A fair bit of time was spent discussing the (one) scripture in the Bible that "proves" that when the Bible touches on scientific subjects, it is absolutely correct. This was at the most recent CLAM meeting this past week. From Isaiah, the reference to the "circle" of the earth. Surely I wasn't the only person to be thinking "WTH? A circle is FLAT!" Pipes are round, coins are round, but the earth is a ball, a sphere. Probably a great example of cognitive dissonance...
The "circle" of the earth
by stillin 61 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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_Morpheus
Of course they also claim mt everest was covered with water in a global flood that was survived by people in a wooden box with 2 of every animal on earth so.....
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waton
Verse 22, round disk horizon? wt would have been better of to settle for the stretching of the gauze of the heavens, akin to the expansion of spacetime, or the quasi prediction of motor less human sailplane flight, just recently setting an altitude record of ~ twice the heights of Everest, like an eagle, without flapping it's wings.
The bible has 3 or 4 lucky hits among its ~50 000 verses.
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Wasanelder Once
Anyone experiencing an eclipse would know the earth is round. Don't need no God. What a joke.
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Magnum
That always bothered me. I had the same question. You're right; a circle is two dimensional, whereas, a sphere is three dimensional. The earth is spherical, not circular.
When I was newly baptized, I called on a guy, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, who worked at an auto parts store. He had a master's degree in theology and had been a Methodist minister. After seeing so much wrong in his church and with religion in general, he lost his faith. He was very kind and told me that he didn't want to damage my faith, but he did mention a few things, and one of them was Isa 40:22. He said that the Hebrews had different words for "circle" and "sphere" (I don't know whether that's right; I've never looked it up) and that the word for "sphere" was not used in this passage.
The reference Bobcat provided is really interesting and makes sense to me. If the material in the reference is right, then JWs are wrong in their using Isa 40:22 to show that the Bible is scientifically accurate.
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waton
Anyone experiencing an eclipse would know the earth is round.
WaeO: Yeah, the sun is round, the moon is round, and the light during totality on the horizon around the round shadow is round.
The bible still advocated a flat Earth in Jesus' "all the kingdoms of the Earth visible from a high enough mountain" temptation. Then, on a clear day, you could see forever, from Judea all the way to China' XYZ Dynasty.
The flat Earth has curled into a 3rd dimension since. but will have 4 corners again after the 1000 year reich. so, if it is the 3 dimensional, but with 4 corners, it must become be a 3 sided pyramid. ha ha.
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Bungi Bill
Until into the 20th Century, the more fundamentalist elements amongst South Africa's Afrikaner population believed Isaiah 40:22 "proved" the earth is flat.
After all, every bloody fool knows that a circle is flat!
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St George of England
He said that the Hebrews had different words for "circle" and "sphere" (I don't know whether that's right; I've never looked it up) and that the word for "sphere" was not used in this passage.
I once saw a WT article that said the word for circle "can" be translated sphere, but they didn't say by whom; probably just themselves. Interesting article here:-
http://www.crivoice.org/circle.html
George
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Phizzy
Magnum's post is spot on, obviously the writer of the verse in Isaiah had in mid a flat, or domed, disc. They had a word for sphere, or ball, he would have used that if such a vision of earth was in his mind.
Nowhere does the Bible show one bit of knowledge that was not common at the time, and more often than not is not even as knowledgeable as surrounding Nation's Wise Men.