Also, all you have to do is read the Book of Enoch, to know that the Earth is flat, is covered with a solid sky dome, stars are tortured over fires as punishment if they don't rise and set on time, and so on.
It's pretty vague... My source renders this as:
And beyond these mountains Is a region the end of the great earth: there the heavens were completed. And I saw a deep abyss, with columns of heavenly fire, and among them I saw columns of fire fall, which were beyond measure alike towards the height and towards the depth. And beyond that abyss I saw a place which had no firmament of the heaven above, and no firmly founded earth beneath it: there was no water upon it, and no birds, but it was a waste and horrible place. I saw there seven stars like great burning mountains, and to me, when I inquired regarding them, The angel said: 'This place is the end of heaven and earth: this has become a prison for the stars and the host of heaven. And the stars which roll over the fire are they which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in the beginning of their rising, because they did not come forth at their appointed times. And He was wroth with them, and bound them till the time when their guilt should be consummated (even) for ten thousand years.'
Hmm, a hell for stars which didn't rise punctually, where they are tortured with fire... Must be pretty hot to torture a star, since stars are awfully hot normally... In any case, the "no sky and no earth" passage just seems to indicate that this was beyond the edge of the outer rims of the "Earth", and thus the comment about "This place is the end of heaven and earth" seems less like a promise of universal annihilation than a simple observation about it being past "city limits" (i.e., beyond the edge of the earth and sky).
So in summation, I'm not sure if any of these passages from Enoch represent any real premonitions of modern cosmology. Most seem like pretty typical observations and presumptions for a person of that period (although clearly someone spent a lot of time making careful daily notes over the course of at least a year, and deserves much credit for that).
But there are a number of other passages that make it pretty clear that the author was working from his own human observations and surmises instead of any Special Knowledge From On High...
The first problem is that any complete reading of the book of Enoch makes totally inescapable the conclusion that the author is describing a "flat Earth with a hard bowl-shaped sky dome over it" scenario. Unlike similar passages which can be found in the books actually incorporated into the Bible which can be argued away as possibly metaphorical, in Enoch it's described in way too much careful detail for it to be read as anything other than a literal claim of a flat Earth covered by a sky dome in which the Sun and Moon and stars run their paces. The author even describes exactly how many doors and windows are in the sky dome, and where, to let the Sun/Moon/stars/winds/waters in and out, and which doors the Sun uses on which days of the year, etc. His cosmology is this:
(The above picture is from this web page, which also has a good list of the ways in which Enoch clearly influenced the writers of parts of the Bible.)
Needless to say, I don't think that counts as "statements about astronomy which are strangely accurate".
Other passages that probably seemed like good ideas at the time but which turned out not to be the case:
1. "And they took me to the living waters, and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun." (Chapter 17). No, the Sun does not set upon a place of fire. The Earth just keeps rotating and the Sun doesn't land anywhere.
2. "I saw the treasuries of all the winds." (Chapter 18). Wind isn't kept in treasuries.
3. "And I saw the corner-stone of the earth." (Ch. 18). The Earth doesn't have a cornerstone. It might if it were flat, but...
4. "I saw the winds of heaven which turn and bring the circumference of the sun and all the stars to their setting." (Ch. 18). Wind doesn't move the Sun and stars around, they appear to move because the Earth rotates.
5. "From thence I went to another place to the west of the ends of the earth." (Ch. 23). The Earth doesn't have "ends", and if you keep going West you only circle the Earth.
6. "And to the east of those beasts I saw the ends of the earth whereon the heaven rests, and the portals of the heaven open. And I saw how the stars of heaven come forth, and I counted the portals out of which they proceed, and wrote down all their outlets, of each individual star by itself, according to their number and their names, their courses and their positions, and their times and their months, as Uriel the holy angel who was with me showed me." (Ch. 33). The sky/heaven does not rest upon the Earth, especially not at the "ends", there are no portals in the sky dome, and the stars do not come out of them in order to rise above the horizon.
7. "And from thence I went towards the north to the ends of the earth, and there I saw a great and glorious device at the ends of the whole earth. And here I saw three portals of heaven open in the heaven: through each of them proceed north winds: when they blow there is cold, hail, frost, snow, dew, and rain. And out of one portal they blow for good: but when they blow through the other two portals, it is with violence and affliction on the earth, and they blow with violence." (Ch. 34). Northern winds do not issue from three holes in the sky dome.
8. "And from thence I went to the east to the ends of the heaven, and saw here the three eastern portals of heaven open and small portals above them. Through each of these small portals pass the stars of heaven and run their course to the west on the path which is shown to them. And as often as I saw I blessed always the Lord of Glory" (Ch. 36). Again, there are no holes in the sky dome and the stars do not come out of them to travel across the sky each night.
9. "And there I saw closed chambers out of which the winds are divided, the chamber of the hail and winds, the chamber of the mist, and of the clouds, and the cloud thereof hovers over the earth from the beginning of the world." (Ch. 41). Wind, hail, clouds, etc. do not originate in warehouses.
10. "And I saw the chambers of the sun and moon, whence they proceed and whither they come again" (Ch. 41). The Sun and Moon do not spend their time in storehouses when they are not visible.
11. "And this is the first law of the luminaries: the luminary the Sun has its rising in the eastern portals of the heaven, and its setting in the western portals of the heaven. And I saw six portals in which the sun rises, and six portals in which the sun sets and the moon rises and sets in these portals, and the leaders of the stars and those whom they lead: six in the east and six in the west, and all following each other in accurately corresponding order: also many windows to the right and left of these portals." (Ch. 72). The Sun, Moon, and stars do not come out of doorways in the sky dome when they rise, nor duck out of doorways when they set.
12. "The chariot on which he [the Sun] ascends, the wind drives, and the sun goes down from the heaven and returns through the north in order to reach the east, and is so guided that he comes to the appropriate portal and 6 shines in the face of the heaven." (Ch. 72). The Sun does not ride a chariot, and does not get blown across the sky. Nor does it travel in a northern path outside the sky dome in order to get from its place of setting back to the place it must rise again in the morning.
13. "And the sun goes forth from that sixth portal in the west, and goes to the east and rises in the fifth portal for thirty mornings, and sets in the west again in the fifth western portal. On that day the day decreases by two parts, and amounts to ten parts and the night to eight parts." (Ch. 72). While the author does an admirable job attempting to describe the manner in which the Sun's path varies with the seasons and so do the lengths of the days, it doesn't do so by switching entry/exit "portals" on given days, nor does the length of the day stay constant for thirty days and then suddenly shift its length, it's a continuous progression.
14. "...and his [the Sun's] light is sevenfold brighter than that of the moon; but as regards size they are both equal." (Ch. 72). Clearly not divine information. The sun isn't "sevenfold" brighter than the Moon, it's 436,800 times brighter (as viewed from the surface of the Earth -- in absolute terms the disparity is even greater). And the Sun may *look* the same size as the Moon, but in reality it's almost 400 times as large in diameter. Enoch apparently figured they were the same size since they had the same apparent diameter and "must" have been at the same distance (since they both rode on the "sky dome").
15. "And the sun and the stars bring in all the years exactly, so that they do not advance or delay their position by a single day unto eternity; but complete the years with perfect justice in 364 days." (Ch. 74). Well, 365.2422 days, but who's counting? I don't so much mind him missing the fraction, but somehow there's still an entire day missing from the year.
16. "In like manner twelve doors Uriel showed me, open in the circumference of the sun's chariot in the heaven, through which the rays of the sun break forth: and from them is warmth diffused over the earth, when they are opened at their appointed seasons." (Ch. 75). The Sun does not ride in a chariot, but if it did that would certainly be an ingenious way to vary its warmth in Summer versus Winter, instead of the current method of whereby the tilt of the Earth's axis affects the angle at which sunlight strikes a given spot on the Earth...
17. "And I saw chariots in the heaven, running in the world, above those portals in which revolve the stars that never set." (Ch. 75). Last time I checked, the North Star and other northerly stars that don't dip below the horizon don't ride in chariots either, nor do they rest above the three northern portals in the sky dome.
18. "And one [of the "stars that never set"] is larger than all the rest, and it is that that makes its course through the entire world." (Ch. 75). Since the Earth isnt' flat after all, Polaris can not be used to "make courses" for the "entire world", just for most of the northern hemisphere.
19. "And at the ends of the earth I saw twelve portals open to all the quarters (of the heaven), from which the winds go forth and blow over the earth." (Ch. 76). No he didn't.
20. "...and her [the Moon's] chariot in which she rides is driven by the wind, and light is given to her in (definite) measure". (Ch. 73). The Moon's movement is not driven by wind.
Feel free.
I wouldn't dream of it. I do, however, reserve the right to speak up when people try to use faith to "disprove science". When there's a conflict between a particular person's opinion based on their individual faith, and that which is manifest by examining reality ("creation", if you prefer), I tend to trust the reality-check over the person's "here's what I have faith in".
