Introduction

There are a lot of articles that I’ve written, on and off, since 2002. Some I had a lot of fun writing and others that were difficult because of the subject content.

This particular article is one that I wish I didn’t have to write; primarily because the subject is ridiculous in nature, but it has been running rampant in the social media realm for the last ten years or so.

The only reason that I’m even giving this subject notoriety in my collection of bible articles is that there are people actually using bible verses to prove that the earth is, indeed, flat.

Definition of Flat Earth

To begin, let’s look at the definition of the phrase flat earth. I chose Wikipedia as every flat earth video, whether it’s in favor of or against it, is fact-checked with this particular entry.

Wikipedia— Flat Earth is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of the Earth’s shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography, notably including ancient near eastern cosmology. The model has undergone a recent resurgence as a conspiracy theory.

There are a lot of examples that I can give concerning what the Flat Earthers believe, but I’d be losing the point of this article. So, at the end of this article, I’ll be posting a few channels that you can view to get an idea of what they believe and why they are debunked.

Flat Earth Bible Proof Text

There are many so-called proof texts from scripture that they use to claim that the earth is flat and stationary. But, for this article, I’ll use the basic one. If you’re interested in the others, feel free to comment on this post and I’ll share them.

Ball vs. Circle

Isa. 22:18, He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord’s house. (KJV)

Isa. 40:22, It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. (KJV)

Here you see two different verses using two different words. The idea is to show that since “circle” is used in Isa. 40:22, it proves that the earth is flat.

Before we draw any conclusion, we first must realize that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and then, later, translated into English. So, we will turn to Gesenius’ Hebrew Caldee Lexicon of the Old Testament. You can purchase a copy of this or you can find the website called, Blue Letter Bible and click on Tools to access it.

The phrase, “a ball” has the Strong’s Concordance number of H1754 (The lexicon uses Strong’s numbering system) and the Hebrew word is dûr which means, “a ball”. You can’t get any simpler than that.

Now let’s move to the other verse, the one used by Flat Earthers to prove that the earth is a flat circle. The phrase, “the circle” has a Strong’s Concordance number of H2329. The Hebrew word, used here, is ḥûḡ and, according to the lexicon, it means “a circle, sphere”.

The word these people are looking for, to mean circle (according to their desired definition), is the Hebrew word, sāḇaḇ. This word is found in Joshua 6:11, So the ark of the LORD compassed the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp. (KJV) This is the story of the defeat of Jericho when the Israelites were told to circle the city once each day for 6 days and then seven on the 7^th day.

Conclusion

As you can plainly see, the bible describes the earth as a sphere and not a flat circle. This not only refutes the notion of Flat Earth but also serves as a warning to those who read the scriptures. Make sure you study them, especially the original language, before you make claims about what the bible says and doesn’t say.

As the apostle Peter wrote, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:16)

Flat Earth Debunking Channels

Here are just a few channels, which I follow, that have been debunking Flat Earth, and other concepts, for the last 6 years or more…

Conspiracy Toonz

Dave McKeegan

Creaky Blinder

The Final Experiment