The Exposing Pseudoastronomy podcast devoted a recent episode to this long held myth. It’s a classic mis-reading of the Bible, which never actually makes the claim, though church authorities of all stripes assumed it (assisted by “creatively” reading into the text) throughout history. I recommend it to PaleoBabble readers since you don’t hear too much about it these days (for what I thought were obvious reasons). There are some good links to resources about the model and its critique.
The Geo-Centric Universe: Yep, There are Still People Who Believe It
‘Church authority’ was never based solely on the Bible. Medieval geocentrism in practise had much more to do with Aristotle and his idea of a regular logical and ‘teleological’ universe. Taking man from the centre of the universe just flew in the face of everything which was scientifically known at that time. It is an anachronistic misunderstanding that it was all about ‘fundamentalism’, somerthing invented by Protestants who came much later.