Chapter 5 – Models of the Solar System – The Tychonic or Tychonian System

The Tychonian system was developed by the great Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, in the 1500s. It is, essentially, a clever combination of the Ptolemaic system and the Copernican system. In the Tychonian Solar System, the Moon and the Sun orbit an unmoving Earth (no rotational motion, no orbital motion). The planets, on the other hand, orbit the Sun. The order of the planets in the Tychonian system, moving outward from the Sun, is exactly the same as in the Copernican system. This means that all of the successes of the Copernican system will be retained in the Tychonian system. The Tychonian system has additional features that place it in full compliance with the Biblical worldview that we have been espousing all along throughout our journey, as we will see. In other words, the Tychonian system has all of the good points that we could want, with none of the bad. We will even build upon the Tychonian system in later chapters by adding still more features that were never imagined when the Tychonian system was first developed.

We will start with the Sun and the Moon which, together with the Earth, form a perfectly balanced little Solar System within a Solar System, so to speak. I may as well come right out and say it. In the Tychonian system, the Sun orbits the Earth once a day. Yes, you heard that right. It sounds strange to us only because we have been taught the opposite – that the Earth orbits the Sun once a year – ever since kindergarten. There is a strong Biblical basis for the belief that MSS has it all wrong about the Sun and the Earth. Look at just these verses from the KJV:

Psalm 93:1 King James Version (KJV)

The LORD reigneth, He is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith He hath girded Himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

Psalm 19:1-6 King James Version (KJV)

The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the Firmament sheweth His handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the Sun,

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of the Heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

Isaiah 66:1 King James Version (KJV)

Thus saith the LORD, The Heaven is My throne, and the Earth is My footstool: where is the house that ye build unto Me? And where is the place of My rest?

1 Chronicles 16:30 King James Version (KJV)

Fear before him, all the Earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.

Psalm 96:10 King James Version (KJV)

Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: He shall judge the people righteously.

Psalm 104:1-5 King James Version (KJV)

Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, Thou art very great; Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

Who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment: Who stretchest out the Heavens like a curtain:

Who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters: Who maketh the clouds His chariot: Who walketh upon the wings of the wind:

Who maketh His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire:

Who laid the foundations of the Earth, that it should not be removed forever.

Psalm 119:90 King James Version (KJV)

Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the Earth, and it abideth.

Ecclesiastes 1:4 King James Version (KJV)

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the Earth abideth forever.

As you can see, the Bible clearly states that the Sun orbits an unmoving, eternal Earth, making one complete orbit in one 24-hour period, which we call one day. If nothing is hidden from the heat of the Sun, then Psalm 19 suggests that the Sun must orbit the Earth relatively quickly. Otherwise, large portions of the Earth’s surface would be covered in darkness and cold for extended periods, which is not observed to be the case. (Yes, the polar regions are regularly plunged into darkness, but the amount of the Earth’s surface area involved is relatively small compared to the total.) The most likely rapid orbital period is that of a single day, since such motion would easily account for the observed day/night cycle. We can either believe this, or reject it. Either God says what He means, and means what He says, or He doesn’t. It’s that simple. Since God created the Universe, He is in a unique position in the sense of knowing exactly what orbits what. He says that the Sun orbits the Earth. If He wanted us to know that the Earth orbits the Sun, He could easily have said so. After all, God doesn’t need our help in explaining what He has said in His Word. He said that the Sun orbits the Earth. Very well. Let’s believe that, and see what would follow from that. Some people say that the above verses about the Earth not moving could simply mean that the Earth stays in its orbit around the Sun, kind of like a train on a railroad track, moving in one sense, not moving in another. Again, God could have indicated that in His Word, but He didn’t. So, we are back to the first proposition, that being that the Earth doesn’t move at all, and that it is the Sun that is doing all of the moving.

Now, some people might say at this point that the Bible is merely portraying natural events as they appear to human beings on the surface of the Earth, and so we mustn’t read too much into Biblical language. When the Bible says that the Sun is rising, in Psalm 113:3, for example,

Ecclesiastes 1:4 King James Version (KJV)

From the rising of the Sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’s name is to be praised.

it isn’t really rising, they would say, it’s just the Earth spinning on its axis that makes it look like it’s rising. The problem with that point of view is that it renders the entire Bible useless as a source of absolute truth. For example, in the Book of Luke, when Jesus Christ is dying on the cross, He tells one of the thieves being crucified with Him that he will be in Paradise with Him that very day:

Now, some people might say at this point that the Bible is merely portraying natural events as they appear to human beings on the surface of the Earth, and so we mustn’t read too much into Biblical language. When the Bible says that the Sun is rising, in Psalm 113:3, for example,

Luke 23:43 King James Version (KJV)

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.

If the Bible is merely showing us how things appear from a human perspective, then there is no hope for any of us, because our everyday experience is that people die, their bodies decay into dust, and they are never heard from or seen ever again. Either Jesus is just trying to cheer us up about our final fate of complete nonexistence in total oblivion, or there really is a wondrous afterlife of everlasting joy with God in Heaven. Which is it? The vast number of near-death experiences that have reached the public eye clearly show that the latter point of view is the truth of the matter. Therefore, when the Bible tells us about things that we cannot know directly (life after death, the immobile Earth, the orbiting Sun, etc.), we can confidently believe in them.

We have already established that the Sun is 93,000,000 miles from the Earth. If the Sun orbits the Earth, then the Sun is in a circular orbit around the Earth, with an orbital radius of 93,000,000 miles. Since this orbit is very nearly a perfect circle, the Sun won’t change its apparent angular width as it circles the Earth. This coincides with what we actually observe. So, at least from the standpoint of appearances, this model does work. Also, the Sun’s brightness will remain constant day after day after day, since its distance from the Earth is constant. Again, this matches up with what we actually see.

If the Sun is 93,000,000 miles from Earth, and it completes an orbit around the Earth in one day, then we can calculate how fast the Sun would have to move in order to complete that journey through space in the allotted time. It works out to be a little over 24,000,000 miles per hour. First, calculate the circumference of the Sun’s orbit (C = 2 * pi * r). This works out to be a little over 584,000,000 miles, a vast distance, indeed. Dividing by 24 hours gives the speed just quoted. Is this a physically reasonable speed? Well, the speed of light is 671,000,000 miles per hour, so the Sun’s speed is less than 4% of the speed of light. This is a speed within the realm of possibility, since it is widely believed that speeds beyond that of light are impossible for a physical object to attain. It is certainly a very high speed, beyond that of current human technology, but one that might be possible for a naturally-occurring astronomical body.

Wouldn’t such a huge velocity be detectable from Earth? If so, then we could easily prove what the Bible seems to be saying about the motion of the Sun. Sadly, no, since the Sun is always moving at right angles to our line of sight. In this configuration, the so-called Doppler shift in the Sun’s spectral lines, from which its orbital speed could be calculated, is zero. The Doppler shift that we do detect is located at the Sun’s edges, and is attributable to the Sun’s rotation on its axis, which is quite slow, requiring about one month for one complete turn. Since the Sun’s orbit about the Earth is very nearly a perfect circle, there is little to no Doppler shift due to its motion towards, or away from, Earth, either. So, we have an incredibly fast-moving Sun, and no way to detect this motion. Fortunately, the Bible tells us about this motion that we cannot detect. In this way, God reveals His mercy and kindness towards mankind, by making us privy to information which we would not otherwise know:

Exodus 33:11 King James Version (KJV)

And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.

Genesis 18:17-18 King James Version (KJV)

And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;

Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed in him?

Two important points can be made here. First, we are proposing that the Bible can be used as a scientific resource, helping us to refine our theories about the world around us. Any ideas that don’t comply with its viewpoint can be discarded confidently, since God clearly knows the way things really are, and occasionally shares that information us. Second, the numerical quantities that we have been calculating in this book have a peculiar quality about them. They reflect back at us the times, distances, and velocities that are important to us in a scientific sense. For example, the Sun has a velocity of 24,000,000 miles per hour, orbits the Earth in 24 hours, and 24 hours is the length of one day. Half of 24 is 12, and there are 12 months in a year, 12 numbers on the face of a clock, 12 hours of daylight, and 12 hours of night. The diameter of the Sun’s orbit around the Earth is 186,000,000 miles, and speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. The angular diameter of Venus at its closest point to Earth is 60 arc seconds or one arc minute, and there are 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in one minute. The distance to the Moon is 240,000 miles (the number 24 again), and the diameter of the Earth is 8,000 miles. Dividing one by the other gives 30, the number of days in a month, the number of days in the Moon’s repeating cycle of lunar phases, and the number of days for the Sun to rotate once on its axis. We could go on and on. It is as though God is being a “whistleblower” on Himself, subtly clueing us in about the artificial, created, constructed, and engineered quality of the world in which we find ourselves which, at the very least, explains why the Earth and the Solar System are so perfect for all of our needs (God made them that way!). We will point out these “peculiar numbers” as we go.

Why isn’t God more obvious about being the Creator of All? Well, He hasn’t exactly hidden this fact in His book, the Bible. The first line of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible clearly states that He made everything that we would call naturally-occurring, whether on Earth or in space:

Genesis 1:1 King James Version (KJV)

In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.

Also, God is a King. His Son, Jesus Christ, Savior of all mankind, second Person of the Trinity, is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords:

Revelation 19:16 King James Version (KJV)

And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

As a King, Jesus, Who is also God, doesn’t like to make His revelations too easy to understand, as the following verse states:

Proverbs 25:2 King James Version (KJV)

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

Finally, God likes it when we study His Word to try to find things out:

2 Timothy 2:15 King James Version (KJV)

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

It was by reading God’s Word that I first conceived of the idea of writing this book. I think that God reveals things to people who seek out truth using the Bible as the path to knowledge.

So, we see that God has made His ownership of the Universe apparent to all and hidden from all, just as He said He would do in His Word. God is nothing if not consistent!

Returning now to the structure of the Earth-Sun-Moon mini-system, we need to make clear that the Earth itself does not orbit any other body, nor does it rotate on its axis. The Earth is completely motionless in space, God desires the Earth to be just this way, and He has taken the necessary steps to ensure the Earth’s complete lack of motion. The Earth is the home of mankind, and the stable platform from which we observe the Universe. The Earth superficially resembles the other planets in the Solar System, but it is not one of them. The day/night cycle is solely caused by the Sun’s orbital motion around the Earth. Of course, the darkness of nighttime is caused by the opaque bulk of the Earth blocking the Sun’s light, giving us much needed relief from the Sun’s unrelenting brilliance. Is there any observational proof of the Sun’s orbital motion? Yes, but the situation is not as clear-cut as one would like. In the continental United States, for example, it is a fact that a vertical stick or pole in the ground casts a shadow due north at local noon. 24 hours later, the same shadow is observed at exactly the same angle. One very simple Tychonian explanation for this observation is that the Sun has orbited an unmoving Earth in one day’s time. This example illustrates a general problem with the human condition. We can observe physical phenomena, but those physical phenomena must always be interpreted through some kind of worldview. A Ptolemaic person would interpret these results by saying that the Earth is spinning on its axis. The Sun orbits the Earth relatively slowly (one year’s time) compared to the Earth’s rotation, so the Sun is very nearly where it was one day before, leading to a shadow that has “retraced its steps”, so to speak. A Copernican person would say that the Sun doesn’t move at all (except for its own rotation), and it is the Earth that is orbiting the Sun, while also spinning on its own axis. The Earth orbits the Sun relatively slowly (one year’s time) compared to the Earth’s rotation, leading, again, to a shadow that has “retraced its steps”, so to speak. Notice the subtle variations in these models, all “explaining” the same observations! We choose the Tychonian system because it explains the observations while also conforming to the Bible. In this respect, it is the clearly superior model, since our goal has always been to combine science and faith into one harmonious whole.

The Moon, like the Sun, orbits the Earth, again in a nearly circular orbit that eliminates the possibility of substantial changes in its apparent angular size, conforming to observation. Since the Moon has been known to totally eclipse the Sun, the Moon is the closer of the two bodies to Earth. It is as though the Moon is the “planet” of the Earth-Sun-Moon mini-system, poised as it is between the fixed Earth and the whirling dervish Sun. It is frequently stated that the Moon orbits the Earth in one month’s time. This is only the case under the Copernican system. In the Tychonian system, the Moon completes one orbital revolution in just one day’s time. This may seem shocking, since we are accustomed to thinking of the Moon with a one-month lunar orbit, but a little thought shows that this must be the case. If the Moon took one month to complete its orbital path, it would exhibit its various phases throughout each Tychonian day. Every day, we would see the Moon show a constantly changing spectacle of light and dark, from new Moon to full, and everything in between. The reason for this is the constantly changing angle of illumination between the Sun and the Moon, due to the Sun’s incredible velocity. As this effect is not observed, the Moon must keep pace with the Sun, moving around the Earth daily. However, even this would not give us the Moon that we actually see, for then every day the Moon would present exactly the same phase to us that we saw the day before. The Moon would always be full, for example, or always a quarter Moon, or a crescent, depending upon what phase the Moon was in when God started the motion of the Solar system long ago. If the Moon started out new, then we would never see it at all!

Obviously, something is amiss here. But what? Some will say that the Tychonian model of the Solar System is what is in error, but let’s see if we can save the situation without too much trouble. We need some way of making the Moon move a little faster or slower than the Sun, so that we can see a new phase of the Moon each day, but still have the Moon complete one revolution about the Earth daily, or thereabouts. Let’s look at the known motions of the Moon, to see if a way out of this dilemma presents itself.

The Moon’s cycle of phases begins with the new Moon. At this time of the month, always near the beginning of each month, the Moon sets in the west with the Sun, and cannot be seen from Earth because its dark side is facing us, and the sky near the setting Sun is very bright, indeed. We are taking a Tychonian viewpoint here, so the setting motions of both the Sun and the Moon are due to their respective motions, not due to any motion on the part of the Earth. Each subsequent evening, we see the Moon move a little farther east, and a little more of the lighted portion of the Moon is visible. After a quarter of a month, the Moon is in its quarter phase (half-lit), and in half a month, the Moon is full, rising in the east at sunset. So, in 15 days, the Moon has moved 180 degrees away from its staring point. 180 degrees divided by 15 days is 12 degrees per day. The Moon seems to move eastward across the sky at the rate of 12 degrees per day. After 30 days (one month), the Moon has moved full circle back to where it started, and the Moon is new again (30 days * 12 degrees per day = 360 degrees). You can see from all of this why the Copernican system believes that the Moon orbits the Earth in one month’s time. As stated above, what one believes is all a matter of how the data are interpreted.

The Tychonian interpretation would say that the Moon is simply offset from the Sun by 12 degrees, meaning that the Moon’s motion around the Earth has been slowed to such an extent that it only travels 348 degrees around the Earth in 24 hours, rather than a full 360 degrees (360 – 12 = 348). Each day, the Moon never quite reaches the point that it reached the day before, neatly accounting for the changing phases that we actually observe, and yet the Moon continues to circle the Earth daily, east to west, just like the Sun. Again, the same facts are explained by a different mechanism.

At this point, we are faced with a “fork in the road”, so to speak. How can we decide between the two models? Which path will we follow? Surprisingly, this is not a toss-up. The Bible provides a way of deciding. The Book of Joshua, Chapter 10, says that Joshua prayed to God to stop the Moon and the Sun in the sky to provide more time (more daylight) for defeating Israel’s enemies in battle. God did so, and Israel was victorious:

Joshua 10:12-14 King James Version (KJV)

Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

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.

And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.

The point is that the Bible takes the position that the Moon and the Sun both orbit the Earth. Stopping them in their daily orbits would stop them from moving across the sky as seen from Earth, and these stoppages would have no physical effect on the Earth, since the Earth is motionless and quite far away from both the Sun and the Moon. God can easily move worlds around. Such things are a simple matter for Him. To accomplish the same result, the Copernican model would require that the Earth’s rotation be stopped, and that something be done with the tremendous excess momentum that all loose objects on the surface of the Earth would acquire, once the Earth’s rotation came to a complete halt. One could invoke a miracle, of course, and simply say that, if God can move worlds, then He could just as easily have prevented the inevitable supersonic winds, continent-sized tsunamis, and planet-sized earthquakes. Of course, a Copernican probably wouldn’t believe in the Joshua story in the first place.

Still, the Joshua account is more than just a fairytale designed to highlight God’s power. If the Moon and the Sun do orbit the Earth, and if God did stop them in their tracks temporarily, would any traces be left behind of this event that could be observed today? I believe that the answer is yes, as we will now see. God said in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1, that the Moon was originally created to rule the night, and to cast light upon the Earth:

Genesis 1:14-19 King James Version (KJV)

And God said, Let there be lights in the Firmament of the Heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

And let them be for lights in the Firmament of the Heaven to give light upon the Earth: and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also.

And God set them in the Firmament of the Heaven to give light upon the Earth

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

If there were no offset in the Moon’s motion at the beginning of creation, then the Moon would have presented the same phase to Earthbound observers every single day, as we have shown. If you choose the right phase to begin with, then you can illuminate the night very well, indeed. For example, a full Moon rising every day at sunset would perfectly accomplish God’s purpose of providing a lesser light to rule the night. Joshua 10:13 indicates that Joshua saw the Moon during the day, while the battle was going on. This sounds like the gibbous Moon that we see today after a full Moon. Such a Moon is visible during the night, as well as during the morning of the following day, in the western sky. The gibbous Moon has a sufficiently large illuminated portion to provide light at night, complying with Genesis 1:15-17, and is also visible in broad daylight, in support of Joshua 10:13. From the beginning of creation until the battle described in Joshua 10, the Moon may very well have shown this gibbous phase every single day. Then, when Joshua’s battle happened, God effectively removed 1/30 of the 360 degree “pie” representing the entirety of the Moon’s orbital velocity. The Bible says that the Sun and Moon “stayed” for about a day. If the Moon’s motion was “reassembled” by God after that day, with one piece of the orbital velocity “pie” missing, unlike the Sun, the result would be the 12 degree offset with the Sun that we observe today (29/30 * 360 = 348, and 360 – 348 = 12). The Moon’s phases could actually be a memorial set up by God to commemorate this singular occasion in the past, a testament written in the sky for all to see, lest people forget His power and His compassion.

If this scenario were true, then there should be a time in the Bible before which there were no lunar phases, and after which there were. Is there any indication of this? Amazingly, yes, there is. If you do a search of the Bible for “whole Moon”, “full Moon”,” new Moon”, “crescent Moon”, “gibbous Moon”, or simply “Moon”, you find that there is no mention at all of any lunar phase before the Book of Joshua. People simply referred to “the Moon”. After the Book of Joshua, however, there are references to the new Moon, indicating that the Moon was now exhibiting phases. The sudden appearance of lunar phases in the relatively recent past could explain why the Jews, even today, diligently search for the appearance of the new Moon, which signals the start of the new Jewish month. If the new Moon has always occurred since the beginning of time, then searching for it becomes a trivial activity, since the lunar phases are then nothing but “old news”, so to speak. But, if the new Moon is a relatively recent phenomenon, then the Jewish interest in it makes a lot more sense. The new Moon then becomes nothing less than a monthly reminder of God’s provision for His people.

What about the dates when the different books of the Bible were written? Is there any corroborating information there as to the timing of the appearance of lunar phases? Here is a table of the years when each book of the Bible was written, in chronological order, along with any pertinent “Moon words” it mentions:

Old Testament

*A deuterocanonical/apocryphal book
**A pseudepigrapha book

New Testament

As you can see, when one combines this table with our earlier searches of the Bible for the words “whole Moon”, “full Moon”,” new Moon”, “crescent Moon”, “quarter Moon” “gibbous Moon”, or simply “Moon”, one finds that there is no mention of lunar phases before the Book of Joshua (1405 B.C.-1385 B.C.), but there are new Moon references after this point. Thus, something remarkable happened in the time interval between 1405 B.C. and 1385 B.C. I believe it was Joshua’s long day. True, Psalms mentions both the Moon and the new Moon in the same book, but the period over which Psalms was written was quite lengthy, and so it is entirely possible that the “Moon” reference refers to a more ancient time before the long day, while the “new Moon” reference is closer to our own time, after the long day had already occurred. The dates of the chapters within the Book of Psalms lend credence to this viewpoint. For example, Psalm 81 refers to the new Moon at the time of the dedication of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 515 B.C., far beyond the time of Joshua’s long day. Therefore, our theory about lunar phases being a relatively recent phenomenon holds up.

Of course, many people will find these arguments unconvincing, and will continue to believe in other models of the Solar System, largely because of tradition (“That is what we have always believed!”). However, I find it endlessly fascinating that the Christian Holy Book says that God stopped the Sun and the Moon for a day in the past, and it is possible to find some evidence for this event in the Heavens themselves. The Copernican camp, on the other hand, only has an ad hoc theory for their Solar System, lacking any independent corroboration for their theory. Again, it’s all up to you. What will you believe?

We can go even further here, and mention a Biblical incident where God forced the Sun to first move backwards in the sky, and then resume its normal east-to-west motion:

2 Kings 20:8-11 King James Version (KJV)

And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day?

And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that He hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?

And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.

And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.

I believe that this miraculous event is included in the Bible in order to give us clues about the construction of the Solar System and the Universe in which we find ourselves. When considered together with the Joshua account already discussed above, the only rational point of view one could adopt is that the Sun and the Moon both orbit a motionless Earth. The alternative is to say that God stopped the Earth’s axial rotation for Joshua, then restarted it, all the while absorbing the planet-destroying excess momentum on the one hand, and restoring it on the other! The Hezekiah account is even more incredible, for then God would have to stop the Earth’s rotation, start it up again in the opposite direction, stop it again, and then restart it in the original direction! Of course, God could just perform a miracle, thereby accomplishing all of these motions without hurting a single hair on anyone’s head, but it seems far more likely that it was the Sun and the Moon doing all of the moving, since both bodies are effectively dead worlds on which nothing lives. As a result, they can be moved about at will by the Creator, without any safety consequences for those celestial bodies or the inhabitants of the Earth. Now, some may say that I am limiting God’s power by essentially requiring that He perform miracles in the simplest possible way. Actually, I’m not limiting God at all. Obviously, God can do what He likes at any time. What I’m saying is that God, not One to waste an opportunity, performed miracles for the situation at hand, and showed mercy and compassion for future generations of confused humans. Don’t you see? The Joshua and Hezekiah miracles were not just intended for those who were present at the time, but they are also for our own time, in that they help us to decide between competing worldviews that vie not only for our attention, but for our very souls. This is the real miracle – when God helps one of His children, He helps them all. This outcome could not have occurred if the heliocentric Copernican system were the true state of affairs, for then then the accounts we read in Joshua and Isaiah would merely be examples of God’s power over the Earth’s rotation, rather than over the much more recalcitrant hearts of men, as well. So you see, it is the Copernican/heliocentric mindset that actually limits God.

Of course, many will say at this point that they don’t believe in God, or the Bible, and could care less about either one. Fair enough. But, in that case, these same people do believe in secular MSS. Therefore, the man of the worldly mind cannot disregard the results of the eminently secular Michelson-Morley experiment, about which we will have much to say later on in this book. Suffice it to say at this point that many scientists view this experiment as the greatest in the whole history of science. What did this experiment find? Only that the Earth isn’t orbiting the Sun. In fact, it’s not moving through space at all. Kind of sounds like what the Bible has been saying all along, doesn’t it? Food for thought. As I said, we will be returning to a more detailed discussion of the Michelson-Morley experiment shortly, so buckle up!

At this point, a summary of the Tychonian system is in order. The planets orbit the Sun, the Sun orbits the Earth, the Moon orbits the Earth between the Earth and the Sun, and the Earth doesn’t move at all. It doesn’t even spin on its rotational axis. The Sun and the Moon both orbit the Earth daily. The Moon orbits slightly more slowly than the Sun, thereby creating the constantly changing, cyclical spectacle of the Moon’s phases. The orbiting of the Sun creates the day/night cycle, while the planets move around the Sun in the Copernican/Keplerian orbits that they had in the previous chapter. In a real sense, the Tychonian system is just the Copernican system, with the Earth and the Moon off to one side. The Sun then becomes a sort of distant satellite of the Earth, and the planets become moons of the Sun, so to speak, and are dragged along with it in its daily orbit around the Earth. The Tychonian system is the Solar System model that we have been looking for, as it faithfully reproduces the motions of the planets, the Sun, and the Moon, while being completely in line with the KJV Bible. We will continue our exploration of this model in the next chapter.