13:31–2) would have been more impressive had Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a redwood. To illustrate the problem, a critic once remarked that the parable of the mustard seed (Matt. However, although inspired by God, the biblical text had to offer an accommodation to human finitude. This is not to say that God could not have inspired an author to reveal that the Earth was a sphere. The Bible was written in a time and culture remote from ours, and biblical authors were limited in terms of what they could coherently express to their audience. The very fact that a case can only be made by inference speaks to contexts missing from the legend. Is a “flat-Earth Bible” anything more than a legend? Some critics admit that the case for a flat-Earth Bible is made by inference rather than by direct statements from the Bible. Johnson founded the International Flat Earth Research Society, which, until his death in 2001, promoted flat Earth beliefs as biblical. Rowbotham, author of Earth Not a Globe (1881). One proponent, a contemporary to Ingersoll, was Samuel B. There have been fringe Christian elements that have argued that the Bible teaches a flat Earth. It is not only critics of the Bible who maintain this legend. All standard Bible references, all standard mainstream non-fundamentalist Bible scholarship acknowledges this.” 3 Often tied in with mythic representations of Columbus seeking to prove that the Earth was not flat, or Galileo bravely suffering persecution because his findings contradicted the teachings of the church, the “flat-Earth Bible” has achieved the status of an urban legend. The American atheist Robert Ingersoll, in About the Holy Bible (1894), says of the Hebrews, “They thought the earth was flat, with four corners.” 2 The website of a modern-day freethinkers’ club says, “Many if not most people are unaware that the Bible teaches the earth is flat. Calling the Bible a flat-Earth book has been a staple of Bible critics for centuries. Schadewald is not alone in this declaration. Robert Schadewald (1943–2000), former president of National Center for Science Education 1 “The Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, a flat-earth book.” For further information or to subscribe to the C HRISTIAN R ESEARCH J OURNAL go to: The full text of this article in PDF format can be obtained by clicking here. This article first appeared in the C HRISTIAN R ESEARCH J OURNAL, volume 36, number 03 (2013).
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