Re: [asa] Flat Earth in earlier Christendom

Since Coope's correspondent holds the views he does, it may help to point him also to Gould's discussion of the falt earth myth in Rocks of Ages, pp.111-118. (Gould relied heavily here on Russell's book, which he called "excellent.")

Shalom
George
http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>; "George Cooper" <georgecooper@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Flat Earth in earlier Christendom

> This is one of those uncommon cases, Coope, in which the widely received
> view is not only almost entirely wrong (there were in fact a very small
> number of Christian authors who endorsed the flat earth, but no more than
> half a dozen of any significance in 2000 years), but completely backwards
> from the truth--at least in terms of the Columbus stories that circulate
> widely. In that case, it was the Christian university professors in Spain
> who were right about the earth's shape and size, whereas Columbus was right
> only about its shape (on which there was no disagreement whatsoever).
>
> This particular issue is as close as one can get to a "slam dunk,"
> historically. Your friend has nothing on which to stand. For a highly
> reliable and very short summary of the real history, including an account of
> how the false stories become part of our modern "knowledge," see Jeffrey
> Burton Russell's book, "Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern
> Historians." Internet summaries of his work are poor substitutes: go take a
> look at the book!
>
> Ted
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Nov 12 11:01:07 2008