Flat or Spherical Earth

[CJ of Indy]

I've read Isaiah 22:18 in almost every version of the Bible, i tried to harmonize it somehow in my brain but i cannot. With that said i can't help but to think this verse is describing a spherical object.

Isaiah 22:18 says,

"He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball(dur) into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord's house."

Dur is used in other passages to speak of a circle but in this one passage it seems to be describing a sphere. This brings me to Isaiah 40:22 which says,

It is he that sitteth upon the circle(chuwg) of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers...

Would it not have been more accurate to use dur here instead of chwug? Mr. Holding tackled these verses on his site but i find his answer not convincing. His claim is that the Hebrews didn't have a word for sphere but this verse seems to contradict that. Can anyone help me out and tell me why i shouldn't see this as a mistake? What information am i missing?

[John Goddard]

I've read Isaiah 22:18 in almost every version of the Bible, i tried to harmonize it somehow in my brain but i cannot. With that said i can't help but to think this verse is describing a spherical object.

Isaiah 22:18 says,

Dur is used in other passages to speak of a circle but in this one passage it seems to be describing a sphere. This brings me to Isaiah 40:22 which says,

Would it not have been more accurate to use dur here instead of chwug? Mr. Holding tackled these verses on his site but i find his answer not convincing. His claim is that the Hebrews didn't have a word for sphere but this verse seems to contradict that. Can anyone help me out and tell me why i shouldn't see this as a mistake? What information am i missing?

Isaiah 22:18 is from the perspective of God looking at the earth, or as we can do now from space, seeing a ball-shaped object. Isaiah 40:22 is how a human (or grasshopper) sees a curved horizon from earth, like the section of a circle.

That seems the simplest explanation.

[oxmixmudd]

I've read Isaiah 22:18 in almost every version of the Bible, i tried to harmonize it somehow in my brain but i cannot. With that said i can't help but to think this verse is describing a spherical object.

Isaiah 22:18 says,



Dur is used in other passages to speak of a circle but in this one passage it seems to be describing a sphere. This brings me to Isaiah 40:22 which says,



Would it not have been more accurate to use dur here instead of chwug? Mr. Holding tackled these verses on his site but i find his answer not convincing. His claim is that the Hebrews didn't have a word for sphere but this verse seems to contradict that. Can anyone help me out and tell me why i shouldn't see this as a mistake? What information am i missing?

I think you are making the same mistake the bishops of galileo's time were making. Not recognizing that many references to nature in scripture are phenomenal (as observed by the writer), not scientific. So they can be expected to only be accurate observationally within the context of what was understood at the time - though in many cases word choice or phrase structure can (if one knows a more accurate representation of nature) be seen to map into the more accurate rendering. In this case, the phenomenal description of what God would see peering down on the Earth would be that of a flat circle from any height they were familiar with.


Jim

[FreezBee]

Isaiah 22:18 is from the perspective of God looking at the earth, or as we can do now from space, seeing a ball-shaped object. Isaiah 40:22 is how a human (or grasshopper) sees a curved horizon from earth, like the section of a circle.

That seems the simplest explanation.

So God is a some particular spot out in space and can only see one hemisphere?

- FreezBee

[Calminian]

I've read Isaiah 22:18 in almost every version of the Bible, i tried to harmonize it somehow in my brain but i cannot. With that said i can't help but to think this verse is describing a spherical object.

Isaiah 22:18 says,



Dur is used in other passages to speak of a circle but in this one passage it seems to be describing a sphere. This brings me to Isaiah 40:22 which says,



Would it not have been more accurate to use dur here instead of chwug? Mr. Holding tackled these verses on his site but i find his answer not convincing. His claim is that the Hebrews didn't have a word for sphere but this verse seems to contradict that. Can anyone help me out and tell me why i shouldn't see this as a mistake? What information am i missing?

As a YEC, I'll actually disagree that this passage is talking about a spherical planet. Notice I didn't say earth. One interesting thing about the hebrew word erets translated earth and land is that it is always distinct from the sea. I don't think the ancients thought erets was flat or spherical. They believe the land had hills mountains and valleys. Nor did they ever think of the land and sea as a single unit as we do today. The creation was always 3 fold in their minds, earth (land), sea, heaven.

Ex. 20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them,

I'm now of the opinion that the word erets should never be translated earth anywhere in the Bible. It simply means land. There is one misunderstood passage, Gen. 1:2 which has contributed to the confusion, but it's easily explained.

[FreezBee]

One interesting thing about the hebrew word erets translated earth and land is that it is always distinct from the sea. I don't think the ancients thought erets was flat or spherical. They believe the land had hills mountains and valleys. Nor did they ever think of the land and sea as a single unit as we do today. The creation was always 3 fold in their minds, earth (land), sea, heaven.

Ex. 20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them,

I'm now of the opinion that the word erets should never be translated earth anywhere in the Bible. It simply means land. There is one misunderstood passage, Gen. 1:2 which has contributed to the confusion, but it's easily explained.

Good points

The word erets appears to have a connotation of habitable, which the sea, of course, isn't.

The Hebrews/Israelites were never a sea-faring people. and in general the sea is described negatively. It is home to the monster Leviathan, and it is from, where the four beasts in Daniel come, and Isaiah likens the advancing Assyrians with a flooding sea.


- FreezBee