The Bible says: The Earth is flat!?

The flat Earth is established and can never move?! The Sun hurries back to where it rises?!


"He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. (From the NIV Bible, Psalm 104:5)"


"The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. (From the NIV Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:5)"


We all know that the Earth and the other planets rotate and move in space around the Sun. Since when the Sun hurries back to where it rises, like if there is some hole it rises from and another hole it sets through on Earth?!


The Earth has pillars?!


"He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. (From the NIV Bible, Job 9:6)"


"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. (From the NIV Bible, Job 38:4)"


The Earth has Edges?!


Isaiah 11:12


12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH. (KJV)


Revelation 7:1


1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. (KJV)


Job 38:13


13 That it might take hold of the ENDS OF THE EARTH, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? (KJV)


From the NIV Bible, Job 37:3)"


He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ENDS OF THE EARTH.|||Well I guess if the Bible says the Earth is flat then it must be whatever science says...LOL|||The creation story is revealed to be no more than a myth in the first few verses of Genesis. In biblical times, people thought that the earth and heaven were all that there was... and that the earth was essentially a 'terrarium' (you might want to look that up). They thought that the sky was a solid object, called the 'firmament', and that the sun, moon, and stars were affixed to it. So, essentially, heaven is 'on the other side of the sky'.





The story of Genesis is comprised of the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant bunch of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders, lifted from the oral traditions of other cultures, and crafted into a tale that incorporated some of their own folk tales and pseudo-history. This collection of ignorance provides the basis for the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism... Judaism, Christianity and Islam.





The cosmological aspects of Genesis are perfectly understandable, if you contemplate them in the proper context. At the time the bible stories were concocted, the perception was that the earth was the object and the center of creation. Why? Because they had no reason to think otherwise. Today, as we advance science, we stand upon the shoulders of all the scientists that came before. Back then there were no shoulders to stand upon... so they did the best they could with what they had... their senses and their imaginations.





* They had no concept of 'outer space', and so they conceived that in the beginning all that existed were dark waters.





* They had no concept of 'nothingness'. Remember, the concept of 'zero' wasn't invented (discovered?) until thousands of years later. With that in mind, the term 'void', as it is employed in Genesis, can not refer to 'nothingness'... it can only be applied in its alternative definition, which is 'empty'. So, the waters were dark, formless and empty (devoid of content).





* They thought that all of creation consisted of the earth and an unseen 'heaven', and they thought that the sky was a 'thing'... a substantive 'firmament' that was created by god to separate the waters and differentiate earth from heaven, when both were created.





# They had no idea that Earth was a planet, orbiting the sun.





# They had no idea that there is no firmament... that the sky is not a 'thing'.





(If you don't believe that they thought the sky was an object... a solid barrier... consider the Tower of Babel, that they were building to reach heaven. Apparently, God ALSO thought that the sky was an object, since it concerned him so much that he confounded their speech, so as to disrupt their project and keep them from reaching his domain. God must be pretty much of a dumbass, if he doesn't even know the actual configuration of the universe that he created. So much for the 'inerrant' bible.)





* They thought that the sun was a light that god had placed upon the 'firmament' to differentiate night from day.





# They had no idea that the sun is a star... the center of our solar system.





# They had no concept of 'stars' in the same sense that we understand them today.





* They had no idea that night and day were a consequence of the earth's rotation.





* They thought that the moon was a 'lesser' light that god had caused to travel across the firmament to enable man to differentiate the seasons, and provide illumination at night.





# They had no concept of the moon as a satellite.





* They thought that the stars were tiny lights that god had placed upon the firmament to provide for omens. (Some thought that the stars were 'holes' in the firmament that allowed the 'light of heaven' to shine through.)





# They had no idea that the stars were suns, just like our own sun.





# They thought the eyeball-visible planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) were 'wandering stars'.





# They had no idea that the planets were actually sun-orbiting bodies, just like earth.





* They had no idea that the earth, itself, is a planet.





# They had no clue as to the actual nature of the earth, our solar system, the place of our solar system in the galaxy... or even of the existence of our galaxy. (Up until very recently, we didn't even know that there were other galaxies. Our galaxy, when it was first known that there actually WAS a galaxy, was thought to be the whole universe.) From their perspective, the 'earth' and 'heaven' (i.e., whatever existed on the other side of the sky) represented all that there was. A terrarium.





I do not say these things to disparage what they thought back then. They were trying to do what science is trying to do today... trying to understand nature and reality. Today, we have technology and disciplined meta-procedures (scientific method) to help us extract answers from nature.





Back then, they did not.





Today, we have 'theories' to provide a consistent explanatory framework for what we are able to observe in nature, supplemented and validated by the additional information that we are able to extract from nature by means of our technology, our disciplined methods and our intellectual tools (mathematics, logic). Most of our theories are incomplete, so we continue to work on them... because we know that they are incomplete.





Back then, they did not have disciplined methods, and they did not have the technology to extract answers from nature. The only information they had access to was what they could see with their own eyeballs. There was no technological knowledge base or scientific context in which to interpret their observations, so they had to appeal to their imaginations... and the 'supernatural'... in order to make sense out of what they saw. Actually, what they really achieved was deluding themselves into thinking that they knew the truth. Amazingly, over time, this delusion has become codified, institutionalized, and incorporated... complete with franchises.





***********


"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance... it is the illusion of knowledge." ~ Daniel Boorstin


***********





Basically, Genesis can be thought of as a 'theory', concocted by people who were constrained by lack of technology, methodology and intellectual tools... but they sure weren't constrained by lack of imagination.





Today, we try to interpret Genesis in the context of what we KNOW about the universe... galaxies, stars, planets, moons, gravity, orbits, inclination of the earth's axis, planetary rotation, etc. They problem is that Genesis CAN'T be interpreted in terms of those things, because Genesis was written by men, based on oral traditions, and those men DID NOT KNOW about those things. They could only write about what they could see and what they could guess about the reasons that lay behind what they saw. In any event, it provided them with a mechanism to quell the innate anxiety that comes with fretting about how and why they came to be here.





They guessed wrong.





So... the cosmological aspects of Genesis require a literal interpretation... no metaphors... no allegory... no hidden meaning. The key, though, is in understanding that the literal interpretation DOES NOT lead to a description of the way things ARE... it leads to a description of the way they THOUGHT things are. It leads to a naive description of reality, concocted by people who were doing the best they could with what they had.





It is absolutely appalling, though, to realize that hundreds of millions of people, TODAY, including participants in this forum, ACTUALLY BELIEVE that this mythological nonsense is actually TRUE.








***********


"Myth has been needed precisely because we were not in a position to understand the universe on its own terms, through the language of natural law and direct examination of its workings on a material, rational level. Once that process of understanding is completed鈥攁nd we are well on our way to achieving that鈥攖he use of myth can be discarded. Its continuing retention is already proving to be counter-productive." - Earl Doherty


***********|||Your looking at it as if they are saying literally that it is flat! Do you think God thinks like we do? Every time you read something from the bible you need to read between the lines! He didn't mean a literal "pillar" Or a literal "foundation". If didn't think with your natural mind you would probably understand what they might have been referring to. Everything in the Bible is not LITERAL!|||the bible says alot of things, like 6/6/06 was when the antichrist would show itself|||1) Isaiah 40:22 proves God told us the earth is round:





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.





2) All references to the phrase "four corners of the earth" are to North, South, East and West. Never does the Bible imply the earth is a square. As I showed you above, Isaiah 40:22 tells us otherwise.





3) You take Psalm 104 out of context. If you take a moment to read the ENTIRE portion of this Psalm, you will understand it's not the earth that doesn't move, because it obviously does; the Psalm is speaking about the FOUNDATION of the earth, not the earth itself, which will not be moved forever. In other words, the core of the earth, upon which the rest of the earth was built, will never move.





4) Ecc. 1:1 tells you these are the words of a man, who will describe things in the ways men do. These are not Godly descriptions, because the "preacher" is speaking about the world from a human perspective. Are you telling me that you never refer to the sun rising? Or to a sun set? Even though you know these terms are not scientifically correct, you still use these words. Again, you are taking Scripture out of context.





5) Again, your reference to Job 9 is out of context. This is a MAN speaking; although Job had some wisdom, he couldn't profess to know and understand all. All Job knew was that God set the core (foundation) of the earth and had set certain structures to support it from within. So what?





6) Job 38:4 -- see my comments for Psalm 104. Again, you've taken something out of context.





7) Job 38:13 and Job 37:3, "the ends of the earth..." Here is where it is useful to understand Hebrew. The word actually used here, translated as "ends" is "kanaph," which means variously (depending upon context):





1) wing, extremity, edge, winged, border, corner, shirt


a) wing


b) extremity


1) skirt, corner (of garment)





Here, God tells us He will take hold of the earth at North, South, East and West someday and figuratively "shake" the wicked out of it. You can read about this at Revelation 19 and 20. Pray to God you will not have to go through this.





Try as you might, you cannot prove the Bible contains scientific inaccuracy.





Peace.|||Your argument is specious. When we say that the sun rises and sets, we don't mean that the sun actually moves around the earth.


Actually, in Isaiah, the Bible says that the earth is round. I believe it's chapter 42.|||Isaiah 40:22 God rides upon the circle of the earth.


John 17:3,5,24 [ Jesus was with God before the world was on earth ];


Job 38:4-7 [ Angels were before the world was on earth ];|||www.versiontraker.com|||Yes, it says it is a disk at one point. That's the closest it even comes to saying it is round at all, though disks are still flat.





It's not surprising. The yahoos who made up God and wrote the Bible didn't know much about the world.|||someone has been doing his homework.|||yes, as we read Isaiah 42 we see 3 references to a flat earth or god having to stretch out the sky to cover this earth





"he who created the heavens and stretched them out,


who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, "


(like a lump of dough, flat)





boy that is some serious Egyptology!





Egytians worshiped a sun god who was thought to be reborn, rise across the sky and then die and be reabsorbed into the earth daily





the ever "rising" Son or ressurecting sun





the egyptian influence on Hebrews, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Pagans and Christians is startling





Charles Finch and John Jackson inform us that Gerald Massey traced Xianity's origins back some 10,000 years into inner Africa. It is not hard to see how Kemetic sacred science diffused to the emerging faith; the early Church found in Egypt a safe haven after being persecuted elsewhere in the Mediterranean [largely because of their own disruptive and subversive actions and not because of their beliefs as they like to tell us]. The early desert fathers like Anthony the Hermit and countless others, were the first to mould Xianity into shape. The Church's earliest saints, bishops and martyrs were African. The capital of Christendom up until the time of Constantine was Alexandria and the first two Xian churches were established on the island of Phillae on the Nile. Further, Egyptians and Ethiopians were the first people to convert to Xianity because they saw in it no difference to what they were worshipping all along.





As previously mentioned, the "New" Testament is filled with hidden references. The Kemetic Yusirian myth forms a bridge between Christianity and ancient Africa. Since the Yusirian Drama is well known and well documented, we will not go into detail but will only touch on the more outstanding points.





Yusir, as the principle of vegetation, is often depicted as a green-coloured deity. He sacrifices himself as the harvested grain, from which bread is made to be eaten as "real food" for regeneration. His "rebirth" occurs in new sprouts of the succeeding spring [in certain traditions Yusir "dies" from a scorpion sting, a reference to the harvest that occurs in the sign of Scorpio]. This sacrifice harks back to an earlier time when the Great Mother sacrificed herself [i.e. for the sins of the world] so that the community might live.





Yusir, the Great Ancestor, was identified with the grape, wine, the blood and spirit is also his blood and spirit. A Kemetic priestly ritual was to drink wine symbolising the blood of Yusir. Here we see the genesis of the Sader, the ritual mentioned in the Bible where Jesus shares bread and wine with his disciples and the origin of the Communion in Roman Xianity.





Yusir is the son and yet the consort of his mother Auset in much the same way that Jesus was the son yet consort of his mother Mary [the name "Mary" was also a title of Auset/Isis]. This also was the source of the son-mother and husband-wife/sister references we find in the Old Testament. Further, in the Drama Yusir was born in a cave to a Virgin mother; in the Book of Protevangelion, one of the gospels that was later suppressed by the Church, the same situation occurs with Jesus' mother Mary. Now Auset's name in Egyptian means "seat", "chapel", "womb" or "tomb" i.e. "cave". In most ancient African spiritual systems, the name "Mary/Maya, etc" means "the sea"; water was revered as an aspect of the Great Mother Goddess, a reference to the amniotic fluid that protects the child in the mother's womb. Thus "Mary" was more a symbolic title than a name. The symbolism becomes more apparent when one looks at the myth from its celestial origin. In late antiquity the sun reached its lowest point, the winter solstice, about Dec 22nd where it remained stationary in this position for about three days and then just after midnight on Dec 25th, the sun began its ascent on the ecliptic, reaching its zenith at the summer solstice on June 22nd. The beginning of its ascent on Dec 25th was, metaphorically its "birth" and since this ascent began in the deepest hour of darkness on the morning of Dec 25th, the sun was said to be born in a "cave".





In the pre-Xian era, the constellation Virgo, the Virgin, was position due east on the horizon as the sun started its ascent on Dec 25th. In other words the sun [of god] was "born of a Virgin in a cave" on Dec 25th. At the same time high in the western sky stood the constellation of Taurus and close to this sign lay another cluster called the Stable [Aurega]. The Three Wise men and the Star in the East is no less astronomical; in the book Pagan and Christian Creeds Edward Carpenter argues that this star was none other than Sirius, the Barker. According to him as the star stood on the southern meridian [directly overhead in that region] , to the right of it would lie in a line pointing at it, the three stars in the Orion's Belt. These stars were called the Three Kings. Prior to the Xian era the Kemetic New Year began at the summer solstice, coinciding with the flooding of the Nile and Sirius' heliacal rising. Sirius was then the herald of the new year and since Yusir was often identified with the Nile's fertilising efflux, Sirius was also Yusir's herald. The reader may also bear in mind that the entire Nativity scene is depicted upon the walls of the Temple of Amen at Luxor, first built around 1700 BCE, commemorating the birth of Heru - Yusir the Younger - in four vignettes. Thus the Nativity is as much a rebirth as it is a new birth.|||The Bible does not teach flat earth. Remember, the ancients knew its shape. Eratosthenes computed the equatorial circumference of the earth long before Christ. The catholics had to come along and declare the earth flat, but catholicism does not affect truth.





I doubt you could take his raw data and estimate the equatorial circumference ;-) Very few people learn anything about solid geometry any more.





Foundation, pillars...


F=G*m1*m2/r^2 (Law of universal gravitation) is the "foundation and support" of the planet. Man came along and numerically described it, but God created it.|||Well,written by man and outdated.


Same as Koran.





Quran 15: 19 And the earth We have spread out like a carpet; set thereon Mountains firm and immovable.





http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/SKM鈥?/a>|||So what are you asking?





And where, exactly, does the Bible say the world is flat? I mean, you're taking everything else literally. How about pointing to where the Bible literally says the earth is flat?