Terry,
"THE FLAT EARTH: STILL AN EMBARRASSMENT TO BIBLE INERRANTISTS"
Thanks for that. LOVED it.
Respectfully,
OldSoul
Battle Royal.
by Daunt 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
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OldSoul
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ithinkisee
There is some good info in this thread:
"Was it REALLY so peaceful prior to 1914?"
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/93086/1.ashx-ithinkisee
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Leolaia
Shining One....First of all, I would suggest that you refrain from the shrill language; it does not advance the discussion to call someone a "liar" for presenting an argument that differs from your own. I believe your various assertions are also profoundly incorrect, but I do not resort to such language. The implication that I am engaging in willful deceit is offensive.
Second, you have not dealt with the various issues I raised. I called into question your assumption that poetic passages had a different cosmology (or understanding of the world/universe) than other passages. I pointed out that non-poetic and poetic passages express the same language and concepts, such that it does not "ignore the context" to interpret poetic texts cosmologically. I should also note that your own favorite proof-texts are poetic in themselves (i.e. Job 26:7, Isaiah 40:22) and so the criticism you apply to Terry should be applied to yourself as well. In fact, tho you give much lip-service to "respecting the context", I do not see you making any attempt to understand these texts in their literary and cultural context. Not even give any attention to actual language being used. In the case of Job 26:7, I would suggest (1) reading it in the full context of ch. 26 which is filled with mythological allusions (e.g. the Rephaim of Sheol, Zaphon, Rahab, the "Fleeing Serpent", etc.) which can only be understood in the broader cultural context, (2) note what the previous verse says and how it bears in 26:7, (3) figure out what thw means in the OT and especially in the book of Job, and (4) consider the implications of blymh as a hapax legomenon in biblical Hebrew (thus having uncertain meaning). On all these grounds, one should exercise far greater caution than you did when you interpreted Job 26:7 as definitely referring to earth as "suspended in space" as a "spherical" body in the midst of the heavens, to the exclusion of other (more likely) readings.
Third, you made an assertion that "Mesopotamian astronomers" described the earth as "round". I asked for documentation of this, which is still outstanding
Fourth, your citation of J. B. Russell actually conflicts with your own assertion that "the later darkness of the Middle Ages obscured" the older understanding of a round earth. Russell disputes your position, not mine. His work is to show that knowledge of a round earth was generally known and accepted in the Middle Ages...especially after European Christians became acquainted with Arab sources by the 11th century (which had preserved and elaborated on earlier astronomical work by the Greeks).
Fifth, you misrepresent the history of science by implying that the "flat-earth notion" arose relatively late, first among Lactantius in the third century AD and then by isolated people in the centuries onward, whereas the "round-earth notion" was far earlier, held by Eratosthenes in the third century BC, and earlier writers before him. This is misleading....in reality, the "round-earth notion" developed especially in Greek scientific and philosophical circles and displaced an earlier flat-earth cosmology common throughout the Near East. What Russell says about the "myth of the flat earth" pertains especially to the Middle Ages, as well as to the earlier patristic and classical period....not to pre-Hellenistic views such as those in the OT. Your citation of church fathers or Greek intellectuals has nothing to do with what I was talking about the OT text itself, which is indebted to cosmological concepts found throughout the Near East and not to Greek debates on the shape of the earth.
The following gives an even-handed discussion of the history of flat-earth and round-earth notions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth
That the Jews had a genuine cosmology that you dismiss as mere poetic metaphor is amply attested in other Jewish writings as well.
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peacefulpete
Also, Luke 17:34–36 depicts Christ’s Second Coming as happening while some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime activities in the field—an indication of a rotating earth with day and night at the same time.
RexActually G.Luke uses the word that means "couch" (modern style beds not existing) and does not necessarily imply sleeping at night. It is the word used for the couch used when reclining for meals. The author of Luke then was likely using the imagery of an evening meal as being a time of preoccupation. It is possible that the author drew this from G.Thomas as it does not appear in Matt. or Mark.
G Thomas 61:1 which reads:
Jesus says: "Two will lie down there on one couch: one will die, the other will live." Salome says: "Who art thou, man; from whom hast thou that thou shouldst lie on my couch and eat at my table?" Jesus says to her: "I am he who has been brought into being by Him who is equal I have been given what belongs to my Father!"? "I am thy disciple!"
It also does not reflect the rapture doctrine. The context makes clear that "taken" here means killed.
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Leolaia
A few Jewish texts from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, which express a decidedly non-heliocentric and non-spherical earth cosmology:
"On the second day [of creation], he placed (epitithésin) heaven over the whole (holois) world, and he set it apart from everything else by arranging it to be suitable [to the earth] and fastened around (peripéxas) it a crystalline structure (krustallon) equipped to give moisture, rain, and beneficial dew to the earth (téi géi). On the third day he made dry land appear with the sea around it (peri autén)....On the fourth day he adorned (diakosmei) heaven with the sun, moon, and the stars, and assigned to them their motions (kinéseis) and courses (dromous)" (Josephus, Antiquities 1.1.1).
"They led me away to the living waters and to the fire of the west (puros duseós), which provides all the sunsets (pasas tas duseis tou héliou). And I came to the river of fire, in which fire flows down like water and discharges into the great sea of the west. I saw all the great rivers and I arrived the great river and the great darkness. And I departed for where no living being walks. I saw the wintry winds of darkness and the gushing of all the waters of the abyss (tés abussou pantón hudatón). I saw the mouth of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the abyss (stoma tés abussou). I saw the treasuries of all the winds and I saw how through them he ordered all created things. I saw the foundations of the earth (ton themelion tés gés) and the cornerstone of the earth (ton lithon tés gónias tés gés). I saw the four winds bearing the earth (tén gén bastazontas) and the firmament of heaven. And I saw how the winds stretch out the height of heaven. They stand between the earth and heaven (histasin metaxu gés kai ouranou); they are the pillars of heaven (to stereóma tou ouranou)" (1 Enoch 17:4-5, 18:1-2).
"From there I proceeded to the ends of the earth, and I saw there great beasts, and they different each from the other; and birds also, differing in their appearance and their beauty and their voices, differed each from the other. To the east of these beasts I saw the ends of the earth, on which the heaven rests, and the gates of heaven open. I saw how the stars of heaven come forth, and I counted the gates from which they emerge, and I wrote down all their outlets, one by one, according to their number and their names, according to their conjunction and their position and their time and their months....From there I proceeded to the north, at the ends of the earth, and there I saw great and glorious wonders at the ends of the whole earth. There I saw three gates of heaven open in heaven. From them the winds in the north emerge...From there I proceeded to the west, at the ends of the earth, and I saw there three gates of heaven open, as I saw in the east, the same number of gates and the same number of outlets. From there I proceeded toward the east, at the ends of the earth, and there I saw three gates of heaven open toward the east and above them, small gates. Through each of these small gates pass the stars of heaven, and they proceed westward on the path that is shown them" (1 Enoch 33:1-3, 34:1-36:2).
"The luminary called the sun has its emergence through the heavenly gates in the east and its setting through the western gates of the sky. I saw six gates through which the sun emerges and six gates through which the sun sets. The moon rises and sets in those gates and the leaders of the stars with the ones they lead, six in the east and six in the west....The first one to emerge is the great luminary whose name is the sun; its roundness is like the roundness of the sky. It is entirely filled with fire, which gives light and heat. The wind blows the chariot where it rises and the sun sets from the sky and goes back through the north in order to reach the east. It is guided so that it enters that gate and gives light in the firmament" (1 Enoch 72:2-5).
"In the same way, Uriel showed me twelve gates open in the disc of the sun's chariot in the sky from which its heat comes out upon the earth when they are opened at the times stipulated for them. The same is the case for the winds and for the spirit of the dew when openings in the sky are made on the boundaries, when the twelve gates in the sky are opened on the boundaries of the earth, from which the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the works of the sky emerge, on the east and on the west. There are many windows opened on the left and right. Each window at its time emits heat like those gates from which the stars emerge as he ordered them in which they set according to their number. I saw chariots in the sky travelling in the world above those gates in which the stars that do not set revolve. One is larger than all of them and it is the one that encircles the whole world" (1 Enoch 75:1-8).
"The first quarter of the earth is called Eastern because it is the first, and the second is called South because there the Most High will descend and especially there the one who is blessed forever will descend. The name of the quarter on the west is Diminished because there all the heavenly luminaries diminish and go down. The fourth quarter whose name is North is divided into three parts. One of them is the place where people live, the second is for seas, the deeps, forests, rivers, darkness, and mist, and the other part is for the garden of righteousness. I saw seven lofty mountains which are higher than all the mountains on the earth, from them snow emerges and the days, seasons, and years pass by. I saw seven rivers on the earth, larger than all the rivers. One of them comes from the west and pours its water into the great sea. Two of them come from the north to the sea and pour their water into the Erythrean Sea on the east" (1 Enoch 77:1-6).
Here is the similar conception of the cosmos in the Talmud:
As in the Bible, so also in the Talmud, heaven and earth designate the two borders of the universe. The former is a hollow sphere covering the earth. It consists, according to one authority, of a strong and firm plate two or three fingers in thickness, always lustrous and never tarnishing. Another tannaitic authority estimates the diameter of this plate as one-sixth of the sun's diurnal journey; whileanother, a Babylonian, estimates it at 1,000 parasangs. According to others, the diameter of the firmament is equal to the distance covered in 50 or 500 years; and this is true also of the earth and the large sea ("Tehom") upon which it rests (Yer. Ber. i. 2c; Targ. Yer. Gen. i. 6). The distance of the firmament from the earth is a journey of 500 years—a distance equivalent to the diameter of the firmament, through which the sun must saw its way in order to become visible (Yer. Ber. i. 2c, bot.; Pes. 94a). The firmament, according to some, consists of fire and water, and, according to others, of water only; while the stars consist of fire (Yer. R. H. ii. 58a). East and west are at least as far removed from each other as is the firmament from the earth (Tamid. 32a). Heaven and earth "kiss each other" at the horizon; and between the water above and that below there are but two or three fingerbreadths (Gen. R. ii. 4; Tosef., Hag. ii. 5). The earth rests upon water and is encompassed by it. According to other conceptions the earth is supported by one, seven, or twelve pillars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_astronomy