The Bible's Flat Earth

A single paragraph is insufficient, you'd need to read the whole book, and study what kind of world the authors lived in, the events that surrounded them, the beliefs and attitudes of the people they lived around and so on and so forth.Unfortunately, this is often seen as 'too much' context, because all of these other things aren't the inspired word of Ba'al the Lord.

In the interest of thouroughness I'll add the following. Again the argument is not whether God exists. This thread is about whether people of biblical times had a correct concept of the earth or whether the earth was flat in their view.The first verse indicates at the very least that they didn't seem to be aware of a thinning atmosphere with elevation. If they didn't have the 'firmament or dome' idea why were they building the tower?Whether or not the scattering in the second verse was indeed into all the earth isn't the argument either. What is the issue is whether the people of those times would know what the term 'all the earth' meant from a modern perspective. Here again history confirms the idea that they did not. The 'new world' would not be very new if they had would it? If they did not know of 'all the earth' then how did they know of all the 'sphere'? Why didn't their maps wrap all the way around if they knew the world was a sphere?While ancient peoples did apparently know about spheres and calculating surface areas and volumes of spheres.
School of Science and Mathematics - Truman State University
They did not seem to apply this concept to the world they lived in.

Gday all, Indeed -
a rabbit does NOT have a 2nd stomach, and does NOT chew the cud.
Chewing the cud does NOT mean eating feces.
The bible is wrong. Pardon?
So now you are claiming it started flat, then God made it spherical?
Or what? False.
No-one - NOT ONE SINGLE person here translated 'immovable' as 'flat'. You appear unable to read for comprehension, whether it be the bible or posts here.KapyongEdited by Kapyong, : No reason given.

quote:

---

I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of an intelligent mature adult person in ancient times. I believe I would look at the moon and the sun and assume that the stars and all bodies in the cosmos would be spherical.

---

Indeed. The sphericity of the heavenly bodies is obvious. The cycle of the moon is enough to demonstrate this. No-one is suggesting otherwise. As far as I can tell, the Bible authors believed the sun and moon to spherical. They probably thought of the stars as much the same, only smaller.

quote:

---

It would not be (abe:likely) for thin discs to be positioned exactly parallel to the face of the earth

---

I am not suggesting that anyone ever thought this way.

quote:

---

It would be more logical to think that they were spherical and that the earth would be shaped like they were.

---

This is where your argument falls down. There is no reason why the ancient Hebrews would have thought of the earth (note deliberate lack of capitalisation) as being in the same category of objects as the moon or planets. This is the piece of the puzzle that they lacked. They thought of the earth as being special, at the centre of things. They did not see it as merely one of a number of heavenly bodies . This view of the Earth was not held until after Copernicus and Galileo. Ancient peoples had no idea that the heavenly bodies were as massive as they actually are. The Bible has stars falling to earth. They had no conception of what stars really, were, as is evidenced by the consistent distinction between the sun and the stars, which are, in reality, the same thing. For them, there was no reason to connect the earth with any of the heavenly bodies.Added by Edit; I have just found a lovely verse illustrating this point; According to the wiki page on the flat Earth, Chinese astronomers, not stupid men by any standards, continued to believe the Earth to be flat into the Seventeenth Century. Your assumption that you would have been able to idly deduce what eluded them for millennia is wholly unwarranted.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Added 1 Corinthians quote.

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Sigh. Kapyong, I'm not posting my messages to ancients. I'm posting them to moderns like you and me. My message was (to moderns) that likely the (ancients) would have regarded the planet shaped like what we moderns call spherical, i.e. having curvature or ball like. That I'm telling you that they regarded it as what you know as spherical, does not mean I'm saying that the Hebrews used the word spherical. Get it?

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Are you not talking to me any more Peg? Do you have nothing to say regarding Message 109? Ah well...Firstly, (and not just for Peg's attention) can we please stop talking about rabbits? This thread is not about rabbits. The original text wouldn't even have mentioned rabbits. There were no rabbits in the area. Anyone who wants to talk about bunnies should set up a bunny thread. I'll bring my recipe for coney casserole.

quote:

---

If i tried to tell you that the word 'immovable' means 'flat' you would laugh at me.

​

They mean completely different things yet an 'immovable earth' is being translated as 'a flat earth'

​

it doesnt make sense.

---

I'm not saying that "immovable" means "flat". The reason I have brought immovability, the domed sky, the four winds and other elements into this discussion, is to build a wider view of the Hebrew cosmos. It is no use trying to understand the flat Earth without putting it into context. I thought you wanted more context?

quote:

---

Again, it comes down to the context. Can you read one sentence in a paragraph and know the context?

​

no, not likley.

---

Can you hold up one verse that may just possibly describe the Earth as a sphere and use it to trump all the others that contradict it? No, not really.

quote:

---

just because the writer wrote that the sun stood still, does not have to mean that it literally stood still.

​

it stood still by their perspective only...and the inpsired writer saw the same event and so recorded it as the way he saw it.

---

So the author believed the sun to be moving and the Earth to be still. That concurs with what I've been saying. The authors thought the Earth was motionless, just as they thought it was flat. God, one must assume, knows better.

quote:

---

it stood still by their perspective only...and the inpsired writer saw the same event and so recorded it as the way he saw it.

---

Indeed, he wrote it as he saw it. If he had understood the real cosmos, he would have mentioned the far more impressive miracle of God stopping the entire universe just to affect a battle on Earth. Now that really would be impressive.

quote:

---

About the book of Enoch...its not a bible book and its writings are quite different to what is found in the bible.

---

On the contrary, it is extremely similar. Four ends of the Earth? Check! Cornerstone of the Earth? Check! Solid firmament? Check! Waters above and below this firmament? Check! Windows and gates in the firmament? Check! Distinction between sun and stars? Check! Anthropomorphic stars? Check!In fact the similarities between 1 Enoch and both the Old and New Testaments go way beyond cosmology, but that is another discussion.With all these points of agreement, as well as the high regard in which the author of Jude held the book, there is compelling reason to suppose that the cosmos of Enoch was on general agreement with the wider view of Hebrew cosmology. If not, perhaps you might like to point out the differences.Mutate and Survive

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

1. That the earth would be regarded as flat compared to all other spherical bodies would be illogical. That the positioning of the constellations and observational cosmological changes occurred should imply that the earth was global. Imo, if they regarded the other bodies as global, they should have deduced that the earth was global. (I'm getting lazy. Global types out quicker than spherical.)Perhaps the unlearned and more superstitious would have bought into the flat earth, but not so likely the Biblical writers, especially those like Isaiah who stated that it was circular.I think it not likely that they would regard the earth as the only flat disk or dome in the cosmos, especially since scripture had it hanging on nothing as were the other bodies.2. As for stars falling to the earth, I cannot conceive of them thinking the stars were not distant, thus large, some more distant and of various sizes relative to brightness. Your citation of the Ist Corinthians 15 text seems to bear this out. Certainly you don't think they regarded them all as being he same distant from earth. The apostle Paul wrote of three levels of the heavens, implying that the third was the most remote. They are referred to in scripture as innumerable. That some were very dim compared to others would also tell them something. They, like most moderns were likely confused as to what that meant.Jesus, as well as OT prophets foretold the falling of the stars to earth. Jesus said in Mark 13 and other accounts of the Olivet Discourse that the heavens would be shaken and stars would fall to earth at his 2nd advent. This happens when Jesus comes in the clouds of the atmosphere. We have what would have been regarded as stars by someone on earth if they didn't know that the time would come when there would be scores of man made starlike satellites in our atmosphere. Likely these are what falls when the heavens are "shaken" at Jesus's advent. Also, missiles and other modern phenomena would have been regarded as star objects by the prophets for lack of what else to call them.3. I believe the doctrines and ideologies of cultures not inspired by Jehovah the true god, such as were the Chinese, were more prone to getting things wrong than the Biblical prophets. That is not to say that Biblical writers and readers fully understood all that written or read. Far from it, but that they would be more likely to get it right in their record.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Gday, Sigh.
We get it.You'll do anything to avoid admitting you were wrong that Hebrew had no word for 'sphere'. You will never address the actual use of the word for 'sphere' (dwr), right there in Isaiah ("toss you like a ball") to refer to a spherical object.Kapyong

quote:

---

That the earth would be regarded as flat compared to all other spherical bodies would be illogical. That the positioning of the constellations and observational cosmological changes occurred should imply that the earth was global.

---

By this logic, the idea of a flat earth could never have existed at all, which it clearly did. The Egyptians and Babylonians both believed in a flat earth. The evidence of a spherical Earth was always there; the earth was spherical after all. It's just that the evidence was subtle and took a while to get noticed. It was far from as obvious as you are implying.

quote:

---

Imo, if they regarded the other bodies as global, they should have deduced that the earth was global.

---

You're not getting it. They didn't regard the other bodies as being earth-like. They had no concept of "the Earth". They only knew about the earth, i.e. the land at their feet. It looked (more or less) flat, so they assumed it was flat.They regarded the earth as one category of object, the planets, the moon, the sun and the stars as another category of object. There would have seemed to have been no reason to connect the two.

quote:

---

Perhaps the unlearned and more superstitious would have bought into the flat earth, but not so likely the Biblical writers, especially those like Isaiah who stated that it was circular.

---

Learned they may have been, but only by the standards of a comparatively ignorant age. As for superstitious? Please! The authors of the Bible were clearly as superstitious as they come.Also, for the n^th time, "circular" does not mean "spherical". Even if chwg can mean "spherical", you have not provided any evidence that this is the intended meaning.

quote:

---

I think it not likely that they would regard the earth as the only flat disk or dome in the cosmos, especially since scripture had it hanging on nothing as were the other bodies.

---

There is no reason why a flat disc couldn't "hang upon nothing", especially since that is exactly what is portrayed in 1 Enoch.

quote:

---

I cannot conceive of them thinking the stars were not distant, thus large, some more distant and of various sizes relative to brightness. Your citation of the Ist Corinthians 15 text seems to bear this out.

---

No it doesn't. The stars vary in "glory", by which I presume they mean "brightness". There is nothing in the verse about distance. The verse quite clearly demonstrates that they thought of the earth and the heavenly bodies as being quite different categories of object.

quote:

---

Certainly you don't think they regarded them all as being he same distant from earth.

---

Naturally not, and I never said that they did.

quote:

---

That some were very dim compared to others would also tell them something. They, like most moderns were likely confused as to what that meant.

---

Yes, they thought that it meant that some were more glorious than others, i.e. brighter.

quote:

---

We have what would have been regarded as stars by someone on earth if they didn't know that the time would come when there would be scores of man made starlike satellites in our atmosphere. Likely these are what falls when the heavens are "shaken" at Jesus's advent. Also, missiles and other modern phenomena would have been regarded as star objects by the prophets for lack of what else to call them.

---

Once again, literalism goes right out of the window whenever it is convenient. Jesus, whoever he might have been, was presumably intelligent enough to say what he meant. I have no idea why you are so keen on constantly twisting his words.

quote:

---

I believe the doctrines and ideologies of cultures not inspired by Jehovah the true god, such as were the Chinese, were more prone to getting things wrong than the Biblical prophets. That is not to say that Biblical writers and readers fully understood all that written or read. Far from it, but that they would be more likely to get it right in their record.

---

How incredibly patronising towards the Chinese. If the Bible authors were so enlightened, why did they explicitly refer to the Earth as motionless? Why the nonsense about the four winds and their chambers? The text is just not especially inspired when it comes to the cosmos.Face facts, the Bible paints a picture of the cosmos that no modern astronomer would recognise.Mutate and Survive

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Kapyong, I have addressed the problem with usage of the word ball relative to the Isaiah scripture in question which uses the circle word. I said that the term circle was used to denote curvature in the context which was used. I cited the reason why the word for ball or curve/curvature was not used in that context. You have not directly addressed my reasoning in any depth. Until you do so, you are all bark and no bite.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Hi Kapyong,Sigh,But if Isaiah had said it was round like a ball he would have been wrong as the earth is not a sphere.Isaiah says in 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:"Where does that verse say anything about the shape of the earth?thing

Hi thingamabob,Welcome to EvC. The scripture no where says anything about the shape of the earth.It states that the one sitting on the circle of the earth.I read your other post about the equator and if God was sitting on the equator and He saw a human they would not be the size of grasshoppers. So that would be out.It could possibly be the circle the earth takes around the sun but there would still be a problem.It could possibly be the circle the sun and the earth take around the Milky Way but there would still be a problem.The only circle I can think of that would work would be the circle around the universe which would be the third heaven where God sits on His throne.From there He could stretch out the heavens.God Bless,

---

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Good point. How close would this 'star' have to be?Matt 2:9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.Maybe to preserve biblical inerrancy we might consider this star to be Elvis?

It is left as an exercise for the reader to decide whether these two quotes are harmonious.

---

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

Hi thing, Well the Bible says it was divided in the days of Peleg.But nobody will touch that.Science says it was divided between 200 and 240 MYA.God Bless,

---

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."