George - Hooke is 17th century. That’s the “then” of the suggestion that “the opinion was not uncommon even then.”
The context is the polemic style of 17th century scientists inveighing against their learned opponents, belittling them as simpletons ignorant of “proper” science - and especially Hooke himself, whom the Fount of All Wisdom describes thus: “Hooke was irascible, at least in later life, proud, and prone to take umbrage with intellectual competitors.”
The fact that he can harness to that end a cartoon image of ignorant bumpkins thinking the sun is a sieve says absolutely nothing about the actual existence of such in his own age - or even in the primitive past he evokes as their “true” home. He’s a scientist, not a historian - or even a sociologist. It’s the 17th century equivalent of the cartoon caveman dragging his wife home by the hair - it’s a bad JOKE, as reading the whole piece up to page 3 demonstrates clearly.
Even if it were, in fact, a serious lament about the ignorance of the masses rather than Hooke denigrating his competitors, it would say something about taking a superficial phenomenological view of the world around, and nothing whatsoever about your claim that they got the idea from biblical literalism, which is what needs to be demonstrated.