Scientific Accuracy and “Circular” Reasoning
To prove that the bible is the inerrant word of god, many Christians will point to supposed “scientific” truths found within its pages. According to AbsoluteTruth.Net,
The Bible is most definitely scientific–it is totally accurate and has often demonstrated that God knows more about science than man. (This would make sense, seeing that God is the One who invented science itself!)
To prove the point, this is offered:
The Bible said that the earth was round 1600 years before man figured it out. (Isa. 40:22)
Here’s the passage they are referring to:
(Isa 40:22) It is he who sits above the circle(chuwg) of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
What Does the Bible Really Say?
Dedicated believers often say that the word “circle” could actually mean “sphere,” since both are round, but they ignore Isaiah’s use of a different word in another verse where he speaks of a “ball:
He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a BALL (duwr) into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord’s house. (Isaiah 22:18)
The Hebrew word used in scripture for “circle” in Isaiah 40:22 is chuwg. If the author meant to imply that “circle of the earth” indicated that the earth was a sphere, it would have made more sense to use the Hebrew word for “ball,” which is duwr. The word “chuwg” more likely refers to a flat, circular earth.
If the Isaiah verse were the only one in the bible that spoke of the shape of the earth, differing interpretations of it could reasonably be argued. However, for a Christian to claim the scientific accuracy of the bible in this regard, he or she would have to actively ignore all of the following passages:
…take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it (Job 38:12-13)
A sphere has no edges. Why would the author of Job have spoken of “edges” of the earth if he had known the earth was spherical? Isn’t it more probable that the author imagined grabbing the edges a flat earth, rather than grabbing the ball of the earth by “edges” that aren’t there? Also, consider that the same author had this to say about the formation of our planet:
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal. (Job 38:14)
When stamped with a seal, clay is flattened—not rounded. If the Job author had known the earth was round, why compare it to clay seals, which are pressed flat? With this comparison coming so soon after his referral to the “edges” of the earth, it seems unlikely that both could be flukes.
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; (Mat 4:8)”
In this passage, Jesus is able to see all the kingdoms of the world from a high mountain. On a spherical earth, this would not be possible.
It should also be noted that there are many biblical verses that claim that the earth has “ends” (impossible for a spherical shape) [1].
But Just to Be Fair…
This article is not meant to imply that Christians have been preaching a flat earth dogma throughout history. By the middle ages, people generally understood that the earth was spherical, and it is a great misconception—often known as the Flat Earth Myth—that Christians believed otherwise. The only two Christian proponents of a flat Earth were Lactantius, a 4th century heretic, and the even-more-obscure Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th-century eccentric.
The Flat Earth Myth seems to have originated with Washington Irving (1783-1859). In his retelling of the life of Christopher Columbus, Irving created the picture of the driven young explorer, struggling to make the stubborn inquisitors and theologians understand that the earth was round. Too many people, unfortunately, took Irving’s historical fiction for pure history, and the real details have been muddled ever since.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that Christianity is not responsible for propagating the flat earth myth, there is no denying that the early biblical writers had at best a limited understanding of the shape of our planet. In light of the passages mentioned above, it’s difficult to imagine any unbiased person seeing the bible as totally, incontestably inerrant.
[1] Deu 28:49, Deu 28:64, Deu 33:17, 1 Sam 2:10, Job 1:7, Job 28:24, Job 37:3, Psa 2:8, Psa 19:4, Psa 22:27, Psa 33:13, Psa 33:14, Psa 48:10, Psa 59:13, Psa 61:2
Sarah,
Nice try, but you dropped the duwr on this one
Biblical Hebrew can be tricky at times, especially if we come from a primarily English background. From what I can tell, there was not a word for ’sphere’ in the Hebrew language. It is a word-concept that is missing in ancient Hebrew.
Isa. 22:18 is literally translated “And thy coverer covering, wrapping round, Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides–there thou diest, And there the chariots of thine honour Are the shame of the house of thy lord.” ‘Duwr’ no more indicates sphericity than ‘chuwg’ does. Notice no mention of the word “ball” in the translation, but rather the act of wrapping in a circular motion.
‘Duwr’ was used again in Isa. 29:2 “And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.” In this instance it is translated “round about” or “around”, not “a sphere”.
As for Job 38:12-14, your citations in the article above are not quite accurate. I’ve quoted it below correctly.
Job 38:12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
Job 38:13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Job 38:14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
It’s obvious from a plain reading that the main point of this passage is the interaction of light upon the earth and in that context there ARE “ends of the earth” as far as light shining on a globe are concerned. The description “turned as clay to the seal” is not saying that the earth is flat, rather as the clay receives a different form by the impress of the seal the earth appears different by light shining upon it; in the darkness of the night nothing of its form and beauty can to be seen, “they stand as a garment”.
In reference to Matt 4:8, “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them”, this verse by no means indicates either a flat earth or a spherical one. It is simply says that the devil took Jesus to a mountaintop and showed him all the earthly kingdoms. This was basically an “honor challenge” by placing Jesus in a pre-eminent position. The mechanism of the “showing” is not discussed, is simply says he showed him. We are left to wonder how he showed “all the kingdoms…and the glory of them”. Consider that in the previous verses the devil took Jesus from the wilderness to the holy city and “setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple” without explanation as to how they got to the city or how they got up to the top of the temple. It just simply says they did it. Consider who the players in this episode are, Jesus the Christ (God Himself in the form of a man) and the devil (Satan, not Lucifer as some might say). We should be careful not to read into scripture what is not there. Jesus and Satan were not having a geological conference on the mountaintop, Satan was tempting Jesus and it is not unreasonable to conclude that the “showing” was accomplished by spiritual or supernatural means.
I thank you for pointing out the truth about the flat earth myth, and I agree with you that we cannot say for certain that Isa. 40:22 refers to a spherical globe, although I will add that it could be translated in that context. Christians and skeptics alike should be more careful when using scripture to make a point. After all, it’s God’s word and it’s His truth that the Bible bears witness to.
Written by Kevin on March 4th, 2009Kevin,
Very good points, I must say. You are clearly very knowledgeable on this topic, and I won’t pretend to know know more about ancient Hebrew than you do. I will also admit that it’s been a long time since I wrote that article, so I’m more rusty than ever right now on the whole subject.
However, one thing puzzles me. In the end, aren’t you and I arguing the same thing?
I am not the one claiming that “chuwg” means “sphere.” This is the claim/assumption made by some Christians when they claim that that particular passage by Isaiah suggests that the earth was round. My only real point in this article was to point out that “chuwg” does NOT NECESSARILY mean sphere, and we can’t assume that the passage is scientifically correct based on that. The initial Christian claim I addressed here was that the bible knows certain matters of science before anyone else does; I’m merely pointing out that the passage by Isaiah is not evidence that Christians knew the earth was round before scientists. Granted, I argued that the word “duwr” would have made more sense because it was more closely translated to “ball”–which, clearly, is incorrect on my part. But if you are correct that no word in Hebrew means “sphere” — and in fact, that they didn’t have the concept of the word yet–that would seem to prove my original point that the biblical writers couldn’t have known the earth was sperical–or at least, we can’t prove whether they did or not. However, if you feel that Isaiah 40:22 “could be translated” as referring to a spherical globe, I’d have to ask you why you think that is. How could it be translated that way, if ancient Hebrew writers had neither the word nor the word-concept of a sphere?
You claim the bible is God’s word and truth, but if that’s the case, why would be limited by the understanding of man at that time? In otherwords, if God wanted the biblical writers to say the earth was sperical, could he not have communicated that to them? Could he not have given them a word for it? And if God did not intend them to say the earth was spherical, aren’t we wrong to translate it that way?
I won’t argue with you on the other biblical references; I do not doubt that your translation of them is more accurate than anything I could present. However, again, the original purpose of this article was to call out those Christians who claim the bible is scientifically inerrent, and who claim this by loosely interpreting passages from it. I would still argue that IF Isaiah 40:22 could be translated as referring to a sperical earth, than, something like “[God took] hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it…” could just as easily refer to earth having ends, and therefore, not being spherical. Both might be stretches, but that was exactly my point from the beginning–if believers can interpret the bible in the way that suits their fancy, skeptics can do the same thing, and come up with different results. I am not trying to argue that the bible says the earth was flat–I’m simply suggesting that one loosely-interpreted passage isn’t proof of scientific accuracey, especially when we could loosely interpret several other passages to mean the exact opposite.
Written by Sara on March 4th, 2009Sara
Sara, first let me say that I apologize for misspelling your name earlier. No disrespect was intended.
I thank you for your kind words, but i am by no means either a biblical scholar or any sort of expert on Hebrew. All I’ve done is collected a few tools to use that help me better understand the scriptures. Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible has been invaluable in my studies and I should have credited that as the source of the translation I gave for Isa. 22-18. By no means am I able to translate Hebrew without a guide.
I also see that I was not clear in my first explanation of the “sphere” concept. I did not mean to imply that Isaiah did not know what a sphere was, or that the concept of spherical was not understood. The Hebrew language just does not contain a word that directly translates as “sphere”, at least that I can find. The word “chuwg” was often used to indicate a spherical OR circular object. Isaiah probably would have used “chuwg” to describe both a pomegranate and a coin. This missing word-concept is not in itself unusual and still happens today. For example, the French words “cheveux, poil, pelag” all translate into English as “hair” but have different meanings in French. Cheveux is only used for the hair on a human head. Body hair are called poils. Most mammals have a pelage, but individuals hairs are also called poil(s). We just use “hair” in English and allow the context of the sentence to determine the more precise meaning. This is why it is important to used proper hermeneutics when studying scripture.
Yes, we are in agreement that “chuwg” could be translated as either circle or sphere. The question then becomes how should it be interpreted. When I read these passages, I cannot help but think of God being above the earth at some great distance looking down so that “the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers”. When we look at a full moon we see a circle yet we know it is a sphere. This is the context that I think best fits the “circle of the earth” phrase — God looking down on the earth and seeing “the circle of the earth”.
I personally do not need the scriptures to reveal scientific secrets for me to believe they are the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God.. Whenever I encounter scientific principles in the Bible they do not conflict with observable, testable and established modern scientific principles. I know there is a list of Bible “mistakes” out there somewhere, but I have yet to find one “mistake” that is not explained by poor hermeneutics or by removing the verse or verse fragment from the grammatical-historical context in which it was written.
Take for example Job 36:27-29
Job 36:27 For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof:
Job 36:28 Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.
Job 36:29 Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle?
These verses clearly describe the hydrologic cycle. Secular history credits early Greek philosophers including Thales, Anaxagoras, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Plato, and Aristotle with the basic ideas of the process as early as 1000BC, but Job has been dated to 1800BC. It’s obvious that the author of Job was inspired to write an accurate description of something that the Greeks would need another 800 years to conceptualize. This is a better example of the Bible getting it right first.
As for “something like “[God took] hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it…”” (Job 38:13), that is a wonderful example of how you change the meaning of a verse by taking it out of context. The complete passage reads:
Job 38:12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
Job 38:13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Job 38:14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
Once properly read in context, it becomes obvious the it wasn’t God who took hold of the hearth, but rather “the dayspring” or light from the sun. Again, in context, it’s obvious from a plain reading that the main point of this passage is the interaction of light upon the earth and in that context there ARE “ends of the earth” as far as light shining on a globe are concerned. The “ends of the earth” would be circle that defines the edges of whichever hemisphere was facing the sun at the time.
Written by Kevin on March 5th, 2009