Does the Sun Move According to the Bible?

fzappa13

Well-known member
For this thread, I was trying to keep it on the motion of the sun. Geocentrism and heliocentrism are rather large subjects.

One of which would seem to be applicable but, if it gives you gas, by all means ignore it and I won't trouble you further.
 

dialm

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Gravity does not have anything to do with the sun revolving around the moon. It is the dynamic relationship between angels and demons. What happens is simple

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
 

Lon

Well-known member
"Pedantic" is right. But neither article addresses whether or not the Bible claims that the sun moves in relation to the earth. To be more explicit, the Bible seems to be saying that the movement of the sun causes night and day. See the verses in the OP.


Whatever fixed position you are in, the other is revolving around you by observation. Almost all rotations are described from specific perspective, and so the scripture perspective is fine.
 

CabinetMaker

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From the point of view of an unqualified observer on Earth, the motion of the sun described in the Bible is correct while the motion of Mars is inexplicable.

From the point of view of a qualified observer on earth, the motion if the sun described in the Bible is a reasonable description of motion seen from Earth and the motion of Mars is fully explained.
 

dialm

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The entire creation is moving at the speed of light. When scientists observe and measure planet movement they are measuring movement with in the chamber called the universe. But the entire universe is moving and scientists can't measure outside the box. As soon as mankind figures out a particular branch of science a new branch emerges.

What is really happening is that mankind including science is blinded by Satan. Satan has polluted all the Angels. This is why the entirety of creation is going to be destroyed.
 

oatmeal

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The idea of the the sun standing still in the sky seems so well established that the idea of questioning this notion seems laughable. Absurd. Utterly ridiculous and stupid. After all, the scientists say the sun is sitting there with the earth flying around it at about 67,000 miles per hour. They taught this fact to us in school. It must be true. But how do you know it is true?

You look into the sky, and throughout the day, the sun appears to move. You see the sun moving. You don't see or feel yourself moving. You were never in space to look down at earth and see it move around the sun. Yet you believe the sun is still.

What does this have to do with the Bible?

Most Christians on TOL, and most I know personally, reject the theory of evolution. They claim it is unbiblical. Most claim that is any self-described Christian accepts evolution, they simply aren't believing what the Bible clearly states. Yet they accept the heliocentric model without a second thought, even though the Bible clearly teaches that the sun moves around the earth.

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 13:9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 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.

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.

Habakkuk 3:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

So how are we to be Biblical literalists when it comes to evolutionary theory, but dismiss the above scriptures as symbology or metaphors? Why should I not believe exactly what the Bible says? Should I fear ridicule from the same people who believe that nothing exploded and turned into everything all by itself billions of years ago?

Have you ever heard of the concept of "relativity"?

Observations in science are relative to the point of observation.

If you are looking up at the belly of an elephant, it looks different than if you have only a frontal look at it, hence the fable of the five blind men giving their perception of the animal.

From the point of view of the earth, a legitimate and scientifically valid place to observe astronomical activity, the scripture is right.

From our perspective, the sun does move in the sky or stands still in the sky.

As a witness in a court of law, for you to witness about anything but what you are qualified to witness about, would be called hearsay, which is not admissible in most cases.

They want to know what you saw, what you heard, what you experienced from your point of view, not your imaginations of what someone else's point of view might be.

The scriptural description is 100% valid and true
 

User Name

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Psalm 19:4-6
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other...​
 

6days

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The point is, does the Bible say the sun moves in relation to the earth?
It does not.
Anyone who claims they seen a sunrise..... and then tries argue that the Bible says the sun moves in relation to the earth is disingenuous.
 

Ben Masada

New member
The idea of the the sun standing still in the sky seems so well established that the idea of questioning this notion seems laughable. Absurd. Utterly ridiculous and stupid. After all, the scientists say the sun is sitting there with the earth flying around it at about 67,000 miles per hour. They taught this fact to us in school. It must be true. But how do you know it is true?

You look into the sky, and throughout the day, the sun appears to move. You see the sun moving. You don't see or feel yourself moving. You were never in space to look down at earth and see it move around the sun. Yet you believe the sun is still.

What does this have to do with the Bible?

A lot, if you can distinguish between the literal and the allegory. There are a few allegories to explain the power of HaShem in the Bible aka the Tanach. This allegory of Joshua is meant to show that the Lord, not only caused the universe to exist but also that He is on the control of the laws of Nature.

Many who do not understand the role of allegories, parables and analogies can even become atheists for lack of understanding of the symbols. For instance, the sun and the moon in the sky mean powers to-be at their rise. In the case of the sun and the moon coming to a stop, mean loss of power and the decadence of kingdoms.

Joshua was in war with 5 Canaanite powerful nations which were giving him and to the armies of Israel a very hard time to succeed. Having been a very successful Army commander, Joshua commanded that the Israelites advanced and tried harder to get the best of them. The 5 kings of the Canaanites were being chased by the Israelites and, passing by a famous cave called the Cave of Makkedah, the 5 kings, all as if they were one entered the cave to hide themselves and the chasing was stopping and causing a pause in the war as if the armies of the enemies had giving up the fight. Later, much later, when the case was reported for the records, the text was embellished in the allegory as if the sun and the moon which represented the power of the 5 kings had stopped in the sky while the Israelite Army proceeded with the chasing. As Joshua was reported that the enemy kings were hiding in the very interior of the Cave of Makkedah, he commanded that stones be rolled to the entrance of the Cave till all the battle was finished. Then, Joshua ordered the chasing to proceed till the battle was over. It was then that Joshua commanded that the 5 kings be taken out of the Cave and be hanged from 5 trees.

The whole allegory is recorded to this day as if the sun and the moon, the power of the 5 kings had come down. The whole allegory starts with Joshua 10 and is dealt with down to the next 26 verses.
 
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Ben Masada

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Psalm 19:4-6
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other...​

If you ask men, that sounds like another allegory to describe the expansion of the universe.
 

Clete

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The idea of the the sun standing still in the sky seems so well established that the idea of questioning this notion seems laughable. Absurd. Utterly ridiculous and stupid. After all, the scientists say the sun is sitting there with the earth flying around it at about 67,000 miles per hour. They taught this fact to us in school. It must be true. But how do you know it is true?

You look into the sky, and throughout the day, the sun appears to move. You see the sun moving. You don't see or feel yourself moving. You were never in space to look down at earth and see it move around the sun. Yet you believe the sun is still.

What does this have to do with the Bible?

Most Christians on TOL, and most I know personally, reject the theory of evolution. They claim it is unbiblical. Most claim that is any self-described Christian accepts evolution, they simply aren't believing what the Bible clearly states. Yet they accept the heliocentric model without a second thought, even though the Bible clearly teaches that the sun moves around the earth.

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 13:9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 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.

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.

Habakkuk 3:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

So how are we to be Biblical literalists when it comes to evolutionary theory, but dismiss the above scriptures as symbology or metaphors? Why should I not believe exactly what the Bible says? Should I fear ridicule from the same people who believe that nothing exploded and turned into everything all by itself billions of years ago?

It isn't just the sun, its the stars and the planets and all the galaxies. Are you seriously suggesting that because of your handful of verses you are prepared to believe that the whole of the cosmos revolves around the Earth in such a way as to make it look exactly as it would if the Sun were the center of our solar system? Imagine for a moment the complex paths the planets, their many moons, the asteroids and comets would all have to navigate in order to pull such an illusion off. An illusion that you would have to believe that God is orchestrating in just such a way as to be very precisely predictable by us but only if we got it entire wrong and thought that the Sun was at the center of the system.

That by itself is enough to prove your idea false but there's lots more, not the least of which is that lots of really brilliant, Christian men believed strongly in a geocentric model of the universe and nothing they could do made their models agree with observations.

Then there is Newton whose theory of gravity says the planets should have elliptical orbits, a theory that is developed independently of Kepler's proposal of the same idea of elliptical orbits - around the Sun and that agrees extremely well with observations.

Further, both Mercury and Venus have phases, like our moon, which cannot be explained unless they revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of the Earth around the same Sun.

Finally, below is a picture of the orbit around the sun of a space probe called Ulysses 2 which was sent first to Jupiter which was used to gravitationally swing the probe out of the orbital plane of the rest of the solar system so as to get into position to take images of the solar poles. This could not have been accomplished if we didn't understand how things move around in the solar system. A very accurate understanding of the masses of the probe, the Earth, Jupiter and the Sun itself as well as an extremely accurate understanding of just how gravity effects each of these bodies would just be the beginning of the knowledge required even plan such a scientific endeavor, never mind actually pulling it off. The image below is of Ulysses 2's SECOND orbit around the Sun.

View attachment 21279

One could write an entire book on this subject, as has already been done many times by many different authors. The fact is that the Earth does actually orbit the Sun - period.

Now, as for you verses...
None of them teach that the Sun orbits the Earth. They do teach that God has the ability to halt and even reverse the spin of the Earth on its axis, which has exactly nothing to do with the subject of geocentric vs solarcentric models of the solar system. And that's a really good thing Daniel, because if the bible actually did teach that the Sun goes around the Earth, that teaching would prove - PROVE - that the bible is not divinely inspired. The foundation of both Judaism and Christianity would be seriously, if not fatally, compromised.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Clete

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the sun does move but the earth does not influence the sun

This isn't quite true.

The Sun and Earth revolve around a common center of gravity and so the Earth (and every other body that orbits the Sun) introduces a "wobble" in Sun. The mass of the Earth is not nearly large enough in relation to the Sun's mass to introduce a wobble that is significant but it is nevertheless present. The center of gravity between two orbiting bodies is called the barycenter. The Sun-Earth barycenter happens to be approximately 449km from the center of the Sun.
 

Daniel1769

New member
It does not.
Anyone who claims they seen a sunrise..... and then tries argue that the Bible says the sun moves in relation to the earth is disingenuous.

The Bible described the sun standing still in Joshua. Not the earth standing still so that it looked like the sun stood still. It says the sun moved backward 10 degrees in it's "going forth." Not that the earth moved back 10 degrees in it's going forth. The Bible seems to state quite explicitly that the sun is in motion, and that the earth is not.

Different people are saying things about perspective and relatively. This has little to do with what the Bible actually says. I see the Bible claiming that the earth is still, and the sun moves. Relativity and what not has nothing to do with what the Bible says. This is simply applying modern cosmology to scripture, not looking at what the scripture actually says.

Concerning the scripture, it looks like the consensus here is that it looks like the sun moves from out perspective so that's what the Bible meant. What if we apply this reasoning to other parts of the Bible? "The authors just wrote from their perspective and didn't get it literally correct."
 

GuySmiley

Well-known member
All motion is always in relation to some point of reference. It is usually not stated. It isn't "wrong" to chose one point of reference over another. When we see a sunset, the point of reference is assumed.

If the point of reference isn't what people generally assume, it should be stated. If I ask you to describe the motion of the Sun given an Earth centered, Earth fixed point of reference, you'd say it is nearly circular, and you'd be right.
 

Clete

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All motion is always in relation to some point of reference. It is usually not stated. It isn't "wrong" to chose one point of reference over another. When we see a sunset, the point of reference is assumed.

Yes, it is wrong. The Sun does not, in ANY sense revolve around the Earth - period.

If the point of reference isn't what people generally assume, it should be stated. If I ask you to describe the motion of the Sun given an Earth centered, Earth fixed point of reference, you'd say it is nearly circular, and you'd be right.
No, actually you would not be right because there is no such thing as an Earth centered motion of the Sun - it does not exist. The earth is not stationary - period. Any "frame of reference" that suggests otherwise is fantasy. You might be able to describe such a frame of reference but that doesn't mean that frame actually exists in reality. The reality is that the Earth and Sun revolve around a common center of mass.

Your error comes from having bought, at least in part, into the modern religion of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics which are not science - they are NOT science - they are mathematics at best and a straight up religion are worst.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. - Albert Einstein​

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Clete

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The Bible described the sun standing still in Joshua. Not the earth standing still so that it looked like the sun stood still. It says the sun moved backward 10 degrees in it's "going forth." Not that the earth moved back 10 degrees in it's going forth. The Bible seems to state quite explicitly that the sun is in motion, and that the earth is not.

Different people are saying things about perspective and relatively. This has little to do with what the Bible actually says. I see the Bible claiming that the earth is still, and the sun moves. Relativity and what not has nothing to do with what the Bible says. This is simply applying modern cosmology to scripture, not looking at what the scripture actually says.

Concerning the scripture, it looks like the consensus here is that it looks like the sun moves from out perspective so that's what the Bible meant. What if we apply this reasoning to other parts of the Bible? "The authors just wrote from their perspective and didn't get it literally correct."

It is you who are not being consistent. It is common vernacular even today to speak of the Sun rising and the Sun setting as though it were the Sun moving and not the Earth even though the motions of the Earth and Sun are clearly understood. It is a figure of speech.

For you to be consistent you'd have to insist that the bible never uses figures of speech. You'd have to accept, for example, that God the Father has an actual arm, that believers are salt and that all of Israel came to Jesus to be baptized.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 
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