Did Jesus think that the world was flat?

[TimWillTell]

[yukoncpa]

There is some story in the New Testament suggestive that the earth is flat. The Devil takes Jesus to a very high place so that Jesus can see all the lands on the earth. But clearly this is just metaphor, since by Jesus’s time, the Greeks had already proven the earth spherical and the writers of the NT would have been well aware of the shape of the earth.

edit - Washington Irving's fairy tale historical account of Colombus's ignorance aside.

[Dale Dough]

Just had a curious thought.. just now connected the dots together re: implications of Greeks knowing the earth is spherical.

I believe the Greeks even went so far as to estimate the curvature of the earth. Something with measuring angles/sizes of shadows at various places.

In that case, they, and eventually through them Romans, must have known that they only knew about a relatively small part of the Earth's landmass. Nevertheless, they drew maps of the known world, which was bordered by 'the underworld' (often referred to as Hades - not sure but I don't think they called it Hades, there was a different term. Hades was their god of the underworld).

In any case, why hasn't either culture been known to explore farther? As far as I know, Romans 'only' crossed the Mediterranean, and into Britain. Why didn't they at least sail further down the coast of Africa?

[PairTheBoard]

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In any case, why hasn't either culture been known to explore farther? As far as I know, Romans 'only' crossed the Mediterranean, and into Britain. Why didn't they at least sail further down the coast of Africa?


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I think they had lousy ships for one thing. They probably also didn't have a big incentive.

PairTheBoard

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
Just had a curious thought.. just now connected the dots together re: implications of Greeks knowing the earth is spherical.

I believe the Greeks even went so far as to estimate the curvature of the earth. Something with measuring angles/sizes of shadows at various places.

In that case, they, and eventually through them Romans, must have known that they only knew about a relatively small part of the Earth's landmass. Nevertheless, they drew maps of the known world, which was bordered by 'the underworld' (often referred to as Hades - not sure but I don't think they called it Hades, there was a different term. Hades was their god of the underworld).

In any case, why hasn't either culture been known to explore farther? As far as I know, Romans 'only' crossed the Mediterranean, and into Britain. Why didn't they at least sail further down the coast of Africa?

Edited by Dale Dough (05/18/07 05:24 PM)



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Can’t answer for the Romans, but Alexander went as far as India. He went so far, that the map that Aristotle penned for him was completely inaccurate. Alexander wanted to go further into China, but his soldiers, who had been away from home for a very long time and were already wealthy, nearly revolted. The wealth in China was uncertain, whereas the wealth in already conquered areas was certain and lucrative.

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
Just had a curious thought.. just now connected the dots together re: implications of Greeks knowing the earth is spherical.

I believe the Greeks even went so far as to estimate the curvature of the earth. Something with measuring angles/sizes of shadows at various places.

In that case, they, and eventually through them Romans, must have known that they only knew about a relatively small part of the Earth's landmass. Nevertheless, they drew maps of the known world, which was bordered by 'the underworld' (often referred to as Hades - not sure but I don't think they called it Hades, there was a different term. Hades was their god of the underworld).

In any case, why hasn't either culture been known to explore farther? As far as I know, Romans 'only' crossed the Mediterranean, and into Britain. Why didn't they at least sail further down the coast of Africa?

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not an expert in the ancient world, but I can put together part of the story. The answer about bad ships is partially true. No one in the ancient world had ocean-going ships, they did have pretty good coastal ships however. So you pretty much stayed within sight of land, unless you knew it was a quick trip to where you would see land again, like a quick jump across the Med. But no one usually ventured too far from land voluntarily.

So, why not head down the African coast? There are actually some stories that the Phoenicians circumnaviaged Africa around 600 BC, which some scholars accept as plausible, and others don't. There's also genetic and cultural evidence that Jewish traders did get pretty far down the African coast and into Asia in ancient times, but all of these were pretty unusual feats, at least we think they were. There is some evidence the Romans knew of a vast empire to the east and the Chinese of a vast empire to the west, but they really didn't make much contact with each other.

For a reason why, just think of the ancient world. The only way to get most places was to walk, or if you were lucky, by horse. If you ventured outside your home territory, good luck, you'd probably be killed pretty quickly by whatever uncivilized tribe you happened to run across. And even if you managed to get lucky and survive, the world, even just the known ancient world, is a really big place to get around by foot or horse. By boat, you'd have to have the ability to keep the boat repaired or you'd be stranded, and outside of known civilization, there weren't many places to be able to do that. One storm rips your sails apart, and you'd be stuck wherever it is you'd managed to get to, with no chance of ever getting home. No doubt many did try it, but were left stranded, so any successful stories became legend, and the failures who never returned a cautionary tale not to venture too far from home.

As far as the Roman view of the world, they pretty much knew about Europe, Asia, and Africa and that they were surrounded by what they called "Ocean". Even if they didn't know exactly how far those lands stretched and the details of the outer limits, if you look at a globe, you can see this worldview is actually pretty accurate, so they certainly were aware that something was out there, it was just too dangerous to explore it much. Given how much of it they conquered and the fact that no one has really duplicated it, you really can't blame them for not going further, they had quite a bit to occupy them in what they did know about.

[twonine29]

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Jesus knows the whole universe is flat

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[Prodigy54321]

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In any case, why hasn't either culture been known to explore farther? As far as I know, Romans 'only' crossed the Mediterranean, and into Britain. Why didn't they at least sail further down the coast of Africa?


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I think they had lousy ships for one thing. They probably also didn't have a big incentive.

PairTheBoard

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I believe the north west coast of africa has very rough seas..not sure if ships of that time were up to them..and as someone else mentioned..even if they were, there is not necessarily incentive...if I remember correctly, a World History professor of mine talked about these things being at least part of what left africa so isolated, other than the north coast of course..and that was large isolated from the rest by the Sahara...

as a matter of fact, I believe that most contact with southern africa came by the east..across the indian ocean