The Bible's Flat Earth

In this particular instance you were commenting on Coverdale's Genesis. I showed you Coverdale's version because he did not capitalize "heaven and earth." {He also did not include the articles, because he relied on the Vulgate (which does not contain the articles).If I understand your theory properly, then the fact that the other early Protestant English Bibles: Geneva and Bishops, which DO feature the articles but DO NOT capitalilze "the heaven" and "the earth." So, I am wondering; Why did they NOT capitalize these words and why, all those years later, did the KJV choose to capitalize them, and then later decide to join the crowd which does NOT capitalize the words? (virtually no one else has capitalized them since; the MSG excepted).As for verse 10, almost everyone has capitalized "Earth" in that place. Those who do NOT capitalize "earth" at verse 10 include: Wycliffe (1396), Bishops (1568), French LSV (1901), God's Word (1995), and the NASB (1995).If all this is about the rules of English, then several somebodies must be disseminating bad translations!?!Given that the classics did not feature such refinements as capitalization, punctuation, and spaces between words, the issue goes to: What, if anything intelligible, does the Bible say?Yes?

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

You seem to be confused. The situation is "Earth" the dry land. Gen 1:10.So which is it, do you think? Is it "earth" when it's dry land and "Earth" when it is domain? Or is it the other way 'round?And, why would you assume that sailors at sea don't need the lights?This round has done little to improve my understanding of your thought.db

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

Modern is the only one which concerns me in this discussion, beginning with Wycliffe's Bible in the late 14th century. That may be OK in terms of the rules of writing English but with regard to awareness of cosmic realities I compare Wycliffe for the Pre Columbian perspective of its producer. Thank you for bringing it here to be tested. One must be careful when testing his hypotheses on persons less intelligent than himself. They are clearly misguided in that, aren't they? I think you misunderstand what I have said. The inconsistency is among "modern" versions; beginning with Wycliffe (1382) and running to present. The versions without such niceties as punctuation and capitalization are the truly ancient ones. The scheme of capitalization does exert an influence on them. What? You mean by showing them the inconsistency in schemes of capitalization? You've got me there. It's been a long time since I was introduced to the rules, and since then, some rules appear to have changed. Some nouns once considered proper, are now used commonly. The Germans may be onto something in this regard. They capitalize ALL their nouns.As I compare the texts in question, in terms of how they treat the word "earth," i.e. to capitalize or NOT capitalize, I see no rhyme or reason in them. Perhaps this is a phenomenon born of the method used to translate the old texts. The KJV translators, for example, were a group of 54 (?) scholars segregated into sub-committees. In this style of translating, majority rules apply. Thus, as is typical of committee actions, a single strong-minded individual, however looney, might influence the final outcome in some cockamamie fashion. You realize, of course, that the KJV underwent many corrective redactions before arriving at the final, 1769 edition.To conclude: I would be careful of putting too much stock in whether or not a word is capitalized. There are other biblical words which present the same kind of tantalizing possibilites, especially the word "god." Here, the question has been three fold: 1) whether or not to capitalize it, 2) whether to make it singular, or plural, and 3) whether to make it masculine or feminine. In practice, all three questions have been answered in various ways by various scholars, even within the same translation, even from one edition to another.Example: Gen 3:5

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1611 - For God doeth know, that in the day ye eate thereof, then your eyes shalbee opened: and yee shall bee as Gods, knowing good and euill.

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1769 - For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

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In the Hebrew text from which this verse is drawn, there is no distinction between "God" and "gods." It is all the same word. The Greek text (LXX) indicates the first usage as singular and second as plural (and, of course, no capitalization). The Latin (Vulgate) doesn't include a second reference to deity.What would be the significance of this; according to your hypothesis?

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

So, if I understand you correctly: Is that what you are saying?And by extension asserting that "the earth" at verse 1 should be understood as "dry land." i.e. opposite of what the text itself indicates and suggests?Is that what you are saying?'Cause it seems to me that the text is clear on what is being called "Earth."It is the "dry land" which is being called "Earth."And the "earth" of verse one is lumped together with the "heaven," which fact iself suggests to me a regional conception, i.e. that of a Domain.

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Gen 1:26,27 KJV - And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

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I am wondering what you make of this? The "domain" of man, according to this verse, includes land, sea and air. By your reasoning then, should not all of these domains be capitalized? But they are not.{still testing your hypothesis}

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

May I remind you that by enclosing the word "land" in brackets, the translator is letting us know that he has added it in, where he thinks it belongs. The Greek, Latin, and Hebrew versions do not include the word "land" here; unless you consider the fact that their words: ghi, terra and 'erets, which mean "land" are placed where English readers see the word "earth." This is not the case for readers of the NIV and NLT, but that is another kettle of fish. So, when the ancients read their Bible, they may have gotten a somewhat different impression. I'm going to boldly assert that every classic Bible simply says, We may assume that the Hebrew word - "yabbeshah" implies land, much as "desert" implies "land" in our language. It may interest you to know that the Greek word is XIROS, from which we get our word "Xerox" (dry process) and the Latin word is ARIDA, from which we get (DUH) "Arid." In the great lexical work of Gesenius concerning the Hebrew term, we read:

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"... that which is dry ... Hence used for dry land as opposed to sea, ...

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see fuller text Here.So, NO. It does NOT mean "land at the bottom of the sea," but rather points up the contrast between land and sea; the one being "dry" and the other being, well ... "water." It may interest you to know that where Gen 1:26 refers to "... the fowl of the air ..." - the word "air" is given for the Hebrew: shamayim; - the "Heaven" of verses, 1 and 8; both of which are capitalized in the 1611 edition.It may also interest you to know that where Gen 7:23 refers to "... the fowl of the heaven ..." - the word "heaven" is given for the Hebrew: shamayim; - the "air" of Gen 1:26, and the "heaven" of Gen 1:1,8.Pardon me if you were already aware of that.My point is that the Hebrew terminology employed in the creation narrative does not appear to discriminate between, "earth" and "land," "water" and "sea," or "heaven" and "air." In the Genesis narrative, "earth" IS "land," "water" IS "sea," and "heaven" IS "air."The Sumerian myth from which Genesis is apparently derived, describes the air-god Lil puffing into the water, which creats an airspace, which lifts the sky from off the land and holds it aloft. In like manner, the spirit (breath) of El is depicted gusting (my translation) on the waters primeval (the deep), thus separating them into upper and lower regions: water above and below the firmament which He calls Heaven, an air space (shamayim) which holds up the overhead waters and prevents them from drowning the land which appears when the lower waters are pooled.This is a very brief sketch of the matter, the full evidence of which has persuaded many a scholar to conclude a Mesopotmian origin for the Hebrew creation myth. It is, of course, only one of many lines of evidence which converge on that conclusion. This disagrees with much of the current thinking among fundamentalist Christians but I think one must look to what the original writer had in mind and not be very concerned for what King Henry, Queen Elizabeth, or King James wanted us to get out of their "Authorized" versions of the Bible. And that my friend is determined, among other things, by which words have been capitalized and where.Yes?

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

I'm going to stand on the fact that these matters were irrelevent in the original context. No capitalization remember. No punctuation. No spaces between words. All that has been added for the convenience of subsequent generations. What does that say about our ability to read? Anyway, I have half a mind to cook up a lecture entitled "Can the Bible Be Translated?" And I am thinking that it cannot be translated in such a way as to fulfill the popular expectation of what a Bible translation should be. It would not be the sort of thing you could simply sit down and read with comprehension and enjoyment. People have been trying to accomplish just that for a long long time. We are simply too far removed from the historical and cultural context in which it was written. We need lots of extras to go with our Bibles: Dictionaries, Concordances, Commentaries, and more.Historically it appears that all efforts to produce an improved translation have been conducted by believers. There has probably never been a Bible produced by skeptical, non-theistic scholars who have no axe to grind; are NOT beholding to a religious institution; and/or are not driven by some sort of "spiritual" motivation. In other words, there has never been and probably never will be an "unbiased" translation. I said it. I believe it. And that's that.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

Yes. NOT in the Bible. An excellent question, and one which I am currently investigating with the help of Babylon.comThey have an expression which roughly translates as "earth globe," which is what people were learning to call our planet in the latter part of the eighteenth century. During the Protestant Reformation, when English language Bibles were all the rage, no one seems to have been using the term "earth" as a reference to the globe, much less the planet. Columbus (54 years before Copernicus published) referred to it as the "terraqueous globe," i.e. a "ball of earth and water." They have modernized it, but as Rabbi David told me, they do not speak of a difference between the "old" language and the "new." I'm not sure whether that policy applies among Israeli scholars. I am doubting it. But the languages are similar enough to make certain assumptions based on usages. At this point in my study, the current "theory" that the Bible NEVER refers to planet earth appears to be undiminished.The root "yabesh" apparently still means the same: "dry."

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -