Answering the Atheists: Sky Dome

Sky Dome

The Greek myth of Atlas implies the heavens are weighty. Some ancient works of literature, such as the Iliad, describe a flat earth. Homer tells his readers that the sun takes a nightly bath in the ocean:

"So he spoke, and Hera of the white arms gave him no answer. And now the shining light of the sun was dipped in the Ocean trailing black night across the grain-giving land." (Homer, Iliad, Book 8, 484-486).

That's flat-earthism. There is no such language in the Bible. Atheists nevertheless insist there is a structure described in the Bible, comprising a flat, disc-shaped earth surrounded by ocean, or maybe surrounded by mountains, or something, covered by a solid lid like an inverted soup tureen. The Jesus Seminar imagine they have seen it, or something like it: "The phrase 'outer darkness' refers to the region beyond the mountains at the ends of the [flat] earth, mountains that were thought to hold up the sky." (The Five Gospels, p. 256).

The atheists are sure it's in there. Trouble is, it can be maddeningly elusive to find any trace of a solid sky-dome in scripture. Bible authors seem unaware it's there: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." (Job 25:7). It can even seem annoyingly in the way: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." (Genesis 1:20). If 'firmament' is supposed to mean 'solid dome', how do the birds fly "in the open firmament of heaven"? Do they flip open little pet doors with their beaks? Where is it? Can it be found?

Ends of the Earth

But surely the phrase 'the ends of the earth' must call to mind a Christmas snow-globe, with disk-shaped earth slumbering beneath a hemispherical sky? Well, no. Do you know there are people living at the "ends of the earth" -- and do you know we, the Gentiles, are they? Far from being a cartoony construct bounding a little snow-globe earth, the "ends of the earth" are the farthest inhabited regions:

"For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth." (Acts 13:47);

"All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee." (Psalms 22:27).

The Bible presents a tri-partite world: sky, earth, and sea. By what are the "ends of the earth" bounded? By the nothingness outside the snow-globe, say the atheists. But isn't the sea, the boundary of the land, the limitation in view? Biblically, the sea is bounded by the land, the land by the sea:

"And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?" (Job 38:11).

"Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?" (Jeremiah 5:22).

The "ends of the earth" are the further shores, the uttermost coasts.

The phrase remains in common use today, for instance, "'The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,' Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said at a news conference. He vowed to 'go to the ends of the Earth to identify the subject or subjects who are responsible for this despicable crime.'" (Pressure cooker bombs suspected in Boston blast, by Jay Lindsay and Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press, April 17, 2013).

Likewise with the phrase 'four corners of the earth', still employed to this day in travel brochures. If it is supposed to refer to the edges of a square, flat earth, then why is the phrase still in use? Perhaps its origin lies in the four points of the compass rose, or perhaps from the still-common human habit of making rectangular maps of the earth. Isaiah used this idiom:

"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:12).

But wasn't there supposed to be a disk beneath this 'sky dome?' Do disks have corners? Can't the atheists make up their minds? There is so much variability in this supposed universal ancient world model that it can encompass anything at all.

The phrases the Bible uses to describe features of the world system are all observable features of the world. They are not cartoony snow-globe constructs no one has ever seen. One can point to them and say, 'there it is, there is one of them.' The "pillars of heaven" are the mountains. The 'deeps' are the ocean depths. People have walked through them: "He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness." (Psalm 106:9). Jonah, thrown overboard, found himself in 'the depth':

"For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head." (Jonah 2:3-5).

Pharaoh's forces were drowned in the 'depths': "Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone." (Exodus 15:4-5). Did Pharaoh's chariots and soldiers wander to some never-never fairy-land, or were they just covered up with water?

It's features of the Biblical world like 'the deep' which are the Lego building blocks of the atheists' 'sky dome' toy universe. Yet when we examine how the Bible itself actually employs these terms, we encounter only observable features of the world, naturalistically described.

Babylon

One novel feature atheists ascribe to their 'sky dome' is that he star are supposed to be little spangles stuck to the underside of this solid, metal 'sky dome'. But what pagan people ever believed that the stars were 'spangles'? This is not a pagan notion at all, nor an ancient one; the atheists have found it in their own creative imagination. Even the Babylonians, acclaimed by atheists as the paradigmatic 'sky-domers', didn't believe the stars were 'spangles.' Notice Gilgamesh call the stars the 'Watchmen': "...and command also the Watchmen of the Night, the stars, and at night your father, Sin [Moon]." (Gilgamesh, Tablet III, 57-58). If you 'watch,' you are sentient. Spangles are not sentient.

Pagans tended to deify the stars, rather than reduce them to sparkly little spangles hung on the underside of a sky dome: "Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is: neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the workmaster; But deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods which govern the world. With whose beauty if they being delighted took them to be gods; let them know how much better the Lord of them is: for the first author of beauty hath created them. But if they were astonished at their power and virtue, let them understand by them, how much mightier he is that made them." (Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-4).

One cannot avoid suspecting many of these 'sky-dome' elements arose when modern atheists tried to imagine what ancient people must have thought when they looked up at the sky. Little spangles attached to a solid dome are familiar to anyone who has attended a planetarium, but they are not likely to have occurred to the Babylonians, who thought about the stars in a very different way. The 'sky dome' theory as elucidated by the atheists is a materialistic theory. It reduces the heavenly bodies to little sparkly things. Certainly, materialistic theories were within reach of the ancients; the Pre-Socratic philosophers, for the most part, worked up their models of the universe on materialistic principles. But that approach proved controversial!

The Babylonians perceived heavenly bodies as exerting great influence on this world below. Changes in the heavens presage seasonal changes, and it was easy to think, then as now, 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc.' The stars and the planets were gods, not only to the Babylonians but to most pagans: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, not to mention the puissant sun and the mysterious moon. The relation between a god and the feature of the world that god embodied was complex. Some pagan theologians ridiculed those who identified 'Ceres,' for example, with the grain crop. People thank Ceres for the grain crop...but who would be so silly as to thank the grain crop for the grain crop! This is to confuse the gift with the giver, they argued. But it's undeniable that Neptune, if he isn't the sea plain and simple, is bound up with the sea. The relation of their respective planets to 'Venus' and 'Mars' was as more than a mascot, less than simple identity. The bare minimum to be looked for in a god is sentience, intelligence, and some measure of freedom. Oddly enough, Origen, though a Christian, still believed the heavenly bodies to be possessed of these goods. Little sparkly things pasted to the ceiling possess them not at all.

Exactly what structure of the heavens the Babylonians hypothesized is much better known to the atheists than to the historians of science, who are reticent. In fact, they have not been able to find any Bablyonian 'model of the universe,' and express perplexity over its absence:

"What seems to differentiate the Babylonians from the Greeks is that the former were primarily interested in using their observations to calibrate their religious calendar and to mine celestial events, such as star rising and eclipses, for their astrological significance. They seem to have adopted a 'black-box' approach to astronomy, being concerned primarily with visible phenomena, and to have paid little attention to formulating detailed systematic models of the mechanics that underlay what they could observe." (Nicholas Nicastro, 'Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe,' p. 30).

"Looking back at Babylonian astronomy from the twentieth century, one is struck by two things: the care with which the records were kept, and the mathematical brilliance of the predictive techniques...Although they were able to make forecasts of great accuracy, they did so in a way which did nothing to explain the events in question. Their work made eclipses, conjunctions, and retrogradations predictable, but it made them no more intelligible than before." (Stephen Toulmin, June Goodfield, 'The Fabric of the Heavens,' p. 41).

This is not really so surprising. What comes so easily to us: to imagine oneself an observer sitting outside the astronomy, and asking, what does the whole thing look like?-- is far from obvious, because we are inside, not outside. It was a great leap forward when the Pre-Socratics asked the question. Their answers, of course, were all different, which is the scandal of Pre-Socratic philosophy. Socrates zeroed in on their weak epistemology. The founders established completely different systems, and no one could prove one right, another wrong. The Greek scientists started at the top, asking not little questions, but propounding over-arching theories of everything. Like the popular modern theory of everything, Darwinism, these theories explain too much too easily ever to be disproved in the eyes of their admiring devotees. Better to propound theories that can be disproven.

The Pre-Socratics continued to attract disciples throughout classical antiquity, and were well positioned to prove Socrates wrong, if he was wrong. The Roman poet Lucretius wrote, in the first century B.C., an elegant verse treatment of Democritus' atomic theory. There was no disgrace in Democritus' advocacy of a flat earth in the fifth century B.C., but by the time Lucretius wrote, that idea was alarmingly retrograde, not even to mention his serious consideration of the 'new sun every morning' theory. No progress was possible; to be faithful to Democritus' atomism, Lucretius was obliged to ignore astronomical advances not achieved in-house. It's easy to accuse the later followers of calcifying their supple and adventurous predecessors, but these founders had left no method, thus no foundation upon which to build. Their enterprise stagnated owing to their inattention to epistemology. Socrates was right.

To hear the atheists tell it, the Jews learned 'sky dome' astronomy from the Babylonians. But the Babylonians, so far as is known to historians of science, had not even asked the question. The atheists allege they not only asked, but answered. It was a daring step the Pre-Socratic philosophers took, to make little models of universe, and say, 'See? That's everything there is. It looks like that.' Because that viewpoint comes so easily to us, we assume 'anyone can do it.' That the Babylonians even tried to do it is unknown to the historians of science. That the atheists know so much more than do the historians of science does not inspire confidence. And far from sitting eagerly at the feet of their imagined Babylonian instructors, the Jews could be at times downright critical:

"Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee." (Isaiah 47:13).

If they were such eager students of Babylonian astronomy, why reject astrology, not yet differentiated into a separate field? Not only were they far from uncritical, you almost pick up a hint at times they didn't even like the Babylonians: "O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:8-9).

Though some atheists assure us there's a point-by-point correspondence between the Babylonian world-view and the Bible, it can be maddeningly difficult to find any point of correspondence at all. The Babylonians told a detailed story of the construction of the universe, involving the dismemberment of a deceased lady's corpse. Tiamat, the primeval ocean goddess, was ripped in half, an atrocity of war: "He [Marduk] shot an arrow which pierced her belly, split her down the middle and slit her heart, vanquished her and extinguished her life. He threw down her corpse and stood on top of her." (The Epic of Creation Tablet IV). He then assembled the world as we know it from this lady's dismembered carcass: "He opened the Euphrates and the Tigris from her eyes, closed her nostrils,...He piled up clear-cut mountains from her udder, bored waterholes to drain off the catchwater." (Ibid.) Half of her goes to make the sky, half the earth. Though the text is fragmented, it would appear rain-clouds arise from the deceased lady's spittle: "The spittle of Tiamat...Marduk...He put into groups and made clouds scud. Raising winds, making rain, Making fog billow, by collecting her poison..." (Ibid.) By the way, where is our looked-for metallic 'sky-dome' with trap-doors? Did this lady have body parts made out of metal, like Robo-Cop?

Nor is there only one Babylonian creation myth, but multiple choice. Did the world we see result from the dismemberment of the primeval sea-goddess, Tiamat? Or from a plow breaking the ground: "At the very beginning (?) [Plough married Earth] And they [decided to establish (?)] a family (?) and dominion. 'We shall break up the virgin soil of the land into clods.' In the clods of their virgin soil (?), they created Sea." (Theogony of Dunnu). So in this Babylonian myth, 'Sea' is a creation of the primal progenitors Earth and Plough. There's yet another text which lists Anu the sky-god as creator, earth arising from sky. But the Babylonian creation myths do share one common theme: none mentions any metallic sky dome. Given the great variety of ideas expressed on these topics in antiquity, it can't be assumed there is any one paradigm which lies behind all ancient texts. Instead, proof is required. And this remains elusive...

Praise Him...you waters above the heavens!

Are there really lecture audiences gullible enough to sit there quietly while being told the Bible teaches angels use levers to open faucets in the sky? Will they also sit still to hear that the Bible teaches thunder and lightning are caused by angels bowling? The 'water-tank' proof-text is Genesis 7:11-12: "In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights."

So what could "windows of heaven" be but port-holes in a metallic sky dome, flung open to let out the rain, right? Well, no. We say the exact same thing when it starts to pour: 'Who opened the flood-gates?', etc. The Bible authors were perfectly well aware rain falls from clouds:

"And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel." (1 Kings 18:45);

"The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad." (Psalms 77:17);

"By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew." (Proverbs 3:20);

"If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." (Ecclesiastes 11:3);

"He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them." (Job 26:8);

"For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof: Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly." (Job 36:27-28).

The clouds are the heavenly water jars: "Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven..." (Job 38:37). If they knew anything about the theory that rain was supposed to fall through these little trap-doors in the 'sky dome', why did they ascribe rain to the clouds instead? No Bible author ever describes rain falling from a clear blue sky, yet that ought to be possible under the atheists' 'sky dome' theory.

The atheists assure us we cannot do without this 'dome' if we are to have waters above the sky. They envision something like a double-hulled super-tanker, water-logged within, with port-holes underneath letting out the water when it rains, or else something like a bathysphere suspended in a water-bath. Scripture does speak of waters above the sky: "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created." (Psalm 148:4-5). What are these waters above the sky? Bible-readers agree: it's the clouds!:

"Ge 1:7

"1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] {f} under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

(f) As the sea and rivers, from those waters that are in the clouds, which are upheld by God's power, least they should overwhelm the world." (Geneva Notes).

Is there water above the air? Yes! See those fluffy white things up there. Just look up!

"Moses describes the special use of this expanse, 'to divide the waters from the waters'...We see that the clouds suspended in the air, which threaten to fall upon our heads, yet leave us space to breathe...We know, indeed that the rain is naturally produced; but the deluge sufficiently shows how speedily we might be overwhelmed by the bursting of the clouds, unless the cataracts of heaven were closed by the hand of God. Nor does David rashly recount this among His miracles, that God 'layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,' (Ps. 104:31;) and he elsewhere calls upon the celestial waters to praise God, (Ps. 148:4.) Since, therefore, God has created the clouds, and assigned them a region above us, it ought not to be forgotten that they are restrained by the power of God, lest, gushing forth with sudden violence, they should swallow us up: and especially since no other barrier is opposed to them than the liquid and yielding, air, which would easily give way unless this word prevailed, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters.'" (John Calvin Commentaries).

Every scripture has a natural, literal meaning, beyond which any esoteric readings are to be looked for.  I don't mean to restrict anyone's freedom in finding esoteric senses to these texts, as some like to do, whether physical or spiritual, but scripture must yield meaning to the simple as well as to the subtle.

'Let there be a 'firmament', an 'expansion', so the Hebrew word signifies, like a sheet spread, or a curtain drawn out...The use and design of it -- to 'divide the waters from the waters', that is, to distinguish between the waters that are wrapped up in the clouds and those that cover the sea.  God has, in the firmament of his power, chambers, store-chambers, whence he 'watereth the earth'." (Matthew Henry Commentaries).

Atheists of the world, look up! There are oceans suspended in air above you!

"...Let there be a firmament -- An expansion; so the Hebrew word signifies...it reaches as high as the place where the stars are fixed, for that is called here the firmament of heaven, Ge 1:14,15, and as low as the place where the birds fly for that also is called the firmament of heaven, Ge 1:20...The design of it; to divide the waters from the waters -- That is, to distinguish between the waters that are wrapt up in the clouds, and those that cover the sea; the waters in the air, and those in the earth." (Wesley Notes).

Atheists of the world, look up! You have nothing to lose but your illusions!

The ancient agriculturalists lived poised on a knife-edge. Crop failure meant starvation. Growing plants need water; where is it to be found? To answer, 'In Never-Never Land, outside the pretty little Snow Globe,' offers neither comfort nor help. There are two great reservoirs available to the farmer, the waters bound up in the storm clouds above, and the waters below the ground. Those who think there is no such thing as the latter have never dug a well! For practical minded people, these two great oceans are a great blessing.

The waters above the sky are of typological significance in the Bible. God not only wrote the Bible, but made the things talked about there, and none is without meaning. Our world is an illustrative picture-book:

Language as She is Spoke

The Bible nowhere teaches that the earth is flat nor that it is covered by an inverted Revere-ware bowl, painted blue. Atheists will sometimes concede that it doesn't teach this: there is no deliberate presentation of any such doctrine. This in itself is odd given that atheists imagine such structures as the 'sky-dome' to be at the heart of the religious enterprise. But they go on to accuse, not any Bible author, but the Hebrew language of flat-earthism.

At this the reader must cry 'foul.' Though it is reasonable to expect a thoughtful writer to choose words carefully, which includes being mindful of their etymologies, it is not reasonable to expect any author, human or divine, to offer a warranty behind the origin each and every word of a language he or she consents to speak. No one ever makes this extravagant demand in any other context, so why is it justified here? Etymologies are always speculative; do you know the history of the English words you use, and will you stand behind them? Adam gave names to the animals, he did not learn their names from God. Gagging God in this way requires Him to introduce a divine Esperanto to His prophets before He can communicate with them, filled with newly coined words of immaculate descent. But how will He teach this new language to His prophets, without using words from the old? It's irrelevant anyway, because words mean what they are used to mean; etymology belongs to history.

The word 'firmament' is 'raqiya'. Atheists, going behind God's revelation to the vocabulary of the already existing human language He employed, claim that on its face this word propounds the 'sky-dome' theory. It means something beaten out, as into fine gold leaf. This is why the word is often translated 'expanse': "Then God said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." (Genesis 1:6 NASB). In Biblical meteorology, there is a lower ocean, the surface waters...and an upper ocean, the clouds: "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it..." (Job 38:8-9). God used this already existing word with clear meaning. If anyone asked, 'What is it?,' the speaker could point.

Nor is it reasonable arbitrarily to rule out otherwise available uses of language. Who propounded the rule that we can use simile and metaphor, but God cannot? One paramount 'dome' proof-text is Job 37:18: "Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?". But we find similar imagery in modern poets. Was Coleridge a flat-earther?: "All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner). What I think Coleridge meant by his "copper sky" is the shimmery, scintillating appearance of a blindingly hot day when it is almost hurtful to look at the bright, searing sky, even away from the sun itself. Poets signify this by visualizing the sky itself as a burnished reflector of highly polished metal: a "molten looking glass".

The Bible uses a range of descriptive imagery of the sky, including tents, curtains, fabric scrims, and garments:

"And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree." (Isaiah 34:4);

"Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:..." (Psalms 104:2);

"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish;but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." (Hebrews 1:10-12).

So are these 'competing theories': the 'scroll' theory, the 'curtain' theory, and the 'garment' theory? Or just mixed metaphors? None of the apocalyptic authors describe the banging and denting required to trash a metallic dome; had they imagined there to be any such structure, they would have been obliged to bring suitable means to bear to demolish it. Yet there's no mention of taking a wrecking ball to any solid 'sky dome'. Which is hardly surprising; probably they didn't even know it was there...which it isn't.

Flat Earth and the Ptolemaic System

Atheists allege that the early church writers believed in a flat earth. But some early church authors, like Clement of Alexandria and Origen, employ technical terminology of Ptolemaic astronomy...and the Ptolemaic system features a round earth.

Not only did Ptolemy think the earth was round, he had arguments for a round earth which are downright compelling:

"Now, that also the earth taken as a whole is sensibly spherical, we could most likely think out in this way. For again it is possible to see that the sun and moon and the other stars do not rise and set at the same time for every observer on the earth, but always earlier for those living towards the orient and later for those living towards the occident...And since the differences in the hours is found to be proportional to the distances between the places, one would reasonably suppose the surface of the earth spherical...Again, whenever we sail towards mountains or any high places from whatever angle and in whatever direction, we see their bulk little by little increasing as if they were arising from the sea, whereas before they seemed submerged because of the curvature of the water's surface." (Ptolemy, Almagest, I.4).

Ptolemy's astronomy was not pre-scientific; it had high predictive value. Those church writers who accepted it were doing no more than believing the best secular science of their day. There's certainly room for improvement, as Ptolemy's system is geocentric. But the flat earth of the atheists can't be found therein.

Ptolemy's originality is difficult to gauge, because works by his predecessors have been lost. Aristotle, who does not provide a detailed astronomy, does however describe the earth as spherical:

"Either then the earth is spherical or it is at least naturally spherical...The evidence of the senses further corroborates this. How else would eclipses of the moon show segments shaped as we see them? As it is, the shapes which the moon itself each month shows are of every kind straight, gibbous, and concave -- but in eclipses the outline is always curved: and, since it is the interposition of the earth that makes the eclipse, the form of this line will be caused by the form of the earth's surface, which is therefore spherical. Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only that the earth is circular, but also that it is a circle of no great size. For quite a small change of position to south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon. There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead, and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or southward. Indeed there are some stars seen in Egypt and in the neighborhood of Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions; and stars, which in the north are never beyond the range of observation, in those regions rise and set." (Aristotle, On the Heavens, Book II, Part 14).

I've provided a copy of Aristotle's On the Heavens in the Thriceholy library, in hopes of combating the persistent misperception that, prior to Copernicus, astronomers believed the earth was flat. The Ptolemaic system is geocentric -- it situates the earth at the center -- but the earth in that system is as round as in any other. Plato also describes a spherical world system:

"...and if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he would often, when standing at the antipodes of his former position, speak of the same point as above and below; for, as I was saying just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globe as having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man." (Plato, Timaeus, 63)

The heliocentric hypothesis was formulated in antiquity by, among others, Aristarchus of Samos: "His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun in the cirumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit. . ." (Archimedes, The Sand-Reckoner, p. 420, The World of Mathematics, Volume One, James R. Newman). The reasons why the early astronomers rejected the heliocentric hypothesis were not religious but physical. First, there was the lack of stellar parallax: "The earth, then, also, whether it move about the center or as stationary at it, must necessarily move with two motions. But if this were so, there would have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars. Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars always rise and set in the same parts of the earth. " (Aristotle, On the Heavens, Book II, Part 14).

Passengers on a train watch telephone poles change their configurations respective to one another as the train rolls through the countryside. If the earth is moving through space, why is there no observable change in the configuration of the stars? Ptolemy, too, notes the absence of observable stellar parallax: "...in all parts of the earth the sizes and angular distances of the stars at the same times appear everywhere equal and alike...By the same arguments...it can be shown that the earth can neither move in any one of the aforesaid oblique directions, nor ever change at all from its place at the center." (Ptolemy, Almagest I.6-7). Stellar parallax was not observed until the nineteenth century. This, thought Ptolemy, was observational proof against the earth orbiting the sun. To rebut this observational evidence, later astronomers hypothesized immense distance: but is that parsimonious?

What about rotation? If the earth rotates, the ancients wondered, why does a rock thrown upwards land directly beneath the point from which it was thrown? "...for us to grant these things [earth's rotation], they would have to admit that the earth's turning is the swiftest of absolutely all the movements about it because of its making so great a revolution in a short time, so that all those things that were not at rest on the earth would seem to have a movement contrary to it, and never would a cloud be seen to move toward the east nor anything else that flew or was thrown into the air. For the earth would always outstrip them in its eastward motion, so that all other bodies would seem to be left behind and to move towards the west." (Ptolemy, Almagest I.7).

Copernicus bravely meets these objections head on: "Moreover, freely falling bodies would not arrive at the places appointed them, and certainly not along the perpendicular line which they assume so quickly. And we would see clouds and other things floating in the air always borne toward the west. For these and similar reasons they say that the Earth remains at rest at the middle of the world and that there is no doubt about this." His answer: "And things are as when Aeneas said in Virgil: 'We sail out of the harbor, and the land and the cities move away.' As a matter of fact, when a ship floats on over a tranquil sea, all the things outside seem to the voyagers to be moving in a movement which is the image of their own, and they think on the contrary that they themselves and all the things with them are at rest." (Copernicus, Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, I.7-8). It took Galileo's genius to work out this 'ship' analogy in sufficient detail to quiet doubt. It was physics which lagged, not astronomy; no one in antiquity could explain how, on a moving earth, a projectile thrown directly upwards would land at a spot directly beneath where it was thrown.

While various conformations of the earth had been suggested by the earliest astronomers, Pliny reports no ongoing dispute:

"Of the Form of the Earth: Every one agrees that it has the most perfect figure. We always speak of the ball of the earth, and we admit it to be a globe bounded by the poles." (Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, 2.64).

There were nay-sayers in the early church on the subject of Ptolemaic astronomy, but the Ptolemaic system was generally popular, round earth and all. It would later come to be much beloved by scholastics like Thomas Aquinas. Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin were also fond of it. Galileo's conflict with Roman Catholic authorities over the moving earth of the Copernican system has come, by some confused channel whereby atheist polemic bleeds over into the 'history of science,' to be misunderstood as a dispute over whether the earth is flat or round. There was no such dispute; the scholastics describe a round earth.

The earliest Christian apologists quote with approval 'round earth' astronomy:

The third-century Christian author Arnobius, debunking the pagan deities, one of whom presided over the 'left hand,' explains why this deity is somewhat beside the point in our spherical world,

"For in the first place, indeed, the world itself has in itself neither right nor left neither upper nor under regions, neither fore nor after parts. For whatever is round, and bounded on every side by the circumference of a solid sphere, has no beginning, no end; where there is no end and beginning, no part can have its own name and form the beginning." (Arnobius, The Seven Books of Arnobius, Book 4, Section 5, p. 891 ECF 0.06).

Later writers offer similar thoughts, taking for granted the rotundity of the world:

“Ye have heard in the Psalm, 'I have seen the end of all perfection. He hath said, I have seen the end of all perfection: what had he seen? Think we, had he ascended to the peak of some very high and pointed mountain, and looked out thence and seen the compass of the earth, and the circles of the round world, and therefore said, 'I have seen the end of all perfection'?” (Augustine, Homily on First John 5:1-3, Ten Homilies on First John, Homily 10.5).

Though Augustine shares Lactantius' dislike for the antipodes, he concedes the rotundity of the earth:

“But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.” (Augustine, The City of God, Book 16, Chapter 9).

Contrarians

There are always those who zig while others zag. Such was Lactantius, a flat-earther of the fourth century:

"Seneca says that there was one among the Stoics who used to deliberate whether he should assign to the sun also its own inhabitants; he acted foolishly in doubting. For what injury would he have inflicted if he had assigned them? But I believe the heat deterred him, so as not to imperil so great a multitude; lest, if they should perish through excessive heat, so great a calamity should be said to have happened by his fault.

"How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? that the crops and trees grow downwards? that the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens are mentioned among the seven wonders of the world, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains? The origin of this error must also be set forth by us. For they are always deceived in the same manner. For when they have assumed anything false in the commencement of their investigations, led by the resemblance of the truth, they necessarily fall into those things which are its consequences. Thus they fall into many ridiculous things; because those things which are in agreement with false things, must themselves be false. But since they placed confidence in the first, they do not consider the character of those things which follow, but defend them in every way; whereas they ought to judge from those which follow, whether the first are true or false.

"What course of argument, therefore, led them to the idea of the antipodes? They saw the courses of the stars traveling towards the west; they saw that the sun and the moon always set towards the same quarter, and rise from the same. But since they did not perceive what contrivance regulated their courses, nor how they returned from the west to the east, but supposed that the heaven itself sloped downwards in every direction, which appearance it must present on account of its immense breadth, they thought that the world is round like a ball, and they fancied that the heaven revolves in accordance with the motion of the heavenly bodies; and thus that the stars and sun, when they have set, by the very rapidity of the motion of the world are born back to the east. Therefore they both constructed brazen orbs, as though after the figure of the world, and engraved upon them certain monstrous images, which they said were constellations. It followed, therefore, from this rotundity of the heaven, that the earth was enclosed in the midst of its curved surface. But if this were so, the earth also itself must be like a globe; for that could not possibly be anything but round, which was held enclosed by that which was round. But if the earth also were round, it must necessarily happen that it should present the same appearance to all parts of the heaven; that is, that it should raise aloft mountains, extend plains, and have level seas. And if this were so, that last consequence also followed, that there would be no part of the earth uninhabited by men and the other animals. Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes. But if you inquire from those who defend these marvelous fictions, why all things do not fall into that lower part of the heaven, they reply that such is the nature of things, that heavy bodies are born to the middle, and that they are all joined together towards the middle, as we see spokes in a wheel; but that the bodies which are light, as mist, smoke, and fire, are born away from the middle, so as to seek the heaven. I am at a loss what to say respecting those who, when they have once erred, consistently persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another; but that I sometimes imagine that they either discuss philosophy for the sake of a jest, or purposely and knowingly undertake to defend falsehoods, as if to exercise or display their talents on false subjects. But I should be able to prove by many arguments that it is impossible for the heaven to be lower than the earth, were is not that this book must now be concluded, and that some things still remain, which are more necessary for the present work. And since it is not the work of a single book to run over the errors of each individually, let it be sufficient to have enumerated a few, from which the nature of the others may be understood." (Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book III, Chapter XXXIII - XXXIV.)

Cosmas Indicopleustes described a flat-earth system, which he defended on empirical grounds based on his own experiences as a mariner:

Which of these two competing world views won the hearts and minds of Christendom? According to the atheists, Cosmas' flat-earth system prevailed. But surely the mere articulation of this view cannot suffice for proof that it overturned the established round earth consensus. Flat-earth cosmology is upheld in the present day by a society which ascribes the space program to Hollywood special effects. Yet no one takes this to demonstrate that people in the twenty-first century are flat-earthers! On the other hand, Cosmas was not alone in his view; the great sixth-century Christian physicist John Philoponos contended with flat-earthers:

"John Philoponos, the eccentric Christian professor at Alexandria, attacked the last pagans for believing that the Heavens were divine and imperishable -- and so anticipated Galileo in some of his arguments on the perishable, material nature of the stars: and he defended himself against 'fundamentalist' Christians by proving that the earth was round..." (Peter Brown, 'The World of Late Antiquity,' p. 177).

Cross and Globe

So who won the debate? One way of getting at the answer is to look at that familiar fixture of Christian iconography, the orb with cross stuck on top: