The use of those passages and others by skeptics claiming the Bible TEACHES a flat earth concept is an exercise in faulty semantics. Such abuse only reveals to Bible scholars, even casual friends of the Bible, there is little understanding of the context around those passages. Not every statement in the Bible is to be taken as an endorsement of the Bible. The Bible reports many ideas obviously not intended to be taken as instruction from God, but serve to contrast the reprobate mind of sinful man. I find it interesting that men devoid of spiritual understanding gravitate towards the very statements in the Bible not OF the Bible teaching, but aligned with the teachings that demonstrate wrong thinking on the part of man. When the Bible reports a lie spoken by a character in a story, that lie is of course not to be regarded as a message from God, but a reporting of untruth for the purposes of the teaching. Elsewhere in the context the lie would be revealed for what it is, but those who cherish the lies fail to find the exposure.
The following is an interesting refutation of evolutionist attempts to discredit the authority of the Bible by searching for supposed errors needed to bolster their position. In it are most of the accusations and some excellent comments as to the folly of such claims.
http://www.trueorigin.org/flatearth01.asp
[This message has been edited by Wordswordsman, 10-07-2002]