> As I understand it, the Church was willing to let go of the Ptolemaic model in favor of a model of Tycho Brahe, which supposed that the sun revolved around th

> As I understand it, the Church was willing to let go of the Ptolemaic model in favor of a model of Tycho Brahe, which supposed that the sun revolved around the earth, and the planets around the sun, which preserved the apparent lack of motion experienced on earth. They also told Galileo that if he could furnish empirical evidence to support his model, they would have to re-think their interpretation of the Bible. The letter from Bellarmine to Galileo is preserved. I don't think this is entirely true. First, because there is no "dogmatic stake", as it were, in either geocentrism or heliocentrism. That is, the Church does not hold a position on this matter and a moment's thought will make it obvious that the Church isn't in the business of making scientific pronouncements anymore than a lawyer makes pronouncements affirming or denying what his mechanic says is wrong with his car (bad metaphysics and ideology masquerading as science, on the other hand...). True, the Church has been an energizing force behind the development of science, but this is a reflection of the Christian spirit and worldview, one which embraces Creation as good, beautiful, rational, and intelligible and thus capable and worthy of study. There never was a need to reinterpret the Bible because there's nothing in the Bible that depends on one or the other model being true. The Bible is not a scientific textbook. It doesn't matter which orb revolves around which. The whole Galileo affair is routinely misrepresented because the fable we're given is the result of Enlightenment propaganda desired to create the false narrative that there is some grand battle between SCIENCE(tm) on one hand, and faith (Christianity) on the other. The historical accounts of the affair say otherwise. Mostly, Galileo was kind of an ass and it took years of making enemies before things turned for the worse.