The Bible's Flat Earth

Okay,

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Of course, I agree the dream doesn't originate from the Pharaoh, and it has no correlation with the Exodus. It originates from a Babylonian King by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. (I'm surprised by this reply, since I indicated this in my original post). The jewish deportation to Babylon has many evidence for it, and so I don't think we can apply this vision to the flight of fancy of a jewish author.

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My Bad. I got hopelessly mixed up. Sorry about that! I know fully well that we are talking about the Book of Daniel. I claim temporary insanity! Move along please! Nothing to see here!Nonetheless, the same argument applies. Daniel is not an accurate historical account, as incidents like the fiery furnace ought to demonstrate. Its historicity is widely disputed, with most scholars regarding it as an amalgam of real incidents and mythologising. It was written centuries after the events depicted. The chances of the dream being accurately recorded (when simple matters like the name of a king appear to be mistaken) are close to zero. I still maintain that the dream was the product not of Nebuchadnezzar, but of a much later Jewish author.

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I think this is where I will have to disagree. It is highly relevant if it is poetry or not.

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The whole "It's only poetry!" defence strikes me as hypocritical for many Christians. "It's only poetry!" is exactly what some of us have been trying to tell you about the Bible.

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viewing it as poetry , and as of such not seeing it as evidence for what the author actually believed, is just as legitimate.

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No, I still disagree.I agree that poetry is less valuable as a source than more restrained writings. That does not ,however, mean that all poetry should be disregarded. If you do that, you can chuck out large portions of the Bible for a start.Take an example; Phillip Larkin's popular poem This Be the Verse. From reading this poem, one might get the impression that Larkin doesn't care for family or having children; and you would be right. Further, we might gather from the passing use of a "coastal shelf" as a simile, something of what Larkin thought of geology. Again, the impression given would be accurate, even though geology is not the topic of the poem.Just because a source is poetic, doesn't mean that it can be ignored completely. We an still draw conclusions from it about what its author(s) thought about the world. Is it the best way to judge this? No. All that means though, is that we should be more careful when using poetry in this way. Given the amount of complementary evidence in the Bible and Apocrypha, I don't feel that I am over-doing it.

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As I've said when engaging in this discussion, proof beyond doubt will never be obtained on this issue.

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I dunno about that. I think that 1 Enoch is pretty cast iron proof that Jewish cosmology was once flat-earth.

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New International version. I must've got lucky, I just took the first english version on this site

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NIV goes a little further than most versions with this verse. You can view parallel translations here; Job 38:14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.For therecord, I don't particularly dispute your interpretation of the "garment" comment as being a metaphor for the features of the earth. I was just curious where yo got it from.The "seal" reference clearly evokes the image of a clay tablet, such as would have been used extensively in those days. That suggests, very strongly in my view, a flat earth being stamped out. The "garment" reference again simply suggests the folds in an essentially flat fabric. That sounds to me as though it is describing the ridges on a stamped clay tablet. This whole chapter is flat-earth. Leaving aside the idea that "darkness" is something in itself rather than merely an absence of light, this sounds awfully like the storehouse in which 1 Enoch has the Sun resting each night, doesn't it?

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If the focus is on the features, and not on the overall shape of the earth, than the analogy is as good as it can get.

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Yes, namely a very poor analogy, completely unsupported by any reference to a spherical earth to corroborate your interpretation.My interpretation agrees with the general tone of the chapter and makes perfect sense of the clay tablet and garment references.

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If a highly imaginative person wrote it, then it reinforces the idea that it may well be historical fiction.

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Except that the author of Jude accredits it to the patriarch Enoch; He seems to think it authentic. If it were always intended as mere fiction, Jude was pretty wide of the mark (unless you think he saw Genesis as fiction too).If you want to portray 1 Enoch as deliberate fiction with no religious intent you are going to need to provide some proper evidence for it, beyond wishful thinking.

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There is a simply reason why no one presented an example for the word Chuwg being used in anexplicitly spherical context in the Bible. It is because there is none ...

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Mmm...

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If translators of ancient jewish define the word 'Chuwg' as appliable in both a spherical and circle meaning, it is most highly probable that it is used in such a context in another manuscript don't you agree ?

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I have no idea. If I were to be shown a clear example, I might be more easily convinced. However, I have seen no evidence in favour of the "sphere" meaning to date. Even then, you would still need to show somehow that "sphere" was the intended meaning in that instance.

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No sorry, speaking french+writing in english lat at night is bound to have thos kind of mistakes. I must admit I'm surprised there aren't more in my text.

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I thought that was what happened. Don't worry about your English slevesque. It is pretty damn good and you're clearly getting better as you go. In French, I can just about order a beer and a ham sandwich, but after that, I'm stuck!

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Can you go underneath the disc in your flat earth cosmology ?? DOesn't the water simply rush off at the edges as a waterfall ?

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It's not my cosmology! It is, at the very least, 1 Enoch's. The winds can pass through gates in the firmament. I think that this is the intended meaning here. AS for the waters, they are held in check by the firmament, where it rests upon the ground.

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I cannot view a topic where both options can be believed legitimately at the end as a debate. I view this as much more of a discussion, and my intention in getting involved was to show that the other view was just as legitimate.

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It is in the nature of discussions on a forum like this, that they rarely end in agreement. This is a debate site though, and if you want your view to be regarded as legitimate, your best bet is to provide as much evidence as possible. I just haven't found yours very convincing I'm afraid.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.Edited by Granny Magda, : Fleshed out original post.

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"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

Hi Young Earthling and welcome to EvC!

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It seems to me that some people are trying to make a case for the bible being errant.

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Not me. Nope. Well, maybe a little bit... Actually, I regard that argument as already having been settled. The jury is out and the Bible is errant. Big errors, little errors, important and trivial errors. It's not perfect.My advice is that you learn to live with it.What I have specifically been trying to do in this thread, is to determine whether or not a flat Earth is one of the errors that the Bible makes. In the process, I hoped to illustrate the point that the Bible is not a science textbook. If I wanted to make a more general case against inerrancy, there are easier and more clear-cut examples than this.

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This would in turn allow them to disregard any authority of the bible and try to make Christians, even Jews, denounce their written book of authority...which would lead to what exactly.

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That's really up to you theist chaps. If you insist upon putting all your spiritual eggs in one basket so to speak, that's your problem.Of course, it's convenient for me, as an evil atheist conspirator, if you insist on so fragile a faith. I'll be honest; I don't much like the Bible and I would be happier if people paid less attention to it. If you will insist on building your faith on the shaky grounds of inerrancy, that just makes my job easier. Nonetheless, I feel honour-bound to point out that Biblical errancy doesn't seem to bother millions of believing Christians worldwide. I really don't see why admitting to a few errors should rock your faith. Even if the Bible is God's word, it was written by fallible men at a time when a belief in a flat earth was the norm. I don't see why we should even expect it to be inerrant.

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Yes we will defend our authoritative book.

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All I have done to your precious book is read it and try to understand what it's saying. Catholic Scientist says it well; Do yourself a favour and spare yourself the effort of all those mental contortions. Just accept the Bible for the flawed yet fascinating document that it is. In my view that is a more respectful approach than trying to shoehorn the text into one's own personal dogma. Wouldn't it be easier to admit that the Bible is not a science textbook and it shouldn't be read as such?Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Hi Sky, I'm not suggesting "fixed" in the sense of "attached to". I'm suggesting fixed in the sense of "immobile". The authors would not have had any modern concept of space, so this is an irrelevant consideration. Why? Is it because of that song? {Apropos of nothing; "Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?" - Steven Wright}Why would you accept that? It's plainly not true. The Earth is moving forwards through time at (roughly) the same rate as everything else in the vicinity. I thought you believed the Bible was accurate (?).Besides, the authors would not have had any modern notion of time, so this is again, irrelevant. The quotes give no such sense. They refer to the earth as fixed and immovable. The straightforward interpretation is that they are talking about physical immovability; a motionless earth. You are clearly not taking this seriously. Everything else in your post is gibberish as far as I can tell. Not that the first bit made much sense...Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Sky, you are approaching this backwards. What matters is what the text is saying, what the authors intended it to say. Are you seriously suggesting that, in the absence of a specific single word meaning "orbit" that the Bible authors would have been unable of describing an orbit? Do you imagine them to have been idiots? And if the Bible said that, I would be impressed. It doesn't though. It says the earth is fixed and immobile. Hence the problem... I might just as usefully suggest that the problem is that you smell.Or, we could not hurl mindless insults at one another. What do you think?Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Hi Sky. It seems that you have some very extreme and unrealistic ideas about the Bible that are going to make any kind of discussion very difficult here. I don't know of anyone (save for yourself) who seriously believes that Jesus wrote the Bible. Apart from anything else, several of the quotes under discussion are from the Old Testament and pre-date Jesus' birth. This is an absurd and essentially meaningless non-statement. Or it might mean that the earth is fixed, immobile and shall not be moved... just like it says.It seems that the only reason you have for rejecting this interpretation is that it is not actually a true statement about the real Earth and you have taken the literal truth of the Bible as your starting assumption. That may be very comforting for you but it is of no use in a discussion of this nature. If the only way to understand this text is to accept it as truth without even comprehending what it says, as you seem to be suggesting, then I am content to remain ignorant thank you. I am making no such effort. As far as I am concerned, there are more than enough obvious mistakes in the Bible for any reasonable observer to realise that it is far from the book of literal truth that you imagine it to be.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Sky, It's a meaningless distraction which has no place in this discussion. That is your assertion. I see no reason to believe or assume that, nor is divine inspiration the topic of this thread. Such is the arrogance of the literalist Christian. You take a set of books written centuries before your birth and, somehow, make it all about you. How pathetically self-obsessed. And with this you reveal that you have no intention of critically analysing the Bible at all. If you insist in taking, as a starting assumption that the text is unquestionably the word of God, you are letting your prejudices poison the well of inquiry.Worse, you actually seem to think that this fallacious behaviour, where you assume your conclusion before even starting to make inquiries, is a virtue. It is not. It is a logical fallacy and a recipe for delusion. How do you know if they are mistakes, if you study them with a mind already closed? I have already told you that I am not trying to compile Biblical errors. It is rather obnoxious of you to keep lying about it. Yes. It also just so happens to be the only measure of the text about which we can be objective. Just because a text can be read in different symbolic ways, doesn't mean that you can throw out the basic meaning. You seem to imagine that the Bible authors, amongst the most educated people of their day (certainly with regards to the OT), were unable to describe an orbit, in their own language. You must think them imbeciles. The lack of respect that some Christians seem to have for the authors of their own foundational myths continues to amaze me.Only a simpleton would attempt to describe an orbiting body by calling it "fixed, immobile". The text is not describing an orbit. That is just an imaginative apologetic, cooked up by those, like yourself, whose faith is so weak that they cannot accept any hint of inaccuracy in their precious Bible. That is what I have been saying throughout. The earth does indeed seem flat. That's why the Bible authors thought it was flat! Of course they did; most people did when the OT was written and I'm sure many did during the writing of the NT. This is not an unreasonable error to make, in fact, it's completely understandable. The authors wrote as they did, reflecting the knowledge contemporaneous with their place and time.Now if the books clearly described a planet orbiting a sun, now that I would be impressed with. But they don't. Are you having English comprehension problems or something? You don't hang things from foundations. That's not how foundations work. If you're trying to hang things upon foundations, ur doin it rong.You cite Job, yet Job does refer to the foundations of the earth in Job 38:4; "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding."Your quote does not discount foundations and your interpretation is contradicted. Desperate. This clearly refers to the division of nations, not of the earth itself. I never said that the text contained no contradictions. That was your claim. However, I don't see this as a serious point. The earth is described as fixed in place, not completely unalterable. Clearly individual parts of the earth can move - something as simple as an earthquake is enough to demonstrate that. The authors would have been referring to the earth as a whole being fixed, not its constituent parts.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Sky, You are talking nonsense. The Book of Job is, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, not older than the Book of Job.

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Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.

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Do you understand?There are many references to foundations, compared to only one about being hung on anything. Nor does my argument depend upon the foundations quotes, which I consider to be amongst the least important evidence.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Hi HN, Wow. Part of the book. Well colour me impressed.Did you read the title of this thread? It's a lot shorter than the Origin. It's "The Bible's Flat Earth", so unless you have anything to add to that particular discussion, I would appreciate it if you could quit cluttering up the thread with off-topic trivia.Thank you.Mutate and Survive

Hi Rockondon and welcome, I'll take a stab at that. How about the fact that no-one thought of Earth as a planet at all until centuries later? Or the fact that the name "Earth" as the name of a planet postdates the Book of Isaiah by centuries?Now I agree with you that the Bible authors had a flat land mass in mind when they use the word erets (earth), but they are not referring to a planet in the modern sense. They had no such concept. You are being obstinate. The word "earth", in English can have more than one meaning. Similarly, the Hebrew word erets could have more than one meaning. None of those meanings involved planets though, not in reference to the Earth.If I told you that I had filled a plant pot with earth, would you assume that I had thrust an entire planet into a plant pot?Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Hi Rockondon, I agree with you, but that still doesn't mean that the author is referring to a planet. He's clearly not, since he would have had no idea that he was standing on a planet.In my view, the authors of Isaiah and the other quotes that have been discussed on this thread thought that they were standing on the uppermost face of a flat disc, covered by a dome-like vault of the heavens. Isaiah describes God as being enthroned atop this dome. Clearly, that is not a planet. When the word "earth" is used in this context, I think it is referring to all the land atop that disc, or at least much of the land (the known world). It's not referring to the whole thing and certainly not a planet. I'd be genuinely interested to hear some examples of who said what. I don't think that Severian actually said that, at least not in those words. I googled it and found this interesting post;

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The Wikipedia flat-earth article quotes Severian thus:

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The earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall.

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A reference is given of J.L.E. Dreyer, A History of Planetary Systems’, (1906) which needs to be verified. A limited preview of it is here, and Severian is on p.211-2. Here is what is said:

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A contemporary of Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, lays great stress on the necessity of accepting as real the supercelestial waters 1, while a younger contemporary of Basil, Severianus, Bishop of Gabala, speaks out even more strongly and in more detail in his Six Orations on the Creation of the World,2, in which the cosmical system sketched in the first chapter of Genesis is explained. On the first day God made the heaven, not the one we see, but the one above that, the whole forming a house of two storeys with a roof in the middle and the waters above that. As an angel is spirit without body, so the upper heaven is fire without matter, while the lower one is fire with matter, and only by the special arrangement of providence sends its light and heat down to us, instead of upwards as other fires do3. The lower heaven was made on the second day; it is crystalline, congealed water, intended to be able to resist the flame of sun and moon and the infinite number of stars, to be full of fire and yet not dissolve nor burn, for which reason there is water on the outside. This water will also come in handy on the last day, when it will be used for putting out the fire of the sun, moon and stars4. The heaven is not a sphere, but a tent or tabernacle; it is Hethat stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in5; the Scripture says that it has a top, which a sphere has not, and it is also written: The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar6. The earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall, and he quotes: The sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he ariseth7. When the sun goes more to the south, the days are shorter and we have winter, as the sun takes all the longer to perform his nightly journey1.

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Few of those familiar with Wikipedia will be surprised, then, to discover that the quote is in fact the words of Dreyer, not of Severian. Amusingly the quote has made its way, sans reference, into the French and German articles.

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But the exciting part is that Dreyer clearly has read Severian, albeit in the Latin version, and so it should be possible to identify the material properly.

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Source; Why Severian of Gabala is famous – Roger PearseSo whilst the quote may portray an accurate summary of Severian's opinions on the sun and Earth, the words are not his, they are Dreyer's.Please understand, I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass here, I'm more concerned that our criticisms of the Bible should be valid ones

Hi again, Yeah, I know that, but what did they say and where did they say it? Lists without references to original sources aren't worth much. Attributed quotes with proper citations on the other hand would be a valuable addition to this thread. No he's not. Look again;

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The earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall,

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Note the quote marks around "as if hidden by a wall". Dreyer is directly quoting that bit; it is a translation. The other part of the text is not a translation. It is a summary of Severian's opinions. If you look at the article you will see various sections in quotes (translations of Severian's own words) and other sections not in quotes (Dreyer's summations of Severian, using modern phrases like "This water will also come in handy", etc.).The "quote" you cite may be true to the spirit of Severian's writings, but it is inappropriate to attribute it to him, since he didn't actually say it.Mutate and Survive

Sure, but I don't think that's what's going on here. I think the passage is too brief to be a translation, however indirect. It is a summation of Severian's views on certain specific points, not a direct translation and as such, not attributable to Severian. I will keep an eye on Roger Pearse's page and see if he updates on this topic.Mutate and Survive

I promised an update on the Severian of Gabala issue and here it is. I will continue to update as Roger Pearse pursues this further at his site.Pearse has translated part of one of Serverian's homilies. Here is the bit that we're interested in;

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Let us now ask where the sun goes down, and where, during the night, it purses its course? According to our adversaries, under the land; and we who look at the sky as a tent, what is our feeling on this? Look and see, I beg you, whether we are in error, or whether the truth of our opinion appears clearly, and whether reality is in agreement with our hypothesis.

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Imagine that above your head a pavilion has been set up. East would be there, north here, south there and west there. When the sun has left the East and starts to set, it will not set under the land; but crossing the limits of the sky, it traverses the northern areas where it is hidden by a kind of wall from our gaze, the upper waters concealing his journey from us; and, after having traversed these areas, it returns to the East.

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And where is the proof of this assertion? In Ecclesiastes, an authentic and not interpolated work of Solomon: The sun rises and the sun sets, it is written there; while rising, it moves towards its setting, then it turns to the north; it turns, it turns, and it rises again in its place. Eccl., i, 5. Otherwise it is during the winter that you will note this southward journey of the sun, and its movement in the direction of the north; then, it does not rise in the centre of the East, it inclines towards the south, and, following a shorter route, it makes the day shorter; once it has set, it continues its circular direction, and the nights then are longer.

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We all know, my brothers, that the sun always does not start at the same point. How then do the days become shorter? Because the sun, to rise, moves from the south; then, from where it rises, it follows an oblique path, and from this comes the brevity of the days. As it sets in the extremity of the west, it must necessarily traverse during the night the west, north, all of the east, to arrive on the edge of the south; from which inevitably follows the length of the night. When the distance traversed and the speed of travel are the same, the nights then are equal to the days. After that, it moves northwards as during the winter it had moved south; it rises in the northern heights and makes the day longer; on the other hand the curve which it must follow during the night being shorter, the nights also become shorter.

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This is not what the Greeks have taught us: they do not want these teachings, and they claim that the sun and the stars continue their course beneath the land. But no, the Scripture, this divine mistress, the Scripture leads us and dispenses her light to us.

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Note that Pearse describes his efforts as "translated roughly"; he is planning to get a better translation done.Source; Severian of Gabala, Homily 3 on Genesis, chapter 5 – Roger PearseSeverian clearly thinks the sky-as-tent metaphor, much discussed on this thread, is intended to describe a literal domed sky, sitting upon a flat disc. He's clearly a flat-Earther. Of course Severian may be mistaken in his interpretation and the Bible authors may have intended another meaning. Nonetheless, here is a Christian Bishop, writing towards the end of the Forth century, who clearly thinks that the scripture is flat-Earth. His opinions do not appear to have been sufficiently heretical to have caused him or his writings any problems.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Hi knight4christ and welcome to the forum, Most certainly not. The quotes in question come from centuries before anyone was aware that the earth rotated at all. they thought that the sun moved, not the Earth. If you want to pursue this idea, you are going to need to demonstrate that the authors were aware of the actual movements of the Earth and celestial bodies. You are trying to view these words through the eyes of modern readers, with modern knowledge. That is grossly inappropriate. You've misunderstood. The sky is compared to a tent, not the ground. The tent metaphor is describing a dome (the vault of the heavens) not the ground. So what? It was a dream or vision that only makes visual sense in a flat Earth environment. If visions and poems use the imagery of a flat Earth and only a flat Earth, it seems reasonable to me to suppose that they believed in a flat Earth. No it doesn't. It says nothing about "an instant". Go and read it again. Then why the emphasis on using height to gain vantage? A vision could be shown anywhere, but the devil takes Jesus to a great height in order to show him first the world.Mutate and Survive