Did Jesus Know the world was round?

Question

When Jesus spoke of His return in Luke 17 he says this "34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. 35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. "These times all refer to different times of day the first at night, the second in the morning and the third in the afternoon. This is very interesting.

Answer 1

Jesus, as God, would certainly know that. However, I don't think that passage gives evidence of it. People do sleep in the day.

Answer 2

There is a misconception that the ancients where dumb-a**es. Well, it was widely known that the earth had curvature long before Jesus. I mean an ancient Greek calculated the circumference of the earth, using a stick and its shadow.

OK, for my friend down there:
From Wikipedia:

"Since the spherical shape was the most widely supported during the Greek Era, efforts to determine its size followed. Plato determined the circumference of the earth to be 40,000 miles while Archimedes estimated 30,000 miles. Plato's figure was a guess and Archimedes' a more conservative approximation. Meanwhile, in Egypt, a Greek scholar and philosopher, Eratosthenes, set out to make more explicit measurements."

Anyone else interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy

Answer 3

Assuming he actually existed, and the words attributed to him really were his (which is a HUGE and probably incorrect assumption, BTW) the answer is: He just didn't know any better. Although the Greeks (and others) by that point had determined the earth was a sphere, and had fairly accurately calculated the circumference with trigonometry, it was not common knowledge. The Israelites/Jews were a particularly primitive tribe of desert nomads, who really did not do any deep thinking or investigation of the world around them. They did no astronomy, they were still fairly superstitious, primitive and unsophisticated when compared to the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Assyrians and other cultures they came in contact with.

Answer 4

From the standpoint of Christianity, Jesus was both fully divine and fully human. To be fully human means that Jesus was human in ALL respects--that is, he learned, spoke, and acted like a human being. Jesus spoke Aramaic, his culture was Jewish, and he was formed by his parents, his people, and his culture. Jesus didn't know the world was round any more than he knew about computers. If you were to go back in time, and spoke English to him, he wouldn't understand you. Jesus apparently accepted the common custom of the time of speaking of diseases as manifestations of demon possession. These facts do not take away from his divinity, but they do reinforce his humanity.

You see, from a theological standpoint, most of the people writing in this thread are making a mistake by not distinguishing between the SON, who is the divine and omnipotent second person of the Trinity, and Jesus Christ, who is the union of the Son with a fully human nature--as the traditional formulations have it, two natures in one person. So Jesus is the SON become FLESH, and therefore has both divine and human natures, undivided, in one person.

If you argue that Jesus was all-knowing in the sense that he would have known the earth was round, or would have known about nuclear physics, then you have a big problem on your hands, because Jesus was not born grown up, he was born a baby, and surely he was not "all-knowing" in this sense when he was 2 years old!! Then you'll have to posit that he either gradually learned everything there is to know--quarks, particle mechanics, airplanes, future languages, etc.., SO by definition you would be conceding that at least at some point during his life, he was not "all-knowing" in this sense, and to say that Jesus was all-knowing at one point but not at another point would defeat your premise, namely, that Jesus was divine and all-knowing.

QED.

Answer 5

They believed that everybody lived at the same time, morning was morning everywhere at the same time. It was only the greek philosophers who proposed that time would be different depending on where you were located.
It was not until travel and communication became fast enough that time mattered, that this idea shifted. It was the railways that made time zones necessary. Then came telgraph, telephone etc. Now the idea that the earth is round and times are different depending on your time zone is commonplace. Two thousand years ago, not a chance.
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For those quoting the passage about a round earth read the rest of it telling how heaven is set upon it and think about the grasshoppers.

21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

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:

23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

So the earth has foundations and is under a tent. lying round like a pizza pie.

Answer 6

He may have, since the Ptolemaic worldview was already around and accepted by many. But at least some of his followers did not - there is a reference in the Gospels to a mountaintop from which one could see all the kingdoms of the world, and that only works if the earth is flat!

Answer 7

It is. That refers to the catching away of the church. The Bible also said that when He returns later for His thousand-year reign, "every eye shall see Him." I wonder if that means He will be seen in the sky long enough for everyone around the world to know He is coming. They'll probably think it's a meteor, or something.

Answer 8

Yes, He knew. In this passage, He's talking about the MOMENT that He returns. That moment won't be the same time of day for all people.

To some, it will be night, to some morning, to others afternoon, etc. He knew.

Answer 9

It's interesting that Jesus realized there were different times during the day? Am I missing something? He was 30 years old. I think everyone observes quite a few mornings, afternoons, and evenings in that amount of time.

Answer 10

Galileo and others were persecuted by the Pope for stating that the Earth is a sphere in the 16th Century A.C.

Answer 11

Actually, it doesn't say morning, or afternoon. Are you interpreting that? If you are interpreting that, how can you be sure you are interpreting it right? I mean, you are supposed to accept the literal truth, and he says "That night" and that's the only time of day referred to, so I think you have to assume it's all night.

Or that it's just a story.