Two Things You Might Be Asking Now?

1) Mike O'Neil Gets it All Wrong, 2) What can Sumerian King List Teach Us?, 3) Two Things You Might Be Asking Now?, 4) The plain reading of Scripture clearly supports six day Creationism

• 1) Hasn't God [some of you may add "supposing he were behind the Bible", I do obviously not add that] used simplified and even misleading language if Earth is round but described as flat in the Bible?
• 2) Hasn't the Sumerian King List first been invented and then mistaken for revelation? Sth I said that the six days could not have been?

Problem 1:

No where in all the Bible does God make it clear that Earth is flat. Not clear as in "clear, once you start asking the question".

Some of the things said are completely consistent with a flat earth, and indeed nothing or next to nothing is quite inconsistent with it.

But neither is anything inconsistent with a round earth.

• Four corners passages imply sth rectangular-ish, not necessarily a real flat rectangle.
  
  
• "Circle" of earth passage reads best as "circumference" and globes as well as flat circles have these. Also, any circumference of a globe is a circle, so even if the word is supposed to read "circle", it may refer to flat disc as well as to simply the circumference which it has on a globe.
  
  
• Earth hanging on nothing and Earth standing on pillars contradict each other if taken about same thing, just as much as four corners and circular circumference contradict each other if taken about shape of same disc. But if we accept Earth is round:
  
  
  • Four corners as well as pillars refer to continental plates in their overall configuration on the globe and not sinking down into the sea;
    
    
  • while circular circumference and hanging on nothing refer to the globe as a whole and its place in space (note that "hung" seems to imply stability of its place, not quite easy to make it fit with orbits, but that is another question!).

I suggest as solution that God meant Israelites to be ignorant about shape of Earth, but ignorant in a very peculiar way, so that every word taken previously as "Earth is flat" must be able to be reinterpreted (on roughly the lines I suggested) as "we misunderstood". This gives two advantages for the Catholic Faith:

• Its Hebrew beginnings stand out favourably from Near Eastern Ancient Religions among which they were set, since these other ones make a box shaped universe with Earth as a disc so much more clearly a prerequisite. Egyptians for instance worship Osiris and Horus as sun gods and say the Sun is, during the night, shining on the people in the Netherworld - a disc lower than that of Earth and between which two discs Sun is moving every night from West back to East;
  
  
• The Round Earth solution however became known before the full unfolding of the Revelation in Christ. One can say that it is probably true that Hebrews were misunderstanding the OT passages (with Four Corners echoed in Apocalypse, in NT) during the OT times, certainly they were not teaching their neighbours about a Round Earth, but one cannot say that any of their prophets were actively promoting it, and once the Catholic Church was established, it has from the start included Hellenistic Jews who knew Earth was round and therefore the Tradition of the Church, as full and unadulterated revelation, has always been at least open to a Round Earth.

Problem 2:

The Sumerian King List was not first invented and accepted socially as an invention, like Tom Puss or Lord of the Rings and then later mistaken for Revelation. It was partly based on tradition - the eight preflood kings may have sth to do with the seven Cainite patriarchs before the Flood - and each invention was immediately added by some kind of bureaucratic decree to the transmission of tradition. One was deliberately careless and deliberately writing things one had not copied from something one had read, and one was deliberately bullying all relevant for transmitting tradition (writers being a privileged cast, but far below kings in social importance) to accept the changes - unless this caste in themselves, like certain teachers bent on teaching atheism back a century ago - initiated the changes.

I think that will round off what I had to say on this one, I will now refer to some essays or correspondences with more details (below my signature).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Felix of Valois
founder of Trinitarians
20-XI-2015

A series including the reference to Solar Worship and Flat Earth explicitation in this essay (but read all the series, links in top):

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Flat Earth theories - Common Sense or Solar Mythology?
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/12/flat-earth-theories-common-sense-or.html

A series dealing with diverse context of Church and Bible, this one (a correspondence rather than an essay) dealing with whether Church Fathers were unscriptural in accepting a Round Earth:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With James Hannam on Whether Bible and Fathers Agree or Not on Shape of Earth
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2015/04/with-james-hannam-on-whether-bible-and.html

Read all of the series, there too! And finally the second of two (but read both) on literary genre of Homer's epics and its implications for historical truth claims:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Legendary Men vs Mythical Gods
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2015/11/legendary-men-vs-mythical-gods.html