Since the downfall of Ptolemaic astronomy, the Bible’s geocentric language has been an embarrassment to believers. Unbelievers spin the Galileo affair into a grand struggle between science and religion while believers hesitantly defend the Bible as speaking in prescientific terms. But when understood correctly, geocentrism is a valid position and one which we all use. The key is to understand that the Bible speaks in terms of cycles, not orbits.
Genesis 1 says: 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
The earth’s diurnal cycle is the primary cycle of creation since it formed the “evening and morning” cycle of the days of Creation Week. It should not be surprising that the diurnal cycle has greater impact on life than the other cycles.
In addition to the earth two heavenly bodies were created that “rule over the day and the night” — the sun and the moon. The sun “rules” over the daylight portion of the diurnal cycle and the moon “rules” over the nighttime portion of the diurnal cycle. Seasons and years were also initiated during the fourth day of Creation Week. The monthly (lunar) and annual cycles are significant but secondary (“lessor”) to the diurnal cycle ruled by the sun (“greater). Geocentrism follows from this order of cycles: the diurnal spin of the earth comes first, then the monthly cycle of the earth-moon system, and then the annual cycle of earth-sun system.
Note that the calendar follows the same order: days first, then months of days, then years of months. That’s why we have leap days — there’s no whole number of days that exactly equals the period of a year. But you object — according to the way scientists speak, the annual cycle is primary and the diurnal cycle is secondary. The cycle with a longer period is more significant to them than the cycle with a shorter period. Heliocentrism must be true.
In fact these two perspectives can be interchanged — one prefers the diurnal cycle as primary and the other prefers the annual cycle as primary. Neither is more right or wrong than the other.
The reason astronomers take the longer period as primary is that astronomy (and science in general) is conceptualized synchronically, taking snapshots of space with time as the independent variable. The Bible was written diachronically, over a long time, looking at time along its axis rather than across it, as if space were an independent variable. There is wisdom in this long-term perspective.
It so happens that the Milky Way galaxy rotates, too, so what about that cycle? If longer periods are more significant than shorter ones, then the 225 million year galaxy rotation trumps annual and diurnal cycles. So heliocentrism is “wrong” and galactocentrism is “right”?
All orderings of these astronomical cycles are valid: it’s just a preference of what cycle is primary. Scientifically speaking, that is a subjective matter. Biblically speaking, the diurnal cycle is the primary cycle.
Oh, I forgot the weekly cycle. That’s in the Bible. Where is that in astronomy? Astronomers need a weekly rest, too.
April 2014