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No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world, only that the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle, and I don't think you'll find many historians arguing otherwise on account of us having writings from them arguing and justifying their positions.



> No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world

Can you point out even one instance in which the Bible is inaccurate about the physical nature of the world? I'm curious


There are many. Just read and think about it. Start with the story that the sun and moon stood still in the sky for an entire day, with no dusk, sunset, or dawn while Joshua led the Israelites to murder their enemies.

Or perhaps grab any part of the creation myth—the whole of the universe, our galaxy, our arm of the galaxy, our place in that arm, our star, our solar system, our planet, all the plants and animals and us...all made in just a handful of hours each.

Or how about the notion that not one, but two lucky guys met death and were returned from it days later. Or that mud can cure blindness. Or 5,000 people can be fed to satisfaction with tons of leftovers from just a couple fish and loaves of bread. Or that a jug known to be full of water can transmogrify into wine. Or bodies of water momentarily drying up, or having waters recede on command, to permit human passage. Or stars falling from the sky and crashing into earth. Rivers turning to blood. Sudden overnight pestilence that kills only the first-born of an entire nation, unless you painted blood on your doors. A woman turned into a pillar of salt.

Of course, asking such a question as yours implies one ought to take seriously and somewhat bordering on completely literal that which the Bible says that remotely touches on and involves the physical nature of the world. Otherwise the question doesn't make any sense. Because from the creation to the revelation, all of its stories say something about the physical nature of the world.



Absolutely not true that "the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle."

We talk about the religious view. For the religious view the Bible was actually relevant for the Church:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament

"Augustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament.[9] "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote.[9]

Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament.[9]

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed."[10]"

1475:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_o...

Before the Christians, the Jews also had such interpretations:

"According to The Jewish Encyclopedia:

The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.[8]"


That section of the Jewish Encyclopaedia is itself unsourced and, to the best of my knowledge in Jewish cosmology, was not actually Jewish view of the cosmos.


Please give your citations for the relevant Jewish cosmology at the time the "creation myths" were made.




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