The Christian view of creation was practically the conception of the Greeks before Thales. This wise man, in the Sixth Century before Christ, taught that the earth was round, and that certain stars were also worlds. He showed that the earth was round and proved it by the disappearance of the ship as it sailed away. He located the earth, moon and sun so perfectly that he prophesied an eclipse, and when it took place it so terrified the Medes and the Lydians, who were in battle with each other, that they threw down their arms and made peace. Thales had explained that Atlas carried the world on his shoulder, but he didn't explain what Atlas stood upon.
Pythagoras, one of the pupils of Thales, following the idea still further, showed that the moon derived its light from the sun; that the earth was a globe and turned daily on its axis.
He held that the sun was the center of the universe and that the planets revolved around it. Anaxagoras followed a few years later than Pythagoras, and became convinced that the sun was merely a ball of fire and therefore should not be worshiped; that it follows a natural law, that nothing ever happens by chance, and that to pray for rain is absurd.
For his honesty in expressing what he thought was truth, the priests of Athens had Anaxagoras and his family exiled to perpetual banishment from Athens and all of his books were burned.
Plato touched on Astronomy, for he touches on everything, and fully believed that the earth was round.
His pupil, Aristotle, taught all that Anaxagoras taught, and if he also had not been exiled, but had been free to study, investigate and express himself, he would have come very close to the truth.
Hipparchus, a hundred years after Aristotle, calculated the length of the year to within six minutes, discovered the precession of equinoxes and counted all the stars he could see, making a map of them.
Seventy years after Christ, Ptolemy, a Greco-Egyptian, but not of the royal line of Ptolemies, published his great book, "The Almagest." For over fourteen centuries it was the textbook for the best astronomers.
It taught that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun and the planets revolve around it. There were many absurdities, however, that had to be explained, and the priests practically rejected the whole book as "pagan" and taught an astronomy of their own, founded entirely upon the Bible. They wanted an explanation that would be accepted by the common people.
This astronomy was not designed to be very scientific, exact or truthful—all they asked was, "Is it plausible?" Expediency, to theology, has always been much more important than truth.