"Every eye shall see him"

“Everyone will see Jesus descend from the sky. Such an event would only be possible on a flat earth.”

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/rev/1.html

There’s a sense in which many apostates position themselves for apostasy. They begin with a Sunday school understanding of Scripture. They then lose their faith in Scripture during their first year of college–because what they’re taught conflicts with their Sunday school understanding of Scripture.

Of course, even in that respect, all they’ve done is to trade one form of childish credulity for another. Their college profs inherit the mantle of infallibility which they used to ascribe to their Sunday school teachers.

So what about this objection to Rev 1:7?

1.Suppose the verse does, indeed, conjure up the image of a flat earth? So what? Language is full of dead metaphors. We ourselves use flat-earth metaphors whenever we speak of sunrise/sunup or sunset/sundown.

2.For that matter, the imagery could just as well be hyperbolic. To suggest this isn’t special pleading. It’s easy to document hyperbole in Scripture. What is more, hyperbolic depictons are characteristic of eschatological imagery.

3.Moreover, “sight” is frequently an abstract metaphor for knowledge. And it’s just as easy to document that fact from Scriptural usage.

On that construal, the verse is simply saying, in a vivid way, that when Christ comes back, everybody will both know and acknowledge, willingly or unwillingly, who Jesus really is.

4.But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we take this literally. How would that depiction presume a flat earth?

For instance, suppose we said, “Every eye shall see the moon.”

Would such a phenomenon only be possible on a flat earth? Hardly!

You see, our skeptic has smuggled a suppressed premise into his conclusion. He tacitly rephrases the verse to say, “Every eye shall see him all at once.”

So he’s assuming the event must be instantaneous. Of course, the verse doesn’t say that. For that matter, the verse doesn’t even say anything about Jesus “descending.” You might be able to get that from other passages, but not from Rev 1:7.

If the “atmospheric effects” of the Parousia were sufficient large and distant, and if they hovered in one place for 24 hours, then, of course, everyone around the world would be able to see it.

So even if you construe the verse with crass literality, it’s quite possible for earthlings on a rotating planet to see the same atmospheric phenomenon. It would be a worldwide spectacle.