Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

Paul Seely wrote:
> 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] <

PR: Apparently, these are two authors writing about "scientifically
naive tribal peoples", their "primitive conception" and "Primitive
Mentality", e.g. of the Borneo Dayaks or of North American Indians, and
Levy-Bruhl even qualifies his statement with "as far as we know anything
about it". There are various issues here. First, I specifically wrote of
"inhabitants of seashores or large plains and for observers of the
heavenly bodies", as these could be expected to arrive at the idea of a
spherical earth most easily. It would be much more difficult for people
living in forested and mountainous territories (Borneo, parts of North
America) all their lives. Second, there would be differences of
cosmological beliefs among the members of a people, particularly among
peoples having produced a sophisticated culture, like Greeks, Egyptians,
Babylonians and their precursors, and, yes, Israelites. I didn't suppose
that _all_ individuals among ancient people knew the earth as spherical.
It is sufficient for my argument if there were _some_ people who did not
believe the earth to be flat. The question is whether anthropologists
who specifically investigate the beliefs of peoples they call
"primitive" would ever come across such thinkers, and how correctly they
interpret what they hear. There have been various discussions in the
recent literature about anthropologists misinterpreting their informants
(in contexts other than of cosmological worldviews).

> 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] <

PR: I don't question the claim that there were many people in those days
who believed in a flat earth, even some poets and historians ;-). The
question is how reliable these sources are for proving that _all_ Greeks
of those times did so. There even appear to be modern authors who claim
all ancient Israelites believed the earth to be flat... Misinterpreting
_the_ worldview of sophisticated ancient peoples is of course even
easier than those of contemporary "primitive" peoples, with whom one at
least can talk directly, if one has learned their languages thoroughly.

> 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. <

PR: It may have been a slight overstatement, as I qualified above.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)