Christians: How do you rationalize this passage that implies the earth is flat and the sun moves around it?

Question

Ecclesiastes 1:5
"The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises."

Please don't add Issiah or something else. That passage itself obviously implies, at the very least, that the sun moves around the earth.

Ignorance is a bliss. The fact that we refer to it as "sunrise" is a remaining product of the time when we thought the earth was flat. Please learn some historical linguistics. There problem here isn't just that. Do you ever hear weather forecast people refer to the sun as hurrying back to where it rises? No.

Answer 1

The bible also says the earth has four corners:
Ezekiel 7:2, Isaiah 11:12, Job 37:3, Jeremiah 16:9 and Matthew 4:8 to name a few references.

All these sidestepping answers are sad. There's no denying that Christianity hung on to the idea of an Earth-centered universe for centuries. Galileo was victimized by the Christian church for suggesting that the Earth moves around the sun instead of vice versa. See http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/09/trial-of-galileo-1633-ad.html

Edit: if the Earth isn't described as flat in the bible, hello, how did "Satan" show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world from an exceedingly high mountain? .... Matthew 4:8

Denials, denials. How sad.

Answer 2

That is an age old question that was answered many years ago. Do not use the Old Testament's Chapters because there were no Christians yet at that time of the writings. They were only subjected by their leaders to agree with them because they still considered science findings a heresy.
To satisfy your ignorance, the earth was flat and the sun moves from east to west because the world of the ancient writers of the Old Testaments was only limited to what they can see from the ground even to the top of the mountains they can reach. They thought that the mountain ranges which they have not yet climb to be the edge of the world specially if it looks to block the ocean. The sea where there is no mountain range around to block it is considred the edge of the sea. And so is their belief that the sun evolves around the earth becasue wherever they stayed, the sun always shine in the east and set in the west. This was the rationlae for the simple mind of the simple people of the time.

Answer 3

1 The words of the Teacher, [a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

It's a poem.

It implies everything has "seasons" and returns to its course. This is a never-ending theme, like a circle, it has no starting or ending point and goes on forever. The poet, from his perspective, sees the sun rise and set, every day, and poetically writes that to add it to the theme of the poem.

As if the Bible were a book on the science of the universe?

It's about salvation. It answers "why", not "how"

Galileo-- The Pope 'victimized' Galileo because of a personal insult; 75% of the Christians during that time (mainly Protestants), believed him. In fact, it was the Christians that kept his works alive.

The "four corners"- Must we always think in geographical terms? Why can't the "four corners" be nations of the Earth, or Oceans? The 'four corner' description is not a scientific theory, it's a representation of the world they lived in.

Answer 4

Where does this imply that the earth is flat? It is common to say that the sun sets and rises and hurries back because it does. Only in the day when this was written it was believed that the Sun went around the earth, not vice versa.
Secondly, in the day that this text was written there was only one world and it was considered flat. Why would anyone write differently?
And Isaiah is spelled this way, not what you wrote.

Science is only as smart as science is, people of the day did not know what you know now.

It is ignorant, yes, lack of knowledge and intelligence to even make such a statement without contemplating first the person who wrote it, the person writing is writing under divine inspiration not divine knowledge.

By the by, Pythagoras, the greatest mathematician of the earliest of times, also believed the earth to be the center of the universe, so did Plato, Aristotle, and even the egytians.

God bless and thanks for the opportunity to spread the truth.

Answer 5

"Many theologians and biblical researchers maintain that writers of the Bible had a Babylonian world view according to which Earth is flat and stands on some sort of pillars. According to Dictionary of the Bible written by W. Browning 'Hebrew cosmology pictured a flat earth, over which was a dome-shaped firmament, supported above the earth by mountains, and surrounded by waters. Holes or sluices (windows, Gen 7.11) allowed the water to fall as rain. The firmament was the heaven in which God set the sun (Ps 19.4) and the stars'(Gen 1.14)."

Answer 6

How does this passage imply that the sun moves around the earth? We say the sun rises and sets, so it can't be that. So are you saying that because it says "and hurries back to where it rises," that it implies that the sun moves around the earth? Doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 7

The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. I dont get how that implies the sun moves around the earth.

Answer 8

It just seems like a human-point-of-view description of what the sun does. Rises and sets, and then before you know it, it rises again.

How does that imply that earth is flat? Can you help me understand where you're seeing that?

Answer 9

I don't need to "rationalize" anything. It's a poetic description.

And where does it imply that the earth is flat?

Sunrise and sunset are terms that people use today, even though we know the sun is stationary. Using them doesn't imply that we believe otherwise.

Answer 10

No, it only implies our visual perspective of the earth and sun. We still refer to the sunrise and sunset. Haven't you seen a local weather forecast lately? Do meteorologists believe the sun moves around the earth?