Can you even imagine?

“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me!”

‭‭

Job‬ ‭38:2-3‬ ‭WMB‬‬

Like the old saying goes, you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. I don't believe in this idea of flat Earth, but I'm really interested to figure out why I don't believe it and why you do so let's have a conversation.

I have these kinds of civil discussions and that's kind of how I came across the “flat earth theory” and the idea that there are people walking around today who think the planet upon which we live is essentially, well, flat.

As a readerly translation of the Bible, the King James is imperfect. Its archaisms aren’t always grand; sometimes they’re just dead weight. Its Christian bias, and theologically freighted words like “soul,” can be a distraction. And some of its translations are simply incorrect, as we’ve learned thanks to advances in Near East philology and archaeology since the 19th century. The translators of the King James, though they were masters of English style, showed little interest or ability to represent the characteristic forms of ancient Hebrew, especially, as my favorite linguistic genius Robert Alter has argued, in the poetic sections. If the King James demonstrates that the Hebrew Bible can be made an English masterpiece, it also proves that even a masterpiece of translation is never the final word. Many of the texts had been stitched together, over many years, by various sects with various agendas. These seams are, after all, visible in the texts themselves — for example, in narrative duplications, beginning, famously, with the two contradictory versions of the creation story of Adam and Eve in Genesis. One says that Adam and Eve were created together while the other tells a story of Adam created alone, trying and failing to find a partner among his fellow creatures, until God surgically removes his rib to create Eve.

The naked eye can see objects that are millions of miles away in space. Theoretically, with a clear line of sight on a clear night, one would also be able to see bright lights from far-away cities. That this is not possible is further evidence of a round, not flat, Earth.

The relevant part of Isaiah 40:22, referring to God, states, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.” Whether the “circle of the earth” refers to a human on Earth or God looking down on Earth from above, in both cases the phrase would be consistent with a spherically shaped Earth. It is worth noting that only a sphere always looks like a circle when seen from above.

Measure shadows across the country

Pick two locations that are some distance apart (at least a couple hundred miles from each other and on the same meridian). Grab two sticks or dowels (or other objects) of equal length, two tape measures, and a friend. Each of you will take one stick/dowel/object and one tape measure to your location, stick the object into the ground, and measure the shadow. (For accuracy, you should both take your measurements at the same time of day.)

On a flat Earth, the shadow that is cast by each would be of the same length. However, if you and your friend compare notes, you'll find that one shadow was longer than the other. That's because, due to the curvature of Earth, the sun will hit one part of Earth at one angle and another part of Earth at a different angle even at the same time of day.

This experiment has been around since about 240 B.C., when Greek mathematician Eratosthenes compared the shadows cast in both Syene—now Aswan, Egypt—and Alexandria on the summer solstice. Eratosthenes had learned of a well in Syene where once a year on the summer solstice, the sun would illuminate the entire bottom of the well and tall buildings and other objects would not cast a shadow. However, he noticed that shadows were being cast on the summer solstice in Alexandria, so he measured the angle of the shadow and found it to be an angle of about 7.2°.

The Isaiah 11:12 and Revelation 7:1, 20:7 verses all refer to the “four corners of the earth.” However, even today, astronomers, physicists, and educated people around the world recognize and use the “four corners of the earth” as phenomenalogical language referring to the most distant parts of Earth from the standpoint of an observer at a specific location on Earth. It is clear from an examination of the context for all three of these passages that the most distant parts of Earth is the intent implied by the use of the idiom, the four corners of the earth. As the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament points out, the Hebrew word for “corners” used in Isaiah 11:12, kanap, in most of its appearances in the Old Testament is used figuratively.

Different locations on Earth experience seasons at different times. Ever notice how the summer in the United States corresponds to winter in Australia? Or how winter in Italy lines up with summer in Argentina? This is because the Sun’s rays, which are almost perfectly parallel, strike Earth at different angles during different parts of the year. If the Earth were flat, the Sun’s rays would always come in at the same angle, meaning that the USA, Australia, Italy, and Argentina would all experience the seasons the same exact way. The flat Earth idea can’t explain this.

Job 38:12-14 refers to the dawn seizing “the edges [or ends] of the earth” and Earth taking “shape like clay under a seal.” What is interesting here is that for a spherical

Earth the arrival of dawn first shows up at the most distant horizon, end, or edge of the point of view of a human at a fixed point upon Earth’s surface. The taking shape like clay under a seal would apply to either a disk or a sphere and may be saying more about Earth’s rotation or its manufacture than its actual shape.

Different stars are visible from different latitudes. Look up at the night sky from a very high (northern) latitude location, and you’ll see the Big and Little Dippers, the bright orange giant Arcturus, and the Pleiades, among other sights. Yet if you head to the south pole, none of these celestial sights are visible, but you can see Alpha Centauri, the Magellanic Clouds, and the Southern Cross, all of which are never visible to most northern hemisphere skywatchers. If the Earth were flat, everyone on the night side of the Earth would see the same sky; this is another observation that the flat Earth can’t account for.

While it would be an overinterpretation to conclude that these texts explicitly teach that Earth is a sphere, nowhere in the Bible do we find any text saying that Earth is flat. The Bible remains the only holy book for which we can say that it contains no provable errors or contradictions.

You cannot see Kawaikini from the peak of Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea, the highest peak in Hawaii (the summit of the Big Island), offers incredible views. With nothing but the ocean around it, and a few other nearby islands, you should be able to see extremely far away. The island of Kauai has the seventh highest point in the Hawaiian islands: the peak known as Kawaikini. If you were to draw a straight line from Mauna Kea (elevation: 13,796 ft.) to Kawaikini (elevation: 5226 ft.) it would span a distance of 303 miles.

However, you cannot see one from the other, which you would absolutely be able to do if the Earth were flat. With a curved Earth of its measured radius, the line-of-sight limit for those two elevations caps out at 233 miles. Only with a curved Earth is one invisible from the other, and this is true for any two mountain peaks with clear line-of-sights from one to the other.

“He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭11:12‬ ‭

In the more everyday contexts that we care about, we can rely on testimony. We can rely on the fact that every educated physicist, cartographer, and geographer never pauses to think the earth might be flat. And we are correct to rely on these things. If it was incorrect, we’d never get treated at hospitals — for in a context where we can’t trust the established laws of physics, how could we trust the judgments of medical science?

“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in,”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭40:22‬ ‭