mountainman

FROM HERE: http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/lactantius.php

The question of the existence of the antipodes[9] had posed a problem for all Christian theologians. Russell, who has researched the "flat error" in some detail, explains:

Christian doctrine affirmed that all humans must be of one origin, descended from Adam and Eve and redeemable by Christ, "the Second Adam." The Bible was silent as to whether antipodeans existed, but natural philosophy had demonstrated that if they did, they could have no connection with the known part of the globe, either because the sea was too wide to sail across or because the equatorial zones were too hot to sail through. There could be no genetic connection between the antipodeans and us. Therefore any alleged antipodeans could not be descended from Adam and therefore could not exist.(10)

GakuseiDon

Surely you're not saying that Constantine created the Southern Hemisphere??

Chili

I would argue that if Genesis is inspired it is written from heaven above and from there it is easy to see that the wold is not flat. Accordingly, it is only flat for earthlings and for them it will always be flat.

The flatness of the earth makes reference to the tabula rasa whereupon we write our own life in the singular while the heavens are plural to show the incarnation of entropy for up to one thousand years.

mountainman

Twas quoted en masse FROM HERE:
http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/lactantius.php
Nothing to do with that supreme imperial mafia thug
(who would have also been ignorant of the Antipodes)
Thanks for the concern though.


Pete Brown

GakuseiDon

Apologies. I thought you were doing a Steve Carr.

More seriously then: I don't think that "The question of the existence of the antipodes had posed a problem for all Christian theologians". There was certainly speculation on it, esp by St Augustine, but from memory it was more along the lines of the "Did Jesus die for the Martians?" type of arguments we have today.

I'm not aware that the discovery of people on other continents had any large impact on Christian theology, though I'd be interested to hear if that was the case.

Gamera

Since biblical literalism is a late (and to my mind heretical) development in Christianity, limited to 19th century America, there is no "problem" because Christians never took Genesis literally in any case.

Chili

I think Christians were the only ones who ever took Genesis literally. Catholics never did and still don't.