The "Circle of the Earth"

Was Isiah a gospel writer ? The common perception was that the earth was flat. Any proof that Isiah would have been in contact with Greek astronomers or is this just assumption. I'd rather go with Brian's theory, although it still comes across as speculation of what MUST have happened.Either way, with exception to Paul, I don't see any of the Gospel writers as particularly educated.

Between the two extremes of educated Greeks and Asia Minor geeks, may I suggest that there were at least two other groups of people that had an inkling of a round earth.Sailors / fishermen
The horizon at sea level is about 15 miles. You don't have to go very far before other fishing boats from the village start to disappear over the horizon. Even if the village is still in sight, your neighbor's boat will "sink" from view except for the mast. A curved surface will give that illusion and ancient mariners knew that, even if they couldn't write about it. Even if you followed the coast line, your starting point would sink from view, the farther you sailed.Camel Jockeys on caravansThe horizon at "sand" level is also about 15 miles. The caravan routes around the Middle East had been established over many eons. Especially when traversing the Sinai desert, one could be out of sight of landmarks for many hours or days. But the illusions the travelers encountered were the same as sailors. Topographical features slowly rose out of the desert in front of the caravan and receded behind it.But then, there's no Book of Bedouin in the Old Testament now, is there? No one asked them what shape they thought the earth was.(:raig

For what it's worth, I truly despise this type ignorant bigotry.

The comment about Greeks was in reference to the sub-topic of the significance of Jesus being taken to the mountain top during his temptation.And Luke was supposed to be a physician; I think that modern scholarship still accepts that the writer of Luke/Acts was well-educated, but I could be wrong here.

Didn't want to get whacked for being off-topic and found this shiny barely used thread...In this post Message 149 pbee states Couple of thoughts.1. This would imply that this anthropomorphic God is limited to our 3-dimensional space.2. "God sits above" What is above in space? Is the north pole or south or in the direction of the sun? Further evidence of a limited earth centric view of the cosmos not a heliocentric or advanced view of the cosmos.3. The last parenthetical phrase "but that also makes it globular in form" is *not* supported by the choice of word used in this passage.Is there a ancient Hebrew word for sphere?If so, why not use this word? You will have to find this actual reference - I cannot. All I find is some references to a JW Watchtower publication.The transliteration of this word from from Hebrew to English varies. What I found is chuwg, chagag, and hhug.None of the concordances (including Strong's) or any of the Hebrew to English dictionaries translate this word as globular or spherical - this appears to be an extra-biblical extrapolation.What the full passage is describing is a circle of the earth at the bottom of tent - where the tent is a dome or vault with the stars embedded supported by other passages such as ("stretchest out the heavens like a curtain") and ("He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing").None of this describes a solar system or any advanced knowledge. Keep in mind those Greeks with their reasoning and observations knew the earth was spherical around 5th century BC and were doing calculations on the diameters of Earth, Sun and Moon by 4th century.

iceage There is a word for ball which implies that there is a concept of a sphere. The word is duwr and can be found here
Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter Bible

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And what's interesting is that this word for ball is used in the very same Book of Isaiah that the Circle of the Earth Verse is found.Now, literalists tend to believe that Isaiah wrote the entire book of Isaiah. It seems to be a bit odd that Isaiah would use a word that has implications of a flat figure when he knew and used later on a word that unambiguously refers to a three-dimensional shape.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

Unless of course, he really did think that one item was flat while the other was a sphere.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

the question, more appropriately, should be "is there an ancient hebrew word for planet?"and there is not. the modern word for "planet" or "world" is the ancient hebrew word for "eternity." there is, however, a word for "ball" as sidelined pointed out. had that been what isaiah meant, he could have written that. the "hh" seems to be representing the hard "h" sound, which typically renders "ch" and "chutzpah" and "chanukah." there isn't a sound for it in english. chagag ’’ is a different word, the root from which chug ’ originates. the first one has to do with celebrations, and the second comes from it, and the aspect of dancing in a circle.the verse is actually very poetic:

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‘ —-’
‘ ’‘

— —‘

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h'yashab al-chug ha-aretz
v'yashabyah ki-chagabim
hanoteh ki-doq shamim
v'matachem ki-ohel l'shabet

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"he dwells on the vault of the earth
and those that dwell within are as grasshoppers
he stretches the heavens like a curtain
and spreads them as a tent to dwell in."

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the chag or "grasshoppers" repeats the chug of "vault," and the shab is repeated three times. ki is used three times, and the -im endings match in the middle two lines. the natah from hanoteh matches the matach from matachem. there's a lot of "sound alikes" in the hebrew that just don't come into english.anyways, i've rendered the verse rather sloppily, but it does seem that "vault of the earth" is the correct translation, and that it refers to something that both encircles the earth, and forms non-flat shape: the dome of the heavens.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.Edited by arachnophilia, : typo spotted too late!

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Theological Dictionary of the Old TestamentVo 4 (four)pp244-247Definitions are very very complicated and dont lend themselves to simple solutions.The definitions take a life of their own from one language to another.Almost every Hebrew word means about 1000 different things in different dialects and related languages.The best way to figure a biblical definition is to be able to see how it is used in the rest of the Bible.Often that takes a pretty good scholar (once you see the scholars at work, you will see how advanced the field is)Then they match it to related uses for the time (if the period can be isolated and it actually can in this case) in other ancient Near Eastern regions.Then they see how the word was used in other related contexts.The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament is the best work for this.The scholar was particularly sharp in the case of this word used.Somehwat subjective (as would be expected in this type of case) but not too bad.(The only truely pathetic example of extreme-subjectivity was the scholar who did the definition for 'yr (city), which ended up being a polemic against the Conquest (lol I feared such).I plan on exposing his flawed work if I can find a thread to continue my Conquest postings in-old one is closed)Anyway, the scholar showed a pretty interesting way of (among other things) disagreeing with the type of definition Arach gave.Does anybody else have access to the volumes aside from me, so I dont need to select quotations from it?

Chiroptera,I don't know if the link below will help the understanding you have of 40:22. However, it seems to me that after reviewing the ch/vs 40:22, that it is saying: "it is he who dwells above the vault of the earth". The word TENT was translated from "ohel" and also means "HOME".Please note: I don't like to read the Bible and think that it is a literal communication. Perhaps it would be better to search for the context of this verse.Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter BibleCLICK ON THE NUMBERS TO REVEAL THE DEFINITION AT THE PAGEEdited by trossthree, : I forgot to post the linkEdited by trossthree, : errorEdited by trossthree, : error

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Thanks
trossthree

Hi, tr. The Blue Letter Bible is what I used to compose this post oh-so-long ago. I should point out that Strong is out of date by now (I used it mostly because I have no other resources, but am open to corrections), so use it with caution. I think the only one here who knows any Hebrew is arachnophilia (and he is more a student of modern Hebrew than Biblical Hebrew, I think) -- Brian's field is Biblical archaeology, so maybe he knows some Hebrew as well.That said, your post merely strengthens my point. Literalists claim that "the circle of the earth" shows that Isaiah knew that the earth was a sphere - I was trying to show that one cannot really reach such a conclusion from this verse. If the proper meaning is "the vault of the earth", then that merely underscores that this verse really gives no reason to suppose the Isaiah that wrote this verse knew that the earth was a sphere.And if we do use "vault" as the proper translation, then this seems (according to Strong, so be aware the the warning I just gave) to refer to the space above the solid earth as a "vault", an enclosed space consistent with the primitive cosmologies of the region at this time (and most other cosmologies) that assume that the sky is a solid material enclosing the air and the earth underneath. In that case, I suspect that "tent" rather than "home" would go better with "vault"At any rate, if we were to use this verse as an indication of what Isaiah believed about cosmology, then it would seem to be that Isaiah believed that the sky was a solid material enclosing the air and earth underneath -- which is opposite of what the literalists are trying to pull with this one.

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You can observe a lot by watching. -- Yogi Berra

we used to have some members who were fluent, such as amlodhi. but i haven't seen him around here recently.this is a verse that even if i knew all there was to know, i wouldn't be able to settle this once and for all. the particular sense of the word (which you can check with the concordance, for the other instances) does not seem to be spherical, but rather something that surrounds to puts boundaries on the earth. and in hebrew cosmology, that would be the dome of the heavens. from the context of the verse, that seems to be what it means here.however, i'd also like to point out that this is one of the modern words for "sphere." probably because of this verse. i'd like to point out something, which i really feel blue letter bible should take some effort to correct. when you click their "concordance" link, you get taken to a page that has two functions: a dictionary definition, and a list of places it appears in the text. the concordance is the second part, and not the first. because BLB is popular, people on the internet typically conflate the two. but concordances don't define words. dictionaries do.strong did not write those defitions. he just cataloged where root words appear in the text. the definitions on that site seem to be related to the graphics below them, from the Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testamament Scriptures by Wilhelm Gesenius. bible dicionaries, such as BLB's, are notoriously biased, often inserting personal interpretation of the authors (see leviathan, for instance).you will get better results with a hebrew bible and a modern dictionary, and a little knowledge of the language. that's all i use. yes, i would agree with that.

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actually, that is what a concordance is for.

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Job 22:14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.

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Pro 8:27-29 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

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When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:

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When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:

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quote:

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Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

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...and that's it. it's used three times total in the bible. that doesn't give us a lot to work from. but all references seem to talk of surrounding (which reflects the word's grammatical origin). no, i don't believe so. please contribute.

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minor quibble: it says on, not above. you use al like you would say he "he lives on a mountain" or "we talked about something[/i]. i think this is important to how we read the verse. he's clearly on something, looking down at the people of the earth. i don't think god living on the sphere of the planet earth makes sense here. it seems to parallel "vault" with "heavens" and relate the idea to a "tent." er, this is one of the problems i have with BLB's "concordance." ohel means tent. period. it can be used to refer to the tabernacle -- that's imagery that's important here, actually. in 345 verses, it's translated "home" once, in judges 19:9, where it says:

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...v'haleket l'ohelek

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literally: "and you can go to your tent."

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but since it's much more likely the levite in question lived in a city, the KJV (and most other translations) renders it "and you may go home." which is probably idiomatically acceptable, although it does not contain the negative connotations you might be able read into it if it were read literally.the problem comes when one starts with an ideology, pulls out a concordance, and thinks that because a word was translated that way once, it can mean that whenever it suits their needs. and that's just not the case.

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