I'm becoming aware that either I'm not as weird as I thought or that I'm not the only weirdo. When I read the Bible as a child I was really seriously confused. First, my mother had a hard time convincing me that the earth was round and that it moved. We had no TV so all I had was her word for it. I started looking at the clouds and I noticed that they moved. She said, no, that was not evidence of the earth's movement. Finally, with enough persuasion and also some information from the teacher at school--and perhaps some diagrams, I accepted it as reasonable. Then I started reading the Bible.

I forget the exact words but I clearly got the impression that the writers thought the earth was flat. I commented on this and then I was told that long ago people believed the earth was flat. I accepted that. It made sense. I stored the information for forty-odd years and never had reason to raise the issue. Then this past year I casually pulled it out in discussion with Christians. I assumed everyone knew what was so obvious to me that I had long ago stopped keeping track of the verses--that the Bible assumed that the earth was flat.

I got a sharply defensive response, a demand for a proof text, as though I had crossed some sacred boundary. I was stunned. Hadn't these people been reading the Bible??? Then, just a few weeks ago, on James Hannam's website where he is advertizing his book God's Philosphers I was "shocked out of my skin" to see a professed scholar "proving" that the Christian Church had never believed that the earth was flat, and that no scientist had ever been persecuted for critiquing it. This is James from the UK, whom I had contacted via email. The correspondence is posted on this thread.

In his words:



I am sure a lot of people thought otherwise. It also seems highly suspect that this information is only "uncovered" now that fundamentalists have so very much to lose. Past generations of fundamentalists have accepted that the earth is round. Anyone who travels in a jet knows that the earth is round. It is a fact that cannot be denied these days except perhaps by a person like me whose feet have never been further from solid ground than the top of the CN Tower in Toronto. Yet I would also have to deny all the history and other stories of travel I know.

Everything we know depends on the fact that the earth is round. But the Bible clearly assumes otherwise and this is costing the fundamentalists some serious concern. I assume they were not aware of this problem in their theology until atheists used it to undermine their obstinate stance on creationism. I really don't know. All I know is that I have always thought that everyone knew that the Bible assumed a flat earth.

I have finally found a list of verses that leave the impression that the biblical writers thought the earth was flat, and I maintain that is what they thought. It's in An Evaluation of Biblical Cosmology by J. P. Holding. I will be accused for taking it out of context. I don't care. Holding is "proving" that these verses don't mean that the earth is flat. I don't care that I am saying the opposite. All I care is that there is a list of the verses that seem to prove my point.

Just now I read his brief conclusion. I will copy it below. I am impressed that he allows even for a hair-breadth possibility of misinterpretation. Apparently the evidence is not as solid as he would like.