Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

Peter wrote,

> . 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.

Levy Bruhl talks about people who are "inhabitants of seashores." He says,
in the Mortlock Islands. "… in reply to our question as to what land lay beyond
these islands, the native drew a line to the west of them and explained in a
very clear and simple way that yonder, beyond the Paloas Islands, the dome of
the sky was too close to the earth to permit navigation; the utmost that could
be done was to crawl along the ground or swim in the sea."…Among the
Melanesians of the Loyalty Group, "to the mind of the Lifuan, the horizon was a
tangible object at no great distance. Many of the natives thought that if they could
only reach it they would be able to climb up to the sky." These statements
implicitly reflect belief in a flat earth.

The evidence, as the above examples show, is that people who live on a sea
shore believe the earth is flat.

The same thing is true of people who live on large plains. The Lakota Indians
(Plains
Indians) tell a story about the creation of the earth that is a typical
"earth-diver" story with the earth being spread out upon the water. It is a flat
earth, not a sphere. > As Levy Briuhl said, "In North America, in Indian belief,
the earth is a circular disc usually > surrounded on all sides by water and
> the sky is a solid concave hemisphere coming down at the horizon to the level of
the earth"

The evidence is that people who live on a large plain also believe the earth
is flat.

As for the sophisticated cultures of the ancient Near East, including the
Israelites, I have provided evidence in my "The Geographical Meaning of 'earth'
and 'sea' in Genesis 1:10" that they all believed the earth was flat.

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.

PS: The problem with your approach is that you set aside all of the evidence
falsifying your position and then appeal to rationalistic speculation to
support your view. This is the same thing the YEC's do. Just because you and they
can imagine a scenario where your theories will hold up is not the same thing
as actually having evidence to support your theory. You can prove any idea no
matter how absurd if imagination can be used as evidence.

Where is the evidence that anyone before Pythagoras or more clearly Plato
believed in a spherical earth? Being able to imagine that such people existed is
not evidence, Without evidence you can claim no more than that you have a very
nice private world.

Paul
 
Received on Tue Dec 16 23:47:00 2003