The thing that I still don't understand is the mindset that says to ignore the most logical and consistent explanation of the text (i.e., that writers in the ancient Levant held beliefs that the earth was flat; a cosmological view one would expect from a people living at that time and place) in favor of an ad hoc and strained explanation.
Same thing with literal reading of Genesis, where you get the most ridiculous and impossible Rube-Goldberg-type explanations offered to justify the text ("vapor canopy," etc.).
Does it come down to the fact that they must figure out some way that the text is literally and absolute true, regardless of how bizarre and unsupportable?
"Does it come down to the fact that they must figure out some way that the text is literally and absolute true, regardless of how bizarre and unsupportable?"
Unfortunately the answer, for some, is "yes". The simple fact that the text must be twisted, sometimes bizarrely, just means that a 4000 year old sheep herder's text isn't up to today's knowledge base. I don't see that as a problem, but for the absolutists, any crack in their edifice means that the whole thing will collapse unless it is shown to be absolutely correct in everything.
I'd generally say that is a person who has a bad inferiority complex.
Searching for the findings of modern science in ancient scripture involves the same technique that the Nostradamus buffs employ. When something happens (which they somehow failed to predict) they start flipping through the pages to find something -- anything! -- that can be spun to be a prophecy.