Originally Posted By: PHeMoX
Quote:
"gather together the dispersed of Judah from [all over] the earth"?


Why do you think they've chosen 'corners' here when they could have simply used the Hebrew word for 'all over'. I'm aware that Kanaph ís often translated as 'extremities', but it changes nothing as extremities is just another word for saying 'ends'.

To me and many scholars it's quite obvious they wrote this down as if they thought the earth had boundaries, where in reality it's a sphere that has no boundaries.

Perhaps the sea had no relevance in this case, perhaps they meant the boundaries of land (not earth) you can live on, but fact is the text isn't specific enough about what's really meant here.

Also, other parts of the Bible do not clarify that earth is believed to be a sphere either, quite the contrary;

Quote:
22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:


A circle? A curtain? A tent? At best this a the description of a flat circular surface with half a sphere (of the sky above) on top.

Quote:
the Creator of the ends of the earth


'The Creator of the extremities of the earth'... sounds like the entire earth was meant after all.

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i'm not arguing that it says the earth is round. i'm saying that it doesn't say it's flat. i don't know where it describes four corners, but either way that was (and still is) a common way to describe a vast travel or something similar.

all too often we see presumptuous anti-creationists making fairytale claims on behalf of the bible in order to say it's wrong.

and they claim to be the more logical side.


and

Quote:
my pillow has four corners as well.


If a text doesn't clarify what is meant with whatever shape it would mention, it still doesn't really mean anything. For example your pillow example shows that even though it may have four corners, how the three dimensional space was thought to be the earth is still open for debate so to speak as it isn't clarified. The upper part of the pillow may be a representation of the sky instead of earth itself.

It has little to do with presumptions and a lot to do with texts not being specific enough to really determine the world view. In my opinion it is very unlikely that they thought the earth was spherical.

again, i'm not claiming the bible teaches a spherical world. i'm saying that the bible teaches neither, and that it doesn't matter, as opposed to Tiles' argument that Christianity's full of rubbish because to be true Christians we must think the earth is flat.

here's another way to look at "from the four corners of the earth": is it talking about what's specifically at each of those four corners, or what's between them? the purpose of the illustration is what's between the corners, not at them. it's not uncommon for people to describe exploring to "the ends of the earth". does the earth have ends? no.

furthermore, a flat circular earth wouldn't have corners either. you're arguing that the authors of the bible presume to teach the shape of the earth, and i'm saying they don't care what the earth looks like. which do you really think it is given that inconsistency?

and again, that was clearly an illustration. it's simply saying that God spread the heavens over all the earth.

i can't believe people would actually argue that the bible's authors teach that the earth is flat based on illustrations and ridiculously common expressions.

julz

EDIT:
Quote:
Or how do you explain that sometimes the fly drosophila is born with four wings instead two? Hey, that's mutation

How does the continental drift fit to creationism
who ever said there's no mutation? no micro-evolution?

and what's wrong with continental drift and creationism?

nothing.

Last edited by JulzMighty; 10/20/08 23:41. Reason: more...

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