As has been stated many times already, they thought it was a flat disk - not a sphere. Hence all the talk about god being "above" the "circle of the earth" and being able to see everything.
Wrong. They had terms for CIRCLE, they had terms for BALL. When the Bible writers described the earth, they used the TERM circle when they could have used the term BALL. The phrases they used clearly dsecribe a flat earth. So, the terms and phrases used are for a FLAT earth. But, NOT ONE term or phrase implies a SPHERICAL earth. What on earth is this about? The bible writers wrote about a FLAT earth. They used the terms and phrases which apply to a flat earth. They used NO terms and phrases which applied to a spherical earth. Cultures of the time all believed in a flat earth. The bible writers all believed in a flat earth. But, true believers cannot admit it. Sure - There was no flood - the Bible is wrong. You cannot make striped animals by showing them striped sticks when drinking - the Bible is wrong. Woman was not made from man's rib - the Bible is wrong. Snakes do not talk - the Bible is wrong. The sun did not stop in the sky - the Bible is wrong. There was never a tower of babel and 1 language - the Bible is wrong. All the dead saints did NOT rise from the grave - the Bible is wrong. Iasion
Pardon? What does this even MEAN, John? I am aware of history. I am aware of the creation myth. What do gyroscopes have to do with it? Please explain what on earth your point is. But you CAN have a circle WITHOUT a sphere. You don't seem able to grasp this very simple concept. The Bible uses terms and phrases for a FLAT CIRCULAR earth. It does NOT use any terms for a spherical earth. Cultures of the time believed in a flat earth. The Bible writers believed in a flat earth. Iasion
Yes, stars shine differently. When you LOOK at stars you can see they are different. So what? A 5 year old can see stars are different. Is this your idea of advanced science in the bible? Iasion
Alright, my apologies for being blunt but I have been drinking.. So let's get to it: I will acknowledge and accept biblical statements that seem to show scientific understanding if you theists are willing to acknowledge biblical statements that show a complete lack of it. While on the one hand you could say the bible writers were inspired by a vast intelligence, it could equally be argued that the bible writers were inspired by a raving fricking idiot. So.. dare you take the challenge? If you've got balls, let me know.
I've been reading this. Without telling you too much about myself, I read Hebrew and some Aramaic and have been leaarning it since I was a child. st The word in question from Isaiah 40:22 is "chug"(using Roman char transliteration) and you can look this up yourselves. The word refers to the vault of the sky, or the firmament from genesis. This same word is also used at Proverbs 8:27 and Job 22:14. Read Genesis 1 for an explanation of this cosmology. What they believed that the earth was a more or less flat surface, with a solid dome, arch or firmament which was up on the sky. This vault separated the sky from the waters above the earth.(the sky is blue, it looks like the blue water of the open sea). Again, read Genesis 1 for this explanation. They believed the stars and moon are hung up in this vault or firmament like ornaments. That is what it refers to. They did NOT think the earth was spherical . But, that it was flat with a domelike structure above it which separated the sky from the place where their god lived, just above it. Their god sat above the water above and looked down on the earth through this dome (or vault, or firmament). First century Judean writer Flavius Josephus elborates on this in his "Antiqua Judaica" as a "crystalline firmament" with windows for the rains and hail. THAt is what this refers to ! It does NOT, I repeat NOT refer to a spherical earth ! This ,despite the fact that even before Josephus, the greeks knew the earth was spherical. The Judeans did not agree because their scripture described it differently. For more detail on this read the book of 1 Enoch. This goes into even more detail about Hebrew/Judean cosmology. So, technically, both sides are wrong here ! More biblical trivia ; Adstar said ; Adstar by his observation has set the lower limit for the writing of Job. Then Medicine woman said ; The greeks named this star cluster Pleiades. for the story of the seven sisters. They could, apparently with the naked eye, or perhaps crude instruments, determine 7 bright stars in the cluster. The belt of Orion, and Orion was named by the fairly late Athenian greeks, and this is not too much older than Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander. Medicine woman, Remember when you said ; Since the book of job used the greek names for those stars (and they did), Therefore the book of job cannot be any older than the origin of those greek names, agreed ? It also has aramaic words in it, the language of the Babylonians. The book of Job is not so very old. The book of Daniel makes similiar statements. Further, it refer to by name, Greek musical instruments. In fact, there is no way that books could possibly be older than Alexander, or the 3rd century BCE. Further clues give us an very tight date. The abomination of desolation was just before the Maccabean revolt. The book of Daniel could not be older than the second century BCE. It was written anachronistically, a story about a guy named Daniel during their Babylonian captivity, which was 400 years prior to the time of its writing, given the clues. Peace Out. Fortuna
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So why isn't the term "going around in circles" NOT "going around in balls" instead? The terms it uses clearly describe the earth and are easily understood today. Maybe not, but can you provide evidence of anything written earlier that describes the earth hanging in space on nothing? Job 26:7 7He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. The Bible writers wrote about their relationship to God amongst other things, they weren't interested in inventing computers. Really, was there an Ice Age? lol what is the the book/chap/verse for this? That is a bit of a far out theory, what were women made from? The snake is Satan who is a supernatural entity, and can talk and shape shift. Were you there? You say that with such confidence. How many languages did we start off with then? Lack of evidence is not evidence. Please give me Biblical book/chap/verse references instead of typing your versions.
You seem to be an expert so can you provide me with some evidence as to the age of the book of Job? Cheers
With our current understanding of the solar system, the Earth rotates on it's axis and revolves around the Sun, hence the Sun could not simply stop in the sky, although from an earth-bound reference frame, that could be visualized if in fact the Earth stopped rotating, which would be more accurate. Therefore, the statement that the Sun stopped in the sky would be consistent with the beliefs of that time period where the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe and the Sun revolved around it. In that case, the writers of the bible believed in such, hence they wrote that into the bible as opposed to what should have been written IF they were in fact gods words. God would certainly have known that the Earth was NOT the center of the universe and the Sun DIDN'T revolve around it.
************* M*W: I disagree. "Job is probably the oldest book in the Bible. The literary form of Job is similar to documents which go back to the first part of the 2nd millennium B.C.. In the dialogue section of the book, can be found some of the most difficult and archaic Hebrew in the Bible. Even the name Job is known to be an ancient name. Along with failure to mention covenants or the Law, Job probably lived in the time of the patriarchs, that is around 2100B.C. until 1700 B.C.." http://netministries.org/Bbasics/BBjob.htm Those patriarchs have been listed as the Egyptian Pharaohs David and Solomon. Other texts list Moses as a contemporary. Therefore, the timeline for the publication of Job would be 1490-1350 BCE. This timeline is even much later than what biblical scholars have determined the writing of Job to be. Further, Job is a work of poetry or perhaps a play. Further, other sources belied Job to be the oldest book of the Bible. "Although the exact date of its writing is not known, it is believed to be sometime between 2100 BC and 1900 BC. The last book of the Old Testament was written around 430 BC (the book of Malachi). http://www.biblepath.com/bible.html "Many scholars agree that Job is the oldest book in the Bible, written by an unknown Israelite about 1500 B.C. Others hold that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are the oldest books in the Bible, written between 1446 and 1406 B.C." http://members.fortunecity.com/bmanpail/id27.htm "Job evidently lived about the time of Abraham." http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/job.html "We are once again reading together the marvelous book of Job. It is the only non-Jewish book of the Bible, and it is in all probability the oldest book of the Bible. Many eminent men -- both religious and non-religious -- have called it the supreme literary production in all the world's history. It is, from any point of view, a most remarkable piece of writing." http://www.antipas.org/books/be_ye_transformed/job.html Some biblical scholars have stated that the Book of Job is a comedy/drama. "There is poetry, drama and philosophy of a high order in the Bible. The Book of Ruth is an idyllic romance of three thousand years ago; the Book of Esther a rare study in human character. The passionate drama of the Book of Job stands in strong contrast to the measured soliloquies of Ecclesiastes, and the staccato epigrams of the Book of Proverbs to the delicate loveliness of the Song of Solomon. "The Book of Job, from an independent source and probably at least four centuries old already, must have come into Moses' possession at the same time and been added to what soon became the sacred collection of Israel." http://www.heraldmag.org/bookstore/booklet_thebible.htm If the Book of Job was already four centuries old by the time of Moses, that would have put the writing of Job at 1750 BCE. "As the oldest book of the Bible, Job was probably a contemporary of Abraham, although he did not live in the Promised Land; he lived in a land called Uz, of which we know relatively little." http://www.khouse.org/articles/2002/407/ I think it is pretty clear that the Book of Job is the oldest book of the Old Testament. To further comment on the book, Job was a fictional character, author truly undetermined, and written as a comedy/drama for the sole purposes of wisdom and entertainment. M*W's Friendly Atheist Fact for the Day: "The beginning of wisdom is the awareness that there is insufficient evidence that a god or gods have created us and the recognition that we are responsible in part for our own destiny." ~ Paul Kurtz
************* M*W: The "four corners of the earth" refer to the four directions: North-South-East-West
I'm not going to claim that the Israelites were rocket scientists but can you not see that it is easier to write that the "Sun stopped" then to say "the earth stopped rotating and it gave the impression that the Sun stopped". This was written as it was experienced, simply. Did the Israelites know what we know now? I doubt it. Is the Bible an Astrophysics book? No. Does that make the Bible meaningless? No. That is all I'm trying to explain.
While that sounds plausible, my understanding is that word translated as "corners" (kanaph) is also translated as "ends," "borders" or "extremities."
I'm not impervious to mistakes. Im not infallible... so why should i be right>? You have just as valid and logical opinions.
Anyone who knows theology knows Bible Numerics. The Bible displays an avid pattern in its language when concerning numbers. And not long ago, i suggested a scientific way to look at these numbers, logically corrected with some reasoning. Since we are all on the subject of this ''is the Bible scientific lingo,'' then consider this: A Dr. Vernon Jenkins found the following facts… before we continue, we must have a look at the Greek Mathematics gematria, and the Chaldean numerical values are: Alpha = 1 Beta = 2 Gamma = 3 Delta = 4 Epsilon = 6 Digamma = 7 Zeta = 8 Theta = 9 Iota = 10 Kappa = 20 Lambda = 30 Mu = 40 Nu = 50 Xi = 60 Omicron = 70 Pi = 80 Koppa = 90 Rho = 100 Sigma = 200 Tau = 300 Upsilon = 400 Phi = 500 Chi = 600 Psi = 700 Omega = 800 There are [27] Greek letters in total… 22 Hebrew letters in total… Note that 27 + 22 = 7 x 7… keep this in mind… The idea that the ancient pages of the Kabala, is that it holds a hidden subtext of codes in numbers. This is not a myth, it is actually very much true. Do not mistake these for the rather poor BBC 4 programmed a yonder of years back, whereas Dr. Eliyahu Rips claimed he had discovered empirical evidence of Bible code phenomena. He used a high-powered computer to [randomly] search for crossword like paragraphs speaking about events that had already happened, and events still to come to pass. I wasn't moved by his finds. I found his contribution actually a bit shaming for the Bible mathematical community. However, he is a fantastic mathematician, well-renown actually, and he statistically put one of his codes down as 60,000 to 1. But mathematicians came forward and found him to be incorrect, with a real statistical analysis of only 1 n 2. However, this should not deter the reader, as codes really do exist within the Bible, as i am going to show you. Dr. Ivan Nikolayevich Panin, a scholar and famous agnostic, born in Russia found a most compelling and spine chilling set of codes... actually, hundreds of them. They where so intricate, the only explanation was intentional design... but why? It turns out that the codes where so complex, called 'the seven phenomena', no scholar or mathematician could really answer why anyone would go to such a lengthly way. The statistics of his finds go into the quadrillions to 1! [You can find his work on the internet - there are plenty of threads]. Another Dr. i wish to speak about today, and before moving onto my own personal find, is a Dr. Vernon Jenkins - he too has his own web page. He simply took the next step and applied geometric patterns into the text, and came up with some extraordinary results. He was able to obtain his calculations from an ancient Hebrew and Chaldean discipline called, 'Theomatics.' By applying each letter of the Hebrew (and) Greek alphabet with their own gematria values, he was able to devise ''whole'' answers. It turns out that these values also held quite a lot in store. The most interesting find of his, was found in Genesis 1:1. He obtained the following values from using this system: 296-407-395-401-86-203-913. He found the following facts (I’m mentioning just an iota of what he found) > the entire system came to a value of 2701. The entire system is also 37 x 73 (reflective symmetry) The numbers 37 and 73 are the 12th and 21st primes (reflective system) The number 2701 is the 703rd triangular number (similarities, almost an anagram) - 703 is also the calculation of 'and the earth' leaving a value of 666 + 666 + 666 This is just a pinch of what he found - you should really go to his site His second work investigated the first paragraph of John 1:1, which is almost symmetrical in literature. He also found some rather remarkable mathematical results the word, ''Word'' came to a value of 373... This mirrors the 37 and 73 phenomena the entire passage valued 3627... Which is 39 x 93 (reflective symmetry) In fact, the entire thing could be used as a plinth to support the triangular basis of 2701 All coincidence? Perhaps, but he recently put statistical averages to this and found it was highly unlikely Now, what stood out for me, was that seven was predominant in the first sentence. There are accordingly 7 words. There are 28 letters (Hebrew letters) which is of course 7 x 4. This was indicating something, i thought. You just need to look at the entire Bible to understand that 7 was the holy number... God rested on the 7th day. Jesus was the 77th generation from Abraham. The 7 churches. The 7 Angels. The 7 plagues. The 7 spirits. The 7 woes... ECT. ECT. As it turned out, the three nouns 'God', 'Heaven' and 'Earth' added to 777... A triplet... remember this. So, i decided to investigate the gematria. What ''popped'' out at me, was the numbers 37, 7 and 39. The difference between the number 7 however, is that it was encoded in a differential fasion to both the findings of the 37 and 39 phenomena. So, i treated it differently by doing the following sums... 37 x 7 = 259 39 x 7 = 273 what of these numbers - your probably wondering? Well, if you multiply the two together, they obtain a very similar picture to adding the three nouns together, giving an answer of 70707! But this was only the edge of the blade. It turns out that the joining of 37x7 multiplications with 39x7 multiplications unraveled a host of continuous calculations, that 'may' go into infinity... though, I could be wrong… Here are the extra calculations I found… But first, I call numbers which have a pattern of (let’s hypothetically say),70707 as ‘’Island Effects’’, and are calculations that are very rare. In short, I will call the Island Effect simply (IE). 37 x 273 = 10101 Palindrome/IE 39 x 259 = 10101 Palindrome/IE 37 x 7 = 259 x 39 x 39 = 393939 37 x 7 = 259 x 93 x 93 = 939393 39 x 7 = 273 x 37 x 37 = 373737 39 x 7 = 273 x 73 x 73 = 737373 And… We now need to see the importance of two specific numbers… those being 13 and 11… numerically, the Bible finds these numbers highly important, as when Judas Iscariot hung himself, the 12 disciples became ‘’The Eleven,’’ and Jesus was the 13th… the Master. Also to highlight the importance of 11, just remember that there are 22 Hebrew letters, which is of course 11^2. Here I would like to add that 13 cannot be a number of wrath… but holiness So, let us continue… 77 x 37 x 13 = 37037 77 x 73 x 13 = 73073 77 x 39 x 13 = 39039 77 x 93 x 13 = 93093 77 x 7 x 13 = 7007 7007 x 39 = 273273 7007 x 37 = 259259 Now consider the following mathematics… 2701 + 1072 (mirrored symmetry)= 3773… 3773 is also an anagram of 37 x 73 totaling the value of 2701… (This was Dr. Vernon’s discovery)… but I found a special harmony, crystallizing a supersymmetry and palindrome > totally indicating seven phenomena… 3773(37 x 13 x 39)= 70777707 Right, so i make it that the possibillity of chance to be 1 in 108,775,477,775.
In this passage, they just assume the bottom of the ocean is like the land, not a radical notion. In this passage, they just assume that's where the water in the ocean comes from. This one is more interesting, but still consistent with the state of astronomical knowledge at the time, which we tend to underestimate.
Perhaps, but I'm trying to point out that what was written in the bible is consistent with what was believed at the time, it was written with the current knowledge of MAN. In fact, a much more powerful statement could have been made had god actually explained that the Earth was rotating and orbiting the Sun: "And with his mighty hand, He grabbed hold of the Earth and stopped it in its journey, and the Sun and the planets and the stars and the heavens appeared to have stopped in the sky." I would wager a statement in which god can simply stop the Earth in its tracks is far more awe-inspiring than merely stopping the Sun in the sky. Of course not, and they demonstrate that in their writings, which were probably not the words of a god, but the reflection of beliefs held by men of how the universe worked. True, but it makes many claims regarding astrophysics and cosmology that are held in high belief by many theists. As far as it's claims regarding astrophysics and cosmology, you're incorrect. However, as a book of stories and fables to be taken lightheartedly as with any other work of fiction, you're correct. Same here.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
