[…] But it was not until Galileo began translating his scientific theories into the sphere of biblical interpretation that he ran into trouble. Galileo began writing that the heliocentric view of the universe proved that certain passages in the Bible which appear to imply a geocentric view of the universe must be interpreted figuratively, and many theologians and Church authorities thought he had overstepped his bounds as a scientist.
The Jewish response to these new scientific ideas was very different from the Christian response. As European Jews had no central religious authority like the Catholic Church, there was no body with the power to do things like excommunication or banning books. Moreover, the Jewish religious worldview was much less heavily impacted than the Christian because Judaism had never officially accepted the Ptolemaic cosmology the way the Catholic Church had. There was a long tradition of science and astronomy in Judaism, even dating back to the days of the Tanach (Hebrew Bible). Jewish tradition has always understood that Scripture speaks metaphorically and not always literally, so certain biblical passages, like Joshua 10:12–14, were not interpreted as being scientific doctrine.
"Jewish tradition has always understood that Scripture speaks metaphorically and not always literally."
There were, however, Jewish thinkers and astronomers who participated in these great discoveries. David Ganz, also known as Rabbi Dovid Solomon Ganz, was a German rabbi and astronomer who published Tzemach David in 1592. He was the first rabbi we know of to reconcile Copernicanism with Jewish thought. He moved to Prague and was an associate of Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe and studied with them at the Prague observatory.
Tycho Brahe, a scholar who followed Copernicus and taught Kepler, charged Ganz with translating the Alfonsine Tables from Hebrew into German. The Alfonsine Tables was a collection of data regarding the computation of the location of celestial bodies like the sun, moon, and stars. King Alfonso X of Castille commissioned this work in 1252. Scholars gathered in Toledo for the work. Toledo has a long Jewish history, and many Jewish scholars were brought in to help with the work.
Because Jewish holidays are determined by the lunar calendar, calculating the new moon was extremely important. There are many sections in the Talmud that deal with reading the New Moon and determining holidays as a result. With their expertise in these matters, Jewish scholars were brought in to help compile the Alfonsine Tables. Copernicus later used these tables to help determine that the earth actually revolved around the sun. Brahe later commissioned Ganz to translate these tables into German so that they could be used by German scholars like Kepler.
While Ganz and the Jewish scholars who compiled the Alfonsine Tables are largely forgotten to history, they played an indispensable role in the development of modern science and astronomy.
Galileo was initially summoned to Rome in 1616 and told by the Church authorities that while he could propose heliocentrism as a theory among theories, if he wished to continue to teach he must not argue for its absolute truth, a condition to which Galileo agreed. After publishing a book in which he appeared to argue more strongly for heliocentrism than geocentrism, however, Galileo was again called to Rome in 1633 and charged with suspected heresy and forced to recant. The tradition has been handed down, however, that he muttered to himself afterwards, "But it (i.e. the earth) does move." Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life.
During the Middle Ages science had been looked upon as belonging to philosophy and it had been given its place in the working out of the theories of scholasticism. During the period of the Renaissance it had broken away from the accepted medieval point of view and had developed independently of philosophy. Like Roger Bacon, the Renaissance scientists based their beliefs on observation and experiment, methods which since the sixteenth century have been accepted as natural. The medieval scholar often tried to make all his facts fit into an organized system. The Renaissance scientist led the way towards a system of thought which allows free inquiry and investigation, a system which takes its facts as and when it finds them, slowly building them into something of which the investigator was ignorant at first but which opens out into an ever-increasing knowledge of the wonders of the universe.