Flat Earth: Christian Scientific Presentation Against Flat Earth

On my continual life-long journey of hungering truth and enjoying knowledge, I continue to venture deeper into the flat earth versus globe earth discussion.  It is, by far, the most important periphereal topic because it does indeed affect your world view.  On the one side, I don’t want to be lead astray into some ostracized corner of society where people view me as a nut bar, but on the other hand, I don’t want to ‘just believe’ because my school and church told me to.  Over the years, horrible things have crept into the church and society by people just letting them happen so if someone presents a view on something (ie. homosexuality, evolution, flat earth, divorce, pornography, etc) we need to at least know our God and His Word well enough to hold a position.

And so today I decided to, instead of looking up the topic ‘flat earth’ which tends to show everyone promoting a flat earth view, I looked up more from Bible believing science people who speak on the topic.  I found this presentation by the folks at ICR and wanted to share it as well as add my commentary below it for the benefit of both sides who are seeking the truth on the matter, like myself:

Commentary

I’d like to first thank the folks at ICR for being one of the only organizations who works hard to promote the truth about God’s word and creationism.  It was thanks to the ICR folks that I came much quicker to Jesus and discarded quickly evolution and all associated and damaging world views that come with it.  I indeed praise God for this as it has tremendously helped my faith.

I also know that it would be extremely difficult to act in an unbiased way on this topic because all the scientists here have passed through the secular scientific systems of the world, played by the rules, been indoctrinated with all the world views and have come out the other side with all the neat acronyms after their names.  In this case, the show is started by making sure the listener know that Jason Lisle has no shortage of alphabet soup after his name.

I just wanted to state that I have seen more men of God have their faith killed and chilled by seminary and secular university and their teachings than by probably any other force on the planet (or disc).  My point is not to discredit completely these institutions but to point out that the soup they make you drink is the soup *they* want you to drink, not necessarily the truth.  Jesus is the truth and one day we will stand in front of Him and all this will make sense and if betting wasn’t folly I would bet that we’re all going to have a long list of things that we believed that were ‘a little off’.

So let’s have a little grace and a little fun as we explore this important topic.  Let’s not laugh each other off whether we believe in another god or that we live in a different matrix dimension, but instead continue to seek the truth and discuss it and help each other along.

My first red flag during Jason’s speech was how he jumped straight to Genesis 1:7 and pulled the correct Hebrew word ‘raqiya’ for firmament but then immediately said “It never says or implies a solid”  Immediately I looked it up to find that, indeed it *does* imply it could be a solid.  Read the word firmament yourself (which you should always do).  I mean.. as soon as he boldly declared it had no connection to solid he made my brain turn on and I started thinking about the english etymology of the word FIRMament.  So I looked up firmament and lo and behold it comes from firm which is just loaded with feelings of solidity.  So let’s not be so quick to disolve the conversation of the possibility that God made this firmament firm.

The next thing that Jason said that jumped out at me when they were discussing the ends of the earth and the four corners of the earth.  You can read my very pro flat earth article here with a bunch of scriptures if you want but remember that I too am just a man working through this.  Anyway, although I agree in general with the interpretation that the four corners and the ends of the earth could and should mean ‘everywhere’ it is not to be translated as the cardinal directions of north, east, south, and west.  Jason boldly says that it should be interpreted that way but those directions were well known then as he points out later in the show, so they could have done it then.  God could be implying a literal four corners of the earth here if He wants so let’s not put words in His mouth. But what bothered me more, I think, was how Jason quite strongly ‘recommended’ that believers ‘not build their theology on the book of Revelation but instead build it on the rest of the Bible’.  Last time I checked, every word in the Bible was the inspired Word of God and worth building our theology on.  Unfortunately this statement didn’t help.  I understand he was saying ‘do the rest of the Bible first and then you might understand Revelation’ but it didn’t come across as good advice.  Sorry, bro.

I also thought it was quite humourous how Jason tried to explain the ‘ends of the earth’ (16m20s) as a location on a globe to which you could circle and come back to.  Here he conveniently did not use hebrew or greek to discuss this word ‘ends’.  Please look it up HERE while reading this next part.   So Jason explains the ‘ends’ of the earth here as ‘antipodes‘ yet nowhere at all in the original Hebrew do I get any form of interpretation like that.  What I read (and read it yourself) is a clear meaning of ‘end’ or ‘border’ or ‘extremity’ – something that comes to a dead stop, if you will.  I must say here that these ‘ends of the earth’ scriptures do not do very well on a globe model and Jason’s nebulous description of what it ‘could’ mean on a globe earth (assuming it is a globe is his position, don’t forget) is quite a leap away from the Word.

By far one of the most important scriptures in the Biblical flat earth discussion is Isaiah 22:14

22 [It is] he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof [are] as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in

I thought what would be the best way to deal with this scripture is take a young person’s Bible translation, read it to a 7 year old (my daughter) and see what she draws.  My guess is that that is what God is trying to say.  Let’s run the test:

(image coming as soon as complete)

The other topic that Jason discussed was at 18m 30s about Job 26.10

He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.

In this example he says it confirms the ‘terminator‘ which science has proven.  Jason says that this scripture is the ‘killer’ of the flat earth Bible discussion.  No more need to discuss it because, as he says, ‘there is no other way to explain it’.

Interestingly a few folks have tried. Unfortunately this video doesn’t actually explain what’s going on so it took me a while to get it plus it takes a while to get to the point.  Skip ahead to 1m 18s in this video and before watching what you are looking for is ‘the terminator’ as described above link. What we should be able to see is a clear line breaking the dark from the light where the sun shoots over the curvature of the earth.  However, from this video and what our eyes see every day, what seems more observable is the effect of the headlights of a car getting closer and closer to the location.  As you’ll note on the left side it’s quite bright (closer to the headlights) but as the power of the light source weakens, you see the light bleed into darkness (not a line) in the same way that you would see car headlights do this if you were looking down on them from a high elevation:

I’m sure there are a few ways to debunk what I just said but my point here is just that my eyes still show that a small and close sun moving towards us is very possible.

Plus, what about all the Bible verses that say they move?  Shall we just not talk about those ones like Jason didn’t talk about them? Kind of quietly slide them under a mat?  Or perhaps just call them ‘poetic language’ as many ‘scientists’ do.  I’m just not that willing to hand over the Word of God completely to scientists like that so I will continue to work through this topic:

• Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which [is] as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, [and] rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth [is] from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. (Psalm 19:4-6) (Read expanded comments on this scripture here)
• The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. (Ecclesiastes 1:5)
• Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. (Joshua 10:12-13)
• The sun [and] moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, [and] at the shining of thy glittering spear. (Habakkuk 3:11)

Jason also says in his presentation that the different locations of the stars in the sky don’t work on a flat earth model but that was just funny.  They believe the universe and heavenly bodies are in motion around the earth.  That’s all.  Works perfectly fine so please don’t say that the movement of stars don’t work on a flat earth model, they work even better in my opinion.

Lunar eclipse.

This one still currently has me.  I need to do further research.  Seems to favour globe earth.

Parallax.

I need more time on this one.  It seems to me that parallax would have no meaning if the tree (his example) was moving. ha.  So parallax only works if you are sure the object (in this case the star) is stationary relative to us (I think) but again, I’m not strong on this topic.

Time zones

This one is quite funny too.  Jason boldly declares that time zones don’t work on a flat earth.  Why not?  All we are talking about here is when the sun is shining light on us and when it stops and at what times. Both models work perfectly well with time zones.  I’m always a bit surprised that globalists use time zones as some kind of proof.  Maybe I’m missing their point?

Importing ideas from other cultures to interpretation of Bible

I am in full agreement with Jason here. I would also strongly recommend not going to the surrounding cultures of the Israelites or their teachings/education to try to understand the Bible.  That’s a bad idea.  They were lost and without God so one could assume their understandings of the world around them to be ‘lost’.  Amen to that one, brother.

However… I would also add, Jason, that you may have been influenced by the gods of science in your own understanding and world view and you also should be very careful about what you have been taught in school and how it has affected your world view.  Perhaps you’ve picked up a few bad ideas along the way?  I know I have…

As a final note, I was very disappointed with 43m 25s when the interviewer asks Jason ‘what would you say to a brother who is getting into the ‘flat earth movement’.  His response was:

• you aren’t being faithful to the word of God or the interpretation
• flat earthers think they are on the moral high ground
• I would then teach them about hermeneutics
• then I would teach them about science
• the Bible ‘just doesn’t teach a flat earth’

As given above, the Bible clearly teaches a moving sun and moon and a stationary earth.  For Jason to boldly call a Bible reader ‘unfaithful to the Word of God’ for reading as the Word of God is quite disappointing.  I would expect advice something along these lines:

• I’m a man, all scientists are men and all have fallen short
• the mind is a deceiving thing and even the heart of man
• only God can be trusted and His Word (he says this but his position here doesn’t match it)
• If you seek the truth God will show you because Jesus *is* truth.
• I personally believe you are caught in a big delusion and I’ll work through it with you
• Let’s figure out the truth together

I mean, it’s just a more productive way to dialogue and win hearts, too, if you look at it that way.  Even though Mormons are fully deceived, I don’t start my conversation with ‘You are fully deceived and lost’.

And so I will continue down my journey towards the truth.

If nothing else, the process of thinking about this is important so we know who we are in relation to God.