It was the atheist scientists that believed in the so-called steady-state universe that always existed, so that actually points away from God (take note of some of the scientists involved here). Red shift is still a real phenomenon, showing an expanding universe and disproving the ideas of the atheists; and it was Georges LeMaître, the Catholic theologian, that came up with what is today called the Big Bang theory and not the atheists.
If the Universe always existed, then were once again pointing to God.
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 inThat one verse describes a spherical earth and the expanding universe. Of course, skeptics try to say that Hebrew חוּג (chug) can only mean circle and never sphere, but their proof is tenuous, trying to cite the word דּוּר (dur, translated ball in Isaiah 22:18 and appearing only in this verse) as the only word that can mean sphere even though Strongs indicates that it means either circle, ball or pile; and does not negate the other word meaning sphere at all.
Isaiah 40:22
What do we know about God (one’s particular theology aside)? The defining characteristics of God would be eternality and infinity. (i.e. God would be infinite and eternal.)
So a Universe that has always existed (and has no boundary) points directly to God.
To say that the Big Bang never occurred is not to say that the Universe hasn’t changed and evolved over time.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. (T.S. Eliot)
Red shift theory is precisely the problem with Big Bang cosmology.
Astrophysicist Halton Arp has written excellent books about this.
In a nutshell, the assumption that red shift relates totally to relative velocity has been refuted. This in turn refutes the whole cosmology of the 20th century, including Big Bang, Dark Matter etc.
For that matter, Dark Matter was essentially refuted by the famous Higgs boson experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. These experiments covered the energy ranges where evidence of Dark Matter was expected by theory, and NOTHING WAS FOUND.
Of course, this is not a headline, because it collapses the whole edifice of Big Bang cosmology.
For those who may not know: Dark Matter is nothing but a FUDGE FACTOR to make the General Relativistic equations comply with the ASSUMED BIG BANG Universe.
Physics is in for a MAJOR EMBARRASSMENT, sooner or later, over the whole BIG BANG FIASCO.
Thanks for that discussion on this verse.
Most translations say, as here, "circle of the earth", but not all: