The
Ptolemaic model of the solar system held sway into the early modern
age; from the late 16th century onward it was gradually replaced as the
consensus description by the heliocentric model. Geocentrism as a
separate religious belief, however, never completely died out. In the
United States between 1870 and 1920, for example, various members of the
Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod published articles disparaging
Copernican astronomy, and geocentrism was widely taught within the synod
during that period.[citation needed] However, in the 1902 Concordia
Theological Quarterly, Prof. A. L. Graebner claimed that the synod had
no doctrinal position on geocentrism, heliocentrism, or any scientific
model, unless it were to contradict Scripture. He stated that any
possible declarations of geocentrists within the synod did not set the
position of the church body as a whole.
The most recent resurgence
of geocentrism began in North America in 1967, when Dutch-Canadian
schoolmaster Walter van der Kamp (1913–1998) circulated a geocentric
paper entitled “The Heart of the Matter” to about 50 Christian
individuals and institutions. From these seeds grew the Tychonian
Society and its journal, Bulletin of the Tychonian Society.
In
1984 Van der Kamp retired as leader of the Tychonian Society and
Gerardus Bouw, an amateur cosmologist with a Ph.D. in Astronomy from
Case Western Reserve University and a B.S. in astrophysics from the
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) succeeded him. In 1991 Bouw
reorganized the Tychonian Society as the "Association for Biblical
Astronomy" and changed the name of the Bulletin to The Biblical
Astronomer.
Previous works include Bouw's earlier With Every Wind
of Doctrine (1984), Walter van der Kamp's De Labor Solis (1989), and
Marshall Hall's The Earth is Not Moving (1991). Other modern
geocentrists include Malcolm Bowden, James Hanson, Paul Ellwanger, R. G.
Elmendorf, Paula Haigh, and Robert Sungenis (president of Bellarmine
Theological Forum, author of the 2006 book Galileo Was Wrong).
Modern
geocentrists subscribe to the view that a literal reading of the Bible
contains an accurate account of the manner in which the universe was
created and requires a geocentric worldview. For this reason, modern
geocentrists are also creationists, many of whom actively promote
creationism in the creation-evolution controversy, and a few, such as
Hall even argue against modern views of celestial mechanics, although
most, particularly Bouw and Sungenis, use General Relativity against the
modern view. However, many creationists hold that while the Bible makes
explicit historical claims regarding the origin of the Earth and life
in the creation account in Genesis, it does not explicitly endorse
geocentrism. The most popular creationist societies (specifically
Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International and the Institute
for Creation Research) explicitly reject the absolute geocentric
perspective, and creationist journals such as TJ (now Journal of
Creation) have rejected modern geocentric articles in favor of
geokineticism (moving Earth). Geocentrists regard such groups as
compromisers.
Modern geocentrists believe that they are the true
standard-bearers for an appropriate integration of science and religion.
In particular, Gerardus Bouw has claimed "Invariably, those
[creationists] who do take more than a cursory look [at geocentricity]
become geocentrists". Many modern creationists disagree, including Ph.D.
astronomers such as Danny Faulkner.
Morris Berman quotes survey
results that show currently some 20% of the USA population believe that
the sun goes around the Earth (
geocentricism) rather than the Earth goes around the sun (heliocentricism), while a further 9% claimed not to know.
Biblical references
Modern
geocentrists point to some passages in the Bible, which, when taken
literally, indicate that the daily apparent motions of the Sun and the
Moon are due to their actual motions around the Earth rather than due to
the rotation of the Earth about its axis. One is Ecclesiastes 1:5:
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
Another is in Joshua 10:12–13, where the Sun and Moon are said to stop in the sky:
Then
spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the
Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of
Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley
of Ajalon. 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.
At this point, the Wycliffe Bible Commentary says:
"The
usual interpretation of the miracle described herein is that God
prolonged the daylight about a whole day (v. 13) to enable the
Israelites to complete their pursuit of the enemy. However, if the
sunlight was extended for ten, twelve, or more hours, so that the entire
ancient Near East could have observed the phenomenon – a more
spectacular miracle than the crossings of the Red Sea and the Jordan
River – then it seems strange that only one other reference to the event
(Hab. 3:11) is to be found in the OT ... What Joshua deemed necessary
for his pursuing troops, already tired from their all-night climb, was
relief from the merciless sun in the cloudless summer sky ... The true
explanation of this miracle, told in ancient, Oriental poetic style,
tends to confirm the idea that Joshua was looking for relief from the
sun. The word dom, translated stand thou still (v. 12b), means basically
'be dumb, silent, or still'; and then 'rest' or 'cease' from usual
activity ... Robert Dick Wilson demonstrated that the root dm in
Babylonian cuneiform astronomical texts meant 'to be darkened.' Thus the
sun is spoken of as 'dumb' when not shining ... Joshua 10:12–14 may
then be translated: 'Now Joshua spoke to Jehovah, in the day that
Jehovah gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel; and he said before
the eyes of Israel, "O sun, be dumb at Gibeon, and thou moon, in the
Valley of Ajalon." And the sun was dumb and the moon ceased (shining),
until the nation took vengeance on its enemies – Is it not written in
the Book of Jashar – For the sun ceased (shining) in the midst of the
sky, and (i.e., although) it did not hasten to set about a whole day.
And there was no day like that before it or after it, that Jehovah
hearkened to the voice of a man; for Jehovah was fighting for Israel.'"
One
may also note that miraculous contexts, such as this one and Hezekiah's
miracle (II Kings 20:10–11, Isaiah 38:8), overrode one or more of the
laws of physics and so would have nothing to say about geocentrism,
whose description supposedly relies on no overriding of the laws of
physics.
Psalm 104:5 (according to King James Version numbering):
[God] (w)ho laid the foundations of the Earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
A suggestion that the Earth is stationary (relative to Heaven) is Isaiah 66:1:
Thus saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool.
And another in I Chronicles 16:30
Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Creationists
ascribing to an inerrant, literal reading of the Bible such as those at
Institute for Creation Research would argue that interpreting the
descriptions of heavenly/spacial events as phenomenological rather than
strictly scientific or literal is important and so assert that it is
necessary to interpret the seemingly geocentric passages of the Bible as
phenomenological because it is easily demonstrable that the Bible
describes other heavenly events in similar language (the moon's light,
stars falling from heaven, etc.).
They also argue that the Bible
does not mix the phenomenological hermeneutic (or, interpreting the
passage as being merely a description of the observer's point of
reference) with the literal hermeneutic (or, interpreting the passage as
what the observer saw, but also what literally happened). However,
their critics would respond that Isaiah 13:10 does mix these two
hermeneutics.
For the stars of heaven and the constellations
thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his
going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
Critics
argue that this passage includes literal descriptions (the sun going
forth) as well as phenomenological descriptions (sun and stars darkened,
moon actually shining light).
Those who allow for
phenomenological descriptions can say that Amos 8:9 (“I will cause the
sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day”)
simply means that the day will be dark at noon. Yet the geocentrist must
hold that the sun literally doubles its orbit around the earth during
the Tribulation period. However, even this would not solve it, because
it says that the entire earth is dark. (See Amos 5:20—“Shall not the day
of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no
brightness in it?”)
Joel 2:2—“…a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness…”
Zeph 1:15—“That day is a day of…darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness…”
A
faster-spinning sun would only mean that periods of consecutive
daylight hours were shortened and would not plunge all the earth into
darkness. Micah 3:6 and Jeremiah 15:9 are similar:
...the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them."
...(Jerusalem's) sun is gone down while it was yet day..."
Yet
the sun dictates night and day. This clearly is both metaphorical and
phenomenological. Specifically, it is called Jerusalem's sun. This
refers to the daytime over Jerusalem specifically. Yet if the sun truly
did "go down while it was yet day", this would mean its orbit increased
in speed, even in a geocentric cosmology. The passage is therefore
interpreted as a metaphor for the arrival of darkness in the land.
Ezekiel
32:7–8 "And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and
make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the
moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I
make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord
GOD."
In this passage, the only literal language is the "darkness upon thy land".
Recently,
geocentrists have developed a new paradigm that God created the earth
first and the heavens later, making the Earth incomplete at first and
surrounding it with a "firmament" (a now-obsolete theoretical concept
comparable to "sky") before completing it. This relates to geocentrism
because it is claimed that God did not place the earth in the heavens,
but rather created the firmament around earth, putting it in the center
of the universe. However, not all geocentrists are in agreement on this
position. The leading proponent of modern geocentrism, Gerardus Bouw,
holds that planets and stars were created before the earth. Hence, the
heavens they are in must have been created prior to the creation of the
earth.
Geocentrists tend to be careless or sloppy with their
interpretations of passages, attempting to prove their own view of
Biblical cosmology without keeping passages in their intended
context.[neutrality is disputed] For example, geocentrists cite Psalm
119:90:
...thou hast established the earth, and it abideth (see also Ecclesiastes 1:4).
The
word "abideth" means "to stand", and geocentrists claim this further
proof of their position.
However, critics point out that the context of
this passage is about the Bible and its endurance. To claim this
discusses a stationary earth seems out of place in this passage. Also,
they would argue that the Hebrew word used here for established and
abideth is also used in other passages to refer to the sun, moon, stars,
and the heavens. For example:
Proverbs 3:19 says that the heavens
are "established". In fact, it compares the establishing of the heavens
to the founding of the earth.
God prepared the heavens in Proverbs 8:27;
The moon and stars are ordained in Psalm 8:3;
The day, the light and the sun are all established in Psalm 74:16; and
In
Psalm 148:6, the sun, moon, stars, and the heaven of heavens are all
established (this is the same word abideth, used in Psalm 119:90 to
refer to the earth).
Geocentrists take passages such as Psalm 96:10 to be geocentric:
the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved.
Some
geocentrists (such as Gerardus Bouw) identify Mercury and Venus as the
"morning stars" of Job 38:7 and the "wandering stars" of Jude 14 as
references to planets. Given that these are planets, then they only
appear to be stars.
Finally, the movement of the Holy Spirit
during Day One of Creation is not orbital movement. It is translated as
"hovered over" in most modern Bible versions and the words "moved upon"
is translated as "fluttereth over" (Deuteronomy 32:11) and "shake"
(Jeremiah 23:9) in the King James Version. This would seem to support
heliocentricity rather than geocentricity, since it gives the image of a
stationary Holy Spirit hovering above the earth. If the Spirit was
shining light on earth, then the earth must be moving in order to create
day and night, a point argued by Dr. Robert McCabe at Detroit Baptist
Theological Seminary