Cosmology

Abstract

This chapter introduces its subject by examining two early cosmological miracles, the standing of the sun at the command of Joshua in the Old Testament and the stilling of sunset and moonrise in the Islamic account by Joshua during the conquest of Jericho.The chapter then surveys and analyses in some depth two major cosmological miracles in the Christian and Islamic traditions:the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917 and the Splitting of the Moon in the Qur’an. Both miraculous events may be described as ‘proof-events’ designed to underline the truth of messages brought to three children at Fatima in Portugal by the Virgin Mary on the one hand, and by Muhammad to the people of Mecca on the other.