Paniym Eretz is a Hebrew phrase translated in the KJV as either "The Face of The Earth", "The Face of The Whole Earth", or "The Face of all The Earth". Greek translations of the phrase are used in Luke 21:35 and Acts 17:26.
I've read some material on a website I don't want to link to that argued Noah's Flood was just local. And insists they are taking The Bible perfectly literally in doing so.
Now I agree entirely that the word Eretz is also translated land and is often used of more specific locations, a fact I like to point out when addressing Flat Earthers. It's used of the Land of Israel, and the Land of Mizraim and so on.
However Genesis 1 definitely uses it of all dry land when saying God separated the land from the waters.
The Flood is described as covering the Face of The Earth in Genesis 6:7 and 7:3-4 and 8:9. It is this expression I feel must mean the entire surface of the Earth. And I feel I can back that up from passages I will cite later.
But this Website says the Face of The Earth must mean something more specific since Genesis 4:14 says Cain was banished from the Face of the Earth, and yet is also a fugitive and a vagabond in the Earth. However this website contradicts it's own logic by saying the Flood can be considered "Universal" because it covered all the lands that descendants of Adam (of Genesis 2) lived in up to that time. They specifically apply it to Mesopotamia.
Paul used it in Greece in a context where he clearly meant it to be understood that where he was counted as part of it.
Isaiah 23:17 says "And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that Yahuah will
visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with
all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.".
Other Prophets say Israel was scattered across the Face of the Earth.
Genesis 41:56 and numerous uses of the phrase in Exodus through Deuteronomy clearly use it in a way that includes Mizraim (where ever that was) and the lands Israel wondered in for 40 years.
Genesis 11:4-8&9 utterly contradicts limiting it to Mesopotamia.
I'm kind of starting to wonder if maybe Paniym Eretz is a Hebrew equivalent of phrases like Midgard in Norse Mythology from which comes the term Middle Earth (Tolkien didn't invent it), and Ashihara no Nakatsukuni (The middle country of reed beds) in Japanese Mythology. A term that can be viewed as technically more specific then the entirety of what "Earth" means, and yet still effectively the entire world as we know it.
This could be an expression where the context is key to the point being made. Cain was banished from the world he knew up to that time. But that doesn't change that the obvious intent of the Flood narrative is still that the Flood covered everything.
However there is one possible idea I can't help but flirt with. And that is that maybe Cain was banished from the Face of our Earth, but the Land of Nod ("Land" in that phrase is also Eretz) is another planet? It's described as "east" of Eden, but is a specific fairly rare form of the word for east, qidmah. Remember the Sun, Moon and Stars rise in the East and set in the West. And the Hebrew words for East are also sometimes translated things like before and ancient.
That's a bit of a stretch I admit. But I've already argued for other cases of The Bible possibly alluding to humans traveling to outer Space.
Showing posts with label Flat Earth Debate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flat Earth Debate. Show all posts
Thursday, February 1, 2018
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.
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.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Does The Bible foretell Human Colonization of outer space?
Let's look at the very first Prophecy of the regathering of Israel to the Holy Land (which I do not view as fulfilled by 1948). Deuteronomy 30 verses 3-5 (actually continuing from chapter 29 which foretells the scattering in verses 24-27).
In Obadiah when talking about Edom, God says in verse 4.
Then we can look at Isaiah 13 talking about the armies Yahuah will bring against Babylon. In verses 4 and 5.
There are three Heavens Biblically, the Sky where the birds Fly, where the Sun, Moon and Stars are. And the Third Heaven where God is. I talked about this when discussing the Firmament. Using the word Heaven(s) back to back tends to mean the Third Heaven where God is, like we see in Psalm 115:16, Deuteronomy 10:14 and Psalm 68:33.
I reject Dominionist theology and eschatology which says that The Church is supposed to take over the World to bring about the Second Coming. Right now the Dominion meant for Adam is usurped by Satan (The Archon of The Kosmos) until the events recorded in The Book of Revelation take place and Jesus sets up His Millennial reign.
But it's interesting to look at how Psalm 8 elaborates on the issue of Adam's Dominion over God's Creation. In verse 3 we are told the Moon and Stars are the works of Yahuah's fingers. And verse 6 says He made Adam to have dominion over all the works of his hands. Why exclude the Sun here? Maybe because it's not something we can walk or build things on?
Now it is popular in the modern Flat Earth movement to say Stars are Angels, not astronomical bodies we could potentially build things on. Stars and Angels are linked often and I believe that is more then just symbolically, I think each Star has an Angel that governs or stewards it.
Now Flat Eatherers are right that Biblcally "star" is not a synonym for "sun". Rather they refer to anything up there in the heavens, including Angels and UFOs, when they are seen up there as lights in the sky.
The Biblical concept of Stars for one thing indisputably includes the Planets, which we can now see with Telescopes are large round spherical objects, some with other large round objects orbiting them. Jude uses the specific Greek term "Planates Aster" (Wandering Star) which refereed to the five visible Planets in antiquity. Hebrew had no equivalent term specific for those. And most scholars agree that Chiun of Amos 5:26 refereed to as Remphan in Acts 7:43, was an ancient name for Saturn, which the same verse calls a Star.
And in Greek astronomy the Sun and Moon were included among the "Planates Asters".
Rob Skiba even goes so far as to use the fact that The Bible records people worshiping the Stars as evidence they are sentient beings. The Bible constantly makes a point out of how the false gods people worship are inanimate lifeless objects. Like in Daniel 5.
As far as Rob's point about Stars falling from Heaven in Bible Prophecy. Taking it as literally as he wants to is severely hurt by that it happens more then once in Revelation. They seemingly ALL fall in the Sixth Seal in chapter 2. Then two more fall during the Trumpets, while also a third of them are darkened. Then a third are cast down in Revelation 12. And everything in Revelation happens in Chronological order, that is what this Blog is mainly about.
That meteors and asteroids landing on the Earth were described as "falling stars" (asteroid comes from the Greek word for star) is a known documented part of ancient terminology. And if you're going to insist The Bible must be MORE literal then common usage was, then these modern Flat Earthers need to abandon their current position on if the Sun and Moon literally rise and set.
The idea that the star falling at the start of Revelation 9 is Satan, and that he is given the Key is easily refuted by the beginning of Revelation 20 where a different Angel has the key and locks Satan in The Pit. The Angel given the Key I think is the Angel who sounded the Fifth Trumpet, later in chapter 9 we see the Angel who sounds the Sixth Trumpet plays a role on how those events play out.
The star described as "falling" to the Earth at the start of chapter 9 in the Greek can be read as just sort of descending but not totally landing. I still like my hunch that that star is Iapetus which has a lot of fringe theory speculation. But I no longer like the idea I flirted with before that the Abyss is actually inside Iapetus, the Abyss is inside The Earth, the Great Deep.
Wormwood in clearly an asteroid or comet of some sort that will poison the Earth's Water supply. Comets especially are known to have chemicals in them, not to mention the radiation any such object might bring. In Hebrew wormwood is an idiom of bitterness.
Genesis 22:17 and Hebrew 11:2 says the stars are as innumerable as the sands of the sea shore. The enclosed Dome model allows no more stars then what we can see, the sand in the sandbox I played in in my backyard as a kid dwarfs that number of stars. That model says the stars we can see are about all there are, we can number those fairly easily.
Now this hypothesis has the potential to hurt our bias for seeing these prophecies being fulfilled in our lifetime. But I also have suspicions that many of these could apply to during or after the Millennium. My one objection to Chis White's argument for Gog and Magog being Post-Millennial is his insistence that Technology will become primitive. I fully reject the idea that God would be against technological advancement.
I've actually argued before that the Regathering of Israel may not fully happen till near the end of or after the Millennium, in one of my first Lost Tribes posts. Only thing there I don't stand by anymore is the Mystery Babylon maybe being Samaria part. Some of those themes I may return to in a more refined form in the coming months. As well as the issue of Edom's eschatological destiny.
Update May 15th 2016.
What is below is not needed for this theory and gets really fringe. I'm not definitively arguing for any of it but I do find these implications interesting.
Since I'm into unconventional theories about the Ancient World having more technology then we normally think (but rejecting needing "Ancient Aliens" to explain it), as well as the possible scientific theories of Stargates/Wormholes. Maybe some of this colonization already happened?
Maybe some of the Lost Tribes went to a planet in another Solar System, a planet called Arzareth, taken from the Apocryphal 2 Esdras (sometimes IV Esdras) 13:45, which is said to be previously uninhabited by Mankind (Adamkind? or Enoshkind? we don't have it in Hebrew). While my main serious Lost Tribes theories have been based on them in Asia east of the Euphrates, (and maybe some coming to Japan and Pre-Colombian America). as an aspiring writer I've long thought of writing a SciFi/Fantasy story with this premise.
Schiller-Szinessy speculates the name Arsareth comes from a Hebrew phrase in Deuteronomy 29:28 (the Prophecy that started this study), "ereẓ aḦeret" translated in the KJV "another land". The "land" part is aHeret, a form of Erets, the Hebrew word for Earth, same one speculated to be etymologically related to the English "Earth", as well as many other Semitic and Germanic words for Earth, and from them Tolkien's Arda. Indeed the last part of Arzareth, "areth" sounds similar to Aerith, a Final Fantasy character who's name was meant to sound similar to the English "Earth".
So it could be translated "another Earth" though it does not need to mean that. Eretz is a word often used of specifically the Holy Land and other nations' homelands. But I've talked elsewhere on the Flat Earth issue that the references to the Four Corners of the Earth use Erets (and the Greek Ge) in a sense that means Eurasia+Africa. In that context the Americas can very much qualify as Another Erets, as could Australia and New Zealand, but applying that to Japan is a bit more of a stretch, Japan is the Eastern Corner I think (though Korean could also be argued to be the Eastern Corner). It is generally theories based on them going to Japan or the Americas that try to make the Arzareth reference a linchpin of the theory, Esdras is not Inspired Scripture anyway. I seem to be the first to get the idea that maybe it's not on Earth at all.
Apparently Joseph Smith said the Lost Tribes were taken from The Earth and to somewhere near the Pole Star.
It used to be considered plausible to speculate the Moon could be habitable or inhabited, just as much as Mars was. Lucian, Kepler, De Bergerec, McDermot, Washington Irving, George Tucker, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexandre Dumas, Hans Christian Anderson, H.G. Wells, C.L. Moore and C.S. Lewis all put intelligent life there, Jules Verne of all people however had it uninhabited. Now we know it's not inhabited and never was. (With Mars past in-habitation still seems possible. It is speculated Earth could become like Mars with the right disasters "Unless those days be shortened, no flesh shall be saved".)
If I were living when it was still plausible to speculate about life on the Moon. I'd make note of how a Genesis 10 Patriarch, Yerech ben Yacktan (Jerah of the KJV), has the same name The Hebrew Bible and other Semitic language texts call The Moon. One who's historical traces seem far fainter then some other sons of Joktan. The Mormon argument for affiliating him with the Jaredites of the Book of Mormon I find interesting, but I've talked about what's wrong with the BoM before.
In fact this patriarch predates the Moon being called that. In Genesis 1 the Sun and Moon don't have their names yet, they're just the greater and lesser lights. Yareach as a name for the Moon first appears in Genesis 37, during the lifetime of Joseph and Jacob, then Job (I'm not sure it's as old as others think, if it's setting was during the Patriarchs' time it was late in it since the Keturites have Tribes established already), then in Exodus 2 ("three months" in the KJV), but it doesn't become common till Deuteronomy.
And the Moon has an alternate Hebrew name unlike the Sun, Chodesh/Hodesh.
When an Earthly location later becomes known by a Genesis 10 name we Young Earth Creationists see significance in that, so why am I seemingly the first to consider this with the Moon?
The name of Abraham's father Terah/Terach is also viewed as a variant. It is linked to moon worship in non Biblical texts, and in Hebrew it's spelled the same as Yerach except starting with a different letter, and there are other examples of Hebrew words beginning with Yot having equivalent words that begin with Tav, like Yeshuah and Teshuah (Salvation). Either way it seems the Moon was named for a descendant of Heber, making any hypothetical Selenites/Lunarians possibly Hebrews. It's interesting to remember that Esau/Edom was a descendant of Terah.
Maybe the Yerachites traveled to another "star" but had to pit-stop on the Moon along the way and gave it their name. Or maybe they were just the first to reach it.
And Maybe it was a Yerachite Princess who was raised by a Japanese Bamboo Cutter who named her Kaguya and was romanced by the Emperor of Japan. And also a Yerachite Princess who raped the Greek Shepherd King Endymion.
Wow, did I just got really Nerdy.
Also however the Akkadian name for the moon was Sin (sometimes spelled Suen), suggesting a possible connection to the Sinite tribe of Canaan.
Update January 6th 2017.: I can't believe I forget to mention my theory that Enoch and Elijah were taken to another Planet.
Update January 23rd 2017: Well, I just noticed something I should have in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5, verses 20-23.
Now Rob Skiba might say this passage supports stars being Angels. But just before this it was talking about countries coming to battle (and some not) in similar terms. It's not talking about those geographical lands getting up and moving, but their people. This passage can be an argument for some Stars being inhabited.
Update October 7th 2018: Given how I've changed my mind on supporting the Edom=Rome identification. I'm now considering that maybe Edom's travel to outer-space was also in the past already.
Jeremiah doesn't describe a captivity and return for Edom in chapter 49 the way he does most other nations. But he does echo Obadiah's talk about Edom being as an Eagle. Edom proper disappears from the Historical biblical Record before the time of Hezekiah, with during Hezekiah's time being the last reference to Amalekites. I still agree with Bill Cooper then the Greco-Roman era Idumeans are the Ishmaelite tribe of Dumah not Edomites.
So if they weren't carried away into Captivity. why did they disappear?
"That then Yahuah thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither Yahuah thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will Yahuah thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And Yahuah thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers."This is repeated in Nehemiah 1:8-9.
Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, "If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations: But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there."Similar terminology is used in Matthew 24:31 and Mar 13:27. But I'd consider those less compelling because they're about The Rapture where Heaven is the destination of the Gathering.
In Obadiah when talking about Edom, God says in verse 4.
Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith Yahuah.It's interesting that when we landed on The Moon, Neal Armstrong said "The Eagle has Landed".
Then we can look at Isaiah 13 talking about the armies Yahuah will bring against Babylon. In verses 4 and 5.
The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: Yahuah of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even Yahuah, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.This isn't likely to be the army from the Heaven where God dwells, that army marches in Revelation 19 after Babylon's destruction is over. Rob Skiba seems to be obsessed with saying the term "Host of Heaven" can only refer to Angels. That is false, Host is a term commonly affiliated with armies.
There are three Heavens Biblically, the Sky where the birds Fly, where the Sun, Moon and Stars are. And the Third Heaven where God is. I talked about this when discussing the Firmament. Using the word Heaven(s) back to back tends to mean the Third Heaven where God is, like we see in Psalm 115:16, Deuteronomy 10:14 and Psalm 68:33.
I reject Dominionist theology and eschatology which says that The Church is supposed to take over the World to bring about the Second Coming. Right now the Dominion meant for Adam is usurped by Satan (The Archon of The Kosmos) until the events recorded in The Book of Revelation take place and Jesus sets up His Millennial reign.
But it's interesting to look at how Psalm 8 elaborates on the issue of Adam's Dominion over God's Creation. In verse 3 we are told the Moon and Stars are the works of Yahuah's fingers. And verse 6 says He made Adam to have dominion over all the works of his hands. Why exclude the Sun here? Maybe because it's not something we can walk or build things on?
Now it is popular in the modern Flat Earth movement to say Stars are Angels, not astronomical bodies we could potentially build things on. Stars and Angels are linked often and I believe that is more then just symbolically, I think each Star has an Angel that governs or stewards it.
Now Flat Eatherers are right that Biblcally "star" is not a synonym for "sun". Rather they refer to anything up there in the heavens, including Angels and UFOs, when they are seen up there as lights in the sky.
The Biblical concept of Stars for one thing indisputably includes the Planets, which we can now see with Telescopes are large round spherical objects, some with other large round objects orbiting them. Jude uses the specific Greek term "Planates Aster" (Wandering Star) which refereed to the five visible Planets in antiquity. Hebrew had no equivalent term specific for those. And most scholars agree that Chiun of Amos 5:26 refereed to as Remphan in Acts 7:43, was an ancient name for Saturn, which the same verse calls a Star.
And in Greek astronomy the Sun and Moon were included among the "Planates Asters".
Rob Skiba even goes so far as to use the fact that The Bible records people worshiping the Stars as evidence they are sentient beings. The Bible constantly makes a point out of how the false gods people worship are inanimate lifeless objects. Like in Daniel 5.
As far as Rob's point about Stars falling from Heaven in Bible Prophecy. Taking it as literally as he wants to is severely hurt by that it happens more then once in Revelation. They seemingly ALL fall in the Sixth Seal in chapter 2. Then two more fall during the Trumpets, while also a third of them are darkened. Then a third are cast down in Revelation 12. And everything in Revelation happens in Chronological order, that is what this Blog is mainly about.
That meteors and asteroids landing on the Earth were described as "falling stars" (asteroid comes from the Greek word for star) is a known documented part of ancient terminology. And if you're going to insist The Bible must be MORE literal then common usage was, then these modern Flat Earthers need to abandon their current position on if the Sun and Moon literally rise and set.
The idea that the star falling at the start of Revelation 9 is Satan, and that he is given the Key is easily refuted by the beginning of Revelation 20 where a different Angel has the key and locks Satan in The Pit. The Angel given the Key I think is the Angel who sounded the Fifth Trumpet, later in chapter 9 we see the Angel who sounds the Sixth Trumpet plays a role on how those events play out.
The star described as "falling" to the Earth at the start of chapter 9 in the Greek can be read as just sort of descending but not totally landing. I still like my hunch that that star is Iapetus which has a lot of fringe theory speculation. But I no longer like the idea I flirted with before that the Abyss is actually inside Iapetus, the Abyss is inside The Earth, the Great Deep.
Wormwood in clearly an asteroid or comet of some sort that will poison the Earth's Water supply. Comets especially are known to have chemicals in them, not to mention the radiation any such object might bring. In Hebrew wormwood is an idiom of bitterness.
Genesis 22:17 and Hebrew 11:2 says the stars are as innumerable as the sands of the sea shore. The enclosed Dome model allows no more stars then what we can see, the sand in the sandbox I played in in my backyard as a kid dwarfs that number of stars. That model says the stars we can see are about all there are, we can number those fairly easily.
Now this hypothesis has the potential to hurt our bias for seeing these prophecies being fulfilled in our lifetime. But I also have suspicions that many of these could apply to during or after the Millennium. My one objection to Chis White's argument for Gog and Magog being Post-Millennial is his insistence that Technology will become primitive. I fully reject the idea that God would be against technological advancement.
I've actually argued before that the Regathering of Israel may not fully happen till near the end of or after the Millennium, in one of my first Lost Tribes posts. Only thing there I don't stand by anymore is the Mystery Babylon maybe being Samaria part. Some of those themes I may return to in a more refined form in the coming months. As well as the issue of Edom's eschatological destiny.
Update May 15th 2016.
What is below is not needed for this theory and gets really fringe. I'm not definitively arguing for any of it but I do find these implications interesting.
Since I'm into unconventional theories about the Ancient World having more technology then we normally think (but rejecting needing "Ancient Aliens" to explain it), as well as the possible scientific theories of Stargates/Wormholes. Maybe some of this colonization already happened?
Maybe some of the Lost Tribes went to a planet in another Solar System, a planet called Arzareth, taken from the Apocryphal 2 Esdras (sometimes IV Esdras) 13:45, which is said to be previously uninhabited by Mankind (Adamkind? or Enoshkind? we don't have it in Hebrew). While my main serious Lost Tribes theories have been based on them in Asia east of the Euphrates, (and maybe some coming to Japan and Pre-Colombian America). as an aspiring writer I've long thought of writing a SciFi/Fantasy story with this premise.
Schiller-Szinessy speculates the name Arsareth comes from a Hebrew phrase in Deuteronomy 29:28 (the Prophecy that started this study), "ereẓ aḦeret" translated in the KJV "another land". The "land" part is aHeret, a form of Erets, the Hebrew word for Earth, same one speculated to be etymologically related to the English "Earth", as well as many other Semitic and Germanic words for Earth, and from them Tolkien's Arda. Indeed the last part of Arzareth, "areth" sounds similar to Aerith, a Final Fantasy character who's name was meant to sound similar to the English "Earth".
So it could be translated "another Earth" though it does not need to mean that. Eretz is a word often used of specifically the Holy Land and other nations' homelands. But I've talked elsewhere on the Flat Earth issue that the references to the Four Corners of the Earth use Erets (and the Greek Ge) in a sense that means Eurasia+Africa. In that context the Americas can very much qualify as Another Erets, as could Australia and New Zealand, but applying that to Japan is a bit more of a stretch, Japan is the Eastern Corner I think (though Korean could also be argued to be the Eastern Corner). It is generally theories based on them going to Japan or the Americas that try to make the Arzareth reference a linchpin of the theory, Esdras is not Inspired Scripture anyway. I seem to be the first to get the idea that maybe it's not on Earth at all.
Apparently Joseph Smith said the Lost Tribes were taken from The Earth and to somewhere near the Pole Star.
It used to be considered plausible to speculate the Moon could be habitable or inhabited, just as much as Mars was. Lucian, Kepler, De Bergerec, McDermot, Washington Irving, George Tucker, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexandre Dumas, Hans Christian Anderson, H.G. Wells, C.L. Moore and C.S. Lewis all put intelligent life there, Jules Verne of all people however had it uninhabited. Now we know it's not inhabited and never was. (With Mars past in-habitation still seems possible. It is speculated Earth could become like Mars with the right disasters "Unless those days be shortened, no flesh shall be saved".)
If I were living when it was still plausible to speculate about life on the Moon. I'd make note of how a Genesis 10 Patriarch, Yerech ben Yacktan (Jerah of the KJV), has the same name The Hebrew Bible and other Semitic language texts call The Moon. One who's historical traces seem far fainter then some other sons of Joktan. The Mormon argument for affiliating him with the Jaredites of the Book of Mormon I find interesting, but I've talked about what's wrong with the BoM before.
In fact this patriarch predates the Moon being called that. In Genesis 1 the Sun and Moon don't have their names yet, they're just the greater and lesser lights. Yareach as a name for the Moon first appears in Genesis 37, during the lifetime of Joseph and Jacob, then Job (I'm not sure it's as old as others think, if it's setting was during the Patriarchs' time it was late in it since the Keturites have Tribes established already), then in Exodus 2 ("three months" in the KJV), but it doesn't become common till Deuteronomy.
And the Moon has an alternate Hebrew name unlike the Sun, Chodesh/Hodesh.
When an Earthly location later becomes known by a Genesis 10 name we Young Earth Creationists see significance in that, so why am I seemingly the first to consider this with the Moon?
The name of Abraham's father Terah/Terach is also viewed as a variant. It is linked to moon worship in non Biblical texts, and in Hebrew it's spelled the same as Yerach except starting with a different letter, and there are other examples of Hebrew words beginning with Yot having equivalent words that begin with Tav, like Yeshuah and Teshuah (Salvation). Either way it seems the Moon was named for a descendant of Heber, making any hypothetical Selenites/Lunarians possibly Hebrews. It's interesting to remember that Esau/Edom was a descendant of Terah.
Maybe the Yerachites traveled to another "star" but had to pit-stop on the Moon along the way and gave it their name. Or maybe they were just the first to reach it.
And Maybe it was a Yerachite Princess who was raised by a Japanese Bamboo Cutter who named her Kaguya and was romanced by the Emperor of Japan. And also a Yerachite Princess who raped the Greek Shepherd King Endymion.
Wow, did I just got really Nerdy.
Also however the Akkadian name for the moon was Sin (sometimes spelled Suen), suggesting a possible connection to the Sinite tribe of Canaan.
Update January 6th 2017.: I can't believe I forget to mention my theory that Enoch and Elijah were taken to another Planet.
Update January 23rd 2017: Well, I just noticed something I should have in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5, verses 20-23.
"They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones. Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of Yahuah, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of Yahuah, to the help of Yahuah against the mighty."The Talmud says that Meroz is a Star in Moed Katan 16a.
Now Rob Skiba might say this passage supports stars being Angels. But just before this it was talking about countries coming to battle (and some not) in similar terms. It's not talking about those geographical lands getting up and moving, but their people. This passage can be an argument for some Stars being inhabited.
Update October 7th 2018: Given how I've changed my mind on supporting the Edom=Rome identification. I'm now considering that maybe Edom's travel to outer-space was also in the past already.
Jeremiah doesn't describe a captivity and return for Edom in chapter 49 the way he does most other nations. But he does echo Obadiah's talk about Edom being as an Eagle. Edom proper disappears from the Historical biblical Record before the time of Hezekiah, with during Hezekiah's time being the last reference to Amalekites. I still agree with Bill Cooper then the Greco-Roman era Idumeans are the Ishmaelite tribe of Dumah not Edomites.
So if they weren't carried away into Captivity. why did they disappear?
Monday, February 1, 2016
Firmament is not a solid enclosure
I've decided both the standard Kent Hovind/Creationist Canopy theory and Rob Skiba's Dome theory are wrong.
Even if you can convince me of a Flat Earth cosmology for other reasons I still won't think Firmament refers to a Dome. Even if you can convince me there is a Dome for other reasons, I still won't believe the word Firmament refers to that Dome.
I don't care how many Hebrew lexicons and concordances say it's something solid. Your standard Hebrew experts today don't think Almah means Virgin.
The word is rarely used, The Torah uses it only in Genesis 1, two Psalms use it, Ezekiel uses it and Daniel 12:3. The rarer a word is the more dependent we are on using Scripture itself to help define it. So yes it's presumed to derive from words for beaten metals, but it's about equally similar to the Hebrew word for perfume.
Fortunately God foresaw what this word means being an issue and told us. Genesis 8:1 "And God called the firmament the Heavens", the very origin of the word "Heavens" was to be a synonym for the Firmament. I know Kent Hovind doesn't like this fact, but Heavens is plural every-time it occurs here. We know there are at least three Heavens because Paul describes a Man (common theory is it's himself) being taken to the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2.
Rob Skiba makes a good point that when Beth is used as a prefix it means "in". But he doesn't think the sun and moon (maybe he does the stars) or the birds are "in" the firmament, he thinks they're under it.
The birds fly in the first heaven, the atmosphere, the sun, moon and stars are in the second heaven, space.
The Firmament is also defined as what separates the waters above from the waters below.
When Ezekiel uses the word in his vision of God's Throne, it's hard for me to make sense of it with that being the same Firmament whatever your cosmology is. He has the Cherubim under it but God's throne above it.
Update January 2016: Rob Skiba just did a video obsessing over how much Water is in the Atmosphere, to serve his Flat Earth agenda. Never occurred to him to consider that this is the Water above of Genesis 1.
Judges 5:4 shows that the Biblical Authors knew that Rain came from The Clouds. Likewise Psalm 77:17.
Even if you can convince me of a Flat Earth cosmology for other reasons I still won't think Firmament refers to a Dome. Even if you can convince me there is a Dome for other reasons, I still won't believe the word Firmament refers to that Dome.
I don't care how many Hebrew lexicons and concordances say it's something solid. Your standard Hebrew experts today don't think Almah means Virgin.
The word is rarely used, The Torah uses it only in Genesis 1, two Psalms use it, Ezekiel uses it and Daniel 12:3. The rarer a word is the more dependent we are on using Scripture itself to help define it. So yes it's presumed to derive from words for beaten metals, but it's about equally similar to the Hebrew word for perfume.
Fortunately God foresaw what this word means being an issue and told us. Genesis 8:1 "And God called the firmament the Heavens", the very origin of the word "Heavens" was to be a synonym for the Firmament. I know Kent Hovind doesn't like this fact, but Heavens is plural every-time it occurs here. We know there are at least three Heavens because Paul describes a Man (common theory is it's himself) being taken to the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2.
Rob Skiba makes a good point that when Beth is used as a prefix it means "in". But he doesn't think the sun and moon (maybe he does the stars) or the birds are "in" the firmament, he thinks they're under it.
The birds fly in the first heaven, the atmosphere, the sun, moon and stars are in the second heaven, space.
The Firmament is also defined as what separates the waters above from the waters below.
When Ezekiel uses the word in his vision of God's Throne, it's hard for me to make sense of it with that being the same Firmament whatever your cosmology is. He has the Cherubim under it but God's throne above it.
Update January 2016: Rob Skiba just did a video obsessing over how much Water is in the Atmosphere, to serve his Flat Earth agenda. Never occurred to him to consider that this is the Water above of Genesis 1.
Judges 5:4 shows that the Biblical Authors knew that Rain came from The Clouds. Likewise Psalm 77:17.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Flat Earth Debate
So I watched material from last month from Rob Skiba. I don't know if this has changed since then but he was saying he still thinks the Earth is Round but was talking a lot like he doesn't. That's why last night I copied here something on Isaiah 40 I had written elsewhere last year sometime. That post shares the Flat Earth Debate label with this post. As I've said before I like Skiba, I want to see the TV show he's making. But he goes off the deep end in a few places. Probably his greatest objection to me would be on the subject of Nimrod. I also answered his challenge for a second witness for additional Angel incursions.
This is a work in progress by the way, I'm constantly adding to it.
His doubt about the Earth's shape has a lot to do with the ability to apparently sometimes see what you would think should be below the horizon. That doesn't surprise me at all I've been familiar with that fact for awhile, I don't remember exactly how to explain it but I know it does make sense. I think it might have been covered in Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
He talks about not trusting NASA. Look, I'm a conspiracy theorist too, but we've put a lot of people in space and not one has yet repented and admitted to being part of some massive conspiracy to lie about the shape of The Earth and the Universe. A lot of things far easier to cover up have leaked.
But mostly I'm not worried about all that. I'm worried about his insistence that if you take The Bible at face value it clearly teaches a Flat Earth.
https://youtu.be/aJGOQEyeHbE
First I do not agree with the law of first mention. The law of needing more then one witness has actual verses it's based on. The law of first mention does not, it's a game lots of people like to play to help limit what a Biblical term can mean, but it's not supported by Scripture. It's related to the lexical fallacy.
Most stuff written by Christians to argue that The Bible teaches a round Earth is in response to Bible Skeptics, rather then trying to engage in an exegetical debate with Flat Earth supporters. And Rob mocks those arguments. What he didn't quite understand is the citing of Luke's Olivite Discourse isn't about refuting the modern Flat Earth model but about skeptics saying The Bible agrees with ancient Flat Earth models where having night and day at the same time wasn't possible.
The Bible doesn't clearly unambiguously teach The Earth's shape one way or the other. It doesn't seem to be something The Holy Spirit felt we needed to know. So yes I think it's a fallacy to teach The Bible can only be teaching a Round Earth. But no Bible passages exist primary for the purpose of telling as The Earth's shape.
You can't build doctrine on most of Ecclesiastes or what Job's friends said. Solomon was in that book describing how things seem to be to untrained unbelieving mortal eyes of his time with the intend of in the end saying that's wrong, but yet what he says gets misused by people to build bad doctrines like that there is no After Life. And Job's Friends were simply idiots.
Pointing to Psalm 22 as a Prophecy of Jesus does not contradict that the Psalms (and many passages outside The Psalms are Poetic too, especially in Isaiah) use Poetic figures of Speech that should not be taken literally. Including in Psalm 22 we have the Bulls of Bashan. Does Rob Skiba think God literally has wings and feathers?
The Bible uses a lot of the same terminology that everyone who believes The Earth is Rounds use all the time. Not just the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon, but also the talk f the Ends of The Earth. Alexander The Great believed the world was round as a student of Aristotle, yet he still talked abut wanting to reach the ends of The Earth.
The Hebrew word for Earth is Erets, and it also means Land. Sometimes it's used specifically of the The Holy Land but those contexts are very obvious. Similar with the Greek word Ge. Sometimes Earth is contrasted with Sea like with the two Beasts in Revelation 13. Both words clearly can the mean land masses/continents (Genesis 1:10 says so) and so do have ends even in a round Earth Cosmology.
What's Beneath the Earth's crust could also be considered foundations or pillars regardless of shape, especially with the Law of Gravity in mind. For all intents and purposes the center of The Earth is still beneath us and without everything between us and it we would fall into it. I can't but laugh actually at how the "pillars" in the traditional models of Hebrew cosmology look more like stalactites then things helping to hold the world up up.
Here is the thing, this modern Scientifically plausible (based on what we now know from Magellan's voyage and so on) Flat Earth model that Skiba promotes is not compatible with a literal face value assumption reading of those Scriptures either. The Sun and Moon are not actually rising and setting under it either, they are sort orbiting around the North Pole above the equator. I wonder how things like the phases of the Moon are supposed to make sense in that model.
All ancient flat earth models and geocentric models agreed with our modern one that Venus and Mercury are farther from the Earth then the Moon but closer then the Sun. That is apparent even to the most untrained observers.
But more important then that, The Bible when it does casually and poetically talk as if the world were a flat circle. It doesn't treat the North Pole as the center, the land of Magog is is treated as being as far North as you can go. It treats Israel, the Holy Land as the center. North is north of Israel and South is south of Israel. And so on.
If The Earth is a sphere and has no real geographical center, at least on the surface. Treating where Africa and Eurasia meet as the center makes perfect sense. But not a flat circle where the North Pole is the center.
Let's talk about the Four Corner references since those often seem the most compelling to people. Revelation 7 directly links the four Corners to the Four Winds of Heaven. Daniel 11 tells as that Alexander's empire was divided to the Four Winds of Heaven. This is a good excuse to promote my recent Daniel 7 study.
When Revelation 20:8 in the KJV describes nations in the Gog and Magog war coming from the Four Quarters of the Earth. The Greek word for quarter is the exact same one rendered corners in Revelation 7. Matthew 6:7 uses the same word also. As well as when Jesus is described as the Stone at the Head of the Corner. The word's Strong number is 1137.
Now I believe firmly against what's popular today that Ezekiel 38-39 are the same Gog and Magog invasion. There it is clarified that the corners are Magog and and other Japhetic nations for the North. Persia for the East, Cush/Ethopia for the South (specifically used of Nubia a lot but can be all of sub Saharan Africa). And Phut/Libya for the West (not actually modern Libya but rather North Western Africa, from where Carthage was to the Straights of Gibraltar).
The point is even if a Flat Earth cosmology is assumed the corners are not corners outside of some Dome containing the entire world, but the edges of the land masses.
He appeals to extra-Biblical sources like Enoch. Again the Jewish Fables Paul warned us to pay no need to in Titus. I have proven elsewhere that the so called Jasher can't be a book Joshua quoted.
Then he appeals to what the Pagan cosmologies of Babylon and Egypt were. The same person who thinks it's a Sin to celebrate Jesus birthday on the wrong day if there happens to be a Pagan holiday there (his date for Jesus birth is equally linkable to the Autumn Equinox), is okay with defining the world's shape based on Pagan cosmologies??? Someone has their paganism rejecting priories mixed up. I'm sure the casual Hebrews did think in terms of that cosmology, but they also often worshiped those false gods.
Those same ancient flat earth models do also have the Sun literally rising and setting. The Koran alleges to record a man traveling to where the Sun sets. The New Testament was written by and to people educated in Greek. They all knew the world was round, it's circumference had been deduced in Alexandria. A minority even deduced that The Earth revolved around The Sun, lie Aristarchus. I don't like the Evolution and Old Earth stuff in Cosmos but overall I recommend Carl Sagon's Cosmos (not the remake), especially the Alexandria portions. The burning of the Library and Hypatia he gets wrong of course but the rest is good.
Now I want to address what he says about the Firmament. He does point out a valid flaw in the traditional Canopy theory. But the fact remains, the Water that was placed above isn't above anymore, that Water came down in the Flood. Genesis 7:11 makes that clear, there was no rain in the Pre-Flood world. However that played out it can still fit a round earth cosmology.
God's Throne is not literally on top of a Dome. Ultimately God is outside Space and Time, to make him Finite like the JWs and their Masonic founder Charles Russel do merely makes him a Platonic Demiurge (which is not exactly the same thing as the Gnostic Demiurge, but similar).
It's been assumed the only reason for Christians to defend a Round Earth interpretation of The Bible is to defend it from skeptics. But looking at what Skiba and other are arguing for here I've now realized a theological reason. It unwittingly justifies Star Worship. They're basically saying Polaris is Yahweh.
He may have a sort of dwelling place within the Heavens. That is the same land mass that will eventually descend as New Jerusalem. And may be where Enoch and Elijah are now. And maybe that is in the Polaris system, or maybe not.
But if The Earth is Flat how come the southern hemisphere sees completely different stars and constellations and doesn't really have a Pole Star? This enclosed Dome cosmology was imagined by ancient who didn't even know about the southern hemisphere, they grossly underestimated the size of Africa and Asia. The Hebrew had every reason to be just as ignorant of the South and yet...
Psalm 107:3 refers to East, West, North and South. But the Hebrew word translated South there is Yam which is also the Hebrew word for the Sea. I can't help but feel like that alludes to how the Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean, most of the Land masses are north of the Equator.
Job's last few Chapters (what God says) has a lot of Scientific facts in it. But some of those facts alluded to like the Moon effecting the Tides don't work as well if you reject the round earth cosmology. It also alludes to the Northern Icecaps melting in the future. But they are defined as the North.
Also as a Six Day Young Earth Creationist I respond to people who question how Genesis 1 had days before the Sun and Moon were made by reminding them that a Day is the Earth's rotation on it's Axis. The Sun and Moon are only how we measure a day. Not to mention the fact that the Earth's rotation is slowing is evidence against millions of years.
I want to end by talking about The Bottomless Pit. This often isn't cited as Biblical evidence for a Round Earth. But it is something that can only be taken literally with a Round Earth view. It fits perfectly that there could be a pit at the center of The Earth's gravitational pull with fallen angels and demons chained to it's ceiling(s) and dangling from it.
The Pit is only defined as Bottomless in the New Testament. In English the word Bottomless (Abyss) is only used in Revelation in the KJV. But the same Greek word is used in Romans 10:7 where we are told Jesus went there during the time he was in the heart of the Earth. In fact describing Sheol/Hades as the Heart of the Earth itself makes more sense with a Round Earth model then a flat one.
But the Pit is in the Old Testament, I've referred to it studying Isaiah 14. The New Testament clarifies a lot of what wasn't clear before. Especially Revelation. Tarteros is a synonym for it, Jude also refers to chained fallen angels.
When Jesus said every eye will see him at his return, that does not need to make scientific sense to me. Because it's the Creator of Space and Time reentering it in a way different he has before. Reason why using that to argue a Flat Earth is silly to me is because number 1 distance still makes it seem implausible. Number 2 when he says every eye I do not think people standing in a room with no windows are an exception, I don't think prisoner locked in underground dungeons are an exception, I don't think people looking the opposite direction are an exception, I also don't think the Blind are an exception. I don't think he'll actually be in one place at one time strictly speaking, he'll be gathering his people.
And the Satan and the High Mountain thing I always found silly when skeptics mentioned it. But my personal theory has always been he took him to a mountain on the moon. Plenty of the Earth still didn't have kingdoms in 29 AD. So a moment where all Kingdoms are visible from outer-space isn't implausible.
The Bible also refers to God stretching out the Heavens. That fits what modern science knows of the Universe expanding perfectly. But not a solid unmovable dome.
As far as this talk about the miracles done for Joshua and Hezekiah. Saying if the Earth stopped spinning or spun backwards it's have caused all kinds of problems that'd have effectively killed everyone on the planet. 1. If God is doing it supernaturally I trust he can account for all that.
2. I don't know what happened, what mattered is that Hezekiah saw a sign and Joshua was assisted. It could be God just did something not unlike whatever those demonic forces behind the Fatima apparitions did that made it look like the Sun was behaving weirdly. No one outside Fatima saw those things which why we know nothing weird happened with the real Sun. Likewise no one else seems to have recorded what happened in Joshua and Hezekiah's day. And Hezekiah was a contemporary with the danw of the Classical period in Greece.
I might as well also talk a but about Geo-Centrism. There other Creationists have addressed actual Geneticists and not just the accusation from Bible Skeptics.
To my understanding of God's character the last thing he would do is put Man in the center of The Universe. He explicitly wants to keep Man's ego in check. And he wants us to believe in him based on Faith, which is why I don't think he explicitly confirmed the true Cosmology long before Science discovered it.
I will say this, to show that I am not at all divorced from a fringe viewpoint. I could be open to the idea that the Cosmology of The Universe has changed since it was first created.
Maybe we were at the center and/or flat until The Fall or The Flood, or even the days of Joshua and Hezekiah could mark shifts in the cosmology. The strongest verses in the case Skiba built were all of the Creation or referencing back to it. And maybe things will change back in the New Creation in Revelation 21.
It changes several times in Tolkien's fictional history of Arda but that of course isn't compatible with a Biblical Young Earth timeline (it ultimately fails to even match a good Gap theory timeline, though the original premise when it only had the First Age could have fit the Gap theory perfectly). But Tolkien in an odd introduces some interesting ideas. I find it really amusing how he's a Catholic yet dealt with Faith in his writing in a way that did not seem very favorable to organised religion.
But at the end of the day I don't feel even that will ever be certain till we are with Jesus.
Update July 2 2015: So Rob has a new video and a webstie.
First he has developed this notion that it's inherently hypocritical to stand by Young Earth Creationism but not take these Flat Earth implying verses literally. Maybe he should realize it's a problem to be unseeing the exact same logic the enemies of The Bible are using.
The difference is the Age of the Earth of the Earth comes up in two verses that are part of how Paul defined The Gospel itself. Two verses I've cited strongly when refuting the Gap Theory.
And then secondary to that in 2 Peter 3 which foretells the Evolutionary uniformity theory. When talking about lies that would exist to make people doubt the Promise of Jesus coming however Peter said nothing about them ignorantly believing the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun, even though the precedents for those existed in his day with far more popularly then the idea of denying The Flood which was then still in every Pagan mythology including even Plato's cosmology.
There is a detail to 2 Peter 3 that I'm sure Rob would read as relevant to his dome theory. But that is not the point of what Peter is saying, the point is what is being denied about the past, not about the shape of the present.
Again, I can equally say it's hypocritical of these modern Flat Earthers to try and use The Bible to support their theory, but not place the Earth's geographical center would that same logic of Biblical interpretation would place it, Jerusalem.
And he appeals to Michael Heisser, a man's approach to interpreting The Torah has angered me for awhile now, I don't care how many degrees he has. He like the Atheists has an agenda to deny a literal interpretation of Genesis.
I take The Bible literally, that does not mean I have to pretend it never used poetically descriptive language like lots of people believing in a Round Earth do today.
He talks about the history of how the Globe/Heliocentric model developed, and is fairly selective about it. Aritsolte and Ptolemy get mentioned as supporters of Geocentrism but did not seem to acknowledge they absolutely supported a Round Earth. Nor does he mention Aristarchus, or certain of the Epicurians who were the earliest Heliocentric advocates. And were neither attacking The Bible nor loyal to any Sun worshiping religion.
Nor does he address how every early Church Father who wrote on the subject at all clearly believed in a Round Earth. Augustine there were probably continents on the other side but didn't think they would be inhabited. I consider none of them authoritative, but Rob Skiba loves to cite them in support of his Nephilim theories or Nimrod vilification, or saying Christians are still under the Law. But he will ignore them here, as well as the Birth of Jesus, because yes even the Pre-Constantine fathers clearly believed in a December or January birth for Jesus, not September. They did often place when Gabriel appeared to Zacharias around Yom Kippur. And also claimed the then still existed Roman Census records clearly placed Jesus Birth on December 25th.
I fortunately don't have this problem, I consider The Bible alone the Authority and have been rejecting the Church Fathers for awhile.
He talks about the very Ancient Pre Classical Monolith building Civilization being in his view more advanced then the Greek and Romans among whom he sees the Round Earth Model as being born, to try and discredit the idea of believing in a Flat Earth being primitive.
First of all as a fellow Conspiracy Theorist I"m not sure the elites in charge of building those structures actually believed the same cosmology they taught to their peasants. People are argued the circumference of the Earth is implied in how the Great Pyramid was designed. Maybe it is, but I do not subscribe any longer to the idea of the Giza Pyramid being build by YHWH worshipers.
Oh, speaking of the Circumference of the Earth, here is a website that argues it can be deduced from Ezekiel 40-48 and Revelation 21-22.
On just the subject of Geocentrism v Heliocentrism, I could mention there is a view out there that the Universe does look exactly how mainstream science says, yet the Earth is still the Center, it's just a matter of perception. The Sun and Moon revolve around The Earth and everything else in the Solar System revolves around The Sun.
This is a work in progress by the way, I'm constantly adding to it.
His doubt about the Earth's shape has a lot to do with the ability to apparently sometimes see what you would think should be below the horizon. That doesn't surprise me at all I've been familiar with that fact for awhile, I don't remember exactly how to explain it but I know it does make sense. I think it might have been covered in Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
He talks about not trusting NASA. Look, I'm a conspiracy theorist too, but we've put a lot of people in space and not one has yet repented and admitted to being part of some massive conspiracy to lie about the shape of The Earth and the Universe. A lot of things far easier to cover up have leaked.
But mostly I'm not worried about all that. I'm worried about his insistence that if you take The Bible at face value it clearly teaches a Flat Earth.
https://youtu.be/aJGOQEyeHbE
First I do not agree with the law of first mention. The law of needing more then one witness has actual verses it's based on. The law of first mention does not, it's a game lots of people like to play to help limit what a Biblical term can mean, but it's not supported by Scripture. It's related to the lexical fallacy.
Most stuff written by Christians to argue that The Bible teaches a round Earth is in response to Bible Skeptics, rather then trying to engage in an exegetical debate with Flat Earth supporters. And Rob mocks those arguments. What he didn't quite understand is the citing of Luke's Olivite Discourse isn't about refuting the modern Flat Earth model but about skeptics saying The Bible agrees with ancient Flat Earth models where having night and day at the same time wasn't possible.
The Bible doesn't clearly unambiguously teach The Earth's shape one way or the other. It doesn't seem to be something The Holy Spirit felt we needed to know. So yes I think it's a fallacy to teach The Bible can only be teaching a Round Earth. But no Bible passages exist primary for the purpose of telling as The Earth's shape.
You can't build doctrine on most of Ecclesiastes or what Job's friends said. Solomon was in that book describing how things seem to be to untrained unbelieving mortal eyes of his time with the intend of in the end saying that's wrong, but yet what he says gets misused by people to build bad doctrines like that there is no After Life. And Job's Friends were simply idiots.
Pointing to Psalm 22 as a Prophecy of Jesus does not contradict that the Psalms (and many passages outside The Psalms are Poetic too, especially in Isaiah) use Poetic figures of Speech that should not be taken literally. Including in Psalm 22 we have the Bulls of Bashan. Does Rob Skiba think God literally has wings and feathers?
The Bible uses a lot of the same terminology that everyone who believes The Earth is Rounds use all the time. Not just the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon, but also the talk f the Ends of The Earth. Alexander The Great believed the world was round as a student of Aristotle, yet he still talked abut wanting to reach the ends of The Earth.
The Hebrew word for Earth is Erets, and it also means Land. Sometimes it's used specifically of the The Holy Land but those contexts are very obvious. Similar with the Greek word Ge. Sometimes Earth is contrasted with Sea like with the two Beasts in Revelation 13. Both words clearly can the mean land masses/continents (Genesis 1:10 says so) and so do have ends even in a round Earth Cosmology.
What's Beneath the Earth's crust could also be considered foundations or pillars regardless of shape, especially with the Law of Gravity in mind. For all intents and purposes the center of The Earth is still beneath us and without everything between us and it we would fall into it. I can't but laugh actually at how the "pillars" in the traditional models of Hebrew cosmology look more like stalactites then things helping to hold the world up up.
Here is the thing, this modern Scientifically plausible (based on what we now know from Magellan's voyage and so on) Flat Earth model that Skiba promotes is not compatible with a literal face value assumption reading of those Scriptures either. The Sun and Moon are not actually rising and setting under it either, they are sort orbiting around the North Pole above the equator. I wonder how things like the phases of the Moon are supposed to make sense in that model.
All ancient flat earth models and geocentric models agreed with our modern one that Venus and Mercury are farther from the Earth then the Moon but closer then the Sun. That is apparent even to the most untrained observers.
But more important then that, The Bible when it does casually and poetically talk as if the world were a flat circle. It doesn't treat the North Pole as the center, the land of Magog is is treated as being as far North as you can go. It treats Israel, the Holy Land as the center. North is north of Israel and South is south of Israel. And so on.
If The Earth is a sphere and has no real geographical center, at least on the surface. Treating where Africa and Eurasia meet as the center makes perfect sense. But not a flat circle where the North Pole is the center.
Let's talk about the Four Corner references since those often seem the most compelling to people. Revelation 7 directly links the four Corners to the Four Winds of Heaven. Daniel 11 tells as that Alexander's empire was divided to the Four Winds of Heaven. This is a good excuse to promote my recent Daniel 7 study.
When Revelation 20:8 in the KJV describes nations in the Gog and Magog war coming from the Four Quarters of the Earth. The Greek word for quarter is the exact same one rendered corners in Revelation 7. Matthew 6:7 uses the same word also. As well as when Jesus is described as the Stone at the Head of the Corner. The word's Strong number is 1137.
Now I believe firmly against what's popular today that Ezekiel 38-39 are the same Gog and Magog invasion. There it is clarified that the corners are Magog and and other Japhetic nations for the North. Persia for the East, Cush/Ethopia for the South (specifically used of Nubia a lot but can be all of sub Saharan Africa). And Phut/Libya for the West (not actually modern Libya but rather North Western Africa, from where Carthage was to the Straights of Gibraltar).
The point is even if a Flat Earth cosmology is assumed the corners are not corners outside of some Dome containing the entire world, but the edges of the land masses.
He appeals to extra-Biblical sources like Enoch. Again the Jewish Fables Paul warned us to pay no need to in Titus. I have proven elsewhere that the so called Jasher can't be a book Joshua quoted.
Then he appeals to what the Pagan cosmologies of Babylon and Egypt were. The same person who thinks it's a Sin to celebrate Jesus birthday on the wrong day if there happens to be a Pagan holiday there (his date for Jesus birth is equally linkable to the Autumn Equinox), is okay with defining the world's shape based on Pagan cosmologies??? Someone has their paganism rejecting priories mixed up. I'm sure the casual Hebrews did think in terms of that cosmology, but they also often worshiped those false gods.
Those same ancient flat earth models do also have the Sun literally rising and setting. The Koran alleges to record a man traveling to where the Sun sets. The New Testament was written by and to people educated in Greek. They all knew the world was round, it's circumference had been deduced in Alexandria. A minority even deduced that The Earth revolved around The Sun, lie Aristarchus. I don't like the Evolution and Old Earth stuff in Cosmos but overall I recommend Carl Sagon's Cosmos (not the remake), especially the Alexandria portions. The burning of the Library and Hypatia he gets wrong of course but the rest is good.
Now I want to address what he says about the Firmament. He does point out a valid flaw in the traditional Canopy theory. But the fact remains, the Water that was placed above isn't above anymore, that Water came down in the Flood. Genesis 7:11 makes that clear, there was no rain in the Pre-Flood world. However that played out it can still fit a round earth cosmology.
God's Throne is not literally on top of a Dome. Ultimately God is outside Space and Time, to make him Finite like the JWs and their Masonic founder Charles Russel do merely makes him a Platonic Demiurge (which is not exactly the same thing as the Gnostic Demiurge, but similar).
It's been assumed the only reason for Christians to defend a Round Earth interpretation of The Bible is to defend it from skeptics. But looking at what Skiba and other are arguing for here I've now realized a theological reason. It unwittingly justifies Star Worship. They're basically saying Polaris is Yahweh.
He may have a sort of dwelling place within the Heavens. That is the same land mass that will eventually descend as New Jerusalem. And may be where Enoch and Elijah are now. And maybe that is in the Polaris system, or maybe not.
But if The Earth is Flat how come the southern hemisphere sees completely different stars and constellations and doesn't really have a Pole Star? This enclosed Dome cosmology was imagined by ancient who didn't even know about the southern hemisphere, they grossly underestimated the size of Africa and Asia. The Hebrew had every reason to be just as ignorant of the South and yet...
Psalm 107:3 refers to East, West, North and South. But the Hebrew word translated South there is Yam which is also the Hebrew word for the Sea. I can't help but feel like that alludes to how the Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean, most of the Land masses are north of the Equator.
Job's last few Chapters (what God says) has a lot of Scientific facts in it. But some of those facts alluded to like the Moon effecting the Tides don't work as well if you reject the round earth cosmology. It also alludes to the Northern Icecaps melting in the future. But they are defined as the North.
Also as a Six Day Young Earth Creationist I respond to people who question how Genesis 1 had days before the Sun and Moon were made by reminding them that a Day is the Earth's rotation on it's Axis. The Sun and Moon are only how we measure a day. Not to mention the fact that the Earth's rotation is slowing is evidence against millions of years.
I want to end by talking about The Bottomless Pit. This often isn't cited as Biblical evidence for a Round Earth. But it is something that can only be taken literally with a Round Earth view. It fits perfectly that there could be a pit at the center of The Earth's gravitational pull with fallen angels and demons chained to it's ceiling(s) and dangling from it.
The Pit is only defined as Bottomless in the New Testament. In English the word Bottomless (Abyss) is only used in Revelation in the KJV. But the same Greek word is used in Romans 10:7 where we are told Jesus went there during the time he was in the heart of the Earth. In fact describing Sheol/Hades as the Heart of the Earth itself makes more sense with a Round Earth model then a flat one.
But the Pit is in the Old Testament, I've referred to it studying Isaiah 14. The New Testament clarifies a lot of what wasn't clear before. Especially Revelation. Tarteros is a synonym for it, Jude also refers to chained fallen angels.
When Jesus said every eye will see him at his return, that does not need to make scientific sense to me. Because it's the Creator of Space and Time reentering it in a way different he has before. Reason why using that to argue a Flat Earth is silly to me is because number 1 distance still makes it seem implausible. Number 2 when he says every eye I do not think people standing in a room with no windows are an exception, I don't think prisoner locked in underground dungeons are an exception, I don't think people looking the opposite direction are an exception, I also don't think the Blind are an exception. I don't think he'll actually be in one place at one time strictly speaking, he'll be gathering his people.
And the Satan and the High Mountain thing I always found silly when skeptics mentioned it. But my personal theory has always been he took him to a mountain on the moon. Plenty of the Earth still didn't have kingdoms in 29 AD. So a moment where all Kingdoms are visible from outer-space isn't implausible.
The Bible also refers to God stretching out the Heavens. That fits what modern science knows of the Universe expanding perfectly. But not a solid unmovable dome.
As far as this talk about the miracles done for Joshua and Hezekiah. Saying if the Earth stopped spinning or spun backwards it's have caused all kinds of problems that'd have effectively killed everyone on the planet. 1. If God is doing it supernaturally I trust he can account for all that.
2. I don't know what happened, what mattered is that Hezekiah saw a sign and Joshua was assisted. It could be God just did something not unlike whatever those demonic forces behind the Fatima apparitions did that made it look like the Sun was behaving weirdly. No one outside Fatima saw those things which why we know nothing weird happened with the real Sun. Likewise no one else seems to have recorded what happened in Joshua and Hezekiah's day. And Hezekiah was a contemporary with the danw of the Classical period in Greece.
I might as well also talk a but about Geo-Centrism. There other Creationists have addressed actual Geneticists and not just the accusation from Bible Skeptics.
It is important to note that the same Hebrew word for ‘moved’ (môwt) in the same niphal stem is used in Psalm 16:8, ‘I shall not be moved’. Presumably even Bouw wouldn’t accuse God of poor communication if he didn’t believe that the Bible taught that the Psalmist was rooted to one spot! Rather, the passage teaches that he would not stray from the path that God had set for him. If that’s so, then it’s impossible to deny that ‘the world … cannot be moved’ could mean that Earth will not stray from the precise orbital and rotational pattern God has set for it.What's funny Is I've seen it argued The Bible is Geo-Centric just from references to the Sun moving that does't even talk about where. No one believes the Sun is the center of The Universe, it does move either way.
To my understanding of God's character the last thing he would do is put Man in the center of The Universe. He explicitly wants to keep Man's ego in check. And he wants us to believe in him based on Faith, which is why I don't think he explicitly confirmed the true Cosmology long before Science discovered it.
I will say this, to show that I am not at all divorced from a fringe viewpoint. I could be open to the idea that the Cosmology of The Universe has changed since it was first created.
Maybe we were at the center and/or flat until The Fall or The Flood, or even the days of Joshua and Hezekiah could mark shifts in the cosmology. The strongest verses in the case Skiba built were all of the Creation or referencing back to it. And maybe things will change back in the New Creation in Revelation 21.
It changes several times in Tolkien's fictional history of Arda but that of course isn't compatible with a Biblical Young Earth timeline (it ultimately fails to even match a good Gap theory timeline, though the original premise when it only had the First Age could have fit the Gap theory perfectly). But Tolkien in an odd introduces some interesting ideas. I find it really amusing how he's a Catholic yet dealt with Faith in his writing in a way that did not seem very favorable to organised religion.
But at the end of the day I don't feel even that will ever be certain till we are with Jesus.
Update July 2 2015: So Rob has a new video and a webstie.
First he has developed this notion that it's inherently hypocritical to stand by Young Earth Creationism but not take these Flat Earth implying verses literally. Maybe he should realize it's a problem to be unseeing the exact same logic the enemies of The Bible are using.
The difference is the Age of the Earth of the Earth comes up in two verses that are part of how Paul defined The Gospel itself. Two verses I've cited strongly when refuting the Gap Theory.
And then secondary to that in 2 Peter 3 which foretells the Evolutionary uniformity theory. When talking about lies that would exist to make people doubt the Promise of Jesus coming however Peter said nothing about them ignorantly believing the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun, even though the precedents for those existed in his day with far more popularly then the idea of denying The Flood which was then still in every Pagan mythology including even Plato's cosmology.
There is a detail to 2 Peter 3 that I'm sure Rob would read as relevant to his dome theory. But that is not the point of what Peter is saying, the point is what is being denied about the past, not about the shape of the present.
Again, I can equally say it's hypocritical of these modern Flat Earthers to try and use The Bible to support their theory, but not place the Earth's geographical center would that same logic of Biblical interpretation would place it, Jerusalem.
And he appeals to Michael Heisser, a man's approach to interpreting The Torah has angered me for awhile now, I don't care how many degrees he has. He like the Atheists has an agenda to deny a literal interpretation of Genesis.
I take The Bible literally, that does not mean I have to pretend it never used poetically descriptive language like lots of people believing in a Round Earth do today.
He talks about the history of how the Globe/Heliocentric model developed, and is fairly selective about it. Aritsolte and Ptolemy get mentioned as supporters of Geocentrism but did not seem to acknowledge they absolutely supported a Round Earth. Nor does he mention Aristarchus, or certain of the Epicurians who were the earliest Heliocentric advocates. And were neither attacking The Bible nor loyal to any Sun worshiping religion.
Nor does he address how every early Church Father who wrote on the subject at all clearly believed in a Round Earth. Augustine there were probably continents on the other side but didn't think they would be inhabited. I consider none of them authoritative, but Rob Skiba loves to cite them in support of his Nephilim theories or Nimrod vilification, or saying Christians are still under the Law. But he will ignore them here, as well as the Birth of Jesus, because yes even the Pre-Constantine fathers clearly believed in a December or January birth for Jesus, not September. They did often place when Gabriel appeared to Zacharias around Yom Kippur. And also claimed the then still existed Roman Census records clearly placed Jesus Birth on December 25th.
I fortunately don't have this problem, I consider The Bible alone the Authority and have been rejecting the Church Fathers for awhile.
He talks about the very Ancient Pre Classical Monolith building Civilization being in his view more advanced then the Greek and Romans among whom he sees the Round Earth Model as being born, to try and discredit the idea of believing in a Flat Earth being primitive.
First of all as a fellow Conspiracy Theorist I"m not sure the elites in charge of building those structures actually believed the same cosmology they taught to their peasants. People are argued the circumference of the Earth is implied in how the Great Pyramid was designed. Maybe it is, but I do not subscribe any longer to the idea of the Giza Pyramid being build by YHWH worshipers.
Oh, speaking of the Circumference of the Earth, here is a website that argues it can be deduced from Ezekiel 40-48 and Revelation 21-22.
On just the subject of Geocentrism v Heliocentrism, I could mention there is a view out there that the Universe does look exactly how mainstream science says, yet the Earth is still the Center, it's just a matter of perception. The Sun and Moon revolve around The Earth and everything else in the Solar System revolves around The Sun.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Isaiah 40:22 "the circle of the earth", Round Earth or Flat
This verse is often brought up discussing whether The Bible implies a Flat Earth or Round Earth model.
But the Bible critics are equally absolutist, insisting the verse can only mean a Flat Circle, and would have used "Sphere" if what we now know the actual shape of the Earth to be was what this Author (who I view as Isaiah, but to skeptics it's "Second Isaiah") intended to describe.
That of course ignores that we are dealing with a translation of an ancient language that didn't have as technically precise a vocabulary as modern English.
The word "Sphere" is never used by KJV translators for any Hebrew word. The argument can be made that a Sphere is basically a type of circle.
I've seen people argue Isaiah would have used the word translated elsewhere as ball. Ball is not a synonym for Sphere, all balls are spheres but not all spheres are balls. I would not describe the shape of The Earth or the Moon or any other astronomical body as being a ball. You could say they are shaped like a ball but you could not actually describe them as balls. The earlier Isaiah reference to a ball says it is tossed, that tells me it means something you can toss like a ball you play games with.
You can carve into a Sphere shaped object by the way. And you could carve something else into a Sphere shaped object.
The word translated "circle" in this verse is used in total only 3 times. Isaiah 40 is the only case where it is translated "circle". Job 22:14
The grand point to me is, it doesn't mater what the Human Author thought he was describing. The Holy Spirit made sure it was not worded in a way that was incompatible with Scientific Fact.
"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:"Here is the thing, I'll agree that the way some Christians cite this verse as completely proving a Round Earth and ignoring the possibility of a Flat Circle is wrong.
But the Bible critics are equally absolutist, insisting the verse can only mean a Flat Circle, and would have used "Sphere" if what we now know the actual shape of the Earth to be was what this Author (who I view as Isaiah, but to skeptics it's "Second Isaiah") intended to describe.
That of course ignores that we are dealing with a translation of an ancient language that didn't have as technically precise a vocabulary as modern English.
The word "Sphere" is never used by KJV translators for any Hebrew word. The argument can be made that a Sphere is basically a type of circle.
I've seen people argue Isaiah would have used the word translated elsewhere as ball. Ball is not a synonym for Sphere, all balls are spheres but not all spheres are balls. I would not describe the shape of The Earth or the Moon or any other astronomical body as being a ball. You could say they are shaped like a ball but you could not actually describe them as balls. The earlier Isaiah reference to a ball says it is tossed, that tells me it means something you can toss like a ball you play games with.
You can carve into a Sphere shaped object by the way. And you could carve something else into a Sphere shaped object.
The word translated "circle" in this verse is used in total only 3 times. Isaiah 40 is the only case where it is translated "circle". Job 22:14
"Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven."And Proverbs 8:27
"When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:"Looking at these usages of the word, I've actually considered a 3rd option, maybe it doesn't mean either a flat circle or a sphere, maybe it's not describing the Earth's shape at all? Maybe it's referring to the Earth's Orbit (Circuit) around the Sun.
The grand point to me is, it doesn't mater what the Human Author thought he was describing. The Holy Spirit made sure it was not worded in a way that was incompatible with Scientific Fact.
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