The Bible's Flat Earth

Yeah well, in retrospect it sounds kinda overblown. But if you read the OT, it becomes pretty clear that the multiple authors are very much in a Us vs Them mentality. (Its probably the most visible in the books of the prophets, where they pretty much curse everyone who get influenced by pagan mythology and gods). I mean, even today, Jews are very self-centered and don't mix with other groups. Probably a combination of multiple things, but theres probably a couple of religious laws into all this. I can't imagine a guy like Isaiah, after killing 500 priests of Baal, would be dichotomic enough to go believe what they believed ...I was also thinking about the very stubborn nature of Jews, and so that that I doubt any of the prophets would have been influenced by pagan cultures. I mean, they were the only people who did not practise the cult of the emperor during the reign of the romans.I'm not advancing that the Jewish nation as a whole were not influenced at times in their history by other cultures, even to the point of believing in a flat-earth. But the authors of the books in the OT are so straight in the line of religion, God's will and 'don't breed with the enemy!' (If I can invent that expression) that they would not have been influenced by pagan myths.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Thanks for the clarification Slevesque, I was a bit taken aback there!I certainly agree with you regarding the later books of the OT, but certainly the early books are heavily influenced by other near eastern cultures. The creation stories, the Flood, Joseph, Moses etc, all show signs of plagiarism from other nations.Thanks again.

I agree it gets a little muddy in the first few books. I mean, it is not even clear who wrote them, etc. (or at least it isn't clear for me, it may be for historians, I dunno.)

It isn't clear for historians either. Although these books are allocated to sources, schools of scribes even, the individuals remain anonymous. One thing that is certain, the early books were not the work of one person.

Thank you for your response slevesque.

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{Daniel 10-11} describes a vision seen in a dream. This by itself disqualifies it as an argument in favor of the Bible supporting a flat-earth view.

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No it doesn’t. A dream it may be, but dreams only reflect what the dreamer can already imagine. A dream of a flat earth is clearly indicative of a flat earth mindset. At least you seem to agree that the verse describes a flat earth, albeit in a vision.

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However, there is one more interesting aspect of this vision: it was dreamed by a pagan king. (Nebuchadnezzar). And so even if this dream would represent an aspect of reality believed by the dreamer, it would only support the idea that Babylonians had a flat-earth view of the world.

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I’ve been wondering since the start of this thread when someone was going to bring up that objection. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes that the dream originates with the Pharaoh. It doesn’t. There is no evidence for the Exodus and what evidence there is suggests that no such event ever happened. There was no dream, only the flight of fancy of a Jewsih author. The Jewish author, quite naturally, spoke in terms of his own cosmology; a flat earth.

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This argument {Job 13} is usually presented showing only the verse 13. I chose to add the verse 14 for one specific reason: that we know that it is the Dawn who 'takes the earth by the edges'.

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I fail to see the relevance of this, since God is described as putting the dawn in place. God still gets the credit here, even if only by proxy. There are still edges and they are still spoken of as being shaken.
In this chapter the earth has edges, it has foundations, it has a cornerstone and it is turned as clay to the seal, a clear reference to stamping out a clay tablet. Poetry or not, it is very clearly describing a flat earth. This is not just flowery language; there is simply too much cohesion in the flat earth interpretation of this chapter to ignore.

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This verse is always half-quoted, the second part of it is never mentioned. Yet it is in the second part of the verse gives us an essential hint: the focus of this verse is the earth's 'features'.

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What translation are you using here? The Hebrew has no such phrase. No mention of features that I can see.

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This is revealed also by the choice of the analogy: there are many ways to make a pancake, but if you want to focus on the features on it, then a seal is probably the best analogy to take. Thus, if the focus really is on the features, then it is not a stretch to think that the earth has the features (mountains, valleys, etc.) that God wanted it to have.

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You do realise that pancakes are flat don’t you? If one is describing the process of forming a sphere (and the text clearly says that the earth is turned as clay, not its features), a seal is a desperately poor analogy. I rather think that the author of Job was a better writer than that.

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Finally, I will address the book of Enoch. The real issue here is not if the Bible is the innerant word of God (after all, it is not part of the Bible) but if the author of Enoch had a flat-earth view. After reading it, I cannot rebute this second option.

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The point is not merely that 1 Enoch is flat-earth, it is that it agrees almost completely with the OT and uses the same language. Foundations of the earth? Check! Storehouses of the winds? Check! Solid firmament? Check! Anthropomorphic stars? Check! And so on.The similarities are too strong to ignore. 1 Enoch and the Old Testament share the same cosmology and that cosmos is a tiny and parochial one, centred on a flat earth.

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1- The oldest manuscripts of it was found amongst the Dead sea Scrolls (incomplete), and although they are old, they are far away from Enoch, who is the great-grandfather of Noah.

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What has this got to do with anything? No-one is claiming that the actual Enoch wrote 1 Enoch. It was probably written by some highly imaginative lunatic and Enoch almost certainly never existed.

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2- There is no evidence whatsoever that it was taken as history by the Jews.

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It doesn’t matter. It was clearly thought of quite highly and whether it is history or poetry (and I believe that it was intended to be both), it is flat-earth through and through. If the Jews knew that the world was a spheroid, 1 Enoch would have seemed ridiculous to them. With all this kind of evidence in favour of flat-earth cosmology and no credible evidence in favour of any other cosmological model, we are forced to conclude that Hebrew cosmology was flat-earth.

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In regards to the quoting by Jude, there seems to be quite some controversy on the subject, as Enoch is thought to have been reworked over time by both christians and jews. Enoch and Jude could be quoting some other work now lost. Or Enoch could even be quoting Jude for all as we know. There is still some active debate on this.

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Yeah, and if Grandmother had a beard, she would have been a Grandfather. It could have been planted by Martians. When you’ve got some evidence, do let me know. For now, onto your evidence for a spherical world-view.

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But if you head out west, you will never ever head back East, in fact you'll be heading West infinitely.

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You don’t seem to get it. No matter where one stands, one is not any particular distance from East or west. You can’t measure distance from an imaginary place. There is no East Pole to measure from and no West Pole, thus no-one can be said to be at any distance from them, finite or infinite. How far am I from Oz for example? Or Hobbiton?
This verse very clearly implies that the author imagined there to be an Eastern extreme to the earth and a western extreme. That only makes sense on a flat earth. This verse should be in the evidences for a flat earth section, because it certainly does a terrible job of arguing for sphericity.

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The hebrew word for circle here is Chwug, which can be used to talk about sphericity as well a round and flat.

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As I have been saying pretty much throughout this thread, just show me one example of chuwg being used in an explicitly spherical context, other than Isaiah 40. Just one.

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The answer is quite easy: Dr no more means sphericity then Chwug.

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Err... What you have written above implies that neither chuwg nor dwur mean sphere. Are you sure that’s what you mean?

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In fact, Dr is also used in a context that would be illogical from a spherical perspective:

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Just because dwur can mean circle does not mean that chuwg can mean sphere. Just show me an example of chuwg being used to clearly denote a sphere.

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This verse {Ecclesiastes 1:6} is as obvious as I have ever found concerning the sphericity of the earth in the Bible, and yet it is not well-known. On a flat=earth, it makes no sense. How could it head to the south, and turn to the north, round and round ?

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By moving around the edge of the disc of the earth, or by moving underneath the disc, or by turning 180 and going straight back across the disc the way it came. I fail to see any support for sphericity here at all. If this is the best you have, I’m not impressed. Sorry.

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But I doubt I will respond unless it is very compelling, since in my opinion, it will turn out to be a debate between two different interpretations, with no real conclusive evidence.

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Fair enough. But if your opinion is that debating matters which cannot be proved one way or the other is pointless, you might as well give up entirely on discussing religion.

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I agree that the predominent view of the time is a flat-earth, but we have to remember that the authors of the different books of the OT are for the very most part totally not influenced by pagan mythics and beliefs, about Gods etc.

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I can only echo Brian’s reaction to this. Although I would add that cosmology seems to be one of the main areas of cross-over between Hebrew writers and their neighbours.Mutate and Survive

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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

I agree, but who is the dreamer is the whole issue 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. I think this is where I will have to disagree. It is highly relevant if it is poetry or not. Would it be legitimate for people in the future to take are poetries and determined what we thought to be true ? Of course it would not, and there is no way we ca nallow ourselves to do the same, especially when we are studying a text which could very well have a phenomenological interpretation.As I've said when engaging in this discussion, proof beyond doubt will never be obtained on this issue. I understand you may very well still view this passage as evidence of a flat-earth, but viewing it as poetry , and as of such not seeing it as evidence for what the author actually believed, is just as legitimate. New International version. I must've got lucky, I just took the first english version on this site (Job 38; NIV - The LORD Speaks - Then the LORD spoke - Bible Gateway 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. Because I also have a hard time trying to find an analogy of that time who would describe the way the surface of a sphere would be printed ... Of course, which was my point. If a highly imaginative person wrote it, then it reinforces the idea that it may well be historical fiction. Today, historical fiction is much more done in the movie industry, but it is still a genre of litterature. If it was written in the time of the deportation to Babylon or after, I have no difficulty imagining the author being influenced by the Babylonian flat-earth view. 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 ...But the thing is, the Bible is from being the only jewish manuscripts available. 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 ? (asking for such an example will prove difficult, but if you do demand one I'll do my best to find one.) 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. This would explain only the 'round and round' part, but not the heading North, than heading South. Can you go underneath the disc in your flat earth cosmology ?? DOesn't the water simply rush off at the edges as a waterfall ? This explains the heading North than south, but not the round and round part. 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.

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

I want to note that I will be attending a wedding this weekend, so I probably won't be able to reply until next wednesday. I will proba bly edit this post.

It seems to me that some people are trying to make a case for the bible being errant. 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. Yes we will defend our authoritative book. It contains the information we need to get to know who our Living God is and what kind of life and deeds He wants for us...all of us, whether you want to accept Him or not.

I can see that the Bible is not inerrant and it doesn't make me
denounce it. It allows us to see it for what it is as opposed to butchering it in an attept to maintain its inerrancy. Just look at some of the mental gymnastics that people have to perform to maintain that, and how much they have to twist their interpretations, which hilariously means they're no longer reading it literally. It makes so much more sense when you can accept that it can contain some errors here and there.

As for understanding the bible literally. Think about when the various authors of the various portions of the bible wrote the bible (over the period of thousands of years). There were numerous contributors who were all human living in various eras and locations on earth. Each wrote what the Holy Spirit inspired them to write and they wrote from the perspective that they understood life at their times in history. Even though there was a common message to tell, it needed to be understood by man, therefore needed to be in context of some manner. Over time that context changes and so does our understanding, unless we study life in the era that any message was written.I don't understand the daily life of Socrates or Beetoven or Shakespeare, but that doesn't mean I cannot try to glean some meaning of the very important messages they were each trying to convey. I will not discount the validity of the message in whatever form it takes because it is not updated and as easy for me to read and apply to my life as the latest novel by my favorite author.If you were given an inspiration to write out and your great great grandfather was given the same inspiration to write something; what similarities or differences do you suspect I would find in the finished products. Should one pick apart the truth of the matter you are writing about because of the differences observed? Maybe he would receive a vision of a helicopter and try his best to describe it from his world view and understanding. Your description of it would be much different, indeed. Similarly, if he was to describe daily life in his day and you wrote about daily life in your day, should someone three generations from now pick apart the validity of the stories because they vary so much? They may make no sense of various parts of both and find no satisfactory common thread. Meanwhile others may have the understanding to read the message that both stories were conveying and still others may be successful with a little help from someone who has studied up on both eras. Would you be able to write about something, as the human you are, encompassing the readability and personal application of future generations?The understanding in the various bible authors' day until even semi recently in relation to the bible authors, was that the world was flat. As they were writing their portions of what the Lord required that man write, for the benefit of present and future generations and for the glory of God, they did write in the perspective of their understanding of life and the world. God did reveal to chosen people more than what the rest of the world knew during those eras.It seems that you have read the bible, even if only the parts that your electronic search brought up for your result. I challenge you to read the actual bible, in a different light...God's message to us, the inspiration that was given to humans of various times throughout history, is timeless. Consider this while reading. I bid you enjoyment of reading.Sorry to be so wordy. This is how I processed the answer in my head. I hope you can understand what I am trying to convey here.Edited by Young Earthling, : No reason given.

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

Thank you for letting me in on the debate, everyone.

You're very welcome here at EvC, Earthling. I hope to see you around the forums.

Thank you, Young Earthling, for a very thoughtful and well-reasoned post. It's refreshing and encouraging to see the kind of consideration you've shown. If I'm not mistaken, there seems to be some agreement between you and Granny about the explanation of why certain passages in the Bible seem to profess the notion that the earth is flat.And it would seem, from what you've said, that you have already made accommodations in your own reading of the Bible, to recognize a difference between "the Bible says ... because this is the Word of God and it is TRUE" vs. "the Bible says ... because that is how people spoke/thought/behaved in those days, thousands of years ago, and those expressions/thoughts/behaviors are not to be considered as binding or applicable or sensible today."The ability -- or the refusal -- to make that distinction is the crux of the Evolution-vs-Creationism debate. It is the issue of discerning which phrases in the Bible should be taken as literal TRUTH and which should be taken as "context-dependent" or "not literally true." Where does a believer draw the line? When does evidence override scripture?For folks like Granny and me, it's not an issue. Evidence always holds sway when it's available, and when it's not, a healthy and reasonable skepticism is the best guide.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.