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It is an observable fact that many people claim to be Christians (or Jews) even though they believe that the Bible is not really true. Perhaps they are within their rights. Telling a person who thinks he is a Christian that he is not surely smacks of intolerance, but when a round-earther proudly claims the title of fundamentalist, meaning one who believes that every word in the Bible is true, even though the Bible states in at least six places that the earth is flat, it cannot be unreasonable to say that he is nothing of the sort.
The gospel of Matthew (4:8) states that the slanderer took Jesus "to an extremely high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the cosmos." That every kingdom or society on earth can be seen from the top of a high enough mountain only if the earth is flat is self-evident. From any point on a globe, no part of the opposite hemisphere could be seen no matter how high one climbed. Luke's account of the same incident (4:5) is ambiguous and could be true on either a flat or a global earth, but Matthew makes clear that either the earth is flat or he was a liar.
Daniel (4:10-11) wrote, "I saw a tree of great height in the middle of the earth. It reached to the skies, and could be seen from the farthest edges of the earth." Maybe a tall tree could be seen from all points on a flat earth, but not from all points on a sphere. The surface of a sphere has neither edges nor a middle.
The psalmist wrote (103:12), "Farther away than the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us," but only on a flat earth are east and west at the points of maximum separation. From any point on a globe, the point of maximum eastness and the point of maximum westness are the same point. The translators of the New World Translation made the passage conform to their round-earth belief by falsifying it to read, "As far off as the sunrise is from the sunset."
Isaiah (40:21-22) wrote, "Since the land was founded, he has been sitting on the domed roof of the land, whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretched out the skies like a curtain and spread them like a tent to live in." The domed roof of the land is a clear reference to solid hemispherical skies resting on the horizon of a flat earth. Only over a flat earth could the entire skies be spread out like a tent, and only if the top sky, the seventh (2 Cor. 12:2; Qur'an 71:15-16), is solid could Yahweh sit on it or use it as a tent.
The author of Job (22:14) wrote, "He walks on the dome of the skies." Again, only if the earth is flat could it be covered by a dome on which Yahweh could walk.
Finally, Revelation (7:1) says, "I saw four messengers standing at earth's four corners." A flat earth can be pictured as having four corners or ultimate extremities. A globe cannot.
A lot of people believe that the earth is a globe. That is their right. But when they simultaneously claim to believe that the Bible is an inerrant revelation from an omniscient god, they are being inconsistent. Either the earth is flat, or the Bible is fantasy. They cannot have it both ways.
(This is an article originally written for Flat Earth News, which apparently recognized its satirical nature and rejected it. Isaac Asimov wrote a whole essay on the lengths to which fundamentalists will go to rationalize that their Bible does not endorse a flat earth. But it does. My position on flat-earth theory and biblical literalism can be found in my book Mythology's Last Gods, published in 1992 by Prometheus.)
(William H. Harwood, Ph. D., 40/ 3920 Fifty Avenue, Red Deer, AB, Canada T4N 3Z1)
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Last updated: Wednesday, 30-Nov-2005 17:06:30 CST
