history of Christ: and he goes on to shew that the time when the miracles are supposed to have been performed was during the Dwaparajug, which he admits to have ended 3100 years before the Christian æra.[5] So that, as the Cantab says, If there is meaning in words the Christian missionary implies that the history of Christ was founded on that of Crishnu.
After this, in p. 226, Cantab goes on to shew, that it is almost impossible to doubt that the history of Cristna was written long prior to the time of Christ. The same mythos is evident, in all these widely-separated nations. Its full meaning, I have no doubt, will be some day discovered.
The Cali Yug is fixed to about the year 3100 before Christ, in the middle of the ninth century, by Albumazar, a famous Arabian astronomer, who lived at the court of the celebrated Al-Mamun at Balkh.[6] This alone proves that the Hindoo periods are not of modern invention, and is of itself enough to refute all Mr. Bentley’s arguments which have been used, and have for their foundation solely his assertion, that the astronomical calculations were forged for the purpose of deceiving Mahmood Akbar in the 16th century. George of Trebizond, who died about 1448, says, that the
