Timothy Birdnow

In a discussion about the myth that people thought the world was flat before Columbus, it was pointed out that the Book of Isaiah mentions the Earth being a circle that sits on nothing.

I chimed in:

The Book of Isaiah was written between 700 and 740 B.C. The Greeks came up with this idea of a round Earth around 500 B.C. so the ancient Hebrews knew of it for two hundred years prior. The Greeks quite possibly got the idea from the Hebrews (with whom they had some contact. The Phillisstines were probably cousins of the Greeks.) There has been a persistant belief that people thought the world was flat until Columbus. That is not true. If you look at the Medieval Globus Cruciger it is a cross on top of a globe - and dates back to the Middle Ages, and that was borrowed from a pagan symbol in the old Roman Empire dating back to the fourth century. As for Columbus, the argument wasn't that the world was flat and Columbus said it was round, but rather the size of the world, which Columbus mistakenly estimated at about half the size it actually is, in contradiction to the scholars of the time. Nobody thought you could make so long a sea voyage as would be necesary. The idea that Columbus argued the world was round was a lie invented by an atheist named Jean Antoine Letronne who put it into a school textbook during the 19th century to make the old Christian world appear superstitious and dim-witted. It worked.He was using a rather vague statement made by the writer Washington Irving to justify the claim. It has becomme one of the most enduring myths of the last few centuries. .

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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