Why did so many great modern writers believe the earth was flat?

Question

Since Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jonathan Swift, Sir Francis Bacon, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, and Charles Dickens used the expression "four corners of the earth" did it mean they all believed the earth was flat? Why?

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/bs.asp?ss=text&s=four+corners+of+the+earth

Answer 1

That’s just an expression, a way of saying the farthest reaches.

Answer 2

But I'm sure you do agree that at some time very many people believed the earth was flat. Or are you implying that it was always "just an expression" and no one really meant it - that in fact, having been informed by scripture, everyone really knew the earth was round? Can you not see the disingenuous aspect to your argument?

Does the sun "set in the west," or "rise in the east?" Neither, but it would be at best clumsy to describe the correct astronomical event in an economic way - or in an nontraditional way; and we do love tradition..

And that is the point. We inherit phrases that strictly speaking are imprecise, but we keep them for many reasons, even when we know they are imprecise. They don't just "fall off the face of the earth." But if you don't believe that once people actually did think things would "fall off the face of the earth," then you are sorely mistaken. In short, those phrases have become metaphors, but in some past period were statements of belief.

Answer 3

As noted, the authors were using a literary device that originated in times when people actually did believe the earth was flat.

The biblical cosmology doesn't just hold the earth to be flat, it also holds that the sky is a solid, physical dome with sun, moon, and stars fastened to it. The sky has "windows" that are opened to let in rain. The earth itself is a flat disc, held up by pillars.

See the sourced link for details.

Answer 4

Its a matter of perspective and religious teachings.
standing in a fairly open field or out over the waters yes things look flat. but when whoever it was built a giant sphere and set a scale model boat over the surface of it while looking straight ahead he saw the same thing that anybody would see looking out to sea the object disappears from the bottom up as it gets farther out. rather than just smaller if the world was really flat. as people started to sail farther away from land they found that they did not fall over the sharp edge that one would expect to find.
The term the four Quarters of the world can just mean the four directions in ordinary terms. in different religions they could mean Earth ,AIR, FIRE or Water as the cardinal points.

Answer 5

I dont think a majority of people prior to 1492 believed the earth was flat. Christopher colombus didnt even set out to prove the world was round.
The bible has a flat earth description, but that was no big deal to the church. Aristotle described the earth as a sphere. (Or was it plato, not sure) 400 bc And the church accepted that long ago
Most educated people believed the earth was a sphere for many many centuries. Its only dumb christians today that try and use Isaiah 40:22 who benefit from saying that people beleived the earth to be flat. Of course that is illogical but they are christians.

four cornors of the earth is just a phrase. However many christians today are the ones falling for the flat earth myth. The myth that the past strongly believed in a flat earth. Like I said, that means they can use Isa 40:22 to try and show something remarkable.

Answer 6

God uses the same term "Four corners of the Earth" Rev. 7:1
I don't think it is used to represent a "flat earth" Just the 4 directions North, South, East, and West.

Answer 7

Everything comes from the Spiritual Realm.
The Four-Corners of the Earth is in the Spiritual Realm that makes the Physical Earth Possible to Exist.

In the Old Days, People could not see beyond the edge of the Ocean, so they thought they would fall-off.
Thats what I was taught in School.

Answer 8

Isaiah 40:22 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:

Isaiah was 827 to 714 before Christ and he knew the earth was a circle shape.

Answer 9

The four corners are just an expression,like sun-rise.The sun doesn't rise the Earth rotates.4 corners are the 4 compass points...NWES,which is where we get the word NEWS from(all the info...north east west south).Even in the Bible they knew it was round"It is He(God) who sits above the circle of the Earth".

Answer 10

It's an expression that originates in the times when people DID think th earth was flat - Bible days.