Against the myth of a flat earth in the Bible
- Oleg Grossu
- Mar 24, 2016
- 18 min read
By God's help and wisdom in His Son Jesus Christ, I will respond to another claim from yahoo answers user Lighting the Way to Reality about the so-called teaching about a flat earth in the Bible;
Well, I never heard Christians throw, "Wow, God is so great he can disprove himself" parties when people circumnavigate the "Flat" Earth.
Nevertheless, the Bible itself disproves its god's existence.
That is because the Bible describes a god-created cosmos--including its representation, in so many words, of the "Flat" Earth--
that does not actually exist. Since that cosmos is a manifestation or attribute of that god, the god who created the non-existing biblical cosmos
does not exist either.
Note: Because only a few verses would not make the case, the material below is necessarily quite extensive and shows that the Bible has a consistent
view of the structure of the cosmos throughout, with parts that are fully consistent with each other. That structural consistency indicates that it
accurately represents the cosmos as conceived by the writers of the Bible.
According to Ecclesiastes 1:5 the sun goes (hasteth) around the earth
"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose"
Response: Let's begin from clarifications. Which books do teach about the shape of earth? Geography.
Does the Bible contain books specifically about geography and astronomy? No. So it does not make sense to expect exact scientific accounts in a book dedicated to God and spiritual things. Ecclesiastes is a wisdom book, not an astronomy book. It is necessary to post the whole paragraph, instead of cherry-picking verses to support false views: "1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” 3 What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? 4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. 5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. 6 The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit." What does it look like? Does it sound like a geographical account of a flat earth? It is really about the vanity of life and the passing of time.
--as, of course, it must, since, according to Ps 93:1, Ps 96:10, and 1 Chr 16:30, the earth does not move.
And the earth cannot move because, according to 1 Samuel 2:8 and Ps 75:3, it is placed on pillars.
And because it is placed on pillars, it has an underside and an upper side, as confirmed by Isaiah 40:22
which indicates that the earth is a circle--i.e., a flat disk.
Response: Another case of dishonest lying cherry picking trying to promote the flat earth myth. So let's read in context and meaning. What are Psalms anyway? Psalms are poetic praise songs for God's glory.
Are they supposed to teach geography? That part of Chronicles again references the same psalm of David: "93:1 The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The Lord is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. 3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord, The floods have lifted up their voice; The floods lift up their waves. 4 The Lord on high is mightier Than the noise of many waters, Than the mighty waves of the sea."
Isaiah 40:21-23 declares the greatness and power of God, not an actual account of astronomy or geography: 21 Have you not known?Have you not heard?Has it not been told you from the beginning?Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
23 He brings the princes to nothing;He makes the judges of the earth useless. Do you see somebody declaring above that what follows is an astronomical or geographical account of the earth being flat or there being actual physical pillars on which it stands? If not, once again the user like many unbelievers is shown making up lies and imaginary strawmen, because it is so much easier to elevate himself by pretending that others are dumb and stupid or spreading lying propaganda about Christian faith, instead of proving themselves in the actual science research of the reality they claim to walk in. Who in their right mind accounts the poetic expressions in psalms and praises to God's power regarding the earth and the universe as literal declarations and teachings on earth form according to geography and astronomy?
That is also confirmed by Proverbs 8:27, which describes god as beginning the creation of the world when he "drew a circle on the face of the deep"
(ESV). The Hebrew word translated as “circle,” "compass, “ and “horizon” in the different Bibles is the same word used for circle in Isaiah 40:22.
The ancient Hebrews would have gotten the idea of a circular earth by viewing the horizon from the top of a mountain.
Proverbs 8:27
When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
When He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28
When He established the clouds above,
When He strengthened the fountains of the deep,
29
When He assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth.
Response: What is Proverbs? Again - a wisdom book. What chapter 8 is speaking about? God's wisdom, that it is good to have it.
So why expect there an exact astronomical geographical account?
(The Hebrew word translated as "circle" in Isaiah 40:22 is chuwg, which means "circle" not "sphere."
Strong's Concordance: "circle"..."describe a circle."
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: "Circle...the earth conceived as a disc, Is 40:22."
Hebrew-Aramaic and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: "draw round, make a circle."
If Isaiah actually meant "sphere" he could have used the Hebrew word duwr, meaning "ball" as he did in Isaiah 22:18.)
Response: It shows the greatness of God's wisdom and power of creation, not claiming that the earth is exactly a flat circle or sphere. The Bible does not have the word sphere in the Old testament. Isaiah 22:17-18 says this: "17 Indeed, the Lord will throw you away violently, O mighty man, And will surely seize you. 18 He will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball into a large country; There you shall die, and there your glorious chariots Shall be the shame of your master’s house." Here the ball is described as an object to be thrown, not a shape. The previous parts at least were dealing with a shape, without specifications that it can only mean flat, unlike what the user wants us to think.
(But what is particularly significant is that the Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew scriptures into the Greek Septuagint during the third
century B.C. used the Greek word gyron--?????--meaning circle, instead of "sphaira," meaning sphere, for their translation of the Hebrew chuwg
in Isaiah 40:22. So those scholars CLEARLY understood what Isaiah was saying, in contrast to those today who ignorantly say that chuwg means "sphere.")
Response: Irrelevant. It was shown that the above references are not specifically astronomical or geographical accounts, while the user keeps promoting his belief that it absolutely relates a geographical account and the only meaning is a flat circle.
Underneath the flat disk of the earth is the abyss, the bottomless pit, which is referred to several times in the Bible (ex. Rev. 9:1,2).
9 Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace.
So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.
Response: Can the user show an expression "flat disk(circle) of the earth" in the Bible? I find zero. Once again as the user always did - coming up with a conspiracy myth theory and then cherry picking the Bible out of context to support it, also padding it with personal beliefs. Does it describe the physics or geography of the bottomless pit, as if it is exactly as the user says under a flat circle of earth? No.
That is also what is being referred to in Job 26:7 when it says that the earth hangs over nothing.
(The Hebrew word translated "upon" in the KJV also means "over.")
The actual sphere of the earth in space is not "suspended' or "hanging" "over" or "upon" nothing.
It is orbiting the sun at 66,700 miles per hour.
If the earth can be considered "hanging" over anything, it is the sun, which certainly is NOT nothing.
Response: Attention please: the book of Job has the theme of suffering and God's justice, including God's greatness and power over His creation.
I repeat for the last time, the Bible is not a geography nor astronomy book, nor should anyone expect it to tell such detailed and exact accounts there, as in a geography manual. Perhaps it is an overblown reaction against some people trying to claim that Job only does that. Otherwise, i can't imagine the horrors produced out of the mind of the user which he can pick out of poetry and literature, since it uses figures of speech, not exact scientific measurements and accounts.
Several other verses in the Bible also indicate the earth is flat, such as Nebuchadnezzar's vision in Dan 4:10-11 (the tree could not be seen from all the earth if it were not flat).
Response: My, oh, my. Just as what I expected.
Let us see those verses and the original cause for them in the book of Daniel: 4 "I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my house, and flourishing in my palace. 5 I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts on my bed and the visions of my head troubled me .. 10 “These were the visions of my head while on my bed: I was looking, and behold, A tree in the midst of the earth, And its height was great. 11 The tree grew and became strong; Its height reached to the heavens, And it could be seen to the ends of all the earth. Does anyone literally suppose that God sent a dreams and visions to Nebuchadnezzar supposedly to teach him that the earth is a flat circle and that huge trees grow on it? I don't see here a claim that what follows is a geographical and astronomical account regarding the earth's shape. I only see is a dream vision about a great tree on the earth, symbolizing the greatness and the future fall of the king.
Dan 2:28 states that the visions of Nebuchadnezzar are from God. If the biblical god says the biblical earth is flat, it must be flat:
Response: Let's see what God really says, unlike what the user says:
2:28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these
29 As for you, O king, thoughts came to your mind while on your bed, about what would come to pass after this; and He who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be. 30 But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes who make known the interpretation to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart. It is a shameless lie.
I don't see God claiming - "Listen, Nebuchadnezzar, I will teach you the exact shape of the earth. It is flat." The dreams as later explained by Daniel were sent by God to the king are prophecies about future kingdoms and his loss of his kingdom for a while.
Now it is obvious we're dealing with a liar, trying to fool people. And such people claim that the Bible is a myth, but themselves resort to lies, trying to show how much more intelligent and truthful they are? Let God be his judge.
The original Hebrew word translated as firmament is raqiya, which is a noun derived from the Hebrew word raqa.
That word is a verb meaning "to beat out," and is used in the bible in reference to beating out metal into plates or expanses of the metal
(as in Exodus 39:3). So raqiya, as a noun, would literally mean "that which is beaten out."
The biblical firmament, or sky, is therefore a solid, beaten out expanse or vault set on the rim of the flat disk of the earth.
That is confirmed in Job 37:18, which states:
"Can you beat out the vault of the skies as he does,
hard as a mirror of cast metal?" (New English Bible).
There, the Hebrew word translated as "beat out" (or "spread out" in other versions) is, as noted above, raqa.
The solid, or firm, nature of the biblical firmament is also indicated by Proverbs 8:27-28:
27. When he established the heavens...
28. When he made firm the skies above... [ASV, ESV, NRSV, NASV, NAB]
The Hebrew word translated as "firm" there is amats, which has a meaning of "be hard".
The solid vault of heaven is also implied in verses such as Deut 4:32:
"Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth;
ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?"
The "ends of heaven" would be the base of the vault of heaven where it rests on the rim of the disk of the earth.
Response: The problem with this claim is that verbs derived from a word, don't necessarily have the same meaning. For instance the noun beat and the verb to beat have lots of different meanings in the dictionary. So it cannot be argued that in the Bible case the only possible meaning is solid, as the user pretends.
Also the Bible is not a strictly literal scientific account. It has many poetic parts, figures of speech, hyperboles and other figurative expressions. So far i only see here is the beating a dead mythical horse called "The Bible literally declares that the earth is a flat circle and the sky is a solid firmament."
See also Ps 19:1-6, Isaiah 13:4-5, and, particularly, Matt 24:31, which states Jesus as saying:
"And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other."
The elect are those on the earth who will be saved in the last days.
Jesus is saying there that the angels would gather the elect from all over the earth,
from one side, or end, of the base of the vault of heaven to the other side or end, from the east, west, north,
and south, which is what the reference to the four winds means.
Response: the four winds is an expression similar to the four corners of the earth basically meaning all around the earth. He does not say there that the earth is implicitly flat square or circle, nor does he talk about any vaults or bases. Another made-up strawman.
Isaiah 34:4 likewise indicates that the firmament is solid rather than being the upper atmosphere or the emptiness of space.
"the skies will roll up like a scroll, and all the stars will fall"
The material making up the vault of the firmament will roll up, and the stars that were attached to it will fall to the earth.
Response: It indicates that the skies will roll up like a scroll, since the earth's atmosphere can be lost in case of catastrophic events described in Isaiah, not that the skies and the firmament is solid. Did not he quote Job mentioning this: "He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing." If the user wanted to hear about emptiness of space - here it is. If he thinks that Job speaks about exact astronomy, let him have it. Why did not he add it? Perhaps because it would expose his false claim.
The solid vault of heaven has a specific purpose in the Bible.
As the Genesis story in chapter one indicates, the whole cosmos consisted of water before the creation process began.
As it is described in the Genesis creation story, god created the firmament of heaven on the second day so it would hold back the waters
above the firmament when he created the earth on the third day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
So that passage clearly indicates that the purpose of the solid firmament was to hold back the waters above the heaven.
Response: Let the user show that the Bible clearly says that the firmament is solid. Dictionary defines firmament as: the vault or arch of the sky; the vault of heaven; sky; Basically the firmament is a synonym for sky or heaven.
So it is another strawman.
Furthermore, those waters continued to exist in the biblical cosmos, as indicated by Psalm 104:1-3 and Psalm 148:4.
Also, the firmament of heaven has windows that are opened to let the water above the firmament fall as rain, as indicated by Genesis 7:11 and 8:2,
104 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. 3 He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, Who makes the clouds His chariot, Who walks on the wings of the wind, 4 Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, And you waters above the heavens! Genesis 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 8:1 Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. Response: I will remind once again that Psalms are songs of praise to God. Second, i will also remind the person about figures of speech, which are taught at the literature subject in school. It does not say the heaven/sky literally has windows, as can be seen throughout the Bible.
The stars in the biblical cosmos are just lights set in the firmament.
As mere lights in the sky, they will fall to the earth in the Last Days (Matt 24:29),
which conflicts with finding that the actual stars are other suns and many times larger than the earth.
Response: For a comparison to the user's attempts to shoehorn the Bible into an astronomical/geographical account, let me show you a real astronomical account in ancient sources.
Did the user provide the ancient name for meteorites, as can be understood for the prophecy about the last days? If he can't be bothered, let me do it, from Plutarch - Life of Lysander chapter 12 1 There were some who declared that the Dioscuri appeared as twin stars on either side of Lysander's ship just as he was sailing out of the harbor against the enemy, and shone out over the rudder-sweeps. And some say also that the falling of the stone was a portent of this disaster; for according to the common belief, a stone of vast size had fallen from heaven at Aegospotami,
2 and it is shown to this day by the dwellers in the Chersonese, who hold it in reverence. Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall down to earth; and he said that none of the stars was in its original position; for being of stone, and heavy, their shining light is caused by friction with the revolving aether, and they are forced along in fixed orbits by the whirling impulse which gave them their circular motion, and this was what prevented them from falling to our earth in the first place, when cold and heavy bodies were separated from universal matter.
But there is a more plausible opinion than this, and its advocates hold that shooting stars are not a flow or emanation of aetherial fire, which the lower air quenches at the very moment of its kindling, nor are they an ignition and blazing up of a quantity of lower air which has made its escape into the upper regions; but they are plunging and falling heavenly bodies, carried out of their course by some relaxation in the tension of their circular motion, and falling, not upon the inhabited region of the earth, but for the most part outside of it and into the great sea; and this is the reason why they are not noticed. So far the meteorites were also called by ancients as shooting or faling stars.
While describing the life of Lysander, Plutarch steps away for a moment, to explain the sign of a fallen meteor and gives us two astronomical theories of Anaxagoras and of others. Yet again by God's wisdom we have proved the user to be a liar, having to constantly resort to the primitive strictly literal sense to support the myth of flat earth in the Bible , also pretending that ancient people had the same definitions as today's astronomers; while in fact calling meteors as falling stars; If you want, you can check the exact greek word used for it.
So, according to the Bible the earth is a flat, immovable disk, supported by pillars and covered with a solid vault of heaven,
the rim of which is is resting on the perimeter of the disk of the earth, and the stars are just lights set in the vault of heaven.
Response: If only you read it strictly literally and pretend that the Bible is a strictly scientifc astronomical and geographical book. Is it? No. But guess it is not possible for the user for one second to acknowledge that the Bible talks about God's relationship with humanity and spiritual things, employing figures of speech too, especially in psalms, since otherwise the whole load of strawmen he has built fall to the ground and burn in shame, at the petty lies involved.
That this is the correct view of the biblical cosmos is shown by the fact that it describes a structure with parts that are fully consistent with each other.
That structural consistency indicates that it accurately represents the cosmos as conceived by the ancient Hebrews
and as its writers incorporated that view in the Bible.
In addition, according to the Bible, earth is the centerpiece of creation and in the Last Days god will destroy the earth
and the heavens and create a new heaven and earth as part of his plan for mankind. (2 Peter 3:10-13).
Is that really realistic considering the vastness of the universe and its enormous number of galaxies?
In the actual universe that science has uncovered, the earth is an insignificant mote,
even more insignificant than the size of an atom is with respect to the size of the earth.
Response: Since the Bible deals with practical spiritual things happening on earth and with humanity's relationship to God, is not surprising. One, of course, can pretend that other galaxies are more important than the meaning of your life on earth, but that does not change the reality that we still walk on earth. Writing scientific hypotheses about big bang and far away galaxies does not improve our life on earth. I mean Stephen Hawking might theoretize as much as he wants about origins of the universe, but at the same time his intellect proved worthless in helping him be healed from his terrible disease.
Would you tell a hungry or sick child, hey look at the skies and the vast universe, instead of seeking to help him, find doctors, or at least pray to God for help and healing, if they cannot do anything? So keeping Lord Jesus Christ's commands of love, peace, goodness, mercy, charity, forgiveness do is better than dreaming up about things which we hardly interact with.
Okay, according to vastness of the universe created by God, the earth is insignificant. But there was no point to talk to most ancient people about galaxies and vast universe, when only by God's help in Jesus Christ by His commandments and law they were barely surviving in the brutal ancient world. Even today most people could care less for the vastness of the universe, since only a few astronauts are able to get off the earth and even then only on the space station on the orbit .
It is the height of geocentric IDIOCY to think that the whole universe was created merely for the sake of the earth and its inhabitants.
All of which goes to show that the cosmos of the Bible does not exist, and therefore the god who created that cosmos does not exist either.
So, if one fully accepts the modern, present-day view of the universe as factual, then one would have to conclude that the Bible reflects the ignorant, myth-based beliefs of its writers and is not the word of god.
Response: Where was there any verse claiming that the earth is the center of the universe? None provided. Another strawman. Of course the strawman "cosmos of the Bible" of Lighting the way to reality does not exist, because it is based on his personal literalistic reading of the Bible by pretending that it describes an exact astronomical account of the cosmos.
Therefore once again, he proved himself to be a dishonest liar and Bible twister and his flat earth myth falls flat; that it supposedly disproves God are just his personal false beliefs. CONCLUSION
In order to try to discredit the Bible the user had to build a whole load of strawmen based on out of context picking, by using strictly literal reading, despite the Bible not having strictly geography or astronomy books:
- literal pillars of foundation
- literal flat circle of earth
- solid firmament of sky
- the earth being the center of the universe
All for trying to fit the Bible according to his false claims, as he proved himself to be a dishonest liar, throughout all of his posts.
So what can be said, is he Lighting the way to reality? Nope, he should change his name to The reality of God haters is the darkness of lying myths. Let God and Lord Jesus Christ judge such.
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