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by OZe on April 20th, 2008

OZe

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Is the Bible more consistent with flat earth theory or round earth theory?

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  • by singwell-is off researching a lot on April 21st, 2008

    singwell-is off researching a lot

    1)Isaiah 40:22 says:
    22 He sits enthroned above the ***circle*** of the earth,
    and its people are like grasshoppers.
    He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
    *Circle=Hebrew "chuwg",meaning "sphere"

    therefore, this indicates that the earth is round.

    2)Job 26:7 says
    7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
    he suspends the earth over nothing.

    therefore, this indicates that the earth hangs in space.

    ==============
    No matter what medieval men thought, no matter what 16th century puritans said, the Bible does indicate a knowledge that the earth was a round sphere, suspended in space.
    Of course, there could be other interpretations of the Isaiah 40 verse eg
    "This passage may reasonably be interpreted as referring to a flat circular earth with the heavens forming a dome above it. Such an interpretation is consistent with other passages of the Bible which refer to a solid firmament (Gen. 1:6-20, 7:11; Ezekiel 1:22-26; Job 9:8, 22:14, etc.). It is also consistent with the cosmology common in neighboring cultures."
    http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH131.html

    but even this site concludes that the shape of the earth could have been known by Old Testament times.
    "The shape of the earth may already have been known in Isaiah's time. Ancient astronomers could determine that the earth was round by observing its circular shadow move across the moon during lunar eclipses. There is some suggestion that the Egyptians knew of the earth's spherical size and shape around 2550 B.C.E. (more than a thousand years before Moses). The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who was born in 532 B.C.E., defended the spherical theory on the basis of observations he had made of the shape of the sun and moon (Uotila 1984)."

    Some people claim that the bible's use of phrases such as "four corners of the earth" (Revelation 7:1) indicates that people in First century Israel (actually John was writing from Patmos off Greece) thought that the earth had four corners. That is as logical as saying that by Paul saying that dead people have "fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15), he doesn't believe they actually died. It is the same as us saying that people "kicked the bucket". Do we actually believe they kick the bucket or is it a literary metaphor, commonly used in everyday speech.

    Whatever the ancients believed about the shape of the earth, one thing needs to be said. The earth's shape was not one of the primary things that the Bible was discussing. It is the SHAPE humanity is in that it deals with.

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