Ok, this article says that Talmudic scholars held one of four views:
1) The earth is flat and is resting on some sort of foundation.
2) The earth is flat but is floating in the air or nothingness.
3) The earth is round but its "bottom" half is immersed in water.
4) The earth is round and both sides are inhabitable.
The scholar quoted as supporting the fourth view is R' Yonah. Your article states: "R' Yonah quotes a Greek legend and accepted the fact that the earth is round. The seas, however, are flat according to R' Yonah, similar to the water in a bowl that flattens out on top despite the roundness of the bowl. This would be the fourth view we mentioned above."
A bowl-like earth with flat seas seems far from the globaularist views of Aquinas and later scholars. This article does not show that ancient Hebrews realized the world was round, it only shows that there was disagreement amongst Talmudic scholars over which (incorrect as it truns out) view of the world was best.
| The reason for promoting both the specific lie about the sphericity of the earth and the general lie that religion and science are in natural and eternal conflict in Western society, is to defend Darwinism. The answer is really only slightly more complicated than that bald statement. The flat-earth lie was ammunition against the creationists. The argument was simple and powerful, if not elegant: "Look how stupid these Christians are. They are always getting in the way of science and progress. These people who deny evolution today are exactly the same sort of people as those idiots who for at least a thousand years denied that the earth was round. How stupid can you get?" |