a flat earth

[PapaZoom]

Isaiah 40:22

"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."

So we're really grasshoppers that live in a tent. And the earth is flat. That's one big tent.

 

[SkyWriting]

But it will require a few funerals to take place.

You don't scare me pal. ( wink)

Isaiah 40:22

"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."

So that's a circle shaped curtain draped like a tent then.
None of those illustrations are particularly flat.

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

While we're at it, here is a more accurate view of the earth

But why?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

But why?

He is being funny. He is Australian and it puts Australia right at the centre. Read the portion on the map, which explains that it is to stop the bias of Australia being down under instead of up top. Had to google another picture of the map though myself as couldn't make the writing out on his pic.

 

[SkyWriting]

But why?

Becasue all views of reality are based on the individuals perception
of importance. Humans have always measured days by "Sun-up"
and "sun-down" so we view the world as flat, and it is 99.9% flat.
A valuable map of Australia shows it front and center with it's trade
neighbors left and right.

 

[keltoi]

A valuable map of Australia shows it front and center with it's trade neighbors left and right.

Apart from New Zealand this is just incorrect. Our major trade neighbours are below us

 

[SkyWriting]

It's perfectly clear that if one travels in the same direction continuously and ends up back where they started proves that the Earth is round. Long before we had pictures of the earth from space men of understanding KNEW that the Earth was spherical.

I wouldn't say that. We still speak of NSE&West as if we were on a flat map.
Flatness is how we experience the world. The Bible would be weird if everything
were described according to how much mass it had.

The cosmos is based on size and mass. That's not a normal basis for human interaction.
For us, flat is normal and we can relate to that.

 

[MWood]

I fell off the Northeast corner of the earth one time. Came to a screeching halt in Germany. And a few months later I fell off again and landed in Kansas.

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

I fell off the Northeast corner of the earth one time. Came to a screeching halt in Germany. And a few months later I fell off again and landed in Kansas.

Man, you should be careful with that! Who knows? Some day, you may end up in North Korea!

 

[MWood]

Man, you should be careful with that! Who knows? Some day, you may end up in North Korea!

I pray not. Think I'll stay home. Too old to be falling anywhere.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

The Bible doesn't say the earth is flat. Case closed.

 

[Pierre]

Does the bible teach a flat earth? After studying this topic I've personally come to the conclusion that yes , the bible does teach a flat, enclosed, geocentric earth. Instead of me posting all the bible verses pro-flat earth, I would like to hear the verses against the flat earth. Or even evidence outside from the bible.

The scriptures teach the earth is round, hence,

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. (Isaiah 40:22 [NIV])

 

[Pierre]

How is this even a topic of conversation? Do not planes fly all over the earth and it is proven by observation that the earth is round? Are there not satellites in orbit that have photographed the roundness of the earth? Common people, use some common sense. Certainly there is much lie and deceit about many things, but this is not one of them.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The scriptures teach the earth is round, hence,

But not a sphere. The word used here means a circle, a flat circle; there is a word in Hebrew that means something like "ball", but that isn't used.

Those in the ancient near east did view the world as flat, like a disk.

I'd say there are several ways we can respond to this:

1) The ancient near eastern cosmology must be upheld as factually true, simply because it's how the ancient writers of the Bible understood their world from their limited point of view. That leads us to flat earthism.

2) Obviously the Bible can't be trusted, and therefore all its statements are suspect. This leads us to faithlessness.

3) The cosmological paradigm of those ancient people isn't the point, and it doesn't add or take anything away from the point of what they wrote about God, God's promises, God's interaction with Israel and humanity in history, and how this points us ultimately to Jesus Christ and our salvation in Him. The point of Scripture isn't to give us facts about how the natural world operates, the point of Scripture is to point us to Christ and our hope in Him.

I vote on 3.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[pappq]

But not a sphere. The word used here means a circle, a flat circle; there is a word in Hebrew that means something like "ball", but that isn't used.

Those in the ancient near east did view the world as flat, like a disk.

I'd say there are several ways we can respond to this:

1) The ancient near eastern cosmology must be upheld as factually true, simply because it's how the ancient writers of the Bible understood their world from their limited point of view. That leads us to flat earthism.

2) Obviously the Bible can't be trusted, and therefore all its statements are suspect. This leads us to faithlessness.

3) The cosmological paradigm of those ancient people isn't the point, and it doesn't add or take anything away from the point of what they wrote about God, God's promises, God's interaction with Israel and humanity in history, and how this points us ultimately to Jesus Christ and our salvation in Him. The point of Scripture isn't to give us facts about how the natural world operates, the point of Scripture is to point us to Christ and our hope in Him.

I vote on 3.

-CryptoLutheran

I take it you failed geometry, but a sphere is also a circle, as there are two dimensional circles and three dimensional circles, such as spheres. All celestial bodies that exist in the void are spherical, including the moon, sun, stars... So why would the earth be any exception? Don't you think that if the earth were flat we would've discovered its edges by now?

 

[ViaCrucis]

I take it you failed geometry, but a sphere is also a circle, as there are two dimensional circles and three dimensional circles, such as spheres. All celestial bodies that exist in the void are spherical, including the moon, sun, stars... So why would the earth be any exception? Don't you think that if the earth were flat we would've discovered its edges by now?

I wasn't talking about the English word circle. I'm talking about the Hebrew word חוּג which does not mean sphere, it can be translated as "circle", "circuit", "compass" etc; because it is a 2 dimensional shape.

I don't think the earth is flat. But the people of the ancient near east, including the Israelites, did. They didn't know any better, and so they described the world as best as they could, with the knowledge which they had. It would be centuries after Isaiah that the Greeks eventually were able to conclude, and demonstrate, that the earth was a globe. It may seem obvious to us now, but not necessarily obvious to bronze age Leventine pastoralists. That's not a slight against them, it's just an acknowledgment that human beings are only capable of describing the world according to the best of our ability. God never gave special revelation to the Israelites about the shape and size of the earth, or the nature of the stars, the moon, the sun, etc. Because it wasn't relevant to His ongoing revelation of Himself and its climax in the Incarnation.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

I wasn't talking about the English word circle. I'm talking about the Hebrew word חוּג which does not mean sphere, it can be translated as "circle", "circuit", "compass" etc; because it is a 2 dimensional shape.

In that case, why have I never seen the translation ‘disc’, or anything else that would make it clearer that it would have to be flat? Instead, I often see ‘circle’ (which allows for three dimensions), and sometimes even ‘dome’ and ‘globe’.

 

[ViaCrucis]

In that case, why have I never seen the translation ‘disc’, or anything else that would make it clearer that it would have to be flat? Instead, I often see ‘circle’ (which allows for three dimensions), and sometimes even ‘dome’ and ‘globe’.

"Circle" would be a perfectly fine translation, but "globe" wouldn't. Such a translation would demonstrate a particular bias on the part of the translators who possibly might have an invested interest in trying to maintain that the ancient Israelites had a post-classical view of the earth, when they didn't and wouldn't have.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

"Circle" would be a perfectly fine translation, but "globe" wouldn't. Such a translation would demonstrate a particular bias on the part of the translators who possibly might have an invested interest in trying to maintain that the ancient Israelites had a post-classical view of the earth, when they didn't and wouldn't have.

-CryptoLutheran

Yeah... I guess I tend to favour the translators over a random guy on the Internet...

 

[ViaCrucis]

Yeah... I guess I tend to favour the translators over a random guy on the Internet...

Then don't trust a random guy on the internet (me), trust what experts in the Hebrew language have to say.

"[חוּג] verb draw round, make a circle (Aramaic circumivit; noun , חוּגְתָּא, circle, vault of heavens)" - Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon

"חוּג to describe a circle, to draw a circle, as with compasses. Job 26:10. (Syr. ܚܳܓ to go in a circle, ܚܘܽܓܬܐܳ a circle. Kindred roots are חָגַג and עוּג). Hence מְהוּגָה and

חוּג m. a circle, sphere, used of the arch or vault of the sky, Proverbs 8:27; Job 22:14 of the world, Isaiah 40:22." - Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon

https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/hebrew/hwview.cgi?n=2328

Feel free to do your own looking into this--by all means, don't just take what I'm saying as true.

But consistently you'll find in the available material and from multiple sources is that חוּג means "circle" "compass", it never means "sphere" or "ball".

And, yes, by all means; the translators of Scripture to, let's look at how they have consistently translated חוּג.

Let's see how they have rendered Isaiah 40:22,

"It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:" - KJV

"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 like a tent to dwell in;" - ESV

"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." - NIV

"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." - NASB

"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 like a tent to live in;" - NRSV

"Which sittith on the cumpas of erthe, and the dwelleris therof ben as locustis; which stretchith forth heuenes as nouyt, and spredith abrood tho as a tabernacle to dwelle." - Wycliffe

"That he sytteth vpon the Circle of the worlde, and that all the inhabitours of the worlde are in coparison of him, but as greshoppers: That he spredeth out the heaues as a coueringe, that he stretcheth them out, as. a tent to dwell in:" - Matthew Coverdale

At least in English translations, then, it's been pretty consistently translated as "circle" or "compass" etc here.

Going back further,

"Qui sedet super gyrum terræ, et habitatores ejus sunt quasi locustæ; qui extendit velut nihilum cælos, et expandit eos sicut tabernaculum ad inhabitandum;" - Vulgate

The key word in the Latin of the Vulgate here is gyrum, a case form of gyrus, that is, a circle, a circuit, the motion of a circuit.

"ὁ κατέχων τὸν γῦρον τῆς γῆς καὶ οἱ ἐνοικοῦντες ἐν αὐτῇ ὡς ἀκρίδες ὁ στήσας ὡς καμάραν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ διατείνας ὡς σκηνὴν κατοικεῖν" - LXX

The key word here is γῦρον, (gyron) which like the Latin gyrum/gyrus means a ring, a circle.

So, yeah.

-CryptoLutheran