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.
That's quite a stretch. I think we also disagree on how it does matter. After all plenty of things are supposedly interpreted literally. Don't forget that Tiles already said that the Bible teaches nothing. With all due respect, basically that's quite right as it's totally dependent on ones interpretation of the vagueness.
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.
Such expressions are obviously remnant of ancient times and can have many meanings, in case of sailors and navigators they simply meant 'out of reach', in early times not knowing that the earth didn't quite has ends the way they thought.
Back in the day it wasn't that strange to think of earth as something with ends at all. In their view the earth does have ends, either because landmasses stop where the seas start, but also because they weren't fully aware about the entire earth so 'ends of the earth' would also mean 'out of reach' or 'never been there' more or less.
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?
I agree that there's an inconsistency, but that's part of the whole point. It shows that it doesn't teach a spherical earth. It shows that it's inconsistent and it shows that they thought the earth was flat in my opinion.
I already explained that
at best the description sounds like a flat circular earth with half a sphere on top as sky. I never said it makes perfect sense regardless of the inconsistencies in the bible.
Cheers
