Psalm 119:89 Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
you have established the earth, and it stands fast. (ESV. See here for ESV copyright information. See here for the Blueletter Bible's display of how other versions treat verse 90.)
(See yesterday's post for a discussion of concordism.)
Few people would say that this passage means that the earth doesn't rotate on its axis, or revolve about the sun, or that the sun itself doesn't move as the galaxy rotates, in spite of the literal interpretation of verse 90, which seems to say all of those things. Presumably, the Psalmist wrote in accord with the science of the time, which didn't know as much about astronomy as we think we know now. The passage is poetic, not scientific, and it still speaks to us about God's sustaining power. God established the earth, and preserves it, wherever it may go through space.
Thanks for reading.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
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