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The Biblical support for a Flat Earth and Geocentricism
By Dawn Huxley
Posted on: 4/20/2002
Some creationists claim the Bible describes a spherical Earth which circles the sun, but they need to re-interpret Scripture to do so.
I recently got into an argument with a young-Earth creationist named Dr. Mark Purchase, Ph.D., who tried to convince me that the Bible supported a spherical Earth and a heliocentric solar system.
An actual reading of scripture, however, confirms just the opposite. The Biblical authors’ worldview actually described a flat Earth where the Sun rose and set by its own movements, not the Earth’s orbit around it. The authors also said that God could shake the pillars of the sky to make the stars fall from the ceiling.
Let’s look at the examples, below.
Fundamentalists love to quote the first part of Isaiah 40:22 where it reads, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth…” as proof that the Bible advocates a spherical Earth. The full verse, however, reads as follows:
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.Isaiah is actually describing the Earth as flat and circular, with a dome-shaped tent (sky) covering the land.
As we all know, the Earth is not a circle but a sphere, and if Isaiah wanted to call it a sphere, he could have easily done so because earlier he states that God will “roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into another country” (Isaiah 22:18).
Furthermore, the “flat pancake” Hebrew word for “circle” is described elsewhere in Job 26:10 and Proverbs 8:27, although the NIV substitutes the word “circle” for “horizon.”
Here are some additional verses:
Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he walks about on the vault of heaven.Daniel’s dream implies that the tree was touching the ceiling and could be seen everywhere on the flat Earth.
— Job 22:14
Can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze?
— Job 37:18
The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth.
— Daniel 4:11
He who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and sets its vaulted dome over the earth.The Bible also advocates Geocentrism:
— Amos 9:6
…the earth is turned upside down to scatter its inhabitants.
— Isaiah 24:1, KJV
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.Notice that not only does Joshua command the Sun and Moon to stand still, but he tells them to hover over two individual cities, which is impossible for celestial objects 93 million miles and 250,000 miles away, respectively.
— Psalm 104:5
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
— Psalm 93:1
Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.’ The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
— Psalm 96:10
Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
— 1 Chronicles 16:30
‘O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.’ So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies.
— Joshua 10:12-13
Also, God can command the Sun not to rise rather than the Earth to stop turning. (Job 9:7, KJV)
…the sun rises and the sun sets; and hastening to its place, it rises there again.Earthquakes are also an interesting subject in the Bible since the topic also belies the Biblical authors’ worldview. God shakes the world’s pillars and rattles the dome of the sky above, too.
— Ecclesiastes 1:5
In [the heavens] He has placed a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of her chamber; it rejoices like a strong man to run its course, its rising from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them.
— Psalm 19:4-6
There was a great earthquake; and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.Some fundamentalists like to point to Job 26:7 where Job says that God “spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.”
— Revelation 6:12-13
…the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
— Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:25
Before them the earth shakes, the sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.
— Joel 2:10
Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will shake from its place…
— Isaiah 13:13
The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry.
— 2 Samuel 22:8
He shakes the earth from its place and makes it pillars tremble.
— Job 9:6
The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke.
— Job 26:11
When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm.
— Psalm 75:3
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he set the world upon them.
— 1 Samuel 2:8
“See?” they exclaim, “Job says that the earth floats in empty space!” But what they conveniently ignore is the fact that God later rebukes Job for his insolence:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone?And finally, the following is from the Book of Revelation:
— Job 38:4-6
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.According to John, the New Jerusalem will descend from Heaven and land on Earth. But this city is supposed to be in the dimensions of a perfect cube that measures 1,500 × 1,500 × 1,500 miles.
It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia [1,500 miles] in length, and as wide and high as it is rsquo;long. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits [200 feet] thick, by man’s measurement, which the angel was using.
The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
— Revelation 21:9-21
How could a cube that’s 1,500 miles across land on the surface of a spherical planet that’s only 8,000 miles across? Either the cube or the planet would be seriously deformed!
Or… John assumed that the Earth was flat!
Some fundamentalists claim that this city only “floats” above the Earth rather than “lands” on its surface, but they still have problems. A city that large and massive, even if it were to float in space, would have so much mass that it would gravitationally collapse into a sphere, crushing everybody and everything inside. (Don’t forget that the walls of this city are 200 feet thick!)
“So what!” believers proclaim, “God will change the laws of physics!”
Therefore, in this so-called prediction, God will reconstruct the principles of geometry and mathematics! And this is science?
Also note that some Bible commentaries claim that 12,000 stadia can be interpreted as only 1,400 miles, but knocking a hundred miles off the cube’s dimensions won’t fix the mechanical difficulties of this scenario at all.