The Bible's incorrect cosmology

Which view of the earth would you believe?

The Modern (and ancient Greek) View

Or the Hebrew (and Biblical) view?

Today modern man believes the earth

• is round
• has no corners or edges or ends.
• goes around the sun.
• is always moving.
• is not supported by anything such as pillars.
• has no mountain high enough where we can see the entire earth

Some ancient cultures held beliefs contrary to all these. The Hebrews were once such tribe. They appear to have been influenced by the Mesopotamians. There are parallels in both creation stories described below. The Greeks, who did not believe in the God Jehovah, were educated and figured out many of these things. When the Christian Church arose it held on to a false understanding of cosmology because the Bible told them so. This is why Copernius and Galileo were both persecuted by the Church for suggesting that the earth revolves around the sun, thus bruising their righteous egos. Biblically, the Church was right to do so. They believed that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. Science could not be right.

Now for some Bible text supporting an incorrect cosmological view.

Isaiah 11:12

And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth

(See also Revelation 7:1)

Job 38:12-13 - God speaking to Job about how important He is while Job is nothing.

Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?

Jeremiah 16:19

O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth

(See also Daniel 4:11; Job 37:3; Job 28:24)

Matthew 4:8

Again, the devil took (Jesus) to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

(See also Daniel 4:10-11)

Psalm 104:5

He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.

(See also Psalm 93:1; Psalm 96:10; 1 Chronicles 16:30)

Job 9:6

He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble.

Ecclesiastes 1:5

The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

In the Bible, Joshua pleads with God to stop the sun and the moon in the sky so he could continue killing the Amorites. You know how God loves a good killing to get done.

Joshua 10

The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!

The physics of this are astounding. We know now that it could not be the sun that was stopped but the earth would have to be stopped on its axis. The earth spins around 1000 miles an hour at the equator. If the earth suddenly stopped all life would be smeared eastward. That would have been the end of humanity. Let's say we forgo that and say God figured that part out and it happened. The ancient world was fixated on the sky and yet there is not one story outside the Bible about the sun being stopped. It would have been a serious story picked up by all mankind, but instead nothing.

Ps 19:4-6

In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,

like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

It rises at one end of the heavens

and makes its circuit to the other;

nothing is hidden from its heat.

The sun is doing the revolving and not the earth.

Isaiah 40:22

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Some have used this text to prove the Bible says the earth is round, but that is twisting its meaning. If you go out at night and look up at the sky it looks like a canopy. Imagine a pheasant under glass The plate (the earth) is flat but in the shape of a flat circle. The dome above is actually what is round. In the context of the understanding of the Hebrews and other Biblical text it shows they thought of the sky as round not the earth.

The Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian creation myth (named after its opening words). The Enuma Elish was recognized as bearing close relation to the creation according to Genesis from its first publication (Smith 1876), and it was an important step in the recognition of the roots of the mythology found in the Hebrew Bible in earlier Ancient Near Eastern (Canaanite and Mesopotamian) myth.

The ancient Mesopotamians and Hebrews both believed that the earth was a flat circular disc surrounded by a saltwater sea. The sky was a solid disk above the earth, curved to touch the earth at its rim, with the dwelling of the gods above the sky or on top of the solid sky, and sometimes the gods were denizens of the heights between the earth and the sky. So far as can be deduced from clues in the creation story in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament's Matthew 4:8, the ancient Hebrew geography was identical with that of the Babylonians: a flat circular earth floating above a freshwater sea, surrounded by a saltwater sea, with a solid sky-dome (raqia, the "firmament") above. It is the creation of this world which Enûma Eliš and Genesis 1 describe.

Some with tell you the Hebrews had no concept of a sphere or ball. Isaiah disagrees with them (same book)

Isaiah 22:18

He will roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into a large country.

The inerrant word of God? Original stories? Impossible stories that humans could not come up with? Don't think so.