EDWARD T. BABINSKI SAID:
“Steve,__If you read Enuma Elish you see that the creator high god Marduk slays a female water goddess, Tiamat, and cuts her in two and one half is used to make the heavens, and stars made from other divinities are placed on her body. This is a flat earth cosmology, whether or not the earth below is ditch shaped or pancake shaped. __The Egyptians also produced plenty of iconography showing one god lying down and another arched above it.”
It’s possible that ancient people thought the earth was flat. However, I wouldn’t infer that from their use of corporeal or architectural metaphors to model the earth. It was natural for ancient people to use the human body or human buildings to depict the world, just as we use technological metaphors to illustrate the brain. And the metaphors vary depending on the state of our technology. Is the brain a telephone switchboard or a computer? Depends on whether you read a book from the 60s or the 90s.
Do you assume ancient people really thought the Tigris and the Euphrates sprang from the eye sockets of a goddess? I suspect this says far lot more about your naïveté than theirs.
Human beings think in metaphors. Metaphors drawn from daily experience.
I’d also avoid sweeping generalities about human beliefs. Some human beings are more observant than others. More intelligent.
“It's not difficult to find evidence in Scripture that its authors assumed the earth was flat.”
It’s not difficult to find evidence in Scripture that its authors depicted the earth as a microcosmic temple. And its authors used architectural metaphors to cue the read to the sacral significance of the earth as sacred space.
“What's difficult if finding evidence otherwise, of any inspiration they might contain of a spherical earth that spins daily and revolves yearly around a stationary sun, or evidence that other planets exist and are doing likewise.”
Scripture is indifferent to the solar system. So what? The Bible is written to and for human beings. Concerning God’s relation to man, and vice versa.
“The author of Gen. 1 only calls the Sun and Moon ‘great lamps’ not any of the stars, which are merely afterthoughts.”
“Afterthoughts” because the narrator is suppressing impious curiosity in astromancy.
“The biblical authors show no special knownledge of such things, none at all.”
But they show special knowledge of other things, viz., the future.
“And the only time the earth moves in the Bible it's an earthquake.”
Which is an argument against geocentrism, since the motion is seismic rather than geocentric.
“That’s also sometimes depicted as shaking the heavens along with the earth, as in a singular earth-centered cosmos.”
No, that’s eschatological judgment, where the entire creation is subject to the final judgment.
“Heck, evey day in creation is to create something just for the earth, including creating light in the begnning just for ‘days and nights’ ‘evenings and mornings" on earth. Very earth-centered I'd say.”
Not earth-centered. Man-centered. Man as the apex of creation on day 6.
You’re making no effort to read Gen 1 in context. Instead, you’re superimposing the Copernican controversy onto Gen 1, which is grossly anachronistic. Try not to be such a twit.
“And then there's verses that say ‘God moves’ the sun, stars, constellations in their seasonal treks across the sky. Is God really moving such things or not? Is the Bible lying?”
Does modern astronomy regard the sun, stars, and constellations, as motionless? Are you lying?
“But of course if you'd rather believe the Bible is inspired in an inerrant fashion and can't be proven wrong, maybe you ought to be taken to a ‘very high’ mountain to be ‘shown all the kingdoms of the earth’."
The devil is a discarnate spirit. A diabolical apparition is a vision. We’re talking about a visionary mountain. Visionary kingdoms. Try not to be such a twit.
“Why is the tree (in Daniel) described as ‘very tall’ instead of just tall? And how come all the earth can ‘see the tree.”
Because it’s a case of visionary revelation. Try not to be such a twit.
“Mere coincidence in both cases, or flat earth assumptions of the authors?”
Visionary flat-earth typography.
Are you this pedantically literalistic when you dream? When you dream about a city, do you crack out a street map the next day and see how accurate your dream was? Is a dreamscape errant if it deviates from a real cityscape?
“And have you ever tried arguing with Dr. Bouw at his geocentricity website? You're both Christian believers in an inerrant Bible and in sola scriptura and the perspicacity of Scripture. So why don't you agree? Unless of course he's already converted you to biblical astronomy which he argues equals geocentrism. See also my online article, ‘Varieties of Scientific Creationism’ for a discussion of the ways Christians deny and explain away the plain words of Scripture cited by other Christians, depending on where each group first draws the line between what they are wiling to define as mere metaphor and what they are willing to accept as science.”
Actually, Ed, you have more in common with Bouw than I do. You’re still a Fundy under the skin. You shuffle under the same lead-footed, hermeneutical assumptions you did back in your Fundy days.
I never made literalism my guiding principle. Grammatico-historical exegesis in my guiding principle. Not the “plain sense” of scripture,” which is just a cipher for contemporary social conditioning.
I also reject your caricature of perspicuity. The Westminster Confession has a very nuanced statement of perspicuity, which you ignore—since that would get in the way of your prefabricated agenda.
He spelled it perspicacity twice in a row so don't know if he meant perspicuity or not :)
ReplyDeleteSome of these issues have been discussed here before:
ReplyDeletehttp://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/cultic-imagery.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/flat-earth-mormon-view-of-god-and.html
As we document in those other threads, we know of ancient sources (Tertullian, for example) who would refer to the earth as spherical or profess ignorance on the subject in one place, yet use a phrase like “corners of the earth” elsewhere. Ancient views of the physical structure of the universe seem to have been more nuanced and diverse than modern critics often suggest.
Ed Babinski writes:
“And how come all the earth can ‘see’ the tree, or the person on the very tall mountain can then be shown ‘all the earth?’”
We know that there was widespread belief in a spherical earth at the time when the gospels were written. (For some examples, see my documentation in the threads linked above.) And some of the people living at the time when the gospels were written would have known that there was no mountain they could see from anywhere on earth. Here’s a portion of what I wrote on this subject in one of the threads linked above:
“Given how widely a spherical earth was accepted in ancient times, and given the willingness of the earliest New Testament interpreters to accept a spherical earth or take no position on the issue, it seems unlikely that passages like Matthew 4:8 and Revelation 7:1 were intended to refer to a flat earth. Matthew would have known that there was no mountain from which a person could physically see every kingdom of the earth, including whatever details of those kingdoms would be involved in showing their ‘glory’. The parallel passage in Luke 4:5 refers to how Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms ‘in a moment of time’. Jesus is shown the kingdoms. He doesn't move around to look at them. And it happens in an instant. Apparently, Satan is supernaturally bringing images before Jesus. The mountain backdrop isn't meant to convey the concept that there was some mountain high enough to allow people to see everything on a flat earth. Rather, the mountain backdrop is being used to convey the concept of elevation, without regard to whether that elevation allows a person to physically see the entire earth. This incident has nothing to do with normal eyesight or a flat earth.”
Comment has been blocked.