Does the Bible Actually Describe the Earth as FLAT?
Answers in Genesis | 26 April 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu9S2r_TVwI
2:24 Aristotle had
four arguments.
Curvature proven by different angle of shadows.
Curvature proven by different horizon in flat landscapes (like the sea) depending on how high you stand.
Full globality proven by Earth's shadow under Lundar eclipses.
Full globality proven by Alexander completing a virtual tour around the Earth. When he came to Ganges, he saw the Pillars of Hercules on the other side.
Except he actually didn't. Pillars of Hercules are what we call Gibraltar.
Eratosthenes disproved the so far factuality of the travel argument, the one which Aristotle admitted as stronger than the other two. Or, just possibly, the Earth had a much longer radius in the North South dimension than in the East-West parallel circles. It could be shaped as a Rugby ball, as an American Football. And Marco Polo disproved that, he really did go further East than Ganges and he didn't find the Straits of Gibraltar in China, nor should he have.
Flat Earthers kind of have a tendency to be Hindoos. I don't say Hindoos today have a very marked tendency to be Flat Earth, but I do say that Flat Earthers have a tendency to be Hindoos, that Vedic Astronomy tends to be Flat Earth Astronomy.
The guy who finally did complete the tour around the earth, the really decisive argument was Magellan. Magalhães. A Portuguese. So, the Hindoos who are Flat Earth give Magellan the Flat Lie. If you know the history of Goa and that Portugal unlike UK actually sent missionaries there systematically as a major state interest, you might realise why they could have a bias against the Proof by Magalhães.
I am Catholic. I fully believe the story of Magalhães and Elcano. I believe the Round Earth. But I believe it because of travel, not because of more indirect arguments.
The Hindoos were aware of the other three arguments. Those who stuck to Vedic Astronomy had answers for them.
Curvature (two arguments) = Earth could be (or according to them was) shaped like a very incomplete globe, like a Kippa or Yarmulke or in Indian terms, like a Chapati Pan.
Shadow eclipsing the Moon = on their view it was the shadow of an extra planet Rahoo, which appeared from under the rim of the Earth to hide sometimes the Sun and sometimes the Moon.
I don't believe that.
But there is a connection between Christianity and Round Earth and Hinduism and Flat Earth beyond this story. It's in the map.
In traditional Indian cosmology, the centre of the Earth is a very high mountain called Meru at the North Pole. It doesn't exist.
In Biblical cosmology, Earth of some sort has four corners. I say "of some sort" because, Eretz in Hebrew, like Terra in Latin can also mean "land" ... if you have a Flat-Map with the North Pole in the middle, you are not just borrowing from Hinduism, but you get a very triangular shape of the continents. If you have a Globe, forget about Meru, but the continents men live on can be roughly speaking inscribed in a curved "rectangle" with the corners Point Barrow Alaska, Cape Horn, Anadyr NE Siberia, Hobart Tasmania. Between Hobart and Cape Horn everything is sea. Between Point Barrow and Cape Horn, the line will pass through some land, notable the first twelfth from the North will be close to Anchorage. Between Hobart and Anadyr, there will be some waviness too. But Melbourn and Sydney will not be far off. Only in the North, between Point Barrow and Anadyr, will there be big chunks of excessive land. These chunks, however, form no fifth corner, but more like approximate a quarter circle, and they are also very little inhabited. The line will pass through countryside a bit South of Murmansk and in Norway it's by Lofoten ... it cuts Greenland roughly in half and in Canada crosses the South parts of Baffin Island.
I think the final word actually goes, not to indirect conclusions from the Lunar eclipse or from observing curvature, but from the shape of what we observe on Earth as travellers.
Oh, by the way, if you want a kind of equal weight proof in Heliocentric and Multi-Galaxial Astronomy, how about telling me when you have spoken to Luke Skywalker or Han Solo for real? I mean, not just the actors. Oh, you didn't? Well, no Magellan proof against Geocentrism, then!
13:24 In Apocalypse 7:1, how do you have an angel standing in a cardinal direction?
Angels can be big, if they want to, but when localised on Earth ... I wouldn't see an angel as standing all over the North edge, curved between Point Barrow and Anadyr, another as standing all the extent from Point Barrow to Cape Horn and so on ... I see it as more reasonable, there is one in each of these places.
Which obviously is perfectly compatible with a Globe Shaped Earth.
If anyone in the Middle Ages were to advocate the cosmology of Indicopleustes or Lactantius (a very minority opinion), he would not have disputed the map that the then Globist majority were producing, he would have taken that map, and it would not have fit the idea of travelling West from Europe and then approaching China from the East. So, the one potential Flat Earth map that actually has four corners would now only be possible on a Globe.
14:16 Geography
can fear God in two ways.
1) Angelic spirits stationed there.
2) People living there.
So "ends of the earth" is Geography, and in English it would be more idiomatic to say "ends of the land" ... but Hebrew Eretz means both.
In Brittany and NW Spain, there are places which in Latin spell out Finis Terrae. A little secret, just between us. Nobody imagined, except perhaps in a dream that if you walk out from that end, you are in space. If you walk out of that end, you need a boat.
In other words, the Psalmist is telling angels and people to fear God "from coast to coast" ...
Just as "ends of the earth" is coastlines, so also "corners of the earth" are where huge coastlines or coast line approximations meet at approximately right angles.
The four corners don't just appear in Apocalypse 7 but also in Apocalypse 20. I went out of the way to ask myself what people could be Magog by asking what people live in all the region of the four corner points I picked. One of the candidates would be Ashkenaz Jews. Another candidate would be Indo-Europeans, if that's a single ethnicity. And no, I don't think that will happen one thousand years after a millennium will have begun, I think the thousand years are the medium time in which saints in Heaven have a say by their prayers on issues in a still ongoing history. Between St. Stephen and Sister Clare Crockett, the medium time in Heaven is c. 999 years, last time I checked. So, who's Magog can be ascertained with some probability already.
A third possibility would be East Slavs. From the Russian Revolution to the recently begun and ongoing "Special Operation" unrests in that area have caused exiles. Lots of them.
17:42 You have just shown how my model that the Fix stars are one light day up could in principle be disproven if false.
Voyager 1 has a one way light time of 23:06:24 (hh:mm:ss).
It's 24 times as close to where the stars should be if I'm right than we are ... in one direction. It's nearly twice as far from those in the other direction.
So pictures from Voyager 1 could actually show if the stars look roughy the same distance as from Earth or if they show the perspective I'd predict.
However, the cameras are turned off. Or ceased to function. Unlike back in the flybies, we aren't getting pictures from them.
22:38 "so it was obviously rotating on its axis"
Unless the aether rotating around Earth up to the level of the fix stars carried the lunar module with it, and Duke observed the Earth from different angles.
A chopper circling around the Eiffel tower would see the Eiffel tower rotate. But we would know that the chopper had intentionally rotated.
In their case, it's a question of a surprise effect in the buildup of the universe, meaning, they would not have expected to rotate, first in an outward spiral, then in an inward spiral, plus they probably did expect the Earth to rotate.
23:36 I don't think the malice, even if possibly real, is all that hurtful, since it can be answered.
The supposed implication can be answered.
