mountainman

There is great relevance in the gospel of Peter. Question: How high was the head of Jesus as he was lead from the tomb by two figures, with the cross walking along behind? Answer: It was "higher than the heavens".

Why does the author of a gospel - that of peter -- raise the mythical and fictional argument to such rediculous heights? Was the New Testament set in Flatland?

arnoldo

Maybe your right. IIRC, Moses also lifted up a snake on a pole and when the afflicted looked upon it they were healed. Perhaps the particular scripture is referring back to this OT scripture.

Johnny Skeptic

The main issue in this thread is that the Bible falsely teaches that the earth is flat, at least in the Scriptures that I mentioned in the opening post.

temporalillusion

aa5874

There was a Christian monk in the 6th century by the name of Cosmas who used the Bible to PROVE the world was RECTANGULAR.

Cosmas wrote "Christian Topography" using the "scientific data" in the Bible.

These are excerpts of the PROOF that the WORLD was RECTANGULAR and permanently fixed and motionless from "Christian Topography".

"Christian Topograhy" 2 by Cosmas Cosmas will use the "scientific data" in Isaiah and Job to illustrate the OBLONG earth with its "nethermost extremities".

"Christian Topography"2 See http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/ct/ct04.htm

Keith&Co.

Metaphor defense does not save the Books, though.
Metaphors compare similar things.

Round like a pancake implies a certain shape.
Round like an abbelskivver implies a different shape.

Both are metaphors, one is a horribly wrong metaphor if describing the shape of the Earth.
The Books uses a metaphor of a flat Earth to describe Scripture. It has a little box the scrolls are kept in during the night, just like the little chamber the sun sleeps in during the night. In the morning they take the scrolls out for use, just as the sun rushes to the spot where it starts climbing the sky for the daytime.

This metaphor describes a flat earth, as on a globe, the sun doesn't get the night off. The Books always describes the Earth in ways suggesting a flat surface. It's created by being spread across the waters, a mud pie. not balled up like a mudball.

You, of course, have a perfect interpretation of the litany. The Holly Ghosthas made sure that when you see the descriptions of Earth, they don't violate what you already know to be true from sources outside the litany. But that's not what's written down.

Johnny Skeptic

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word "metaphor" as follows:

Job 37:18 says "Can you beat out [raqa] the vault of the skies, as he does, hard as a mirror of cast metal?" You said that the Bible writers should be allowed to use metaphors, but Job 37:18 is in fact an obvious metaphor. How can you beat out a sphere? Obviously, you can't.

Consider the following from the opening post:

Please note "The word 'firmament' appears in the King James version of the Old Testament 17 times, and in each case it is translated from the Hebrew word raqiya, which meant the visible vault of the sky. The word raqiya comes from riqqua, meaning 'beaten out.'"

The extensive use in the Old Testament of the Hebrew words "raqiya," and the related Hebrew word "riqqua", leave no doubt that the Bible teaches that the earth is flat. You can consult with some Hebrew scholars if you wish, but even a novice can understand that the Bible clearly teaches that the earth is flat.

How can the Bible be inerrant when it can easily be changed by some skeptics, taken to some remote jungle regions, and be used to deceive at least one person on a least one occasion? It was no more different to change the Bible in the past than it is to change the Bible today.

Why do you rule out a reasonable possibility that God did not inspire and preserve all of the originals? You believe that a God who has good character would inspire and preserve the Bible, but would a God who has good character injure and kill humans and innocent with hurricanes, without additional evidence that would cause more people to accept him, and send some people to hell for eternity without parole?

Would you like to claim that all non-Christians have poor character, and that all Christians have good character? Are you aware that many skeptic police officers risk their lives daily to protect Christians? Regarding morality, it all gets down to motives. Surely people who become Christians are not the only moral people in the world.

Doug Shaver

But why do we talk that way? It's because words can be like fossils, preserving evidence of how people used to think rather than how they think now.

We speak of the sun rising and setting only because there was a time in human history when everyone actually believed that the sun actually moved that way. And it was during that time that the Jewish scriptures were written.

Minimalist

Expect some variant of the No True Christian Argument in short order, aa.

James Brown

It's interesting that when the Bible suggest a scientific fact that is clearly wrong, it's called mere metaphor, "using words all people will understand."

But when the Bible suggest a scientific fact that may be correct, it's called proof of the Bible's supernatural origin.

Exactly what would have happened if God had inspired Biblical writers to write that the Earth was a sphere? It's not as though every reader has understood every concept in the Bible from the beginning? But don't all people understand what a sphere is? Sure, maybe bronze-age dwellers couldn't verify that the world was indeed a sphere, but there's lots of things that couldn't be verified, such as the location of the Garden of Eden, or the hull integrity of Noah's ark, or the cause of plague.

Why couldn't God also use the Bible to teach a little science? Is scientific knowledge so dangerous that God has to keep the truth cloaked in metaphor lest people go insane?