Is there one verse in the Bible that completely disproves heliocentrism? Actually, there are many, but the one that Martin Luther chose was in Joshua.
Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. Joshua 10:12–13 (NASB95)
Martin Luther was a principal in what is called the Protestant Reformation, in which one of the rallying cries was “sola scriptura,” meaning that the Bible is the highest standard for truth. In the midst of this cataclysmic upheaval that rearranged nations and delivered people from the bondage of Roman Catholicism, the devil instituted a “counter reformation” spearheaded by the Jesuit order. In addition to using torture against those whom they regarded as heretics, Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order, began to offset people’s trust in the Word of God with a new emphasis on “science” and “knowledge.” (If you want to learn more about this devilish strategy, I recommend that you watch the Heliosorcery documentary.) It was about this time that some amazing new ideas burst onto the scene, Copernican heliocentrism being one of the most important. This novel theory began to grab the imagination of people who had no biblical foundation or who did not esteem the scriptures as God’s bastion of truth.
Martin Luther was a contemporary of Copernicus, and met the astronomer’s refutation of the Bible very simply by referencing the above quoted passage from Joshua, and writing the following statement.
Oh, that Christians regarded the Bible with such reverence today! Instead, the majority have bowed the knee to what is called science, preferring to look good in the world’s eyes rather than God’s.
