I recently have come across an interesting blog post which views beliefs on evolution, creation, and Biblical literalism as a spectrum. Each position considers the positions to the its left as reading Scripture too literally. Each position considers the positions to its right as compromisers who cede the authority of the Bible to Godless science.
Surprisingly, the young earth creationist view (7 literal days about 10,000 years ago or less) was only position 3 on this spectrum. Position 2 was geocentrism (the universe revolves around the earth). Position 1 is a flat earth.
Well this got my curious mind to wondering whether this author was correct. In other words, if I were to adopt a literalistic interpretation of Scripture on this topic and be logically consistent in this perspective, would I have no other option but to conclude the earth is flat?
My conclusions after studying this matter is that this post is spot on. Biblically speaking the earth is flat. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Let God be found true though every man be found a liar.
Unfortunately I found only one web site that has not compromised on this issue. I will let the Scriptures produced by this web site speak for themselves.
To be fair, I also examined the other side (courtesy from the young earth creationist web sites) that believe the Bible literally teaches a spherical earth, and I found their case surprisingly weak. First of all they claim the phrase "circle of the earth" found in the Bible refutes the flat earth. However, I still remember my 11th grade geometry class, and as I recall a circle was two dimensional while a sphere was three dimensional. So these Scriptures still support a flat earth.
The only other Scripture I found that could support a Spherical earth was Luke 17:31-34, where Jesus used the phrases "In that day..In that night" in reference to His second coming. Since His second coming is a one time event, the only way this could be true would be in a spherical earth where night and day occur simultaneously.
But wait a minute. The Bible also teaches in Matthew 24:26 that not even God the Son knows the date and hour of the second coming. Given this Scripture, Jesus was obviously just covering His bases so to speak and allowing for both possibilities in respect to the second coming.
So the teaching of the Bible is clear. The Earth is flat. However, if one must compromise the plain teaching of the Bible in favor of Godless science, it would seem that the minimal compromises would be found in the geocentric position. Here I found an association of geocentrists with their own web page. And this little discussion also summarizes the clear Biblical support for geocentricism.
I also found that Catholic apologist Robert Sungesis is also a geocentrist through this link (which unfortunately is dead..I actually found this out through a web page that linked to his stuff.
Of course there is one other option that might be (probably is) grossly heretical, but I throw it out here simply as a possibility.
Perhaps God did not intend the Bible to be used as a science textbook. Perhaps he knew that us frail humans would eventually figure out the secrets to the universe by ourselves. Thus perhaps He allowed His word to humans who had incomplete and yes even faulty understanding in the fields of astrology, physics, and biology. And perhaps even this faulty understanding is indirectly reflected in the Bible in passages where God's intent is to convey Spiritual truth about Himself.
Nah..this is blatant heresy. The earth is obviously flat and we live in a geocentric universe.
Where are you on this scale of possibilities for origins. Glad you asked.
I can take each of these eight possibilities and assign them values in two categories: theological probability and scientific probability.
Theologically, if I assume the Bible was not written as a scientific textbook, I would rate 1-6 being equally possible theologically. If I want to believe the earth is flat, gosh-diddly-yarn I can't open my Bible and find a Scripture against. But neither am I convinced that theological evolution is wrong. Only when we get to points 7-8 (no Adam and Eve) do we have a problem because Jesus seemed to disagree with this.
Now if I were to go through the eight options and rate them scientifically (not being a scientist of course) only option 1 would I conclude as definitely impossible. Options 2-3 might be scientifically impossible, but I can't prove this so I will call them improbable with option 2 being more improbable than option 3.
Options 4-6 I feel confident are not scientifically impossible..and option 6 would be most probable scientifically, so that is where I lean. But this issue is not a great bone of contention for me. The only real problem I have here is when this issue is used as a great delimeter of heresy.
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Rob, by your argument, one can't believe in the virgin birth, the literal resurrection of Jesus. In fact one could advocate almost anything they wanted from the Bible.
The point is not that some verse can be read consistent with a flat earth, rather do they have to? While a flat earth is consistent with the readings from the Bible, so is a spherical earth. (Incidentally, while I don't place a huge amount of weight on the Isaiah passage, you may wish to know that the word translated circle will also do for ball, so your exegesis here is incorrect.)
So you actually need to ask yourself what is the context in which these passages are written and is phenomenological language an explanation.
Clearly the resurrection is literal based on the context in the Bible and it cannot be read in another way. So the argument is not can the Bible be read in any way, rather which ways can several passages be read.
Consider something less controversial to yourself (such as cessationism, eschatology, Calvinism, paedobaptism; whatever your stance is on this). There will be some verses in the Bible that can be interpreted differently to your perspective, but can they also be interpreted within your perspective? and do other passages exclude the opposing perspective?
The young earth position from Scripture (as there are scientific evidences) is that the passages involved cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean otherwise. If you disagree with this, examine their arguments and show how alternative interpretations are consistent within the genre.
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