Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

Peter wrote,
> As far as the shape
> of the earth is concerned, it doesn't take very much observation to
> arrive at the idea of a spherical earth, particularly for inhabitants of
> seashores or large plains and for observers of the heavenly bodies. It
> would be very strange if Pythagoras in the 6th century BC and
> Eratosthenes in the 3rd were the only ancients who knew of the earth's
> sphericity. I think the belief that most of the ancients believed in a
> flat earth is a modern myth.

There is considerable evidience that nearly all peoples believed the earth
was flat until Pythagoras or more clearly Plato. 

The anthropologist Levy-Bruhl, commenting on the beliefs of scientifically
naive tribal peoples and quoting from original reports wrote, "Their cosmography
as far as we know anything about it was practically of one type up til the
time of the white man's arrival upon the scene.  That of the Borneo Dayaks may
furnish us with some idea of it.  'They consider the earth to be a flat
surface, whilst the heavens are a dome, a kind of glass shade which covers the earth
and comes in contact with it at the horizon.'"  Alexander similarly spoke of
"The usual primitive conception of the world's form" as "flat and round below
and surmounted above by a solid firmament in the shape of an inverted bowl."
[L. Levy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality (repr. Boston: Beacon, 1966) 353; H. B.
Alexander, The Mythology of All Races 10: North American (repr. New York:
Cooper Square, 1964) 249]

Even the Greeks prior to Pythagoras believed in a flat earth and some of them
still did even after Plato.

The Greek historian Heath describes the view of the earth in Homer (and
Hesiod) as a "flat disc" and says,
Over the flat earth is the vault of heaven, like a sort of hemispherical dome
exactly covering it; hence it is that the Aethiopians dwelling in the extreme
East and West are burnt black by the sun.
Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities describes Homer's
universe in the same way and specifically describes his view of the earth in
the Iliad as a "large flat disc." 

[T. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1913) 6
20. "Geographica" in Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and
Antiquities (repr. ed. H. T. Peck; New York: Cooper Square, 1965) 7]

I give more evidence including the evidence for OT times in my paper (from
which I got the above info), "The geographical meaning of 'earth' and 'seas' in
Gen 1:10" in the Westminster Theological Journal 59 (1997) 231-55.

Your "I think the belief that most of the ancients believed in a
flat earth is a modern myth." is contrary to the evidence.

Paul
Received on Sat Dec 13 23:46:34 2003