Before around 300 BCE, all the most brilliant men and women with the most astounding intellects believed that the earth was a circular piece of land sitting in a huge puddle. The Sun and the stars were obviously attached to the sky which rotated overhead just a few miles up.
Today however there are some that claim that the even more remarkably clever Greek thinkers that first surmised that the earth was in fact a sphere just a few centuries before the birth of Jesus, only needed to pick up a copy of what would later become part of the Bible’s text and read all about it because it was already written there.
But what did the Bible authors really believe about their universe?
Some today claim that when the earth was referred to as a circle in the Old Testament that they really meant sphere, they just didn’t have a word for sphere in the ancient Hebrew.
These same people also often turn around and say that it’s remarkable that the Bible’s authors knew the earth was a sphere instead of a circle. The truth is that the ancient Hebrews did in fact have a word for spherical objects that they could have used had they really meant sphere.
What else does the Bible say about the earth?
Well, the authors had it propped up with pillars and they said it was immovable.
The apologetics say that these authors didn’t actually believe this, they were just speaking in metaphors.
Also, as everyone else believed in their time, the Bible authors mention that the sky is a solid structure with the Sun, the Moon, and the stars attached to it. Many people are aware of the story of Joshua ordering the Sun and the Moon to stand still in the sky so his army could see well enough to continue killing Amorites.
Jesus himself apparently believed this as he spoke about a coming time when the stars would fall from the sky. Being really clever today, we are aware that stars are not tiny little lights attached to the sky just a few miles up. We know that stars are typically millions of times larger than the earth and unimaginably distant so the concept of stars falling from the sky does not indicate someone who has advanced knowledge of astronomy beyond their day.
There’s also a story in the Bible where Satan takes Jesus up to the top of a very high mountain so that Jesus can see “all of the Kingdoms of the world.” If one thinks about this for a moment, it becomes apparent that on a spherical earth, you couldn’t see all of the Kingdoms no matter how high the mountain is. Some are going to be on the other side of the sphere below the horizon. Being able to see all the kingdoms is perfectly reasonable however for an ancient person who believed in a flat earth.
Rain? Where does rain come from?
As excitingly clever as ancient people were, they weren’t aware of the concepts of evaporation and condensation. In order to explain where rain comes from, they assumed that there was just an awful lot of water up there above the sky and that occasionally it leaked through to cause the clouds and rain.
The Bible appears to be no exception here either. In the Bible there are references to “heaven” (same Hebrew word as sky) being shut when there was no rainfall (and no, that wasn’t just a metaphore).
There are also references to the God walking on top of the sky, God looking down from the sky, God throwing things down from the sky to kill people, etc…
To sum up, the Bible authors were stranded in the understanding of their day just like everyone else.
I didn’t see any arguement in this article, except a few attempts to draw “absurdities” out of the Scriptures text. There is also the presupposition that the authors “knew” about the spherical nature of the earth. They didn’t! God knew, and revealed what he chose to reveal in Scripture, through these people. As for God throwing things from the sky, what of it? If I could “walk” on the clouds, and I tossed an apple at you, would you not think that it came from the sky?
Yes, of course, especially if you were throwing boulders down to crush fleeing men, women, and children to death as the ancient Israelites imagined their God to do in the Joshua myth.
A reading of the Pentateuch reveals primitive beliefs about a God living on a solid sky dome looking down on it\’s inhabitants and occasionally coming down when worried as in the Tower of Babel myth and having Elijah ride his Chariot up to the sky to live with him.
Magellen lived in the 15th century CE (AD), not in ancient times. Aristotle was the first to record reasoning that the earth was round based on observations of ship masts, the constellations, etc… around ~300 BCE.
Before ~500 BCE there is no record of anyone even suggesting the earth was spherical and much of the Old Testament was written before then.
That’s interesting stuff, but I don’t think that if some people knew the shape of an island that this necessarily meant they had aircraft.
There were very accurate maps drawn of the countries of the world long before the first satellites went up into space.
Yeah. Where did they get those?
From surveying.
That’s stupid. :) If you read the Bible and only see the surface, your are in crap. You won’t understand a thing and say it is “against science”.
Same thing with Tom and Jerry. If you watch Tom and Jerry and all you see is silly cartoons about a cat and a mouse hitting each other, then you are missing the true messages of the cartoons which are the revelations of Classical Newtonian and Advanced Quantum physics.
I guess when your threatened with hell by the church, it’s hard to not try making up reasons for the bible to be true. It’s amazing, some of the bogus arguments I read in favor of the bible.
Hi,
Your site is very interesting. I have one suggestioned though. It would be helpful if you included the scriptures. For instance, I’d like to know where it says the earth is on pillars.
On a side note, the ancient Egyptians referred to the Lower Sky. The hieroglyph for sky was usually a sign that resembled a tent. The hieroglyph for Lower Sky uses this same sign but is upside down and under a circle with designs- at least in the Old Kingdom. Just a thought.
Peace.
Isabela,
I have most of the supporting scriptures for the posts in the right column listed in articles in the left column. The pillars is listed in the article “The Bibles flat earth/solid sky dome universe.”
Here is the link:
http://www.goatstar.org/the-bibles-flat-earthsolid-sky-dome-universe/
take care,
Capella
If the bible god was all knowing from the beginning to the end and he let ignorant men write errors and this god did not correct them knowing innocent people would someday die violent deaths for speaking the truth about those errors, then this god is a real bastard! The truth is the bible was written by ignorance and only the ignorant believe it came from a god…If the ‘men of god’ had gotten their way, education and knowledge would have been wiped out completely. They did their best to do just that at the costs of millions of innocent lives and the burning of books and libraries. Religious nuts have been led around by the nose since they were born and trying to educate one is like trying to raise the dead.
I remember a Witness trying to tell me the bible was ahead of its time cos it mentions the earth being “suspended above nothing”.To which I said:”What is it hanging above?There’s no up,down,left or right in space”.I’m not too good with space but I’m pretty sure I was correct :P.
I once talked with a Baptist man who was a college educated music director of his church. His degree was in music. It was immensely enjoyable to question him about his beliefs. He said that the sun, moon, and stars are God’s handiwork, and there was no moon landing; it was a clever farce. God’s creativity was in play as he hung decorative lights in the sky. I and my housemates really wanted to know what he really thought. When we cornered him, that was it! There is only God, Satan, heaven, hell, earth, and I guess pasted ’round it’s perimeter was a one dimensional moon, sun and stars. He was sure, too, that there were other planets.
I felt kind of privileged to have met such a rare bird.
Yeah!! I agree there is a lot of difference between Science and Ne-science. Ne-science opposes what science explains, What there was in Bible was just an imaginary thought by the authors and it is also mentioned that all planets are revolving round the earth, which was not true. However, there are still some people who supports Ne-science.
The cosmology of the ancient Semites can be determined from a number of sources, most notably by comparison with the Babylonian and Sumerian myths. In addition, Ugaritic literature throws much light on the mythology of the old Canaanites.
Among the Semitic ancients, the notion of a geocentric universe was common. Coupled with this was the idea of a the world as a house or dwelling. The earth was the floor – sometimes thought to be square, but mostly considered to be circular. Heaven was the roof of the world, and viewed either as a tent stretched out over the earth, or as a ceiling supported by pillars or mountains. The earth was considered to have a fixed, immovable foundation, and was usually viewed as being supported in the sea, again usually on pillars. Below the earth was the abode of the dead, a concept that later developed into the Hell of the New Testament. Above the sky was the Heaven – the abode of the gods. Some ancient myths also held that there was a storehouse of water just above the sky. This water was occasionally let through the sky by windows or doors, thus causing rain on the earth.
Of course, this notion was not shared by all ancient peoples. Erastosthenes of Alexandria, for example, argued that the earth was spherical as early as 300 BC, and was even able to make a surprisingly accurate estimate of its diameter. Just fifty years later, Aristarchus of Samos developed a heliocentric theory of astronomy.
Unfortunately, these ideas were not widely disseminated outside of the Mediterranean, and they soon fell into disuse, being replaced by the Ptolemaic geocentric theory. Certainly, the ancient Semites had no use for such theories, and consequently the Bible reflects a geocentric universe and a flat earth.
There are several Biblical references to a flat earth, both in the Old and the New Testament. There are, obviously, no explicit statements to that effect, quite simply because it was the prevailing paradigm, and was simply assumed by the various writers.
Ryan Jelley
Your site is interesting.It would be helpful if you included the scriptures. For instance, I’d like to know where it says the earth is on pillars.
On a side note, the ancient Egyptians referred to the Lower Sky. The hieroglyph for sky was usually a sign that resembled a tent.
(1 Sam 2:8 NRSV) For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.
For a comprehensive list of Bible scriptures that indicate the Biblical authors believed in a flat immovable earth/solid sky dome, etc… just like everyone else in ancient times I have an article covering the subject:
The Bible’s Flat Earth/Solid Skydome Universe