does bible says that earth is flat?

Question

recently i read somewhere that bible says that earth is round, but earlier i came to know that bible says that earth is flat. what is the truth? are christians trying to be scientific to save their faith? if bible really says that earth is round then why church made GALILEO sorry?

Answer 1

Round my friend. read JOB.

Church is not always comprised of likewise minded people.
Ignorance prevails at any level. ie WASH DC> come to mind.

over 31,000 different religions worldwide. Thinking they all right
in doctrine!

Remember the burning of witches in Europe? over 100,000 people died because religious fanitics are the most dangerous people in the world.

Don't worry.

Its round--walk it.

Answer 2

I'm going to star this question because I will be keen to see if anybody can come up with a Bible verse that says the Earth is flat. My Bible doesn't say any such thing anywhere. It does say, "God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in." Isaiah 40:22 References to the circle of the earth, the rising and setting of the sun etc. are examples of the literary device known as phenomenal language, where a given phenomenon is described as it appears to people on the Earth, rather than what scientific properites it might have. Once that fact is taken into the equation, Isaiah 40:22 cannot be taken to mean that the Bible teaches the Earth to be flat. The only thing atheists can jump on is the much later interpretations of the Bible by some religionists, but that is entirely different to saying the Bible says that! Interpretations change. The Bible never does.

Answer 3

The Bible does not teach that the earth is flat. The flat-earth idea is a relatively recent invention that reached its peak only after Darwinists tried to discredit the Bible.

The Bible actually teaches a spherical shape for the earth. In Isaiah 40:22 God is said to sit above “the circle of the earth” (the Hebrew word for circle can also mean a sphere). Also, in Luke 17:34–36 Christ's Second Coming is portrayed as occurring while some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime activities — which means a rotating earth with day and night at the same time.

Answer 4

We only use "four corners" the way we do now because we *know* the earth is (almost) round...actually it's an oblate spheroid, which bulges around the equator due to centrifugal force and the moon's gravity -- so it's not "round" either. :)

The first person officially credited with the idea that the earth is a sphere was Aristrachus, an greek philosopher who lived around 200 BC. He proved the earth was round by measuring the length of the shadows of two identical sticks at the same time (via assistants) at two cities at different latitudes. As he thought, the shadows were different lengths, proving the earth's surface was curved. He was also the first to propose that the earth orbited the sun, but this idea wasn't take seriously (mainly because he didn't work out all of the math to go with his idea), and Ptolemy's earth-centered universe held sway until Copernicus.

It's a safe bet that all of the writers of the bible thought the earth was flat, as did everyone else who lived at the times the books were written. Doesn't say much for "prophecy" does it? :)

Galileo was arrested and tried, by the way, not for saying the earth was round, but for saying the earth orbited the sun. This was considered contrary to bible teachings (both from statements in genesis and from Joshua making the sun stand still during a battle), and as such was heresy. Yet another time the christians chose dogma over fact, just as they do today.

Answer 5

Isaiah 40; 22 is the scripture that calls it a circle , where it describes God as dwelling above the circle of the earth. One respondent said a circle is flat. That's true but on a 3 dimensional plane it becomes like a ball or a sphere. The fact that the Catholic church imprisoned Galileo and tried to force the theory that the sun revolved around the earth has nothing to do with the Bible. That was from man's preconcieved notions. Bibles in the different languages from latin were forbidden also so that the common man couldn't understand it.

Answer 6

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]

Answer 7

The Bible mentions the firmaments. Flat-earthers interpret that to mean the earth was flat.

Isaiah 40:22 -- that God sitteth on the circle of the earth .. and, I'm told, the Hebrew word for "circle" also means "sphere".

The truth seems to be that the Bible does not say the earth is "flat" and does assert it being a sphere.

However, "scientists" declare the Earth is flat and that the Scriptures must be translated in that way.

Then "scientists" change their minds and say it is round ... and leave the Bible commentators caught with the interpretations which they had accepted from the "scientists".

Answer 8

Isaiah 40:22 There is one who is dwelling above the circle of the earth.
Job 25:7 Hanging the earth upon nothing.
People believed the earth was flat, the bible has always said it was a circle. They believed the earth was carried on the back of a elephant the bible said it hangs upon nothing.
No where does it say it is flat. Some one used the symbolic statement in Revelation to say the four corners of the earth.
but it said it was symbolic.

Answer 9

I suppose the following verse could be interpreted as either. As a note, the notion of a flat Earth is a Hollywood fairytale. People have always known the earth was round from watching distant objects sink over the horizon, such as ships.

Isaiah 40:22
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Answer 10

The bible says "the four corners of the earth" which pretty much means they think it is flat. Some apologists say it means, north, south, west, and east, but how those are "corners" cannot be explained.