In this episode – recorded in the summer of 2017 – Todd, Charles, and Dan discuss the recently resurgent Flat Earth concept, focusing in on the model itself, its difficulties lining up with fairly straightforward observational data, and speculate a little concerning the psychological aspects of holding to such ideas.
Click here to listen
Some helpful links for your perusal:
https://www.tfes.org/
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/07/colorado-earth-flat-gravity-hoax/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/flat-earth-society-psychology_n_2038198.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/curious-history-international-flat-earth-society-180957969/
William Tyndale 1537 Bible 2 Samuel 11:11 “THE FLATT ERTHE.”
Isaiah 40:22 (ISV) it is He who sits upon the “DISK” of the earth.
One can certainly read those phrases in a wooden fashion so as to think that he has disproven what is clearly observable. Or, as an alternative approach that we would urge you to consider, one could make a bit more responsible reading and understand that there are other ways to understand what is written in those passages than the most facile reading of the English rendering given there.
We note also that you chose the Tyndale translation, rather than every other English translation, because of the way Tyndale translated the original Hebrew. Why not quote from the King James? Or the original Hebrew? The words there are rendered most often “open fields”, but you picked one which fits your predilections. Not good exegesis.
As for the “disk of the earth”… again you chose the one translation which made a choice that’s convenient for you – “disk”. All others use “circle of the earth”, which if you take a look around you in an open field, you’ll see that the horizon indeed seems to trace out a circle around you. Point of view language, there, friend. It’s not difficult to understand.
Our question though for you is if you wish to insist that the passage you quote implies a flat, circular earth, do you also imply that God physically sits on the earth? But God is a spirit (attested in every translation of John 4:24), not a physical entity, except in so far as he comes as the second person of the trinity, incarnate in Jesus Christ – so He cannot “sit on the earth”. We assume you do not believe that God actually has wings or that trees actually clap their (nonexistent) hands.
Finally, too, if the Earth is a disk, why does it have four corners? (Isaiah 11:12, essentially every translation). A disk has no corners. Which is it? Round, or rectangular?
We appreciate your zeal for your point of view, but would urge you to consider whether you might be misreading your hand-selected passages, and are failing to allow that both Scripture can be correct, God-breathed, useful for training in righteousness, etc., AND the understanding which we have from a wealth of simply available and understandable observations of the Earth being spherical and orbiting the Sun once a year can ALSO be true, simultaneously.