On 22 June 1633 the
scientist Galileo Galilei was found guilty of heresy by the Catholic Church. He
was put under house arrest and his offending book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was put on the Index of books banned by the church.
Literalist approach
His crime was that he taught
that the sun rather than the earth was at the centre of the universe and that
while the sun was motionless the earth was not. This was considered heretical
because it was clearly counter to the teaching of the Bible in many places.
Consider these words from Psalm 96:1 – ‘The LORD reigns, he is robed in
majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot
be moved.’ I’m not sure it’s possible to interpret this verse in any other
way than to say it teaches that the earth does not move – if reading it in a
literal manner. Or what about this couple of verses in Joshua –
On
the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in
the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the
Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood
still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The
sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full
day. (Joshua 10:12-13.)
Again the meaning is clear –
after all, the sun can only stand still if it is considered to be moving in the
first place. A literalist understanding of the Bible has to teach a geocentric
universe in which the sun revolves around the earth.
Adapting
Yet no one surely believes
that this is the case any longer. Nearly 400 years after Galileo’s condemnation
and we have accepted that he was correct and that these passages have to be
read in a non-literalist way. Science has taught us the truth and theology has
had to adapt. Whilst some passages can be regarded as literal truth it must
surely be a mistake to say that the whole Bible falls into this category.
