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 4^th 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

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