Does the Bible teach that the sun rotates around the earth?
Question:
In school, I learned that the Earth rotated around the sun. Now in our church, we are taught that the earth stands still. Do you have an opinion on this?
Answer:
Yes, my opinion is that you need to find a true church.
Long before Einstein came up with his theory of relativity, people have always expressed information relative to where they are. Thus I can tell you that the grocery store is six blocks to the east. You understand that I'm stating that relative to my current position and not to where I will be tomorrow or where you happen to be at the moment. When we state that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, we are expressing how it appears to us relative to our current position. The fact that we are on a twirling ball orbiting the sun, which in turn is orbiting a galaxy, isn't important to the description because we speak relative to our current position.
Therefore, when descriptions are read in the Bible, we must continue to read them as everyone has done for centuries, seeing them as relative to the one writing the description. Just because the weather station tells me that sunrise was at 5:42 am, I don't conclude that the weather scientists are geocentrists. For the same reason, I don't conclude that the Bible teaches a geocentric view of the universe.
