Atheists call Christians "flat-earthers" - but flat earth not Biblical? [View All]

[papau]

The idea that to be religious means you are not logical or scientific has always amused me. Today on DU a few posts use the "flat-earth" smear. My Bible interpretation has always gone with the perhaps it is poorly worded, but it has a nugget of truth crowd, rather than a court room contract analysis. But if we are to discuss religion in this forum, perhaps a bit more agreement on facts would be useful? Neither creationist or liberal Christian, and no fundi's that I know of - proclaim a flat earth. And the vast majority of scientists in this area do not see the Bible claiming a flat earth - but there sure are a lot of professional atheists/amateur Bible researchers that like to assert interesting "truths" they have found in the Bible. Today a few posts on DU quoted from the atheist The Shape of the Earth, http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/geocentric.shtml ...Shake the Earth by Its Edges which focuses on the following:

"The earth takes shape like clay under a seal." (Job 38:14), noting that Job spoke of grabbing the earth by its "edges."

"he devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" (Matthew 4:1-12)

The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the earth; and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. (Daniel 4:10-11)

To whom then will ye liken God? ....It is he that sitteth upon the circle (chuwg) of the earth (Isaiah 40:18-23)

And of course with very logical partial truth they make their case (it is claimed ball -duwr-was not chosen by Isaiah so this means flat - but in Hebrew chuwg can be either flat circle or sphere and this is not discussed). And God-forbid if one uses a gestalt approach - total context - as opposed to word by word analysis.


An interesting question is "Who invented the concept of a flat Earth" and indeed who claimed it was invented in the Bible as they tried to sell the idea that Christianity was opposing science and hindering technology throughout history by its superstitious ignorance.

Contrary to what most people think, the Earth was known to be spherical in ancient times. The ancient Greeks even calculated its circumference with surprising accuracy.

In his book The Discovers, author Daniel Boorstin stated:"A Europe-wide phenomenon of scholarly amnesia... afflicted the continent from AD 300 to at least 1300. During those centuries Christian faith and dogma suppressed the useful image of the world that had been so slowly, so painfully, and so scrupulously drawn by ancient geographers."(Boorstin acknowledges in his book that by the time of Columbus, most educated Europeans believed in a spherical Earth - but fails to note that, individual ministers aside over the centuries, Christian faith and dogma HAS NOT suppressed the useful image of a sphere The handful of so-called intellectual scholars throughout the centuries, claiming to represent the Church, who held to a flat Earth, were in general ignored by the Church, yet somehow their writings made it into early history books as being the 'official Christian viewpoint').

Lactantius

The earliest of these flat-Earth promoters was the African Lactantius (AD 245–325), a professional rhetorician who converted to Christianity mid-life. He rejected all the Greek philosophers, and in doing so also rejected a spherical Earth. His views were considered heresy by the Church Fathers and his work was ignored until the Renaissance (at which time some humanists revived his writings as a model of good Latin, and of course, his flat Earth view also was revived).


Cosmas Indicopleustes and Church Fathers

Next was sixth century Eastern Greek Christian, Cosmas Indicopleustes, who claimed the Earth was flat and lay beneath the heavens (consisting of a rectangular vaulted arch). His work also was soundly rejected by the Church Fathers, but liberal historians have usually claimed his view as typical of that of the Church Fathers. US Library of Congress head, Daniel Boorstin (quoted above), like historians before him, simply followed the pattern of others without checking the facts. In fact, most of the Church Fathers did not address the issue of the shape of the Earth, and those who did regarded it as "round" or spherical.


Washington Irving and Rip Van Winkle

In 1828, American writer Washington Irving (author of Rip Van Winkle) published a book entitled The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. It was a mixture of fact and fiction, with Irving himself admitting he was "apt to indulge in the imagination." Its theme was the victory of a lone believer in a spherical Earth over a united front of Bible-quoting, superstitious ignoramuses, convinced the Earth was flat. In fact, the well-known argument at the Council of Salamanca was about the dubious distance between Europe and Japan which Columbus presented--it had nothing to do with the shape of the Earth.


Later Writers Repeated the Error

In 1834, the anti-Christian Letronne falsely claimed that most of the Church Fathers, including Augustine, Ambrose and Basil, held to a flat Earth. His work has been repeatedly cited as "reputable" ever since. In the late nineteenth century, the writings of John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White were responsible for promoting the myth that the church taught a flat Earth. Both had Christian backgrounds, but rejected these early in life. Englishman Draper convinced himself that with the downfall of the Roman Empire the 'affairs of men fell into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs and slaves' — these were the 'Dark Ages'. Draper's work, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), was directed particularly against the Roman Church, and was a best seller.

Meanwhile White (who founded Cornell University as the first explicitly secular university in the United States), published the two-volume scholarly work History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, in 1896. Both men incorrectly portrayed a continuing battle through the Christian era between the defenders of ignorance and the enlightened rationalists. In fact, not only did the church not promote the flat Earth, it is clear from such passages as Isaiah 40:22 that the Bible implies it is spherical. (Non-literal figures of speech such as the 'four corners of the Earth' are still used today.)

Jeffrey Burton Russell is a professor of history at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He says in his book Inventing the Flat Earth (written for the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's journey to America in 1492) that through antiquity and up to the time of Columbus, "nearly unanimous scholarly opinion pronounced the earth spherical."

Russell says there is nothing in the documents from the time of Columbus or in early accounts of his life that suggests any debate about the roundness of the earth. He believes a major source of the myth came from the creator of the Rip Van Winkle story-Washington Irving-who wrote a fictitious account of Columbus's defending a round earth against misinformed clerics and university professors. But Russell says the flat earth mythology flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution. He says the flat-earth myth was an ideal way to dismiss the ideas of a religious past in the name of modern science.

The Bible of course teaches the correct shape of the earth. Isaiah 40:22 says God sits above 'the circle of the earth' (the Hebrew word for 'circle' can also mean a 'sphere'). Also, Luke 17:34-36 depicts Christ's Second Coming as happening while some are asleep at night and others are working at day-time activities in the field-an indication of a rotating earth with day and night at the same time.

Content from:
Dr. Donald DeYoung, Ph.D. (Physics), Astronomy and the Bible, pg. 17, published by Baker Book House http://www.christiananswers.net/catalog/bk-astronomy.html
Dr. Joan Sloat Morton, Ph.D. (Biology and related scientific studies), Science in the Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 1978), p. 13

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..Revelation 7:1 assumes a flat earth since the verse refers to angels standing at the "four corners" of the earth ... . Actually, the reference is to the cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. Similar terminology is often used today when we speak of the sun's rising and setting, even though the earth, not the sun, is doing the moving. Bible writers used the "language of appearance," just as people always have. Without it, the intended message would be awkward at best and probably not understood clearly.

In the Old Testament, Job 26:7 explains that the earth is suspended in space, the obvious comparison being with the spherical sun and moon.

A literal translation of Job 26:10 is "He described a circle upon the face of the waters, until the day and night come to an end." A spherical earth is also described in Isaiah 40:21-22 - "the circle of the earth."

Proverbs 8:27 also suggests a round earth by use of the word circle (e.g., New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible). If you are overlooking the ocean, the horizon appears as a circle. This circle on the horizon is described in Job 26:10. The circle on the face of the waters is one of the proofs that the Greeks used for a spherical earth. Yet here it is recorded in Job, ages before the Greeks discovered it. Job 26:10 indicates that where light terminates, darkness begins. This suggests day and night on a spherical globe.

The Hebrew record is the oldest, because Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible. Historians generally credit the Greeks with being the first to suggest a spherical earth. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras suggested a spherical earth.

Eratosthenes of Alexandria (circa 276 to 194 or 192 B.C.) calcuated the circumference of the earth "within 50 miles of the present estimate."

The Greeks also drew meridians and parallels. They identified such areas as the poles, equator, and tropics. This spherical earth concept did not prevail; the Romans drew the earth as a flat disk with oceans around it.

The round shape of our planet was a conclusion easily drawn by watching ships disappear over the horizon and also by observing eclipse shadows, and we can assume that such information was well known to New Testament writers. Earth's spherical shape was, of course, also understood by Christopher Columbus.

The implication of a round earth is seen in the book of Luke, where Jesus described his return, Luke 17:31. Jesus said, "In that day," then in verse 34, "In that night." This is an allusion to light on one side of the globe and darkness on the other simultaneously.


But, doesn't the Bible refer to "the four corners of the earth." How can a spherical earth have corners? Perhaps no phrase in Scripture has been so controversial as the phrase, "the four corners of the earth." The word translated "corners," as in the phrase above, is the Hebrew word, KANAPH. Kanaph is translated in a variety of ways. However, it generally means extremity.

It is translated "borders" in Numbers 15:38. In Ezekiel 7:2 it is translated "four corners" and again in Isaiah 11:12 "four corners." Job 37:3 and 38:13 as "ends."

The Greek equivalent in Revelation 7:1 is gonia. The Greek meaning is perhaps more closely related to our modern divisions known as quadrants. Gonia literally means angles, or divisions. It is customary to divide a map into quadrants as shown by the four directions.

Some have tried to ridicule the Bible to say that it teaches that the earth is square. The Scripture makes it quite clear that the earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22).

Some have tried to say there are four knobs, or peaks on a round earth. Regardless of the various ways kanaph is translated, it makes reference to EXTREMITIES.

There are many ways in which God the Holy Spirit could have said corner. Any of the following Hebrew words could have been used:


Pinoh is used in reference to the cornerstone.
Paioh means "a geometric corner"
Ziovyoh means "right angle" or "corner"
Krnouth refers to a projecting corner.
Paamouth - If the Lord wanted to convey the idea of a square, four-cornered earth, the Hebrew word paamouth could have been used. Paamouth means square.
Instead, the Holy Spirit selected the word kanaph, conveying the idea of extremity.
It is doubtful that any religious Jew would ever misunderstand the true meaning of kanaph. For nearly 2,000 years, religious Jews have faced the city of Jerusalem three times daily and chanted the following prayer:


Sound the great trumpet for our freedom,
Raise the banner for gathering our exiles,
And gather us together from THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH
into our own land.

The Book of Isaiah describes how the Messiah, the Root of Jesse, shall regather his people from the four corners of the earth. They shall come from every extremity to be gathered into Israel.

"And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse,
Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
For the Gentiles shall seek Him,
And His resting place shall be glorious."
It shall come to pass in that day
That the LORD shall set His hand again the second time
To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
From Assyria and Egypt,
From Pathros and Cush,
From Elam and Shinar,
From Hamath and the islands of the sea.
He will set up a banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And gather together the dispersed of Judah
From THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH.
(Isaiah 11:10-12, New King James Version)





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