Ouch... I wouldn't have phrased it the way beskeptical did, just out of etiquette...

Genesis is heavily influence by Chaldean astrology, and refers to the firmament, with strong implications that the world is flat. (The implications are so strong that there are still "Flat Earthers.")

The problem is that this isn't "bad astronomy." For the time, it was GOOD astronomy! It took an awful long time before this view of the skies was changed.

There are lots of little nit-picks, such as the "lesser light" that "rules the night," or Joshua making the sun stand still, etc. etc. Luke tells of the three astrologers following the "star" of Bethlehem (all sorts of errors involved there...)

None of it matters. The ancient Jews were not a scientific people. They were nomads who only grudgingly acclimated to city living, and who had no interest in astronomy. (The fact that they used a lunar calendar shows their disinterest in farming.) They weren't stargazers, nor philosophers, and so, of course, their writings were inattentive to such details.

Silas