Saturday, August 13, 2011

Is the Bible Geocentric?

The answer to this question depends on the perspective you are looking at. If you mean that most of what goes on in the Bible happens on Earth then yes the Bible is geocentric. If you mean that the Earth is near the center of the Universe but still rotates and goes around the sun like in Russel Humphreys’ White Hole Cosmology then the Bible may be geocentric. However this is not what is usually meant by geocentric.

What is meant by geocentric is the idea that the Earth is motionless and the Entire universe rotates around it. Modern geocentrics generally use verse like the following.

Ecclesiastes 1, 5: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose."

Joshua 10: 13. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Isaiah 38:8. Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

What they fail to realize is that these verses are observational describing events as they are seen on Earth. So in sense the Bible is not geocentric. It is observational in its descriptions and thus not geocentric.

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