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The real myth is the idea that anyone ever believed in a flat earth.

There is still a long way to go before the average student will know that Christianity did not invent or promote the myth of the flat Earth.

The flat earth myth was actually created in the 19th century by a couple of scientists who had issues with the church. In actuality a researcher has to look very hard to locate religious leaders of that period who believed the earth was flat. Especially so from the year 400 to the year 1500, you have to work really hard to find them.


A SHADOW OF THE TRUTH...

Around 250 BC, the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes noticed that a post in the city of Alexandria, Egypt cast a shadow at noon on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. But at the same time in Syrene, a town due south from Alexandria, a similar post did not cast any shadow. Why was this?

Eratosthenes figured the sun must be shining its light at these two towns from different angles. The sun was directly above the post in Syrene, so the post did not cast any shadow. But the sunlight was shining toward Alexandria at an angle. This was because the earth's surface was curved, Eratosthenes reasoned.

By knowing the distance between the two cities and by calculating the angle of the pole to the shadow, Eratosthenes was able to apply geometric theory to determine the size of the earth. He figured out the diameter of the earth was 7,850 miles (12,633 kilometers). He was only off a little. The earth's actual diameter is about 7,926 miles (12,757 kilometers) at the equator.

In 140 BC, a Greek known as Crates of Mallus built what may have been the first globe in history. It is hard to picture what was on that globe, since the Greeks only knew what a small part of the planet looked like. They had never traveled to China, Australia or the Americas, so none of those places could have been on the globe.

Before European explorers and conquerors sailed across the oceans in the 1400s and 1500s, cartographers in Europe made globes. In 1492, Martin Behaim, a German cartographer, made the oldest globe that still exists today. Years later, the Dutch would become famous for making the best globes and maps.


Flat-Earth HeyDay Came with Darwin

The idea that the earth is flat is a modern concoction that reached its peak only after Darwinists tried to discredit the Bible, an American history professor says.

Jeffrey Burton Russell is a professor of history at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He says in his book Inventing the Flat Earth (written for the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's journey to America in 1492) that through antiquity and up to the time of Columbus, "nearly unanimous scholarly opinion pronounced the earth spherical."

Russell says there is nothing in the documents from the time of Columbus or in early accounts of his life that suggests any debate about the roundness of the earth. He believes a major source of the myth came from the creator of the Rip Van Winkle story-Washington Irving-who wrote a fictitious account of Columbus's defending a round earth against misinformed clerics and university professors.

But Russell says the flat earth mythology flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution. He says the flat-earth myth was an ideal way to dismiss the ideas of a religious past in the name of modern science.

The Bible of course teaches the correct shape of the earth. Isaiah 40:22 says God sits above 'the circle of the earth' (the Hebrew word for 'circle' can also mean a 'sphere'). Also, Luke 17:34-36 depicts Christ's Second Coming as happening while some are asleep at night and others are working at day-time activities in the field-an indication of a rotating earth with day and night at the same time.


cont'd on page two

Page Two

Globes and Maps

There are many globes and maps that indicate a round earth long before the days of Columbus. Naturally these globes and maps were not complete nor very accurate as many continents were not yet known. However they were still round and was even divided into longitude and latitude.



Did Bible writers believe the earth was flat?

Some Bible critics have claimed that Revelation 7:1 assumes a flat earth since the verse refers to angels standing at the "four corners" of the earth. Actually, the reference is to the cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. Similar terminology is often used today when we speak of the sun's rising and setting, even though the earth, not the sun, is doing the moving. Bible writers used the "language of appearance," just as people always have. Without it, the intended message would be awkward at best and probably not understood clearly. [DD]

In the Old Testament, Job 26:7 explains that the earth is suspended in space, the obvious comparison being with the spherical sun and moon. [DD]

A literal translation of Job 26:10 is "He described a circle upon the face of the waters, until the day and night come to an end." A spherical earth is also described in Isaiah 40:21-22 - "the circle of the earth."

Proverbs 8:27 also suggests a round earth by use of the word circle (e.g., New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible). If you are overlooking the ocean, the horizon appears as a circle. This circle on the horizon is described in Job 26:10. The circle on the face of the waters is one of the proofs that the Greeks used for a spherical earth. Yet here it is recorded in Job, ages before the Greeks discovered it. Job 26:10 indicates that where light terminates, darkness begins. This suggests day and night on a spherical globe. [JSM]

The Hebrew record is the oldest, because Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible. Historians generally [wrongly] credit the Greeks with being the first to suggest a spherical earth. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras suggested a spherical earth. [JSM]

Eratosthenes of Alexandria (circa 276 to 194 or 192 B.C.) calcuated the circumference of the earth "within 76 miles of the present estimate." [Encyclopedia Brittanica]

The Greeks also drew meridians and parallels. They identified such areas as the poles, equator, and tropics. This spherical earth concept did not prevail; the Romans drew the earth as a flat disk with oceans around it. [JSM]

The round shape of our planet was a conclusion easily drawn by watching ships disappear over the horizon and also by observing eclipse shadows, and we can assume that such information was well known to New Testament writers. Earth's spherical shape was, of course, also understood by Christopher Columbus. [DD]

The implication of a round earth is seen in the book of Luke, where Jesus described his return, Luke 17:31. Jesus said, "In that day," then in verse 34, "In that night." This is an allusion to light on one side of the globe and darkness on the other simultaneously. [JSM]

"When the Bible touches on scientific subjects, it is entirely accurate."


The Four Corners

Perhaps no phrase in Scripture has been so controversial as the phrase, "the four corners of the earth." The word translated "corners," as in the phrase above, is the Hebrew word, KANAPH. Kanaph is translated in a variety of ways. However, it generally means extremity.

It is translated "borders" in Numbers 15:38. In Ezekiel 7:2 it is translated "four corners" and again in Isaiah 11:12 "four corners." Job 37:3 and 38:13 as "ends."

The Greek equivalent in Revelation 7:1 is gonia. The Greek meaning is perhaps more closely related to our modern divisions known as quadrants. Gonia literally means angles, or divisions. It is customary to divide a map into quadrants as shown by the four directions.

Some have tried to ridicule the Bible to say that it teaches that the earth is square. The Scripture makes it quite clear that the earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22).

Some have tried to say there are four knobs, or peaks on a round earth. Regardless of the various ways kanaph is translated, it makes reference to EXTREMITIES.

There are many ways in which God the Holy Spirit could have said corner. Any of the following Hebrew words could have been used:

    * Pinoh is used in reference to the cornerstone.
    * Paioh means "a geometric corner"
    * Ziovyoh means "right angle" or "corner"
    * Krnouth refers to a projecting corner.
    * Paamouth - If the Lord wanted to convey the idea of a square, four-cornered earth, the Hebrew word paamouth could have been used. Paamouth means square.

Instead, the Holy Spirit selected the word kanaph, conveying the idea of extremity.

It is doubtful that any religious Jew would ever misunderstand the true meaning of kanaph. For nearly 2,000 years, religious Jews have faced the city of Jerusalem three times daily and chanted the following prayer:

      Sound the great trumpet for our freedom,
      Raise the banner for gathering our exiles,
      And gather us together from THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH
      into our own land.

The Book of Isaiah describes how the Messiah, the Root of Jesse, shall regather his people from the four corners of the earth. They shall come from every extremity to be gathered into Israel.

      "And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse,
      Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
      For the Gentiles shall seek Him,
      And His resting place shall be glorious."
      It shall come to pass in that day
      That the LORD shall set His hand again the second time
      To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
      From Assyria and Egypt,
      From Pathros and Cush,
      From Elam and Shinar,
      From Hamath and the islands of the sea.
      He will set up a banner for the nations,
      And will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
      And gather together the dispersed of Judah
      From THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH.
      (Isaiah 11:10-12, New King James Version)