On Mon, 21 Aug 1995 11:58:11 -0500 you wrote:
JB>I've been wondering something about the supposedly flat earth
>cosmology of the old testament. Do we have hard extra-biblical
>evidence that the Jews really believed in such a cosmology, or
>rather, does the evidence for it merely come from wooden
>interpretations of the figures of speech used in the Bible itself?
The latter, IMHO. Bernard Ramm, "The Christian View of Science and
Scripture", 1955, Paternoster, London, has an excellent section on
Biblical Cosmology (pp66-69). Ramm believes that the language of the
Bible "is phenomenal and popular, not scientific and causal" (p151).
He says:
"In discussing the Biblical cosmology we must return to our general
position defended earlier in this chapter: the references of the
writers of the Bible to natural things are popular, non-postulational,
and in terms of the culture in which the writers wrote. This
principle applies directly to Biblical cosmology. The language of the
Bible with reference to cosmological matters is in terms of the
prevailing culture. Biblical cosmology is in the language of
antiquity and not of modern science, nor is it filled with
anticipations which the future microscope and telescope will reveal."
(p65)
Ramm cites Calvin that Genesis 1 is a record of the creation of the
world in the language of the common man and from the viewpoint of
common sense:
"For to my mind this is a certain principle, that nothing is here
treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn
astronomy and the other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere . . . It
must be remembered, that Moses does not speak with philosophical
acuteness on occult mysteries, but states those things which are
everywhere observed, even by the uncultivated, and which are in common
use." (Calvin J., Genesis, I, 79 & 84)
Ramm criticises "pseudo-Biblical cosmologies" by radical critics,
such as Fosdick:
"In the Scriptures the flat earth is founded on an underlying sea- it
is stationary; the heavens are like an upturned bowl or canopy above
it; the circumference of this vault rests on pillars; the sun, moon
and stars move within this firmament of special purpose to illumine
man; there is a sea above the sky, "the waters which were above the
heavens," and through the "windows of heaven" the rain comes down;
within the earth is Sheol, where dwell the shadowy dead- this whole
cosmic system is suspended over vacancy; and it was all made in six
days with a morning and an evening, a short and measurable time
before. This is the world view of the Bible.' (Fosdick H.E., "The
Modern Use of the Bible", 1924, p178);
and cites W.F. Warren (The Earliest Cosmologies, 1909, pp. 24-32), as
"one of the sharpest critics of this cosmological imposture":
"If you follow this wooden and artificial approach to the Bible you
would have the Bible writers believing in a heaven made of wax or silk
or goatshair! Critics have underestimated the extent of astronomical
knowledge among the ancients." (Ramm, p66)
Warren is especially critical of the work of Schiaparelli (Astronomy
in the Old Testament, 1903), and accuses him "of using an impossible
literalism in his constructions and constructing a universe that
Solomon, for example, would never recognize" (Ramm, p66-67)
This is echoed by James Orr:
"The error is to be avoided of forcing the language of popular, often
metaphorical and poetic description, into the hard-and-fast forms of
cosmogony which it is by no means intended by the writers to yield.
It is true that the Hebrews had no idea of our modern Copernican
astronomy, and thought of the earth as a flat surface, surmounted by a
vast expanse of heaven, in which sun, moon and stars were placed, and
from whose reservoirs the rain descended. But it is an exaggeration
of all this to speak, as is sometimes done, as if the Hebrews were
children who believed [that the sky was a solid vault, etc.].
Language is not to be pressed in this prosaic, unelastic way." (Orr
J., "World: Cosmological", ISBE, V, 3106)
Ramm has a fairly thorough discussion of such terms as the
"firmament", "waters above the heavens", the "windows of heaven" and
the "pillars of the earth". He shows that none of these necessarily
have a simplistic literal meaning in the original. He concludes:
"It is improper to construct a so-called modern or scientific
cosmology from the Biblical evidence; and it is also improper to try
to model one after Babylonian concepts. In that there is no
systematic exposition of a cosmology in the Bible, and in that the
Bible abounds with either popular expressions or poetic expressions,
it is not capable of a systematic construction with reference to a
cosmology. The best we can do is to (i) indicate the freedom of the
Bible from mythological polytheistic or grotesque cosmologies; (ii)
note the general hostility of the Bible to cosmologies which are
antitheistic; and (iii) clearly present the theocentric view of the
Bible towards Nature. It is typical of radical critics to play up the
similarity of anything Biblical with the Babylonian, and to omit the
profound differences or gloss over them. When the Biblical account is
set side by side with any other cosmology its purity, its chasteness,
its uniqueness, its theocentricity are immediately apparent." (Ramm,
p69).
Hope this has been of help.
God bless.
Stephen