quote:
Originally posted by LudvanB:
Actually,the text of the Bible were writen well before the dark ages,whom' occured between the 12th and 16th century. Most of the ancient textament was writen 300 BC and the new testament was writen a mere few century after the death of christ. The many parts of the Bible were ASSEMBLED in the middle ages and TRANSLATED from the hebrew and greek to latin and then english...their content however was not altered,at least according to the church.
I think you mis-read me ....
I said::
Flat earth was a dark ages concept
PRIOR to this [the dark ages] (during the time the bible was written)
By the above I meant that the Bible was written prior to the
dark ages.
Ancient cultures knew that the earth was round, some of them even
calculated its circumference (and got it within a few yards). There
are even ancient depictions of a helio-centric solar system.
quote:
Originally posted by LudvanB:
But to adress your points,the first two passages mentionned refer to first an object tall enough that it can be seen by the whole world and second,to a vantage point high enough to allow one to look onto the whole world. This illustrates not only their belief that the earth was a flat circle but that the world was actually quite small,since they wrote that there could be a place where you could have a line of sight onto all areas of the world.
The first clearly states it is describing a vision.
The second one says ONLY that the devil took Jesus to a high mountain
and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. It doesn't say they
were within line of sight. The new testament was written at a time
when the world was known to be too big to see all of at once (I
believe it was written in the 1st Century CE any how
)
quote:
Originally posted by LudvanB:
The second two passages i agree dont refer to a flat world but rather an UNMOVING one,which is quite untrue,since the planet is hurtling around the sun at a whopping 29,8 km/second. So not only is it moving...its moving extremely fast. As for your metaphor comment,i always have problems with that position. The Bible is clearly an either/or proposition...either the entire thing is a work of literal truth,or the entire thing is a book of metaphore. If we say that unmoving world is a metaphore for the world exists,then why couldn't we say created in 6 days is a metaphore for the world rose to what it is today in 6 ages? Because there is no clear indication which part is to be taken literaly and which part is to be taken metaphoricaly,then this is all subject to personal interpretation,which makes it irrevocably flawed as a message from our God to us...
The quote for the second two is the same, and since one of them
is from psalms (i.e. poetry) I think metaphor is acceptable.
I am an EVOLUTIONIST and an atheist.
I do not believe that the Bible should be taken literally.