<P> Ancient Greek, ancient Roman and medieval philosophers usually combined the geocentric model with a spherical Earth . It is not the same as the older flat Earth model implied in some mythology . The ancient Jewish Babylonian uranography pictured a flat Earth with a dome - shaped, rigid canopy called the firmament placed over it (רקיע - rāqîa'). However, the ancient Greeks believed that the motions of the planets were circular and not elliptical, a view that was not challenged in Western culture until the 17th century through the synthesis of theories by Copernicus and Kepler . </P> <P> The astronomical predictions of Ptolemy's geocentric model were used to prepare astrological and astronomical charts for over 1500 years . The geocentric model held sway into the early modern age, but from the late 16th century onward, it was gradually superseded by the Heliocentric model of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler . There was much resistance to the transition between these two theories . Christian theologians were reluctant to reject a theory that agreed with Bible passages (e.g. "Sun, stand you still upon Gibeon", Joshua 10: 12). Others felt a new, unknown theory could not subvert an accepted consensus for geocentrism . </P> <P> The geocentric model entered Greek astronomy and philosophy at an early point; it can be found in pre-Socratic philosophy . In the 6th century BC, Anaximander proposed a cosmology with Earth shaped like a section of a pillar (a cylinder), held aloft at the center of everything . The Sun, Moon, and planets were holes in invisible wheels surrounding Earth; through the holes, humans could see concealed fire . About the same time, Pythagoras thought that the Earth was a sphere (in accordance with observations of eclipses), but not at the center; they believed that it was in motion around an unseen fire . Later these views were combined, so most educated Greeks from the 4th century BC on thought that the Earth was a sphere at the center of the universe . </P> <P> In the 4th century BC, two influential Greek philosophers, Plato and his student Aristotle, wrote works based on the geocentric model . According to Plato, the Earth was a sphere, stationary at the center of the universe . The stars and planets were carried around the Earth on spheres or circles, arranged in the order (outwards from the center): Moon, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, fixed stars, with the fixed stars located on the celestial sphere . In his "Myth of Er", a section of the Republic, Plato describes the cosmos as the Spindle of Necessity, attended by the Sirens and turned by the three Fates . Eudoxus of Cnidus, who worked with Plato, developed a less mythical, more mathematical explanation of the planets' motion based on Plato's dictum stating that all phenomena in the heavens can be explained with uniform circular motion . Aristotle elaborated on Eudoxus' system . </P>

Who is first on record as proposing a geocentric universe