# Questions on Christianity (Again...) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952 "2010-08-30T02:13:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 52
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1021 "2010-09-15T12:35:19Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@monavis](#): > > > > It seems to me you state that you know things about God, and you use the Bible, which is really a book written by humans many ,many, years ago and a lot of things in there are not factual. > > > > God can only be perceived by faith and that faith is all in as human sense. Science makes no claim to truth until it can be proven. The Bible starts with what it calls fact, then tries to make sense out of it, that is what theologins do. > > > > I make no claim to be a mental giant, nor do I think you are, of course I would not call you ignorant because you disagree with me. I try to learn from people who think differently than me, not assume that I am 100% correct all the time. I do learn a lot from others on the board that make more sense than you. > > > > It is a matter of Faith, just as your thinking is a matter of Faith, not fact!!!l > > You make some good points, and I admit these are certainly true of some religious folk. However not all. > > As soon as we postulate something existing outside our natural world we invoke faith. No question. But in a different way science invokes similar uncertainty in the way theories are developed, tested, redefined etc. At any one time, a scientific theory is taken ‘on faith’ in the method to date, and the anticipation of what will be discovered in the furture. > > I grant you this, however. A scientific theory is testable within a scientific framework. The God hypothesis less so, if at all. > > As to the Bible, yes it makes truth claims, no question. Some people have a blind faith that transcends any empirical evidence, and read the Bible accordingly, such as those who hold to a 6,000 year old universe. Others understand the Bible as a revelation from a creator written in the language of men thousands of years ago, yet still relevant today, and can reconcile their faith to all manner of scientific hypothesis and theory, including evolution. > > I sit somewhere in between. I am no intellectual heavyweight, but there is a long list of theists who are, inclduing many who have come to religious belief not by a Damascus Road experience but by intellectual conviction. I juts find the persistent ridiculing of the intellectual robustness of religious faith somewhat childish. It is more by desire that by the intellect. There is no possible way to see a revelation from God anymore than the dictionary. Becuse some human believes it come from a Supreme being, it does not make for fact…just Belief. Belief is not necesary to come from intellect. A tiny child can believe. I do not ridicule people for there beliefs, if it helps them ,then I see no harm, just so it doesn’t push them to harm others,or expect all people to believe them, or the human they learned from. We humans are just that,our brains are human, and used for human purposes. One can declare that God said or did something but it isn’t necessarily fact! In truth there is no way of ‘Knowing’. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1022 "2010-09-15T14:33:20Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@tomndebb](#): > > > > There is no verse in the bible that says the earth is “round.” Isaiah mentions the “circle” of the earth and circles are two-dimensionsional flat figures. > > > > Totally irrelevant. The sun moving around (above and below) a circular plane provides the same effect without requiring a spherical earth. > > > > Neither of those two philosophers were scientists and neither lived anywhere near the sixteenth century of the Current Era, so you are just blowing smoke, as usual. I noted that the spherical earth was recognized by the time of Aristotle and they both preceded him by a few years. > > > > So what? I have never claimed any connection between the church and a flat earth. By the time that Christianity arose, the spherical earth was common knowledge. Most of the accusations of a “flat earth” aimed at the Christian Church originated with anti-Catholic rhetoric in the nineteenth century. > > > > You claimed, falsely, that “scientists” as late as the sixteenth century argued against a “round” earth, but you are misusing the word “round” to mean spherical when the bible has no passage that makes that claim and the best you can come up with are a couple of philosophers–not scientists–from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., so now you have posted errors twice and the bible is still stuck with its error. > > 1\> Circles are round. Circles do not have ‘four corners’. > > 2\> I have posted material that clearly shows the Bible writers spoke of a round planet. > > 3\> Ancient languages have limitations, Hebrew was no exception. There was no hebrew word for ‘sphere’. There was for round. That’s what the writers used. > > Keep to what you know. Geneis describes the Sumerian/Mesopotamian cosmology of the earth as a flat disc and the sky as a solid dome with water above and below. There is nothing in the Bible that describes the earth as a sphere. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1023 "2010-09-15T14:43:29Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@monavis](#): > > > > Wrong, religion doesn’t search for truth, it starts out with what they believe is truth, and try to get people to accept that,There is too much contradiction in religions, truth is not contradictory! Science has an idea, then tries to see if there is truth in it. Science corrects itself, religions just make up ways it could happen, and decide the early writers or founders were telling the truth. > > You are a master at misunderstanding. > > I did not say religion searches for truth. Religious viewpoints reflect a search for truth. WE humans search for truth. Religious viewpoints provide some hypotheses with which contend. A scientific method can (and has been) applied to the Bible, for example, to test it’s truth claims, it’s existential value, etc. > > The Bible states the earth is round. Until the 16th century many scientists disagreed. The Bible was right. The Bible said there was a people called the Hittites. For centuries historians doubted this. The Bible was right. I can go on. The Earth was proven to be round by Eratosthenes (Greek) in 240 BC, The idea that Columbus proved it to be round is a myth, along with his “discovery” of America. Do you really want to get into the “wrong vs. right” aspects of the Bible? I could start with the impossiblity of two people providing a viable gene pool for 6 billion. I could also mention that there is not now, nor has there ever been enpugh water on the Earth to coverall the land masses. That’s just two. I can go on. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1024 "2010-09-15T14:44:23Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 3\> Ancient languages have limitations, Hebrew was no exception. There was no hebrew word for ‘sphere’. There was for round. That’s what the writers used. Who told you this? What will you say if I can show you a Biblical Hebrew word for “ball?” I’ll give you a hint. The word is used somewhere in the Book of Isaiah. Do you believe me? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1025 "2010-09-15T14:44:53Z")
But at least it gets right the idea of a firmament above the sky which holds the water up, and when God wants it to rain he opens windows in that firmament. Oh, wait… ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1026 "2010-09-15T14:48:52Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 3\> The hebrew word for ball is ‘duwr’. Today we decsribe the earth as round. Not as a ball. Are you serious with this? People describe the earth as a “ball” all the time, though it’s not a perfect one. This has to be the strangest, most flailing defense you’ve posted yet. The Biblical writers thought the earth was a flat disc. That was the cosmology of the time and place. They describe the sky as a solid dome. How do you explain that? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1027 "2010-09-15T14:53:57Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > You might also want to explain Job 38:14, which indicates the rotation of the Earth on its axis by an illustration of a clay pot turning on a wheel to receive the impression of the seal. Okay, I looked this up. > [@](#): > > The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment This has absolutely nothing to do with the earth rotating on it’s axis! He describes the relief you get from rolling a seal over a (normally) flat piece of clay. A clay tablet, as they used for writing. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1028 "2010-09-15T15:03:28Z")
Here’s an example [![](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_DTS6PD-yMfY/R6IMaOFA7fI/AAAAAAAADFw/SP122wdtSL4/DSC_0117.JPG) ](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_DTS6PD-yMfY/R6IMaOFA7fI/AAAAAAAADFw/SP122wdtSL4/DSC_0117.JPG) On the left you see the seal. It is rolled over the clay to make the impression ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1029 "2010-09-15T15:07:25Z")
Man, that “clay tablet really means that the Earth rotates” is lame even by apologist standards. Aigonz, were you aware of what the verse actually said before you asked us to explain it, or were you just relying on what you read at an apologist web site? If you didn’t bother to look it up, you’re inexcusably careless. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1030 "2010-09-15T15:32:02Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Man, that “clay tablet really means that the Earth rotates” is lame even by apologist standards. > > Aigonz, were you aware of what the verse actually said before you asked us to explain it, or were you just relying on what you read at an apologist web site? If you didn’t bother to look it up, you’re inexcusably careless. He’s been relying on websites put out by JP Holding… My guess is that he takes the apologist web site at their word. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1031 "2010-09-15T15:32:19Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 1\> You claimed that “There is no verse in the bible that says the earth is “round.”” A circle is round. Also see Job 38:14. You claimed that the bible had asserted a “round” earth when “scientists” were claiming it was flat. You have cited no “scientist” who claimed it was flat, so that assertion appears to be wrong, and a circle–the only shape asserted in the bible–is flat. You are dodging around playing word games with the English word “round,” but you are simply wrong. You have still failed to even provide the citation for the bible saying the world is “round.” Isaiah talks about it being a circle and uses the same word that is used to describe drawing a circle in Job and in Proverbs. Isaiah also uses a form of the same word to talk about the compass used to draw a circle. Mistranslating any of those passages to mean the English word “round” is bad translation and bad scriptural analysis. Job 38:14 talks about the way in which a seal is impressed into soft clay; it makes no mention of a potter’s wheel in the context of the earth spinning. It immediately follows verse 38:13 in which the image is of the earth being shaken like a blanket–a flat, two-dimensional surface. Now, I recognize that the “shaken blanket” image is a metaphor for shaking out evil-doers as getting crumbs off a blanket and would not claim that it was intended as a physical image of the earth, but your claim that there is any image of a spinning earth in 38:14 is simply nonsense. (The KJV translators used the word “turned” in the sense of rocking a seal into soft clay, but one will note that the phrase is “turned to the seal,” and not “turned on the wheel.” Other translators avoided that confusion by using verbs different than “turned” and no translation indicates a pottery wheel. The image is one of pressing a seal into soft clay, not spinning a pot.) > [@aigonz](#): > > 3\> The hebrew word for ball is ‘duwr’. Today we decsribe the earth as round. Not as a ball. That’s how the Bible writers described it too. The Hebrew word that was used to describe the earth, “_chuwg_” is more accurately translated “circle” and your attempt to confuse the issue by using “round” is simply hand-waving to avoid admitting your error. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1032 "2010-09-15T15:34:16Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > \*\*\*\*Get off your high horse. You’ve jumped in to help your mates out and shown your ignorance in two posts. Make a choice. Participate or moderate. I am quite capable of both participating and Moderating. I am not going to ignore your errors simply because I am a Mod, but you will stop posting insults if you wish to continue to participate. My first observation that you needed to rein in your insults was intended more as a poster giving you advice. Now, I am posting as a Moderator and I am instructing you to refrain from posting insults or you will be Warned. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1033 "2010-09-15T22:17:54Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > You are a master at misunderstanding. > > > > I did not say religion searches for truth. Religious viewpoints reflect a search for truth. WE humans search for truth. Religious viewpoints provide some hypotheses with which contend. A scientific method can (and has been) applied to the Bible, for example, to test it’s truth claims, it’s existential value, etc. > > > > The Bible states the earth is round. Until the 16th century many scientists disagreed. The Bible was right. The Bible said there was a people called the Hittites. For centuries historians doubted this. The Bible was right. I can go on. > > The Earth was proven to be round by Eratosthenes (Greek) in 240 BC, The idea that Columbus proved it to be round is a myth, along with his “discovery” of America. > Do you really want to get into the “wrong vs. right” aspects of the Bible? I could start with the impossiblity of two people providing a viable gene pool for 6 billion. I could also mention that there is not now, nor has there ever been enpugh water on the Earth to coverall the land masses. That’s just two. I can go on. 1\> The Bible doesn’t say 2 peole populated the entire earth. It is silent on the origin of other humans, whom God may have created. 2\> The global flood scenario has been well documented, bth as to the source of water and other alleged difficulties. [- Problems with a Global Flood? -](http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp), [Noah's Flood - Where did all that water come from? - ChristianAnswers.Net](http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c010.html) are two young earth responses. You might also be interested in the view of old earth creationists who claim the flood passages do not refer to a global event, one such article at [http://www.reasons.org/exploring-extent-flood-part-one](http://www.reasons.org/exploring-extent-flood-part-one). ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1034 "2010-09-15T22:19:01Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 3\> Ancient languages have limitations, Hebrew was no exception. There was no hebrew word for ‘sphere’. There was for round. That’s what the writers used. > > Who told you this? What will you say if I can show you a Biblical Hebrew word for “ball?” > > I’ll give you a hint. The word is used somewhere in the Book of Isaiah. Do you believe me? I have already mentioned the hebrew word ‘ball’. Here’s my point. If you are asked what is the shape of the earth, do you say ‘round’ or ‘a ball’? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1035 "2010-09-15T22:23:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 1\> You claimed that “There is no verse in the bible that says the earth is “round.”” A circle is round. Also see Job 38:14. > > You claimed that the bible had asserted a “round” earth when “scientists” were claiming it was flat. You have cited no “scientist” who claimed it was flat, so that assertion appears to be wrong, and a circle–the only shape asserted in the bible–is flat. You are dodging around playing word games with the English word “round,” but you are simply wrong. > > You have still failed to even provide the citation for the bible saying the world is “round.” Isaiah talks about it being a circle and uses the same word that is used to describe drawing a circle in Job and in Proverbs. Isaiah also uses a form of the same word to talk about the compass used to draw a circle. Mistranslating any of those passages to mean the English word “round” is bad translation and bad scriptural analysis. > > Job 38:14 talks about the way in which a seal is impressed into soft clay; it makes no mention of a potter’s wheel in the context of the earth spinning. It immediately follows verse 38:13 in which the image is of the earth being shaken like a blanket–a flat, two-dimensional surface. Now, I recognize that the “shaken blanket” image is a metaphor for shaking out evil-doers as getting crumbs off a blanket and would not claim that it was intended as a physical image of the earth, but your claim that there is any image of a spinning earth in 38:14 is simply nonsense. (The KJV translators used the word “turned” in the sense of rocking a seal into soft clay, but one will note that the phrase is “turned to the seal,” and not “turned on the wheel.” Other translators avoided that confusion by using verbs different than “turned” and no translation indicates a pottery wheel. The image is one of pressing a seal into soft clay, not spinning a pot.) > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 3\> The hebrew word for ball is ‘duwr’. Today we decsribe the earth as round. Not as a ball. That’s how the Bible writers described it too. > > The Hebrew word that was used to describe the earth, “_chuwg_” is more accurately translated “circle” and your attempt to confuse the issue by using “round” is simply hand-waving to avoid admitting your error. And a circle is round. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1036 "2010-09-15T22:31:49Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 1\> OK, so your sugggestion is that the oryx will somehow be swept up in a wave of family adoptions. But again I counter that with two simple facts. The adoption delivers no tangible benefits, genetic or otherwise. Second, the adoption actually carries risk of sacrfice to family memebers. > > You’re over-thinking it. > > No, wait, that’s not quite right. You’re thinking correctly; the lionesses are under-thinking it. I’m saying the occasional oryx gets swept up in the wave of family adoptions because the lionesses are adopting somewhat indiscriminately: they’re adopting somewhat indiscriminately when they adopt orphaned kin, and they’re _ **still** _ adopting somewhat indiscriminately when – maybe one time out of a hundred – a lioness adopts an orphaned oryx. > > The benefit of adopting indiscriminately is that you often wind up adopting orphaned kin. The drawback of adopting indiscriminately is that you occasionally wind up adopting an oryx. It’s a package deal: adopting indiscriminately carries benefits and drawbacks. > > They could devise a better strategy if they reasoned about this, but,. > > No, it won’t; it doesn’t, in fact. Man, for someone who’s uncomfortable about assuming stuff feels good when the only evidence is that animals keep doing it and I feel good when I’m doing likewise, you’re quick to flatly claim that Impulse A (which also can’t actually be observed) will outweigh Impulse B regardless of which behavior observably keeps winning out. > > Look, imagine I’m debating the very possibility of sex feeling good while asking you why Dog A is enthusiastically humping Table Leg B. And imagine you tell me it feels good. And imagine I start to scoff at your circular reasoning, saying your explanation is unobserved and speculative, seeking to explain the behavior with a postulated “feel good” factor – and, I add, how _ **dare** _ you suggest that animals who quite enjoy humping and therefore do so quite indiscriminately often enough wind up screwing the opposite sex in between humping table legs, thereby making lots of little baby animals who grow up to do likewise! Why, it’s all merely conclusions masquerading as evidence, say I; you argue the assumption to justify the attempted explanation! > > > [@](#): > > > > _It would be. But you don;t have the mechanism. And why are humans the only ones who exhibit it?_ > > We’re not the only ones who exhibit it. We’ve just got a lot more of it. 1\> But the oryx is not only unlike a lioness, it is potentially food, is it not? How can such an animal be ‘swept up indiscriminately’ into being adopted by a potential predator? 2\> I reiterate, the humping of atbale by a dog not only simulates sex, it actually (at least I presume!) feels like sex. There is no physical reward for a lioness adopting a competitor for it’s offspring, let alone one that could look like food! ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1037 "2010-09-15T22:44:42Z")
Job 38:14 The verse says “It (the earth) takes on form like clay under a seal…” UNDER a seal. UNDER. When a clay pot received it’s impression from the seal, it was turned on a wheel. The passage refers specifically to a round, oops sorry ‘ball’, receiving it’s ‘impression’. The description envisages the rotation of the earth on its axis. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1038 "2010-09-15T23:32:58Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Job 38:14 > > The verse says “It (the earth) takes on form like clay under a seal…” > > UNDER a seal. UNDER. > > When a clay pot received it’s impression from the seal, it was turned on a wheel. The passage refers specifically to a round, oops sorry ‘ball’, receiving it’s ‘impression’. The description envisages the rotation of the earth on its axis. Worst misreading of a metaphor I have _evar_ seen. It doesn’t refer to a clay pot, and “It is turned as clay to the seal…” doesn’t refer to anything turning around-it is saying that the seal is _transforming_(turning) the clay into something else. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1039 "2010-09-15T23:37:16Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Who told you this? What will you say if I can show you a Biblical Hebrew word for “ball?” > > > > I’ll give you a hint. The word is used somewhere in the Book of Isaiah. Do you believe me? > > I have already mentioned the hebrew word ‘ball’. Here’s my point. If you are asked what is the shape of the earth, do you say ‘round’ or ‘a ball’? I say “spheroid,” or “roughly pear shaped.” It’s not perfectly round, nor is it perfectly spherical. This is oneof the most bizarre apologist angles I’ve ever seen, and I thought I’d seen them all.. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/1040 "2010-09-15T23:38:48Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@tomndebb](#): > > > > You claimed that the bible had asserted a “round” earth when “scientists” were claiming it was flat. You have cited no “scientist” who claimed it was flat, so that assertion appears to be wrong, and a circle–the only shape asserted in the bible–is flat. You are dodging around playing word games with the English word “round,” but you are simply wrong. > > > > You have still failed to even provide the citation for the bible saying the world is “round.” Isaiah talks about it being a circle and uses the same word that is used to describe drawing a circle in Job and in Proverbs. Isaiah also uses a form of the same word to talk about the compass used to draw a circle. Mistranslating any of those passages to mean the English word “round” is bad translation and bad scriptural analysis. > > > > Job 38:14 talks about the way in which a seal is impressed into soft clay; it makes no mention of a potter’s wheel in the context of the earth spinning. It immediately follows verse 38:13 in which the image is of the earth being shaken like a blanket–a flat, two-dimensional surface. Now, I recognize that the “shaken blanket” image is a metaphor for shaking out evil-doers as getting crumbs off a blanket and would not claim that it was intended as a physical image of the earth, but your claim that there is any image of a spinning earth in 38:14 is simply nonsense. (The KJV translators used the word “turned” in the sense of rocking a seal into soft clay, but one will note that the phrase is “turned to the seal,” and not “turned on the wheel.” Other translators avoided that confusion by using verbs different than “turned” and no translation indicates a pottery wheel. The image is one of pressing a seal into soft clay, not spinning a pot.) > > > > The Hebrew word that was used to describe the earth, “_chuwg_” is more accurately translated “circle” and your attempt to confuse the issue by using “round” is simply hand-waving to avoid admitting your error. > > And a circle is round. The earth is neither round, nor a circle. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=51) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=53)