Friday, February 12, 2016

The Bible isn't clear on the Earth's shape.

My main Flat Earth Post became, as I edited it multiple times, a bit hard to follow.  So I'm making this to replace it.

To restate my position.  I am not like most Creationists who will try to argue The Hebrew Bible clearly depicted a Round Earth long before Aristotle.  My position is that The Hebrew Bible never clearly spells out the size or shape of the Earth or the Universe.  I believe it is relatively compatible either way.  Though I may point to some interesting circumstantial evidence that may make the Globe fit better.

And again this is addressing Christians who believe the Earth is Flat, not merely addressing atheists accusing The Bible.

Let me explain what I mean when I say I can take the Pillars and Foundations just as literally as the Flat Earthers do.

I believe at the center of The Earth is the Abyss/Bottomless Pit/Great Deep.  Romans 10:7 tells us The Deep is where Jesus went while he was dead.  In John 2 Jesus clearly states as Jonah was in the belly of The Ketos so shall he be in the Heart of the Earth 3 days and 3 nights.  The word "heart" being used in that sense is an idiom of being inside something not beneath something.  The English word "core" comes from the old French and Latin words for heart.  The world of the Old Testament may have presumed a flat Earth but the Hellenistic Greek world of the New Testament equally presumed a round Earth.

Above that but still below us is Sheol/Hades/Hell.  I believe if you could walk around Sheol you would literally see foundations and pillars holding up what's above.

I'm glad that Flat Earthers understand how the Hebrew Bible does not use cosmological terms with our modern meanings.  That includes that "Earth" (Erets in Hebrew) is not the name of a Planet in the Hebrew Bible.  But also I should point out that Olam is not the Hebrew word for World or Universe but rather means Age/Eon.  Tebel is the word for world.

In Genesis 1 every time you see "Earth" and pretty much every time you see "land" in the Hebrew they are the same word.  (And amazingly I saw recently even KJV onliers that hate checking the Hebrew could tell The Bible uses those words as synonyms.)  That includes when in Genesis 1 it distinctly separates the land from the sea.

The Earth is the dry land in The Hebrew Bible.  Biblically you have left the Earth when you sail out into the Atlantic or Pacific ocean.  The ends of the Earth are the ends of the Dry Land.

The land mass of Europe-Asia-Africa has 4 corners, the strait of Gibraltar, the horn of Africa, Korea/Japan and the northernmost parts of Russia.  And I can prove using Scripture to interpret Scripture that those corners are what The Bible means by the 4 corners of The Earth, not this modern flat earth model with 4 corners outside the dome of a snow-globe that has the North Pole at the center.

Revelation 7:1 clearly tells us the 4 corners are linked to the 4 winds of heaven.  Daniel 11 tells us Alexander's Empire was divided to the 4 winds of heaven.  Ptolmey to the South, Seleucus to the North, Parthia in the East and Antipater, Antigonos and Lysimchus in the West.

Revelation 20 also tells us the Gog and Magog invasion comes from the 4 corners of the Earth.  Ezekiel 38-39 which gives us the details of that invasion makes clear that Libya is the West, Ethiopia the South, Persia the East and Gog of the land of Magog, the Prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal from the North.

The proper translation of Psalm 104:5 is merely saying that the Earth cannot be removed.  Even the KJV adds words that are not in The Hebrew and the translations preferred by Flat Earthers use even more additional words.

When Psalm 96:10 and other verses say the Earth is fixed and won't move.  The Hebrew word there is the same one used in Psalm 62:6 where the Psalmist says he shall not be moved.  So yes the interpretation that that can mean a set fixed course is perfectly validated using Scripture to interpret Scripture.

Rob Skiba loves to complain about all the italics in the KJV when it suits him.  But after he started this Flat Earth fixation he has conveniently forgotten the "May reach unto" in Genesis 11 isn't in the Hebrew text.  The Tower of Babel was about idolatry not transportation.  It is describing exactly what all scholars know the ancient Zigurats were, not a skyscraper or a star-gate or anything else.  What the so called book of Jasher says about it is simply wrong.

And I still stand by my unique approach to Isaiah 40.

When Atheists are trying as hard as they can to make The Bible contradict science they will sometimes just use the fact that The Bible says the Sun moves.  The Sun is moving in the currently accepted cosmology.

I also think there could very well be a literal solid enclosure at the edge of the Universe.  But that Dome isn't the Firmament.

Ecclesiastes is Solomon describing the World as it seems to be, to then say at the end that that is all wrong.  Christians do believe there was something new under The Sun, the New Testament.  When you build doctrine on statements from Ecclesiastes or Job's friends you will get people arguing there is no after life.  Job's friends being wrong is also part of the point of that book.

Everything else Flat Earthers use is just as valid to interpret poetically as the references to the Sun and Moon rising and setting.  Which the modern Flat Earth movement takes literally no more then Globe believers do.

Which also discredits all their appeal to ancient Pagan cosmologies.  Those cosmologies had the Sun literally rise and set, they had myths about the places where it set to and rose from.  The Koran says Alexander The Great traveled there and literally saw it.

Rob Skiba when speculating on the motives for the "Illuminati" to create a round Earth model.  Besides just disagreeing with the Bible for the sake of it (I don't see that as the sole motive even for Evolution which was also about providing a scientific basis for Eugenics and Racism).  Suggests it's about making humans feel insignificant.

My understanding of Psalm 8 tells me God created the entire Universe for Adam's benefit, regardless of it's size and shape and whether or not we're at the literal geographic center of it.

In which context it's this enclosed dome model that makes God's Creation seem less magnificent.  It makes Him more like a Gnostic or Platonic demiurge, an inferior creator of an inferior world.

Which leads me to all the stuff they point to that they see as "the Illuminati" secretly "admitting" the world is flat.  Well indeed I've long noticed that the cosmology presented in Masonic Lore presumed a Flat Earth.  Which brings me back to what I said on the other blog, what the Pagans believe we should be viewing as wrong.  When discussing the Capital in Washington DC, Rob knows full well how important the Dome shape is to the Pagans.

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