Earth: Is it "Flat" or Round?

[Chad]

So had an interesting conversation with someone and odd enough as it may sound, it was a compelling discussion. Note: I do believe of course, the Earth is round, globe, spherical. Just for the record. I believe in the space photos of the Earth, universe, stars, galaxies, etc.

So this is the question: do you believe the Earth is flat, but a circle, like a disc or a spherical globe (like a ball)?

An interesting read:
Why is the biblical creation myth right? | CARM | Evolution

This is a discussion for sake of conversation and studying. Don't get wrapped up in it all, please. Just a little bit of investigating science, the bible's metaphors and claims and how people interpret some of the Scriptures relevant to descriptions of the Earth and creation.

Examples (below is a cut/paste from another page I found, as a starting point):

Job 38:12-13
take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it

Job 38:14
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal.

Psalms 104:5
Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken.

Job 9:6
who shakes the earth from its place, and its pillars tremble.

Psalms 136:6
to him who spread out the earth upon the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever;

1 Samuel 2:8
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

Genesis 1:7
And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament

Job 37:18
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?

Exodus 20:4
… anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

Psalm 148:3-4
… highest heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens!

Matthew 4:8
The devil took him [Jesus] up into an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.

Rev. 6:12
the stars of heaven fell unto the earth,….

Rev. 7:1
I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth

2 Samuel 22:16
the foundations of the world were laid bare

Psalms 104:5
Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken

1 Samuel 2:8
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

Job 28:24
For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens

Daniel 4:11
The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.

Mark 13:25
and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Matthew 24:29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;

Job 37:3
Under the whole heaven he lets it go, and his lightning to the corners of the earth

Isaiah 11:12
… gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Revelation 20:8
come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth

Job 22:14
Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.

Isaiah 24:18
He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit; and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

Exodus 20:4
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

 

[Bendito]

So had an interesting conversation with someone and odd enough as it may sound, it was a compelling discussion. Note: I do believe of course, the Earth is round, globe, spherical. Just for the record. I believe in the space photos of the Earth, universe, stars, galaxies, etc.

So this is the question: do you believe the Earth is flat, but a circle, like a disc or a spherical globe (like a ball)?

Job 38:12-13
take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it

Job 38:14
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal.

Psalms 104:5
Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken.

Job 9:6
who shakes the earth from its place, and its pillars tremble.

Psalms 136:6
to him who spread out the earth upon the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever;

1 Samuel 2:8
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

Genesis 1:7
And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament

Job 37:18
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?

Exodus 20:4
… anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

Psalm 148:3-4
… highest heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens!

Matthew 4:8
The devil took him [Jesus] up into an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.

Rev. 6:12
the stars of heaven fell unto the earth,….

Rev. 7:1
I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth

2 Samuel 22:16
the foundations of the world were laid bare

Psalms 104:5
Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken

1 Samuel 2:8
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

Job 28:24
For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens

Daniel 4:11
The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.

Mark 13:25
and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Matthew 24:29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;

Job 37:3
Under the whole heaven he lets it go, and his lightning to the corners of the earth

Isaiah 11:12
… gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Revelation 20:8
come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth

Job 22:14
Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.

Isaiah 24:18
He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit; and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

Exodus 20:4
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

LOL Chad this is a very interesting thing isn't it? When it comes down to it, most of what we learned in school especially in the areas of history and science is a pack of lies, even down to things like 'Who won world war 2?" And the people who lived in North America before the Indians..or to be politically correct, the aboriginals...I hate political correctness...These aboriginals were not the original people on this continent at all...
Is the Earth flat or round? Well....since they never did go to the moon, but staged it in a studio and since the flat earthers say that the bible talks about the 'circle' of the earth that its flat..we will jump onto a rocket and go into space to look at our planet....Up we go, we look and see.....a circle...no matter where we go in space its simply a circle. No matter what angle..its a circle..Wonder why....Oh Right! Light only travels in a straight line so we can't see the entire object at on time. But we can travel in one direction around the Earth and watch it unfold under us until we come back to where we started....Its a ball! If the Earth is flat, then obviously the moon is flat, and the sun is flat...Well could be...Have you ever seen the back side of the moon, or the Sun? How do you know that there is a back side at all? No proof of it is there? Nope....Just an assumption.
Look here now
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.”

Note, the Biblical Hebrew word for “circle” (חוג—chuwg) can also mean “round” or “sphere.”

“The Earth a Sphere—Certain astronomical relations were recognized very early. The stars appear as if attached to a globe rotating round the earth once in 24 hours, and this appearance was clearly familiar to the author of the Book of Job, and indeed long before the time of Abraham, since the formation of the constellations could not have been effected without such recognition. But the spherical form of the heavens almost involves a similar form for the earth, and their apparent diurnal rotation certainly means that they are not rigidly connected with the earth, but surround it on all sides at some distance from it. The earth therefore must be freely suspended in space, and so the Book of Job describes it: ‘He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing’ (Job 26:7).”

Another verse that indicates the spherical nature of our planet is Job 26:10. This verse teaches that God has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness. This boundary between light and darkness (day and night) is called the “terminator” since the light stops or “terminates” there. Someone standing on the terminator would be experiencing either a sunrise or a sunset; they are going from day to night or from night to day. The terminator is always a circle, because the earth is round.

One of the great delights of observing the moon through a small telescope is to look at its terminator, especially during the first or third quarter phases when the terminator is directly down the middle of the moon. The craters are most easily seen at this boundary since the sun is at a low angle and casts very long shadows there. The moon looks particularly three-dimensional when viewed through a telescope during these phases; it is clear that the moon is a sphere—not a flat disk

For the earth, the terminator occurs not on a cratered rocky surface, but primarily on water (since the earth’s surface is 70 percent water). Job 26:10 suggests a “God’s eye” view of the earth. This biblical passage would be nonsense if the earth were flat, since there would be no true terminator; there is no line to “step over” that separates the day from night on a flat surface. Either it is day everywhere or night everywhere on a hypothetical “flat earth.” However, the earth does indeed have a boundary between light and darkness which is always a circle since the earth is round.

Curiously, many astronomy textbooks credit Pythagoras (c. 570–500 B.C.) with being the first person to assert that the earth is round.1 However, the biblical passages are older than this. Isaiah is generally acknowledged to have been written in the 700s B.C. and Job is thought to have been written around 2000 B.C. The secular astronomers before the time of Pythagoras must have thought the Bible was wrong about its teaching of a round earth, yet the Bible was exactly right. It was the secular science of the day that needed to be corrected.

I'll stop here to give others a chance to add nuggets to the topic

 

[Brad Huber]

Some things are seen through spiritual eyes, and the same things can be seen through man's view of science and logic. I will take the spiritual anyday.

 

[Bendito]

Some things are seen through spiritual eyes, and the same things can be seen through man's view of science and logic. I will take the spiritual anyday.

Spiritual source for round Earth


Mankind Could Have Known That The World is Round, If ONLY They Read The Bible



As is well known, many ancient peoples believed the Earth to be a broad, flat surface supported by immense, mythical creatures – such as four giant elephants standing on the back of an immense turtle, itself swimming in an infinitely large ocean.

Regardless of which animals were doing the work, ancient peoples believed that earthquakes occurred when one of these ungainly creatures moved. The idea that the world was round was considered not only highly unlikely but ridiculously illogical.

It was only in a much later period that some Greek philosophers began to claim that the world was round. Even so, for many hundreds of years, the majority of humankind believed that the Earth was flat, or at best, dome-shaped.

After Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, while traveling west in search of a shortcut to India, many individuals became motivated to set out on similar voyages of discovery. More and more of these travelers came to the conclusion that the Earth was indeed round, in opposition the firmly held opinion of the masses.

Slowly but surely, though, increasing numbers of people began to understand that the Earth is indeed round. Today, every schoolboy knows the truth, and has seen photographs from space of the spherical globe upon which we all live. Nowadays, the flat Earth theory, complete with supporting whales or elephants, evokes in us only a smile. But we must remember that the only relevant evidence available to the ancient civilizations was what they saw in their immediate surroundings – the fields, the valleys, the endless ocean stretching out before them. They had no good reason to take the leap of the imagination required to think that the Earth was round.

In addition, before Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) discovered the laws of gravity, there was no logical reason to suggest that the world populated by humans, animals and myriad objects was round. How could creatures standing on the opposite side of the world, head down, not fall off the planet?!

Once again, the Zohar,(1) written over 2,000 years ago has something to tell us on this subject. In this instance, it quotes a book written even earlier, by Rabbi Hamnuna Saba in Second Temple times:

“The entire world and those upon it, spin round in a circle like a ball,(2) both those at the bottom of the ball and those at the top. All God’s creatures, wherever they live on the different parts of the ball, look different (in color, in their features) because the air is different in each place, but they stand erect as all other human beings.

Therefore there are places in the world where, when some have light, others have darkness; when some have day, others have night.

There is a place in the world where the day is long and night is but a short time.

It is written: ‘I acknowledge You, for I am awesomely, wondrously fashioned, wondrous are Your works and my soul knows it well’ (Psalms 139:14).

And this secret has been passed on to men of wisdom – the wisdom of the Torah.”

This short, incisive segment in the Zohar contains some very important pieces of information. Its author knew that:

A. The world is shaped like a ball, and is not flat, as was then understood by humankind.

B. The Earth is not fixed permanently in one place, but spins and turns on its own axis.

C. Human beings live on both sides of the planet, top and bottom.

D. Humans live on one side of the globe, with their feet on the ground, in exactly the same way as they do on the other side. This points to an understanding of the force of gravity (even though gravity was discovered by Newton a mere 300 years ago).

E. When it is daytime in one half of the earth, it is night in the other and vice versa.

F. There is a place where it is almost constantly light, and nighttime is very short (such as the artic regions, due to the angle of the Earth to the Sun).

Torah sages realized that the information at their disposal was not known to the scientists of their times and would seem strange to them, if not bizarre. Thus, the Zohar concludes that this information is a secret. It also tells us that this information was not gathered through research, but had been handed down to Torah sages over the generations, who declare: “And this secret has been passed on to men of wisdom – the wisdom of the Torah.”

The source of this knowledge is not natural, it is in the Torah.

As mentioned earlier, in the past people believed that the world was a flat surface supported by immense creatures, floating on an endless sea. They imaged that the sky was the roof over the world and the stars were hanging in the space above the Earth like lamps in a vast hall. The floor of that hall was the world in which we live. But what supports that roof? The conclusion they reached was that there were four columns supporting it, one at each corner of the great “hall.”

This theory might seem strange to us today, but was perfectly logical from the viewpoint of those ancient civilizations. So far as they were concerned, the roof of such a vast hall had to be supported by something and one column at each corner was an excellent solution.

What did the Torah say at the time?

In Jewish tradition, the following verse is considered to have been made with prophetic inspiration (as is true for all the other verses in the Bible):

“He suspends the Earth on nothingness.” (Job 26:7)

This means exactly what it says – there were no supports. Rabbis David and Yechiel Altshuler, father and son authors of the 18th century Scriptural commentary, Metzudat Zion, explain that the Hebrew word for nothingness – blimah – is comprised of two syllables – bli and mah, which in this form mean, “without anything.”

Rashi similarly writes: “Blimah means without any foundation, because they stand in the air” (refering in this context to empty space).

How must the words of the Torah have sounded to people thousands of years ago, and how do they sound to us today?

Mankind Could Have Known That The World is Round, If ONLY They Read The Jewish Torah | JEWSNEWS

 

[Brad Huber]

You neednt refute me. I certainly believe in our earth being round and circling the sun with our moon circling our planet. I was pointing out that some scripture is speaking metaphorically through spiritual eyes.

 

[Bendito]

You neednt refute me. I certainly believe in our earth being round and circling the sun with our moon circling our planet. I was pointing out that some scripture is speaking metaphorically through spiritual eyes.

Oh my! Brad! What's to refute? What you posted is good....I simply shared an article that popped up on 'Jews News' that I read a couple times a week... Go to the url I put there and see.

 

[Brad Huber]

Ahhh, okay then. I saw you quote me and then go on to say that there is evidence that the earth is round in scripture. I thought perhaps you felt I "always" assumed the spiritual view over scientific views, instead of where they differ.

 

[RJ]

Round!

 

[RJ]

Is the Earth flat or round? Well....since they never did go to the moon, but staged it in a studio

You don't really mean this do you? I suppose the 1988 Discovery explosion that killed 7 Astronauts and the Apollo 13 incident were all stage too?