There you Go,YECs...biblical "evidence" of "flat earth beliefs"

excuse me for interupting your current little debate, but i'm new and i would like to jump back to the first page and bring up some things to consider.
one: the reference to Daniel 4:10 holds little evidence of the belief of the flat earth concept. it is important to note the context of what is actually written.
"10 These are the visions I saw while lying in my bed: I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. 11 The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth."
if you look at how he comparitively speaks about the height of the tree, he states that it "touches the sky" while in a logical perspective, we know you can't merely "touch the sky", rather Daniel is poetically describing the relationship between the size of the tree and a comparitive height scale (since he did not use a measurement relative to meters/feet/miles). this figurative speech is also used in the latter sentence "visible to the ends of the earth" to conclude the WIDTH of the tree he witnessed, since he already spoke of its height. we know that there are no ends to the earth because there are no logical endpoints of a sphere, relative to a point/line/plane format. but what he is really saying, is that "this tree is so massive", that the only way to describe it would be using the two reference points "sky" and "ends of earth".my little cousin once wrote a paper in his fifth grade class about cars. his description of the superiority of ferrari against lambourghini was that "it blew it out of the water". we know that that can't happen literally, but rather it is a structure of figurative terms to describe relationships between what we know to be LARGE, or BETTER, and the objects in comparison (such as trees, or cars)

it doesn't matter, but to clear some things up:
daniel was someone who knew specifics. he interpereted the king's dreams, he knew how to explain things. the way he's explaining this isn't that the tree ends. it's so massive it actually doesn't end. which is why he states "ends of the earth" and "touches the sky"figuratively, give me an explanation of an object that everyone can identify with and in a size scale that everyone can identify with. one thing to note is that he's talking to people who dont' see things the way he saw them, so he puts it in terms THEY understoodEdited by Mikael Fivel, : No reason given.

thanks for that piece of information regarding reply buttons!daniel didn't need to know every specific. he merely said those words in order that the people who he was speaking to and writing to would understand easiest IF he said it a way they could understand.
if i start quoting computer spec's to a crowd of english majors, how many of them are going to understand what i'm saying? i'd have to translate "amd x64 dual core" into a way that they could relate. i'm thinking he wanted to exaggerate, based on knowing that he was a writer.

a cube, 3 dimensional figure, has ENDS and whether or not WE THINK it is flat, is only to ourselves. - who knows, he could have though the earth was a CUBE! we don't know whether or not he knew that the earth was flat. it really doesn't matter, he's not proving anything. he's DESCRIBING the size of the tree in his dream.

once again, he's not trying to prove anything. he's merely "dumbing down" the DESCRIPTION OF THE TREE because his audience had not seen what he saw, or knew. pointing back to my analogy of computers vs english majors. who knows, maybe he was talking to a group of mathematicians, which is why he would tell it that way. point being, the whole couple of verses are NOT describing the earth, he's describing the size of the tree. merely making reference points. he, in no way, said the words "the earth is flat" believe me, people back then were very clear in directions and explanations of things. look at how Solomon told the workers to build the temple. i'm gonna say what daniel said in modern terms so teenagers from washington state can identify with me on this, so listen closely. "dudes, this tree i saw in my dream, was so freakin massive it'd easily reach mars and yeah, it would easily take up oceans in width." because i can tell ya this, teenagers in seattle would understand that. whereas a 5 year old from puerto rico would not.

"10 These are the visions I saw while lying in my bed: I looked, and there BEFORE ME STOOD A TREE in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. 11 The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth."
he's not talking abou the earth. he's using THINGS ABOUT/OF THE EARTH to describe the TREE. he does not say "in my vision, THE EARTH..." the dream is not about the earth, its about the tree.let me start this over... the whole chapter of daniel 4 is about A KING (Nebuchadnezzar to be precise) wanting daniel to INTERPERET his dream. it was actually a sequence of 3 dreams all of which are worded differently, all in which have ONE SAME meaning, and that meaning is (as described in daniel 4:19):Then Daniel (also called Belteshazzar) was greatly perplexed for a time, and his thoughts terrified him. So the king said, "Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its meaning alarm you."
Belteshazzar answered, "My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries! 20 The tree you saw, which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky, visible to the WHOLE EARTH, 21 with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the beasts of the field, and having nesting places in its branches for the birds of the air- 22 you, O king, are that tree! You have become great and strong; your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth.notice how he says "visible to the WHOLE EARTH... didn't repeat ENDS OF EARTH. it's merely to describe it's size, that EVERYONE could see it. Edited by Mikael Fivel, : forgot verse reference

and the whole sequence of dreams isn't even about the tree, or the earth anyways. it's a figurative statement of the power that nebuchadnezzar would have in the future.

it's not innacurate and thats beside the meaning. stop thinking literal about size. we know rome's empire was the largest in the world, in fact one of the emporers said it reached "to the corners of the earth". the point is that it was a HUGE empire that nebuchadnezzar was going to have. and the imagery is just imagery. he's not stating anything. it was in a DREAM. and it wasn't daniel's dream. it was nebuchadnezzar's and daniel interpreted it.
it's all figurative to explain how neb's empire was going to be the largest ever.

look, he never REPEATED the phrase "ends of earth". that was HIS way of saying that it was "visible to the whole world" (that was direct quote). he changed the way it was said, even though the meaning still stands - it's huge, and everyone will see it.

this is why i can't stress enough the importance of READING what you're arguing. the greater picture of all of this, is that ITS A DREAM, and what he's (nebuchadnezzar, not david) saying is MERELY HIS IMAGERY to describe to DANIEL, who understands what nebuchadnezzar is talking about, his dream. and asking all the WHY's doesn't make it false. read daniel 4:19-22:Dan 4:20-22
20 "The tree that you saw, which grew and became strong, whose height reached to the heavens and which could be seen by all the earth,
21 whose leaves were lovely and its fruit abundant, in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and in whose branches the birds of the heaven had their home ”
22 IT IS YOU, O king, who have grown and become strong; for your greatness has grown and reaches to the heavens, and your dominion to the end of the earth.the whole tree thing, is NOT saying anything about the earth being flat.
how can i distinguish what's figurative in this? easy, the tree and the earth and the *yadda yadda yadda* IS ALL A DREAM. nothing has to be true in a dream. it was a metaphor for nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. thats it.and if all you do is answer in questions, ive got some for you, that might help you see things the way i do (just as how neb describes things :-)why do scientists, who don't believe in God speak of the sky in the term "the heavens" if they know full well that the sky is not heaven or a part of?
why do people ask questions instead of looking for answers? why do people argue the bible WITHOUT using the bible?
why do people think asking rhetorical answers makes their point of view correct when really it just keeps things the same?Edited by Mikael Fivel, : No reason given.

and once again, i have to say:
notice that NEBUCHADNEZZAR was the initial source "touched the sky" and "ends of the world". and "ends of the world" back then PROBABLY meant "the entire world" as DAVID pointed out while he stated neb's dream back to him. DAVID didn't say anything about the earth being flat , he was interpreting neb's dream using what neb said, which in fact, IN THE BIGGER PICTURE was about how his kingdom was gonna be so great, but eventually fall.
and NO, he did not describe a flat earth.
Dan 4:20-22
20 "The tree that you saw, which grew and became strong, whose height reached to the heavens and which could be seen by all the earth,
21 whose leaves were lovely and its fruit abundant, in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and in whose branches the birds of the heaven had their home ”
22 it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong; for your greatness has grown and reaches to the heavens, and your dominion to the end of the earth.THAT is what david said.
and the reason why he didn't use OSTRICH is because the analogy of a tree is that which fits the format of a kingdom. trees grow tall, sprout branches, bear fruit, but eventually die... in this case he's saying that neb's tree, HIS KINGDOM was going to be the biggest, but still EVENTUALLY FALLEdited by Mikael Fivel, : No reason given.

the moon is visible to all the earth... is the earth flat?
trees have branches... width is a factor.
don't use rational logic to explain IRRATIONAL behavior, it doesn't work.
"if you just read the story" - it's a dream. if i described a DREAM in which the world is flat, it DOES NOT MEAN that i believe it is, NOR DOES IT COME ACROSS AS TRUTH. do you have control over what you dream about? can you tell yourself "i don't believe the world is flat, i'm never going to have dreams about the earth being flat" and make it so? it's an irrational dream. you're trying to use rational thinking and logic to explain that which is irrational. not only that, but the dream was metaphoric to begin with. Edited by Mikael Fivel, : No reason given.

a figurative and metaphoric phrase for a deeper meaning, describing the relationship between trees and kingdom's is not relevant to the "earth is flat".
please note that when it says "reaches the ends of the earth" or "all the world will see" IS pointing out width. if you have a square, and you're saying that an object reaches all of its ends, then you're referencing its WIDTH.and you made an excellent point, "there is nothing whatsoever in the story to indicate that they didn't all believe the earth was flat." but guess what, even if ONE of them believed it, guaranteed they didn't care THERE - that does NOT mean EVERYBODY believed it was.the brainteaser is that he probably USED the MODEL of the earth being flat to reference the size of nebuchadnezzar's kingdom to come. we just don't know, he never said outright (none of them, for that matter) "the earth is flat", funny thing about the bible; it cross references itself to prove points, and implications aren't cross referenced into FACTUAL statements.Edited by Mikael Fivel, : No reason given.

1) the bible was written by SEVERAL people.
2) you CAN measure the width of a sphere, so don't mix that up
3) Jesus spoke in parables to explain deeper meanings so that people could relate to them, as to understand them and be able to apply them, so don't debunk the "he might be using the model of" scheme. and just as the way you put it, there's no evidence he's NOT using a model.
4) funny thing is, new testament DOESN'T. one thing to call question from the passage you quoted is the number of kingdom's there were. you don't know, so really he COULD be standing up on a mountain and looking at three different kingdoms, which happen to be the only ones in existence (which is plausible, given the faith of any evolutionist who would look at the big bang theory), and there's no evidence of that being true OR false, so don't write that off as false.
5) point still stands, whether or not they reference a model of a flat earth or even IMPLY a flat earth, it's not relevant to what is being said as a whole. even if you came to the conclusion (which i don't doubt you have) that EVERYBODY BACK THEN knew that the earth was flat and believed it, it has no affect on the overall premise of the bible or salvation as a whole, and therefore does not affect the validity of the book itself. so this little *bash the bible piece by piece* thread doesn't actually mean anything, ironically. which is why this is my last post on it

*sigh* i don't know why i'm doing this...
this whole thread "signals" that *haha* people were so dumb back then because they thought the earth was flat, and we're so much smarter than they are because we use science to butter our bread. so i don't know how you're implying respect for the bible, honestly.
and the best way to know how the bible says something, really, and when to use judgment to figure out the difference of literal text and figurative/metaphoric, is to really just sit down and study the thing. too much on this forum i see people who try to argue its content, taking bits and pieces of beautiful commandments and stories and construing them horribly to create their "this is why *ha* we're so much better than them because we don't believe it" crap.
so if i made the insinuation (to you) that you're aimlessly out to slam the book, i'm really sorry, i'm slightly frustrated that this forum "the Bible: Accuracy and Innerancy" seems more like "we'll try to create meaningless flaws out of nothing by destroying context and not even using the bible to argue it." to me.