There you Go,YECs...biblical "evidence" of "flat earth beliefs"

which cycle?you have the rock, nitrogen, carbon, water, seasonal, a whole slew of cycles.can you be more specific?

Yes, the Earth's path varies from year to year. Not by a big bunch, but measurably. The point where we are closest to the Sun shifts a bit, and the eccentricity ("ovalness") is constantly changing, as I posted above. I'd be astounded if the Earth ever retraced its path exactly, where by "exactly" I mean within a hundred meters or so.

excuse me for interupting your current little debate, but i'm new and i would like to jump back to the first page and bring up some things to consider.
one: the reference to Daniel 4:10 holds little evidence of the belief of the flat earth concept. it is important to note the context of what is actually written.
"10 These are the visions I saw while lying in my bed: I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. 11 The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth."
if you look at how he comparitively speaks about the height of the tree, he states that it "touches the sky" while in a logical perspective, we know you can't merely "touch the sky", rather Daniel is poetically describing the relationship between the size of the tree and a comparitive height scale (since he did not use a measurement relative to meters/feet/miles). this figurative speech is also used in the latter sentence "visible to the ends of the earth" to conclude the WIDTH of the tree he witnessed, since he already spoke of its height. we know that there are no ends to the earth because there are no logical endpoints of a sphere, relative to a point/line/plane format. but what he is really saying, is that "this tree is so massive", that the only way to describe it would be using the two reference points "sky" and "ends of earth".my little cousin once wrote a paper in his fifth grade class about cars. his description of the superiority of ferrari against lambourghini was that "it blew it out of the water". we know that that can't happen literally, but rather it is a structure of figurative terms to describe relationships between what we know to be LARGE, or BETTER, and the objects in comparison (such as trees, or cars)

Welcome to EvC. Feel free to jump in any time, anywhere. I agree with you that Daniel's language was figurative. He did say, after all, that it was a vision, so the description shouldn't be taken too literally.But the description he used does give us a clue about what his mindset might have been. His phrase, "visible to the ends of the earth," does suggest that he believed the earth was flat. Why would he use that description if he knew it was inaccurate?What I don't understand is: why does it matter to some people if the Bible authors thought the earth was flat?

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it doesn't matter, but to clear some things up:
daniel was someone who knew specifics. he interpereted the king's dreams, he knew how to explain things. the way he's explaining this isn't that the tree ends. it's so massive it actually doesn't end. which is why he states "ends of the earth" and "touches the sky"figuratively, give me an explanation of an object that everyone can identify with and in a size scale that everyone can identify with. one thing to note is that he's talking to people who dont' see things the way he saw them, so he puts it in terms THEY understoodEdited by Mikael Fivel, : No reason given.

Hint: You can use the little green reply button in the lower right-hand corner of each post to reply to that specific poster. Maybe so, but he didn't necessarily know every specific. There's nothing in the story to suggest that he did know the earth is round, so we should take him at his word when he described it as flat. He was describing the earth as it was "known" then: as a flat disk with a hard sky-dome over it. His language may have been poetic, but he was exaggerating the size of the tree, not changing the shape of the earth.

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thanks for that piece of information regarding reply buttons!daniel didn't need to know every specific. he merely said those words in order that the people who he was speaking to and writing to would understand easiest IF he said it a way they could understand.
if i start quoting computer spec's to a crowd of english majors, how many of them are going to understand what i'm saying? i'd have to translate "amd x64 dual core" into a way that they could relate. i'm thinking he wanted to exaggerate, based on knowing that he was a writer.

But how can you assume that he knew the earth was round?If he described it as flat, the simplest explanation is that he thought it was flat. If you think he was simplifying it for his audience, where's your evidence?

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a cube, 3 dimensional figure, has ENDS and whether or not WE THINK it is flat, is only to ourselves. - who knows, he could have though the earth was a CUBE! we don't know whether or not he knew that the earth was flat. it really doesn't matter, he's not proving anything. he's DESCRIBING the size of the tree in his dream.

What we do know is that he described the earth as if it was flat.I agree that it doesn't matter whether or not he knew the earth is round. But some people think he "must" have known, because the Bible is the "word of God". This thread is directed at those people.You claim that Daniel was "dumbing down" his description for his audience. I'm just asking why he would do that. Why wouldn't you take his description as how he actually perceived the world?

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once again, he's not trying to prove anything. he's merely "dumbing down" the DESCRIPTION OF THE TREE because his audience had not seen what he saw, or knew. pointing back to my analogy of computers vs english majors. who knows, maybe he was talking to a group of mathematicians, which is why he would tell it that way. point being, the whole couple of verses are NOT describing the earth, he's describing the size of the tree. merely making reference points. he, in no way, said the words "the earth is flat" believe me, people back then were very clear in directions and explanations of things. look at how Solomon told the workers to build the temple. i'm gonna say what daniel said in modern terms so teenagers from washington state can identify with me on this, so listen closely. "dudes, this tree i saw in my dream, was so freakin massive it'd easily reach mars and yeah, it would easily take up oceans in width." because i can tell ya this, teenagers in seattle would understand that. whereas a 5 year old from puerto rico would not.

Once again, how do you know that? Once again, how do you know that? How do you know that he didn't mean for that mention of the earth to be taken literally? How do you know he didn't believe that if the tree was tall enough, it could be seen from all over the earth? He also, in no way, hinted at any possibility that the earth was not flat.

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"10 These are the visions I saw while lying in my bed: I looked, and there BEFORE ME STOOD A TREE in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. 11 The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth."
he's not talking abou the earth. he's using THINGS ABOUT/OF THE EARTH to describe the TREE. he does not say "in my vision, THE EARTH..." the dream is not about the earth, its about the tree.let me start this over... the whole chapter of daniel 4 is about A KING (Nebuchadnezzar to be precise) wanting daniel to INTERPERET his dream. it was actually a sequence of 3 dreams all of which are worded differently, all in which have ONE SAME meaning, and that meaning is (as described in daniel 4:19):Then Daniel (also called Belteshazzar) was greatly perplexed for a time, and his thoughts terrified him. So the king said, "Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its meaning alarm you."
Belteshazzar answered, "My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries! 20 The tree you saw, which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky, visible to the WHOLE EARTH, 21 with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the beasts of the field, and having nesting places in its branches for the birds of the air- 22 you, O king, are that tree! You have become great and strong; your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth.notice how he says "visible to the WHOLE EARTH... didn't repeat ENDS OF EARTH. it's merely to describe it's size, that EVERYONE could see it. Edited by Mikael Fivel, : forgot verse reference

and the whole sequence of dreams isn't even about the tree, or the earth anyways. it's a figurative statement of the power that nebuchadnezzar would have in the future.

What we do know is that no one can see the 'ends of the earth' whether it be round or flat, from one vantage point. Maybe in this vision there were ends of the earth. But barring that speculation, from the fact that Daniel could not see the ends or anything nearly like them, and thus could not say that a tree actually covered them, it would seem, to lowly me, that this must be metaphor.