Flat Earth and the Bible
A Lesson in Reading the Bible in Context
Spoiler alert: the earth isn’t flat. Many, many people have devoted a lot of time and effort to show the globiness of our planet, and there isn’t much room for question on the issue due to the wealth of evidence. That being said, there are some that argue the Bible teaches that the Earth is flat, and because the Bible is the word of God it must be true. This is not the case.
Reading in the Bible as it was Meant to be Understood
Before I knock this line of reasoning flat (pun absolutely intended), we have to establish something very important: The Bible was written for us, not to us. It may seem like I am playing semantics, but I assure you, I am not.
The books of the Bible, just like other works of literature, had intended audiences. We may write books, articles, and letters to be as broad as possible, but they are still confined to a degree to the culture in which they were written. Every book of the Bible had an intended audience, who carried certain views, which the author was aware of, and catered to. The Bible must be understood as the author intended it to be understood by its original audience, which was not the 21st century christian. Things we may draw from a text may be things the author and audience weren’t even considering at the time. We cannot bypass the intended message.
With this in mind, pretty much every passage some of these folks cite for flat earth is removed from the running.
The Passages in Context
Here is a list of the verses used by some flat earthers to argue for flat earth in the Bible. For each of these I have purposefully gotten them from the NASB 1995, which is one of the most literal, word for word translations of the Bible out there, lest I be accused of using a translation that obscures the words.
Genesis 1:7, God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
Psalm 104:5, He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not [g]totter forever and ever.
Isaiah 40:22, It is He who [a]sits above the [b]circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Revelation 7:1, After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.
There is one substantial issue with using these passages, they are all from books of the Bible that rely heavily on poetic language, metaphor, and literary devices. This not to say that every line in each book is to be taken non-literally, but just as we use literary devices to describe real things, so too did the ancient Israelites.
Let's tackle the toughest one first, Genesis 1:7. At first look it may not seem to contribute anything to the argument, however, in the KJV the word rendered “expanse” in the NASB is rendered as “firmament”. This single word is used to argue that therefore there is a dome over the earth. While the Hebrew word which is being represented does mean a solid surface, Genesis chapters 1-11, rely heavily on poetic language. This does not mean the events themselves are non-literal, but they are described in a poetic manner. For example, if you pay close attention, you will notice the use of the word water. As the creation story begins, the non-existent state of the universe is described as water, yet I highly doubt any flat earther making these arguments would concede that there was water before God created everything, unless somehow the ocean is just as eternal as God. This is because water symbolized chaos, meaning that God ordered the chaos of non-existence into the universe. However a hyper literal reading of this would mean that not only is water eternal, but also that earth as it is now is surrounded by cosmic waters, above what they call firmament. This is absurd. The reality is that the author was describing the aspects of creation using pictorial and poetic language. The sky is called firmament to describe it being something above which God has placed, not that it is a literal form of matter.
The other verses suffer from this same type of hyper literalism. Psalms is a collection of poetry, which already doesn’t bode well because poetry often uses non-literal elements. In Psalm 104 in particular, God is described as, wearing “light as a cloak”, “stretching out heaven like a tent curtain”, laying “beams of his upper chambers in the waters”, making “the clouds his chariot”, walking on “the wings of the wind”, all in verses 1-4, and in verse 6 God is described as covering the earth “with the deep as a garment”. This language is obviously non-literal, unless we expect the sky to be a literal tent curtain or there being literal beams holding up God's house in the ocean. It is describing God’s work using non-literal, hyperbolic, and poetic language.
Again with Isaiah, it is a book of prophecy, often relying on metaphorical language to communicate its point. Does God really have a physical body which actually sits above the earth? No, God is spirit, having no body, nor is the sky a tent.
And again with Revelation, which they say proves the earth has corners. Nevermind the fact that this would contradict the earth being a circle as they would claim from Isaiah, but this is a common turn of phrase we even use today! Revelation is almost pure symbolism, which although corresponding to real things nonetheless shows a major mistake on the part of the flat earther.
Conclusion
In each verse, the flat earther bypasses what the author was trying to say. Not a single one of these verses communicates or was meant to communicate anything about the shape of the earth. Three of the four are about God’s power and masterful creation of the universe, with the fourth being entirely unrelated to the point. The Bible cannot be made to mean what it never meant.
The earth is not flat, and the Bible doesn’t teach that it is either. Although there are verses one can try to distort to prove their position, it does not actually prove the point they think it does. The shape of the earth is one of the few issues where the evidence is so plentiful that either the Bible is wrong, or the flat earth interpretation is.
I am reminded of an old joke: “I can do all things through a verse out of context.”
