The sun does NOT revolve around the earth!

You may have thought that the title statement was unnecessary. So did I. But not so, I'm afraid.

It has come to my attention that there is a conference, planned for November of this year, which conference has an on-line flyer that begins thus: "Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right." Oh?

There are some scriptures that can be taken to indicate that the earth does not move in space, and everything moves around it. These include the story of Joshua's long day, and also Psalm 93:1 and 96:10, which say that the earth cannot be moved. (However, Psalm 99:1 says that it can be moved.) For a more complete list of Bible passages which have been taken to support Geocentrism, the idea that the sun revolves around the earth, see the Wikipedia article on Modern Geocentrism.

The Bible was written for people who believed that the earth was the center of the universe. It would have been strange, in the days when it was written, to proclaim that it wasn't, in the Psalms, or in other places. Many of the verses that say that the earth is fixed are poetic, and, hence, should be taken as literal only with great care. The rest of them can be taken to mean that the earth is fixed in its orbit around the sun, or as being written to be compatible with the scientific views of the day. When Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, God knew what Joshua wanted, and, somehow, made it happen. Joshua would never have said "Earth, please stop rotating!" He didn't know that it does rotate. (I don't claim to know what actually happened when Joshua prayed as he did. Something miraculous must have occurred.) Galileo, and, since his time, many other astronomers, have shown, by many kinds of evidence, that the earth is not the center of the solar system (or of the universe). The Catholic church, which, at one time, officially disagreed with Galileo, has come to accept that he was right about this. (See the Wikipedia on Galileo, and also here.)

One of the ways God reveals Himself to us is through nature. (See Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:20). Much of what we know about nature is through the findings of science. If scientific findings tell us that the earth is not the center of the solar system, we'd better take that seriously, even if the Bible seems not to agree. In this case, most Christians have come to see that there is not a real disagreement. Unfortunately, not all of them have.

Thanks for reading.