TL;DR

So, if you believe that the scriptures are perfectly true, as it says in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” then you are obligated, by the authority of the Apostle Peter, to believe the literal Genesis account of creation. For Peter warns about the end times:

2 Peter 3:3-6

First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying,

“Where is the promise of his coming?
For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!”

They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished.

Thus, the Earth—which in reality is approximately 0.02% water by mass, and about 32% iron, 30% oxygen (mostly bound in rock), 15% silicon, and 14% magnesium—was made out of water.

And this is literally what the Genesis account describes:

Genesis 1:6-7

And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome.
And it was so.

After this, the dry land was made to appear:

Genesis 1:9-10

And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.”
And it was so.
God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas.

This understanding is consistent with other passages. There are references to storehouses of snow and hail, ready to be flung down by Yahweh:

Job 38:22–23

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or
have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

Storehouses of wind:

Jeremiah 49:36

I will bring upon Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven,
and I will scatter them to all those winds.

And a flat-Earth cosmology:

Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

If you are passing laws restricting the rights of others based on your interpretation of your scriptures, and if you are imposing your religion on others because your book is inerrant, and if you are enforcing your views on sexuality, gender, and family as divine mandates, then I expect you to be consistent—and finally acknowledge that the Earth is flat. Consequently, if you hold to biblical inerrancy in its strictest sense to the point of imposing it on others, then you must also accept that the Earth is flat and was originally formed out of water. And you should be willing to proudly proclaim this alongside your claims to morality and justice. Of course, few people today believe this—yet your Apostle Peter prophesied exactly that. So, will you be among the faithful who believe in a flat Earth, or among the scoffers he warned about?

Indeed, personally, I am one of those scoffers. Not only do I believe that the Earth is a spheroid, but also that it formed from an accretion disk—the remnant of a previous supernova—which itself emerged from the cosmic aftermath of the Big Bang. What caused the Big Bang? I’m happy to say: I don't know. But rather than inventing or imagining an answer, I advocate for further research, and hope that a future generation might produce a model supported by sufficient evidence, perhaps even a theory of everything. As the Earth cooled, the water near the surface eventually condensed to form oceans. Life emerged—simple at first, then gradually more complex—driven by evolution through natural selection. We are the descendants of a common cellular ancestor, and genetically, we are most closely related to chimpanzees and bonobos. I find this reality humbling, and beautiful.

At the same time, I will continue to scoff: Jesus said that some would still be alive when he returned:

Matthew 16:28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Paul said the same:

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

And before either of them, John the Baptist proclaimed that the kingdom was imminent:

Matthew 3:2 Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

So yes, I will fulfill Peter's prophecy and scoff: it has been roughly a hundred generations since these three uttered those words, and still nothing has come—nor will it. I will gladly ignore the flat-Earth cosmology of an Iron Age culture and instead place my trust in science, reason, and human effort. I will trust in reason and social justice to guide the development of a system that strives to be fair to all—one where laws are shaped by considerations of secular humanism, utilitarianism, felicific calculus, and the principles of fairness and justice proposed by researchers such as John Rawls, and the informed deliberation of jurists, ethicists, and researchers—not by lay interpretations of a two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old manual written to control the peasants of Judah for the benefit of kings, aristocrats and priests. I find more beauty in the elegance of physics — in the way differential heating drives the winds and the water cycle, in how rain falls and hail forms through freezing layers in the atmosphere — than in worrying whether my neighbor’s bedroom choices might provoke Yahweh to hurl hailstones or lightning from the heavens in a fit of anger and vengeance, with my home reduced to collateral damage. Rather than hoping and longing for a divine cataclysm marked by hatred, death and fury, fire and brimstone—all in the name of “cleansing” the earth—I choose to invest in making this world better, and not eagerly waiting for it to burn.

The Earth is flat

If you do not believe in evolution by natural selection and common ancestry because a book says so (making you feel special),

why do you not also believe the Earth is flat; after all, that same book says so (and, consequentially, make you feel even more special)?

After all, if you are being intellectually honest, and you believe that humans and animals were created, because a book says so,

then you should also accept that the Earth is flat, because that same book says so.

Most reasonable people, upon examining the evidence, understand that the best explanation for our local physical reality is that the Earth is a sphere, that orbits a spherical Sun, and that large celestial bodies are spherical specifically due the effects of gravity. They will also understand that common ancestry and evolution by natural selection are the best explanations for the diversity of life on this planet. Others, who believe that a collection of sixty-six books written over approximately one thousand years by various authors from various cultures somehow managed to embody in their writings many, if not all, eternal truths, and no evidence to the contrary can shake the foundation of this belief. After all, in the very first book of that collection, it says that

the watery Earth was created first,
followed by a splitting of those waters,
followed by day and night,
followed by dry land,
followed by the plants,
then the Sun and the Moon, and
then, after fish and birds came the terrestrial animals, after which the first male human was created.

While apparently creating male and females of most fish, birds and terrestrial animals, that all-knowing creator didn't create a female human until after he (an all-knowing being) "realized" this man needed a companion, and then did so by extracting a rib from that first male human. This narrative emphasizes not only that humans are distinct from all other animals (we, unlike all other creatures, were created in the "image" of this Yahweh, who, so it seems, has male genitalia), that women are subordinate to men (having been created solely for companionship), but also, apparently, a geocentric universe. What is interesting is that so few of these, even the hard-core fundamentalists, believe that the Earth is flat, or the Earth is in the center of the universe; however, many of those same believers claim that we cannot be descendant from a common ancestor with Chimpanzees, and, further back, from a common ancestor of plants and amoebas.

The Earth is a sphere, and there is so much evidence for this that it should seem irrefutable, and yet, there are still a non-trivial number of people today who believe the Earth is flat. When, ten thousand years ago, there was no evidence to suggest the Earth is anything other than flat, it would be reasonable to believe the Earth is flat, as that is the local linear approximation of the slight curvature of the Earth's surface; however, over the centuries, the evidence became so overwhelming that even the Catholic Church understood and taught that the Earth was a sphere. The evidence that the Earth was a sphere was discovered centuries before Jesus was born; for example,

Aristotle, living in the fourth century before Jesus, observed or became aware that the constellations that were visible differed depending on where the observer was, and based on this observation, the best model he and his peers could come up with that could explain these differences was that the Earth was a sphere. The observation inspired the model that appeared to fit the evidence.
Another observation made by Aristotle et al. was the shadows that appear on the Moon during a total or partial lunar eclipse could best be explained by a spherical Earth. Thus, we have two lines of evidence that support this model.
In the third century before the common era Eratosthenes 0bserved that that in Scene, the Sun shown directly down a well shaft on the day of the Summer Solstice. This is because Syene was located very close to the Tropic of Cancer. Further north, in Alexandria, the Sun never shone directly down any well, and only ever lit the northern wall of a well even on the Summer Solstice. The steepest angle achieved by the sun was slightly more than seven degrees (7° 6½') from the vertical, and thus, with knowledge of the distance between the two cities, one can even approximate the circumference 0f the Earth under the assumption the Earth was a sphere. The north-south distance between the two cities is approximately 490 miles or 789 km. This was further evidence that supported the spherical Earth model.
Another line of evidence, the origins of which seem to be lost in time, is that when a sailing ship left port, the body of the ship would disappear below the horizon, while the masts would still be visible. Additionally, an observer who is standing on the beach would lose sight of the sailing ship while the same ship would continue to be visible to an observer on a nearby hill or cliff. Such observations can be explained by, and even predicted by, a spherical model of the Earth.

The beautiful consequence of an actual model is that not only can new observations be confirmed against a model (how often have we heard that Einstein's theory of general relative has once again been shown to be correct--or, more correctly, not shown to be wrong--when new observations are made) but even better, we can look at the model and come up with tests that should either confirm the model, or prove the model is insufficient (here is an example of a recent rigorous test of Einstein's theory of general relativity). At this point, the number of observations and tests made to confirm the spherical Earth model have been so overwhelming that the vast majority of humans just take it as given: globes are everywhere, much to the chagrin of true-believing flat-Earthers. The small minority of humans who cling on to the claim of a flat Earth, however, do not even have a model that supports any of the observations we have made: there is no flat Earth model that

successfully predicts which constellations will be visible where,
explains the shadows on the Moon during a lunar eclipse,
explains what the angle of sunlight should be at any location on Earth on the summer Solstice,
explains why ships disappear under the horizon when they should still be visible, and
explains what so many astronauts and cosmonauts have seen with their own eyes in the last half century.

The few remaining refuges of such true believers include

simple repetition of the claim that the Earth is flat,
misinterpretations and misrepresentations of actual observations and science,
bogus experiments and keeping data secret,
outright lies and denialism,
claims of world-wide conspiracies, and
claims of Biblical inerrancy.

Given the apparent fierce competition between the "godless" Soviet Union and the "god-fearing" United States, each allegedly wanting to win the race to the Moon, this must have all been a massive façade, for both sent cosmonauts and astronauts, respectively, into outer space, and neither side ever claimed that the other side was "making it all up." The only possible explanation if the Earth was actually flat, is that the leaders of both sides were under the control of Satan, or some other nefarious demon. Also, if only one flat Earther created an actual model of a flat Earth that could

compart with all known observations of the Earth, and
make a prediction that quantitatively differs from the spherical Earth model that can then be tested,

then if that prediction is tested and shown to favor the flat Earth model, then all who see that evidence would have to agree that the Earth is flat. However, until then, the spherical Earth casting shadows on a spherical Moon during a lunar eclipse is the best explanation for the shadows we see, and no flat-Earther has ever presented even one model that successfully describes this observation.

Most early Christians, including Augustine of Hippo, stated clearly that it was "scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form." There are a few hold outs, but the general consensus was that the Earth was a sphere. One who opposed the concept of a spherical Earth was Lactantius who lived around 300 CE, who ridiculed the idea that the Earth was a sphere, and throughout history there have been others, as well, but they were few and isolated. The understanding that the Earth was a sphere was only supported with the voyage of Christopher Columbus, and there was no general belief that at some point his ships would fall off the ends of the Earth: they were expecting to reach "India", and when Columbus reached the islands of the Caribbean , he named them the "West Indies" specifically because he believed he had reached India via a western route.

For a long time, however, the general consensus within Christianity was that the Earth was at the center of the universe: stars were but points of light in the sky, and not other suns. The need for the Earth to be at the center of the universe likely comes from Genesis, which states that the Earth was formed first, and that only later did the Sun, the Moon and the stars (and planets) appear. It would be awkward if the Earth was created first, but then subsequently was found to be revolving around the Sun:

At first, Copernicus observed the weaknesses of the geocentric models of the universe and developed a model where the planets, including the Earth, circled the Sun, and he described these elliptical orbits mathematically. This heliocentric model led to significantly better predictions than did the next-best geocentric models using epicycles.
Later, based especially on observations made with the invention of the telescope, Galileo Galilei found further evidence to support the heliocentric model of the universe: the Earth revolved around the Sun, and yet, egocentricity and absence of evidence to the contrary obligated him to place the Sun at the center of the universe.

Copernicus kept his writings secret, and Galileo was found guilty of heresy. Imagine what would have happened had Galileo even suggested or, perhaps worse, found evidence that the Sun itself was not at the center of the universe? Interestingly, Galileo's telescopes presented further evidence that the Earth was a sphere, for all of the planets he was able to observe, first appearing as points of light, were now seen to also be spheres.

However, in parallel with the growing acceptance of the theory of evolution by natural selection by the scientific and liberally-minded enlightened, the mid and late 1800s saw the introduction of the ideas of biblical literalism and inerrancy. These were aspects of the beliefs of fundamentalists who opposed the more broad-minded beliefs of more knowledgeable scholars of the time. Together with fundamentalism grew another belief, popularized by individuals such as Samuel Rowbotham who wrote Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe. The issue today is that not that a significant proportion of people who believe the Earth is flat are Christians, but rather that many who would reject common descent and evolution by natural selection as these do not comport with scripture, never-the-less reject the Biblically supported concept of a flat Earth. There are motivating factors for both who reject a spherical Earth and creation of animals and humans, especially around ego and belief, but most importantly, they find their beliefs are supported by religious scripture. With respect to the ego, under our current understanding, if the Earth was the size of a poppy seed (a 1 mm diameter sphere), the Milky Way Galaxy would comfortably fit inside the orbit of Venus. If the Milky Way Galaxy was the size of a flattened poppy seed (a 1 mm diameter disk), the visible universe would be a sphere approximately one kilometer in diameter. We are very insignificant, indeed. Alternatively, there are--of course--emotional reasons for wanting to believe the Earth is flat:

The Earth appears flat locally. This is because the curvature is so small that one can hardly detect the curvature.
Making the Earth flat makes us special again: we are the center of the universe. We are once again significant.

While many ancient Greek philosophers and early Christian leaders believed the Earth was a sphere, this does not mean that the source of this knowledge was scripture. This belief was adopted by early Christians because of the preponderance of evidence supporting such models. We have previously described how observations and models proposed by Greek philosophers led to this conclusion, and all evidence subsequently found continue to support this model. We will consider a few models of the universe, and then determine which model is best described by those few verses that could be used to describe the Earth.

We will refer to four models that do not accept that the Earth is just one small dot in the universe:

the flat-Earth model,
the central-fire model where an unseen central fire is at the center of the universe,
the geocentric model where the Earth is a sphere at the center of the universe, and
the heliocentric model where the Sun is at the center of the universe.

In the second, third and fourth models, the Sun, planets and moons are generally assumed to be embedded in spheres.

Now, some claim that there are statements in the Judean or Christian scriptures that support that the Earth is a sphere, and to be fair, there are no scriptures that explicitly state that the Earth is flat. However, we will walk through many passages both in the Judean and Christian scriptures that can really only be reasonably interpreted as describing the model of the universe described in Genesis 1: a flat Earth. There was no need to explicitly state the Earth was flat, as that was the default assumption, and above that flat Earth was a dome, and above that dome were the "waters above." Only by special pleading is it possible to interpret very specific verses as describing a spherical Earth, but one point is certain: no scripture describes an explicit spherical Earth, and the Yahweh who was inspiring those authors at the time knew at that time that we would be scrutinizing the text he is inspiring, and yet, he chose explicitly to never inspire even one author to use a word like sphere or ball to describe the Earth.

We will proceed to look at many passages that describe:

the Earth,
the Sun, Moon and stars, and
the four winds.

In each case, we will see that the descriptions are in closer alignment with a flat Earth than they are with a spherical Earth, and more specifically, if the observations and descriptions align with the description of the Earth that is created in Genesis 1.

The Earth

Genesis 1:1-2 When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

This supports a geocentric model: the Earth is the first object to be created, and thus we may infer that the Earth is at the center of the universe. There is no suggestion that the Earth is flat, for at this point, there is only water; the primordial state in both Judean and Babylonian myths.

Genesis 1:3-5 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

This harkens back to the central-fire model, but now the source of light and heat is not at the center of the universe, but rather it is something that causes day and night. You will note that there is as of yet no Sun or Moon; indeed, there is day and night before there is even an atmosphere.

Genesis 1:6-8 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Thus, we now have waters below and waters above. Perhaps this is where the authors believed rain came from: not from the water cycle of evaporation, condensation and precipitation, but rather water that falls from a dome above. In this case, rain is the result not of weather, but rather, the deliberate choice of that which controls the release of the "waters above" through this dome.

This parallels the Babylonian creation myth where Tiamat, the goddess of the sea, is split in half by Marduk who would become the patron saint of Babylon (the Gate of the Gods). Marduk fashioned the ribs of Tiamat to create a vault of Heaven and Earth. Similarly, Genesis 1 describes a splitting of waters and the creation of a dome that is called the sky. Based on the text and on its relationship to the Babylonian myth, this supports a flat Earth model. The alternative would be to have a sphere of water below and a sphere above the atmosphere above which is also nothing more than water. Nothing close to this is described in the text.

Sadly, some Christian apologists even posit that there was, prior to the flood, a ceiling of ice over the Earth. This is necessary to allow one to simultaneously accept that the Earth is a sphere while still having a "firmament" above the Earth. However, Christians are obligated to believe that the Earth was made from water:

2 Peter 3:3-6 First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished.

Now, consider the original translation of the Hebrew word רָקִיעַ (rāqîaʿ). In the Greek Septuagint, it was rendered as στερέωμα (stereōma), meaning a solid structure or firmness. The Latin Vulgate translated it as firmamentum, again implying solidity—and it is from this word that the King James Version derives its term firmament.

The New Revised Standard Version uses the word "dome," which aligns with the ancient understanding of a solid structure holding up the "waters above." This concept is consistent with the cosmologies of ancient Mesopotamia and the Levant.

However, this ancient view stands in direct contradiction to modern cosmology. As a result, fundamentalists—who feel compelled to treat every word of Scripture as scientifically accurate—often go to great lengths to reconcile these differences. Some of the more extreme (and fortunately rare) interpretations include claims that a literal ice dome once existed at creation, which later melted during a worldwide flood—thus explaining its current absence.

A subtler, yet still misleading, tactic is to mistranslate the word altogether. Some modern fundamentalist translations render rāqîaʿ as "expanse," a term vague enough to suggest something like the atmosphere rather than a solid dome. This is a classic example of eisegesis—imposing modern ideas onto an ancient text—rather than exegesis, which seeks to understand the original intent of the author.

The Hebrew word רָקַע (rāqaʿ) means to beat out, hammer, or stamp—as one would hammer metal into a thin sheet. It is from this image that some fundamentalist translators derive the word "expanse," arguing that metal, when hammered out, is "expanded." But arriving at such a translation requires a leap of logic—if not a leap of faith. The term rāqîaʿ, derived from this root, literally refers to something that has been spread out or hammered flat, much like a beaten sheet of metal. Its ancient usage implies a solid structure.

Let’s examine where this word and related terms appear in the Tanakh:

1. רָקַע (rāqaʿ) meaning to beat, stamp, spread out, or hammer. Exodus 39:3 "They hammered out gold leaf...", Numbers 16:39 "So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers...and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar." 2 Samuel 22:43 "I beat them fine like the dust of the earth; I crushed them and stamped them down like the mire of the streets." Job 37:18 "Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?" Psalm 136:6 "who spread out the earth on the waters..." Isaiah 40:19 "An idol?—A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold..."
רָקִיעַ (rāqîaʿ) meaning an extended surface, expanse, or firmament; often understood as a solid dome or vault of the sky. This word is often used to describe the dome separating the waters above, but Ezekiel 1:22 emphasizes its nature: "Over the heads of the living creatures there was something like a dome, shining like crystal, spread out above their heads." Ezekiel 1:25-26 emphasizes that this was some sort of barrier: "And there came a voice from above the dome over their heads... And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, ..."
רִקּוּעַ (riqqûaʿ) meaning beaten or hammered work; a broad, flat piece. Numbers 16:39 "So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers that had been presented by those who were burned, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar."

It is noteworthy that two of these words—rāqaʿ and riqqûaʿ—appear together in Numbers 16:39

ויקח אלעזר הכהן את מחתות הנחשת אשר הקריבו השרפים וירקעם לרקעי פים למזבח׃

Both words describe the process: the hammering out of the bronze (וירקעם) and the resulting beaten plates (רקעי) used to cover the altar.

In conclusion, to translate רָקִיעַ (rāqîaʿ) as “expanse” is not only inaccurate—it is dishonest. It reflects a deliberate attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance of those who understand modern science but are nevertheless committed to the fundamentalist belief that every word in the Tanakh and Christian scriptures must be literally true. Rather than confronting the ancient cosmology of the text, such translations quietly revise it to conform with contemporary expectations. This is eisegesis, not exegesis.

We continue...

Genesis 1:9-10 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

This doesn't make much sense if the Earth is a sphere: you would need a sphere of water, and then above that sphere would be the atmosphere, and above that would be another spherical dome, and above that you would need more water, none of which comports with reality. However, if the author envisioned a flat body of water, with a dome above it, then having land appear seems a little more reasonable. While this is not entirely incompatible with a spherical Earth, we know today that the Earth was initially a body so hot that no water could even collect: it was land first, and only later did the oceans form.

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

The flood narrative describes "fountains of the great deep" which would exist if there were "waters under the dome" and "windows of the heavens" which would make sense if there was a dome holding up the "waters that were above the deme." Otherwise, the flood narrative makes no sense: there is not enough readily available water to cause the flooding that is described, not even if you consider all the water in glaciers and in the atmosphere.

Genesis 8:1-3 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters gradually receded from the earth.

That was nice of Yahweh, in his anger and rage to kill all that breathed (including all those animals, which probably did nothing wrong), to finally remember Noah et al. In a flat Earth model, winds blowing across the flood waters could blow them "elsewhere", but if a spherical globe is flooded to the extent described, winds would do nothing but move water around. However, once again, we continue to have references to "the waters that were under the dome" and "the waters that were above the dome," with the fountains and windows being closed.

Genesis 28:13-14 And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring, and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”

With a spherical Earth, Yahweh could have just said “...and you shall spread abroad its entire face.” Here, however, Yahweh puts limits: “to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.” We have limits in both the north and south in the form of the two poles, but there is no such boundary in either the west or the east. The verse makes much more sense in the context of a flat Earth.

Deuteronomy 10:22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.

Once again, this describes the absolute lack of awareness of the author as to the extent of the universe. The author believed that the stars that did exist were those that were visible, and thus, relating the number of visible stars to the Judean people is reasonable, but in reality there are 200 billion trillion stars. Here was another opportunity for Yahweh to inspire the author to at least hint that there are stars beyond those which can be seen by the human eye, as opposed to text that supports the idea that there exists a dome into which the stars are embedded.

Deuteronomy 13:6-8

“If anyone secretly entices you...saying, ‘Let us go serve other gods,’ whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, any of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, you must not yield to or heed any such persons...”

Again, Yahweh inspired the author to write "from one end of the earth to the other," an description that perfectly matches a flat Earth described in Genesis 1. Never-the-less, Yahweh knew at that time, too, that I would be judging him for such a poor choice of words. Yes, it is an expression, but why are all expressions always in concordance with the flat Earth described elsewhere in the scriptures? Could Yahweh not once have an author make a clear and unambiguous statement that the Earth is a sphere?

Deuteronomy 28:49-50

The Lord will bring a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a grim-faced nation showing no respect to the old or favor to the young.

From the end of the earth? The Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Macedonians and Romans were relatively local. Again, it is only an expression, but this person was being divinely inspired, and Yahweh knew at that time that I would critique exactly what he is inspiring his author to write. This prophesy does not even include a general direction: North (Hittites), East (Babylonians or Assyrians), South (Egyptians) or East (Macedonians or Romans). But none of these nations are near to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. However, this chapter contineus:

Deuteronomy 28:63-64

And just as the Lord took delight in making you prosperous and numerous, so the Lord will take delight in bringing you to ruin and destruction; you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to possess. The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.

This is Jesus in a nutshell: just as Jesus took delight in making the Judean people prosperous and numerous, so does Jesus take delight in bringing the Judean people to ruin and destruction. Once again, we see the expression "from one end of the earth to the other", and yet, in a spherical world, this makes no sense, but in the world described in Genesis 1, this is reasonable. Why did Yahweh just not inspire the author to write "The Lord will scatter you among all people throughout the world, ..."

The order of creation is once again repeated in the Psalms 136:4-9:

who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
who spread out the earth on the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

In parallel with Genesis 1, the waters were first, then land is "spread on the waters" and only then are the Sun, the Moon and the stars made. Also, the Moon does not "rule" over the night; exactly half of the time the Moon is visible, it is visible during the day. Similarly, stars are far too distant to "rule" over anything. They're just more distant suns.

The splitting of the waters is also repeated in the Psalms 148:1-4:

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the heavens!

Again, we emphasis the "waters above the heavens," something we know does not exist, but if the Earth is flat and there is a dome separating the waters above from the waters below, this psalm makes sense. However, how are balls of hydrogen and rock to "praise" anything?

Job 9:5-6 He removes mountains, and they do not know it when he overturns them in his anger;
he shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;

Here are references to the pillars of the Earth, pillars holding up a spherical Earth held together by gravity makes no sense, but holding up a flat Earth that grew out of the "waters below" is a reasonable interpretation of such imagery.

Job 9:8 he alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea...

Another reference to stretching out the heavens, which is more reasonable if the Earth is flat and not a sphere. In the Psalms and Isaiah, it will emphasize that this is akin to stretching a tent, something you do on a flat surface, not a sphere. Also, in other versions, Yahweh tramples the back of the sea dragon, perhaps a passing reference to Tiamat, the story from which Genesis 1 was likely plagiarized?

Job 26:10 He has described a circle on the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness.

This could describe the solar terminator, which is indeed a great circle that at all times divides the Earth into two, into that half experiencing day, and the other experiencing night. However, this passage in Job describes a circle (חָ֖ג) on the face of the waters, does not suggest that this circle ever crosses land, and therefore is a much better description of a circle on a flat Earth that describes the limits of the Earth that is lit by light. The Jewish translation is "He encircled a boundary on the face of the water, until the ending of light with darkness."

Job 37:1-4

“At this also my heart trembles
and leaps out of its place.
Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice
and the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
Under the whole heaven he lets it loose,
and his lightning to the corners of the earth.
After it his voice roars;
he thunders with his majestic voice,
and he does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard.”

If one interprets rain as a gift from Yahweh, but storms and their potentially damaging winds as punishments from Yahweh, then equating thunder as the voice of Yahweh is quite reasonable. Note that the speed of sound is not taken into account, but rather "he lets...his lightening to the corners of the earth, after it his voice roars." Here, thunder is not the subsequent sound caused by lightning, but rather the voice of Yahweh that screams out after he has sent lightning "to the corners of the earth." Again, another indicating that this author believes that the Earth has an edge, and thus, the model that best fits this author's understanding of the world is a flat-Earth model. Of course, the understanding of the relationship between thunder and lightning is wrong, and today, no follower of Jesus claims that Yahweh speaks through thunder.

1 Samuel 2:8

He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
and on them he has set the world.

You set a flat Earth on pillars, not a spherical one that is held in orbit around a Sun by gravitation.

Psalms 75:3 When the earth totters, with all its inhabitants, it is I who keep its pillars steady. Selah

Likely a reference to earthquakes, but once again, another reference to pillars that are holding up this Earth and that require Yahweh to steady them.

Psalms 104:2 ...You stretch out the heavens like a tent;

A reference to stretching out the heavens like a tent, and you stretch a tent over a flat surface, not a sphere. This will be reiterated in Isaiah.

Psalms 103:11-12

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far he removes our transgressions from us.

On a flat Earth, no doubt there is a distance between east and west, just like there is a distance from the Earth to the dome above the Earth. Unfortunately, there is no distance from East to West on a spherical Earth.

Psalms 104:5 You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken.

If you are visualizing the Earth as being flat, then yes, you may envision the Earth being set upon a foundation of some sorts. In reality, the crust of this spherical Earth is sitting atop a mantle of molten rock, and the convection of the mantle results in plate tectonics that result in subduction zones that liquify the crust, and in divergent boundaries where molten rock hardens and adding to the crust. We also know that at some point, the Earth will be engulfed by the expanding Sun, likely once again liquifying the entire surface, just as the Earth first started five billion years ago.

Proverbs 8 is beautiful poetry that describes a personification of wisdom, and as there is the Angel of Yahweh, the Son of Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh and the Word of Yahweh, there is also the Wisdom of Yahweh, a possible divine being created by Yahweh to embody the character described. The very first use of the word "trinity" in early Christian writings has not the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but rather it was articulated by Theophilus as Yahweh, the Word of Yahweh (a description found in the first chapter of the gospel of John but also mentioned in Psalms 33) and the Wisdom of Yahweh. In Proverbs 8, however, we have a description of the feminine Wisdom of Yahweh, and then we have a description of the Wisdom of Yahweh's participation in creation:

Proverbs 8:22-

“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
when he had not yet made earth and fields
or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth, ...”

This, again, parallels the description in Genesis, where the waters (the depths) were split into two: the waters above, and the waters below. This poetry describes a time before springs, mountains, hills, fields and soil. Heaven is established, and a "circle" (the word ח֜֗וּג) is drawn on the waters: it uses the Hebrew word for circle, and not a word for a sphere or a ball. The author continues to describe the creation of a dome that "made firm the skies above" as well as establishing fountains of the deep: the water cycle was not yet understood, and it was assumed springs came not from water pressure, but from a source of water below the Earth. While one could envision a spherical Earth where there are waters below, the Earth is not a circle, and thus, this best describes the flat-Earth model.

Isaiah 11:11-12 On that day the Lord will again raise his hand to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.

He will raise a signal for the nations
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth.

Once again, a reference to the "four corners of the earth," a description that best fits a flat-Earth model. A divinely inspired author could just as easily have written "...from the furthest ends to which they were scattered." However, simultaneously, this could just be a colloquialism for an arbitrary distant point on the Earth. It does not necessarily support a flat-Earth model, but it most certainly does not support a spherical Earth model.

Isaiah 34:4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall wither like a leaf withering on a vine or fruit withering on a fig tree.

If the skies are rolled up like a scroll, when you unroll a scroll, it is a sphere, correct? This is as painfully obvious as any that a flat-Earth model is used by the authors of these scriptures. Interestingly, this verse seems to be ignored by apologists attempting to refute the idea that the scriptures use a flat-Earth model.

Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in...

Here was an excellent opportunity for Yahweh to divinely inspire the author to use the Hebrew word for sphere, but the author used the word for a circle (ח֣וּג). In Proverbs 8, the same word is used, and there Yahweh draws a "circle"; you cannot draw a sphere. If the Earth is flat with circular boundaries, then you can sit above the center of the circle and look down, but if you sit above a sphere, you can see at most half of the sphere, assuming that Yahweh is looking down at the entire Earth from wherever he is seated: if you are "above" Europe, you are technically "below" New Zealand. The imagery makes little sense in the context of a spherical Earth.

What is more revealing, however, is the description of the Heavens: Yahweh stretches out the heavens like a curtain" and then "spreads the like a tent to live in." A tent is a structure that sits on a relatively flat piece of Earth: the Heavens are described as being a tent, and not an envelope above a sphere. This should make it clear that this is a tent above what is understood to be a circular and flat Earth. This is most analogous to the dome described in Genesis 1, and not the envelope of atmosphere that we know today hugs the spherical Earth.

Incidentally, in Isaiah 22:18, the word כדור mis used to describe the shape of a ball when he wrote "He will seize firm hold on you, whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land..." The same word could have been used in Isaiah 40.

One apology attempted to reinterpret this verse as describing the ever expanding universe we understand today. A tent, however, is a fixed structure: it is spread across the ground, and when it reaches its limits, it becomes taught and a structure that allows humans to securely live within its confines, protected from the outside elements. When curtains are stretched, they cover a window, and you do not continue to stretch curtains once the window is covered.

Isaiah 42:5

Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it

Once again, the author of Isaiah 42 describes the world in terms of what is described in Genesis 1, and note the past tense. This is not suggesting a universe that is continually expanding, and especially not one that is accelerating in that expansion. Yahweh created the heavens and stretched it out over the waters below, and then, and only then did he spread out the Earth.

Jeremiah 10:12-13

It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.
When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

Here, Yahweh is described first creating the Earth, and then described as having "stretched out the heavens." Note the past tense, for any who would try to use this to suggest that such passages describe the ever expanding universe we understand today. Not also the concept of winds coming from "storehouses." If the Earth was flat and winds came from outside, then this is a reasonable statement. If the world is a sphere and where air in high pressure regions moves to lower pressure regions, calling a high pressure region a "storehouse" is, at best, a stretch.

Jeremiah 25:33 Those slain by the Lord on that day shall extend from one end of the earth to the other. They shall not be lamented or gathered or buried; they shall become dung on the surface of the ground.

Once again, a reference that aligns with an understanding of the world as described in Genesis 1: from one end of the earth to the other.

Jeremiah 51:16

When he utters his voice there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightnings for the rain,
and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.

Once again, the author of Jeremiah refers to wind being brought forth from Yahweh's "storehouses."

Daniel 4:11-12 Upon my bed this is what I saw: there was a tree at the center of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew great and strong, its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.

While this is a dream that is described by Nebuchadnezzar, it is never-the-less a dream about the world, and Yahweh could have easily given the king a dream that correctly depicted the world. Instead, however, this tree is at the "center" of the Earth, and while a circle or square has a center, a sphere does not. That tree was visible to the "ends of the whole earth", and in the same way, the very first instance in the Christian scriptures, we will see how once again, it is possible to see the entire Earth from a single mountain.

Remember, Yahweh knew at the time he was inspiring the author who was writing in the name of Daniel that we today would be joking about this yet-another-example of how the scriptures assumed a flat-Earth model, and knowing this, he could have easily chosen to describe the Earth faithfully.

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, ...

Luke 4:5 Then [the devil] led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

Under a flat-Earth model, it should be possible with good eye sight, and as Jesus is apparently Yahweh and as Satan is an angel, this may actually be possible. However, under a spherical model, there is no point at which you can see the entire Earth, and if you were at an infinite distance away, you could see at most half the Earth. At this time, there were kingdoms throughout the world, and even in North America, Tepoztlán has been inhabited since 1500 BCE. There is a point significantly above the surface of the Earth where you could potentially see the Chinese and Roman empires, but this point is significantly higher than Mount Everest: using trigonometry, one can deduce that the horizon you can see would be R acos( R/(R + h) ) where R is the radius of the Earth and h is the height of Mount Everest, and acos is the inverse cosine function. Consequently, you could possibly see out to a distance of just under 336 km. Of course, if you had two Mount Everests 672 km apart, you could potentially see one peak from the other; however, there is only one Mount Everest.

One could make the claim that because Jesus was Yahweh and Satan was an angel, that they could see through the Earth, but in this case, there would be no need to go up to the top of a mountain. These verses could have just as easily said:

Again, the devil ... showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, ...

Then [the devil] ... showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

That Satan is explicitly bringing Jesus to a mountain is significant: they are seeing all the kingdoms of the world from that mountain. If this exposition is one of magic, there is absolutely no need to go up to a mountain. Remember, also, that the authors of Matthew and Luke could not have been present at this event, and thus must have been divinely inspired to record such events, or at the very least, received this from some common source who was sufficiently divinely inspired.

Philippians 2:9-11

Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Here, Paul echoes the cosmology found in Genesis, where Yahweh creates the heavens above ("in heaven"), the earth in the middle ("on earth"), and the waters below ("under the earth"). This, however, is a poor description of reality. We do not live in a vertically layered universe, but on a small, insignificant planet orbiting a minor yellow dwarf star. Roughly 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999997% of all that is visible is made up of the heavens—an almost entirely empty expanse stretching out in all directions (not just up), frozen and vast, with few knees out there eager to bend. Of the tiny remainder, about one percent encompasses the narrow band—roughly five kilometers above and below the surface—where life is possible. The other 99 percent, below that onion-thin layer, lies buried too deep and too hot to support life, and doesn't appear to host anything particularly inclined to worship, either.

2 Peter 3 5-6: They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished.

While not referring to a flat Earth, it refers again to the creation of the Earth as described in Genesis: the Earth was formed out of water and by means of water, and once again, it refers to the subsequent flood. It is from these waters that Yahweh "separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome." The forger of this letter allegedly written in the name of Peter continues to support the model described in Genesis: a flat Earth.

Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.

If the author envisioned a flat Earth, then one could possibly believe that "wind" is something that comes from "outside" the world, in which case, such a wind could be stopped. If the Earth was spherical, there are no four corners, and wind would instead be envisioned as invisible travelers or messengers throughout the surface of the sphere, taking with it the clouds and the rain, but to stop these invisible travelers or massagers, one would not require four angles at four corners. The alleged claim does not support a spherical Earth model.

In reality, of course, wind is the result of air moving from regions of high air pressure to low air pressure, and these result from differential heating. To stop wind would require air pressure throughout the world to suddenly equalize. This would also require the elimination of the heating of the Earth from the Sun, for as soon as air is heated, it will expand, causing higher pressure, which in turn will immediately result in air moving away from that region; that is, wind.

Revelation 7:2 I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun...

Despite the winds being stopped in the previous verse, it seems that the Sun is still shining, so differential heating is still occurring, and consequently, there will be wind. The description does not support the current reality, yet it does support a flat-Earth model.

Revelation 20:7-8 When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea.

Another reference to the "four corners" of the Earth. While this colloquialism may refer to a distant location, to most certainly does not support the model of a spherical Earth, and best describes a flat Earth.

Revelation 21:15-16 The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city has four equal sides, its length the same as its width, and he measured the city with his rod, twelve thousand stadia; its length and width and height are equal.

Unfortunately, there is no common standard for the length of one stadia; however, it is equal to 600 "feet". Unfortunately, there was no standard for one "foot", and thus, one stadion could be anywhere between 170 and 230 yards, meaning that this Kingdom of Yahweh is a cube with dimensions between 1160 miles and 1570 miles. In either case, however, such a cube could not "sit" on a spherical Earth, which has a diameter of just under 8000 miles. There could be a foundation below this Kingdom of Yahweh, a casemate wall could be used to build a mount, but even then, for the walls to form a cube, locally, the walls would need to be going "up" at an angle of approximately 10 degrees from the vertical. Fortunately, however, the old Earth and the old heavens are destroyed, and replaced by a new Earth, so perhaps this new Earth is indeed flat.

The Sun, Moon and stars

Genesis 15:12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

Genesis 15:17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

Genesis 19:23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

Genesis 28:11-12 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set.

Genesis 32:31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Exodus 17:12 But Moses’s hands grew heavy, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on either side, so his hands were steady until the sun set.

Exodus 22:26 If you take your neighbor’s cloak as guarantee, you shall restore it before the sun goes down, ...

Leviticus 22:7 When the sun sets he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the sacred donations, for they are his food.

This is pedestrian, but the allusion is that the Sun is moving, and not that the Earth is rotating. This allusion gives no credit to any model, but it is interesting that never once does any verse in any scripture refer to a rotating or moving Earth. In each case, it could instead use phrases such as "As the day ended, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, ..."

Genesis 28:12 And he dreamed that there was a stairway set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

While it was only a dream, we have been to outer space, and there isn't anywhere where angels are living up there. However, if you have some sort of dome, with heaven either immediately below or perhaps above this dome, this dream makes sense.

Genesis 37:9 He had another dream and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

Again, another dream, but how do balls of hydrogen and rock "bow down"?

Numbers 34:15 the two tribes and the half-tribe have taken their inheritance beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, toward the sunrise.”

The last statement is the peculiar one: going to the East does not bring you closer to the sunrise, only the day starts relatively earlier.

Deuteronomy 10:22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.

Joshua 10:12-14 On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord, and he said in the sight of Israel,

“Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.”
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.

Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in midheaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded a human voice, for the Lord fought for Israel.

In any model with a flat Earth, with the Sun and Moon being smaller objects in the heavens, this is reasonable. If the Earth is spinning at one revolution per day, then everything on the surface of the Earth near the Equator is moving at 1670 km/h. To stop the planet spinning require significant energy, and everything would need to be decelerated with the Earth, otherwise, everyone would be flying. The most serious issue with this, however, is that if it did occur, then half the Earth would have been in darkness for approximately 24 hours.

Note also the terminology "the sun...did not hurry to set." Later, in Job, we will see that it is Yahweh that "commanded" the Sun not to set.

Lying for Jesus: Since 1936, followers of Jesus have been repeating the lie first told by Harry Rimmer that science had "discovered" the missing day. Since then, the story has become embellished with NASA and satellites, but in the end, it is lying for Jesus, something some followers are more than happy to do.

Judges 5:20 The stars fought from heaven; from their courses they fought against Sisera.

Sisera was recorded as being a general who fought against the settled kin of the Judeans living in the Samarian highlands. This verse describes a geocentric understanding of the universe, with stars moving in courses above the Earth, and the stars themselves being entities that could intervene with the affairs of humans, thus supporting the concept of stars being embedded in a dome above the Earth. Remember that Yahweh knew at that time when he inspired the author of this text that we today would be reading and critiquing this text, so he could easily at that time have given the author sufficient divine inspiration to either exclude this passage or at least say something that is closer to the universe that actually exists.

Job 9:7-9

he commands the sun, and it does not rise;
he seals up the stars;
he alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the Sea;
he made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;

Notice that it is the Sun that is being commanded to not rise, and not that the Earth is commanded to stop spinning. This idea supports a geocentric model of the universe. Note that the next term is in the past tense: the heavens were "stretched", and are not continuing to stretch, so no, this phrase does not suggest the cosmic expansion we have since discovered. If you think of the constellations as stars being placed onto a dome, the idea of making various constellations is understandable, but we now know that stars are formed over many years, and the appearance of the constellations is really only visible from Earth.

One interesting point: a different reading of "the waves of the Sea" is "the back of the sea dragon." Did this author know of the Babylonian creation myth? The second and third verses parallel the creation myth in Genesis 1.

Job 22:12-14

Is not God high in the heavens? See the highest stars, how lofty they are!
Therefore you say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the deep darkness?
Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the dome of heaven.’

Visible stars can be thousands of light years away, and yet, "thick clouds enwrap him" (remember that Yahweh speaks after each lightning bolt), so he cannot be outside the troposphere, and yet he is walking on the "dome" of heaven.

Job 31:26 ...if I have looked at the sun when it shone or the moon moving in splendor, ...

In the translation, it uses the word "sun", but the original Hebrew is "the light," that is, that nebulous "light" that causes the day and night; that light that was there before the Sun and Moon were created two days hence.

Psalms 104:19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.

The moon does not mark the seasons: a lunar month is approximately 29.5 days (though much closer to 29 and 26/49 days), so twelve lunar months is approximately, but not exactly equal to one year. If a lunar month was 28 days, there would be very close to thirteen months per year, and if a lunar month was 30.5 days, there would be twelve months per year, but 29.5 is awkwardly between these two, so each twelve months, we lose 11¼ days. The Moon has a period that is smaller because the Moon is closer to the Earth, that's it, so a multiple of lunar months is a reasonable estimator of a solar year. There is nothing about the Moon that affects the seasons, which are a consequence of a tilt of the Earth. The Judean calendar explicitly had to add a thirteen month every three years to once again line up the lunar calendar with the year.

Psalms 121:6 The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

This is not unreasonable, as the Earth is in orbit around the Sun, and the Moon is in orbit about the Earth. Under any model where the Sun and Moon are reasonably large, they're not going to come down and strike anyone on Earth. However, if the Sun and Moon are just small bodies in the heavens, then nothing says that they could not also do what comets or meteors do.

Psalms 148:3-6

Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.
He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

Once again, we have the symbolism of balls of hydrogen and of rock praising Yahweh, and once again, we have a reference to waters that are above the dome of heaven; a reference that only makes sense in the flat Earth model proposed in Genesis.

Ecclesiastes 12:2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain;

Once again, the author refers to a "light" other than the Sun, the "light" that shown on the first day of creation, while the Sun and the Moon were only created much later: after waters were split into those above and those below, and after the Earth was formed, and after plants grew on that earth.

Isaiah 13:10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

The Moon has no light not to give; if the Sun is darkened, the Moon would be, too. This may be a metaphor for the darkening of the skies, however.

Isaiah 24:23 The moon will be dismayed, the sun ashamed; for the Lord Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders—with great glory.

Once again, how is a balls of hydrogen or rock supposed to be dismayed or ashamed, respectively?

Isaiah 30:26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

Again, we understand the physics of the Sun: the luminosity of the Sun is a function of its mass and its age, and the Sun will not increase in luminosity by a factor of seven in any upcoming time. Yes, as the Sun ages, it will become a red giant, and subsequently, it will increase in brightness, but that will not be for another billion years; is this supposed to be the time of the second coming of Jesus? Of course, if the Sun is brighter, then so will be the Moon.

Jeremiah 31:35 This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, ...

Once again, the Sun and the stars shine, for they are all suns, but the Moon does not shine. It reflects whatever light is shone upon it, and not always at night.

Ezekiel 32:7-8 When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you; I will bring darkness over your land, declares the Sovereign Lord.

The skies may be covered with a cloud blocking the light of the Sun, but this does not keep its light from reflecting off of the Moon. No cloud will pass between the Sun and the Moon: it is a vacuum out there. However, this makes perfect sense in the Genesis 1 model, where there is the Earth on its pillars and its associated waters below, and a dome above into which the Sun and Moon are somehow embedded.

Daniel 12:2-3 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

The word translated here as "sky" once again actually refers to the "dome." Additionally, stars do not last for ever and ever: we know that they have a finite life, even if that finite life is perhaps billions of years.

Joel 2:10 Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.

This end-times vengeance porn is repeated over and over again, but the Sun cannot be darkened, nor can the stars be kept from shining. Imagine the energy required to darken Sirius, a star, while having only twice the mass of our Sun, has more than 25.4 times the luminosity.

Joel 2:31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

The Moon turns blood red during a lunar eclipse, but if the Sun is "darkened," so, too, will be the Moon. You cannot simultaneously have a solar eclipse that darkens the sun, while also having a lunar eclipse that darkens the moon. During a lunar eclipse, the atmosphere refracts longer wavelengths of light like red inward, while refracting shorter wavelengths of light out, making the Moon appear to be bathed in red light. But during a lunar eclipse, the Earth is between the Moon and the Sun, so you cannot simultaneously have a solar eclipse. Of course, if the Sun and Moon are just bodies of light in the Genesis 1 model, I guess they could do anything; they're all relatively quite small.

Joel 3:15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

Further text that cannot happen, appearing in a longer passage resembling vengeance porn.

Habakkuk 3:10-11

The mountains saw you and writhed;
a torrent of water swept by;
the deep gave forth its voice.
The sun raised high its hands;
the moon stood still in its exalted place,
at the light of your arrows speeding by,
at the gleam of your flashing spear.

For the Moon to stand still, once again, the Earth must stop spinning, if you accept any spherical Earth model that also has a spinning Earth. However, if the Moon is must a small body in the sky below a dome, it is more reasonable that such an object could be stopped.

Matthew 24:29-31

“Immediately after the suffering of those days

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven will be shaken.

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

The Sun will be darkened, but it explicitly says that the Moon will not give its light, even if the Moon never had any light of its own. Even better, however, we have the stars falling from the sky; symbolism that is much more aligned with a model where there is a dome above the Earth and the stars are in that dome. Unless stars are to be moving faster than the speed of light, the stars must already now be on their way crashing towards the Earth.

Mark 13:24-25

“But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Even one star falling towards the Earth would easily destroy the Earth; but if stars are just points of light somehow embedded in a dome above the Earth, then it is reasonable that such small points of light could fall to the Earth.

Acts 2:20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

This is just a reiteration of what appears in the Judean scriptures, and once again, the author has not yet figured out that you cannot have both a solar and a lunar eclipse. If Yahweh intends to exert that much energy as to actually darken the Sun, could he not use a small infinitesimally fraction of that energy to, say, cure world hunger? Energy consumption on Earth is 2 TW, while the Sun produces 2 x 10^17 more power, so one second of energy from the sun could be more than enough for all the energy that all humans ever needed for all time since we first picked up a stone and created a flint.

1 Corinthians 15:40-41 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

We know that stars are composed of the same elements as the Earth, and the Sun is just one more star like all the rest. Of course, in the previous passage, Paul suggests that the "flesh" of humans, birds, animals and fish are all different; however, they are all mostly comprised of water and proteins with DNA and RNA.

Revelation 1:16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

He must be very large indeed to hold seven stars. Of course, this makes perfect sense if stars are just small points of light embedded in a doom above a flat Earth, but makes no sense when even the smallest stars have huge gravitational pull, and to visualize such a being, one would have to be millions of kilometers away.

Revelation 1:20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

We now see the equating of stars with angels, so perhaps if there is a dome and there are angels embedded in that dome, that makes sense; however, what sense does it make for an angel to be in any way near Sirius, a star many light years away?

Revelation 2:28 ...To the one who conquers I will also give the morning star.

That is a nice gift, the planet Venus; a planet that is almost the size of the Earth, and this is only at the very start of the Revelation of John. Oddly, this absolutely massive planet gifted to this one who conquers is not mentioned later in the Revelation of John, despite its massive size.

Revelation 6:12-14

When he broke the sixth seal, I looked, and there was a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Revelation 8:12

The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light was darkened; a third of the day was kept from shining and likewise the night.

One third of a ball of hydrogen orders of magnitude larger than the Earth is meant to be struck, as is one third the Moon? Not only that, but one third of the stars? This is much easier if Earth is flat and there is a dome containing the stars and a Sun and a Moon traversing the skies; but more critically, recall that the light of day was made before the Sun was made, and this author reiterates: a third of the day was kept from shining. It was not understood when the creation myth was authored that the Sun is the source of the light of day, not just a light to shine during the day, and this author, John of Patmos, appears to have the same understanding of the universe.

Revelation 12:1 A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

I would like to see this under our current understanding of stars, the Sun and the Moon, but it is a much more reasonable situation if one believes that stars genuinely are nothing more than points in the sky. In the former case, hopefully the twelve stars are red dwarfs like Proxima Centauri and not white giants like Sirius.

Revelation 12:4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth...

As in many other verses, this supports the idea that the stars exist in a dome above the Earth, and thus necessitates a universe where the stars are simply points of light in a dome above the Earth.

Throughout the Bible, descriptions of the Sun, Moon, and stars reflect an ancient flat-Earth cosmology rather than a scientifically accurate view of the cosmos. According to Genesis 1:14–19, the Sun and Moon are created after the Earth, on the fourth day, and are placed “in the firmament”—a solid dome separating the waters above from the Earth below. Their function is described not in terms of orbiting a rotating planet, but as lamps or rulers set in the sky to govern day and night and to serve as signs for seasons and festivals. This is a striking reversal of our modern understanding, where the Sun predates the Earth by billions of years and is the gravitational anchor around which the Earth revolves.

The biblical Sun does not orbit Earth at a vast distance in space; instead, it moves across the sky, and can be commanded to stop or change course. In Joshua 10:12–13, for instance, Joshua commands the Sun to stand still, and it does—implying a mobile Sun and a stationary Earth. No effort is made in the text to explain this as a relative or apparent motion. Similarly, Ecclesiastes 1:5 says, “The Sun rises and the Sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises,” suggesting the Sun literally travels above the Earth, returning to its starting point each day—a common belief in ancient near-eastern cosmologies. In the flat-Earth model, the Sun moves in a circular path above the flat plane, not around a globe, and its rising and setting are the result of distance and visibility, not planetary rotation.

The Moon, likewise, is described in purely functional terms, providing light at night—yet modern astronomy shows the Moon emits no light of its own but merely reflects sunlight. The greater light (the Sun) and the lesser light (the Moon) are portrayed as purpose-built, localized objects, not vast bodies separated by millions of kilometers of space. This aligns well with flat-Earth models, such as those seen in ancient Babylonian cosmology, where celestial lights were considered smaller, nearby lights moving across the sky, not enormous, distant spheres.

The stars are described in similar terms. In Genesis, they are an almost afterthought, created as "lights in the firmament of the heaven" alongside the Sun and Moon. Isaiah 34:4 even suggests that the stars can fall to Earth, stating, “all the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll; all their host shall fall…” This language, echoed again in Revelation 6:13, depicts the stars as small, close objects that can physically drop from the sky—not distant suns light-years away, as we know them today. The idea that stars could fall to Earth is only conceivable in a model where they are tiny lights embedded in or just beyond the firmament, not massive fusion-burning giants scattered across the universe.

Even the firmament itself, central to the biblical model, assumes a solid structure capable of holding back water (Genesis 1:6–7), supporting celestial bodies, and being opened to release rain (Genesis 7:11). The Sun, Moon, and stars are not placed in the vast vacuum of space, but rather embedded within this firmament, moving across its surface or beneath it. This view of the cosmos—flat Earth, solid sky, local celestial bodies—is consistent across numerous Old Testament passages and is never revised or corrected by later scriptures.

In sum, the biblical descriptions of the Sun, Moon, and stars are not poetic metaphors loosely compatible with modern science—they are rooted in a coherent and consistent flat-Earth cosmology, inherited from earlier ancient Near Eastern worldviews. They reflect a geo-centric, enclosed system, with the Earth at the center, the heavens above, and waters both above and below. These depictions contradict our modern understanding at every level: the size and distance of celestial bodies, the mechanisms of day and night, and the very structure of the universe itself. Far from being incidental or symbolic, they are part of a larger worldview in which the Earth is flat, fixed, and central, with a sky above that is functional, solid, and ordered by divine command.

Four winds

The Tanakh often speaks of four winds.

Psalms 135:7

He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth;
he makes lightnings for the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

Here, wind is represented as coming from storages in the heavens, as if it is something that can be divinely released or kept. Winds are caused by air moving from high-pressure areas to low-pressure areas, driven primarily by the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface by the sun. This creates temperature and pressure differences that set the air in motion, influenced by Earth’s rotation and terrain.

Jeremiah 10:13

When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

This is copied essentially verbatim in Jerimiah 51:16. This reflects the ancient belief that lightning was created to accompany or produce rain, reinforcing the idea that storms were divine tools for watering the earth. In reality, lightning is caused by electrical charge buildup within storm clouds due to collisions of ice particles, not created for rain. While lightning often occurs in rainstorms, it can also happen without rain reaching the ground, as in "dry lightning" common in wildfires—proving that lightning is a product of atmospheric electricity, not a mechanism for delivering rain.

Jeremiah 49:35-39

This is what the Lord Almighty says:

“See, I will break the bow of Elam,
the mainstay of their might.
I will bring against Elam the four winds
from the four quarters of heaven;
I will scatter them to the four winds,
and there will not be a nation
where Elam’s exiles do not go.
I will shatter Elam before their foes,
before those who want to kill them;
I will bring disaster on them,
even my fierce anger,”
declares the Lord.
“I will pursue them with the sword
until I have made an end of them.
I will set my throne in Elam
and destroy her king and officials,”
declares the Lord.

“Yet I will restore the fortunes of Elam
in days to come,”
declares the Lord.

The four winds were brought forth from the four quarters of Heaven. Statement that could be metaphorical, but it is never-the-less wrong. What is odd, though is this idea that Elam is in any way a threat to Judea: it was a serious threat to Babylon at the time of the Exile, but was absorbed into the Persian empire and while it continued as a vassal kingdom up to the third century of the common era, the last statement has never occurred.

Daniel 7:2-3 Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.

Once again, we have four winds of heaven, not a great storm, or whatever else.

Daniel 8:8-10 The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven. Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them.

A horn growing out of one of four horns that are growing towards the four winds, and throwing down stars from Heaven? Quite the achievement under the current model of the universe, but quite easy if the stars are in a dome above the heavens.

Mark 13:27 Then he will send out the angels and gather the elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

Matthew 24:29-31

“Immediately after the distress of those days

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

We refer to the four winds, and from "one end of the heavens to the other." Again, reasonable if you have a flat Earth with the heavens extending below a dome with stars. The author understood this to be the case.

Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree.

In the synoptic gospels, there is a passage where Jesus "rebukes" the storm:

Mark 4:39 And waking up, he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Be silent! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

Matthew 8:26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a dead calm.

Luke 8:24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And waking up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm.

The word used here is ἐπιτιμάω (epitimáō), meaning to censure, reprimand, rebuke, warn, or strictly charge and often implies superior authority over the thing being rebuked—whether a demon, illness, or the chaotic forces of wind and sea—treating them all like rebellious agents that must obey his command. This strengthens the reading that Jesus "rebuking" the wind was not casual but a deliberate act of divine authority, much like exorcising a demon.

Now, wind is caused by air moving from areas of high pressure to low pressure, driven primarily by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface by the sun. This creates temperature differences that generate pressure gradients, setting the air in motion. For the wind and waves to cease instantly at Jesus’ command, the laws of physics would have to be completely overridden. The atmospheric pressure gradients driving the wind would need to disappear instantly, halting millions of moving air molecules without causing turbulence or shockwaves. At the same time, the kinetic energy of the waves—already set in motion—would have to be absorbed or neutralized immediately, preventing the natural continuation of swells even after the wind stops. In nature, neither of these is possible without catastrophic consequences. Waves persist long after wind dies, and air cannot simply stop mid-motion. The scene portrays a supernatural event where Jesus exerts absolute control over the forces of nature, not by waiting for conditions to settle, but by silencing them instantly—as if the wind and sea were living beings obeying his voice.

The frequent biblical references to the “four winds”—as in Daniel 7:2, Jeremiah 49:36, Ezekiel 37:9, and Revelation 7:1—reflect a worldview in which the Earth is envisioned as a flat plane with four corners, from which winds are summoned or restrained. The number four corresponds to the cardinal directions on a flat surface—north, south, east, and west—not to the spherical, rotating Earth known today. In this model, winds are thought to come from the edges or boundaries of the Earth, where they are stored or controlled by divine command. The language of “holding back” or “releasing” these winds reinforces the idea of a structured, bounded world—a cosmology that assumes a flat, square or rectangular Earth rather than a globe. Thus, the biblical motif of the four winds subtly but consistently aligns with the flat-Earth assumptions underlying much of ancient scripture.

Rain

As noted above, rain is understood to come from the "waters above".

Genesis 1:6-7 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.

This clearly suggests that the source of rain are the waters above, clearly representative of a flat-Earth model. If you do not believe that a Christian is obligated to believe this, one need only turn to the words of Peter:

This is classic: as a Christian, Peter is equating anyone who does not believe that the Earth was made of water, as recorded in Genesis 1, with waters above and waters below, with those waters being separated with a dome above and the dry Earth below, being one of these "scoffers."

Deuteronomy 28:12 The Lord will open for you his rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all your undertakings. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

As opposed to a natural phenomenon depending on the water cycle—requiring evaporation of surface water, condensation of water vapor around tiny particles like dust or aerosols (called condensation nuclei), and the formation of droplets heavy enough to fall—rain is often portrayed in scripture as a gift from Yahweh, given as a reward for obedience or withheld as punishment. This reflects an ancient view where rain was not the result of physical processes but a direct act of divine favor or judgment, reinforcing the belief that human behavior could influence the heavens.

All of these reflect a flat-earth cosmology where rain (and blessings) come from heavenly storehouses above the solid sky, released through windows or doors—not from natural water cycles as understood today.

Rain is also portrayed as a gift of Yahweh:

Deuteronomy 11:13-14 "If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today—loving the Lord your God and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul—then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil, ..."

Leviticus 26:4 I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

Jeremiah 5:24

They do not say in their hearts,
“Let us fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain in its season,
the autumn rain and the spring rain,
and keeps for us
the weeks appointed for the harvest.”

Joel 2:23

O children of Zion, be glad,
and rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the later rain, as before.

Yahweh, however, also uses storms as punishment:

Nahum 1:3

The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Jonah 1:4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.

Withholding rain is also seen as punishment:

Deuteronomy 28:23-24 The sky over your head shall be bronze and the earth under you iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land into powder, and only dust shall come down upon you from the sky until you are destroyed.

1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”

To restrict rain is one thing, but to restrict dew, which forms daily as a result of natural cooling causing water vapor near the ground to condense on surfaces, is even more striking. Dew is typically independent of large weather systems, forming routinely under clear skies when the ground cools overnight—so claiming that Yahweh withholds dew emphasizes total divine control, not just over storms but over even the smallest, most automatic processes of nature.

Jeremiah 3:3

Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and the spring rain has not come,
yet you have the forehead of a prostitute;
you refuse to be ashamed.

Jeremiah 14:1-6

The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

Judah mourns,
and her gates languish;
they lie in gloom on the ground,
and the cry of Jerusalem goes up.
Her nobles send their servants for water;
they come to the cisterns;
they find no water;
they return with their vessels empty.
They are ashamed and dismayed
and cover their heads,
because the ground is cracked.
Because there has been no rain on the land,
the farmers are dismayed;
they cover their heads.
Even the doe in the field forsakes her newborn fawn
because there is no grass.
The wild asses stand on the bare heights;
they pant for air like jackals;
their eyes fail
because there is no herbage.

So much of the narrative of the purpose and mechanisms of rain point to a flat-Earth model, with rain coming down from the heavens when Yahweh deems it appropriate by opening windows in heaven.

In the Bible, rain is not described as the result of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, but rather as something that Yahweh gives or withholds according to human behavior. Passages like Deuteronomy 11:13–17 and Jeremiah 5:24 present rain as a gift from God, delivered through "windows of heaven" that open to pour it down, or closed to cause drought. This implies that water is stored above the solid dome of the sky (the firmament), as introduced in Genesis 1:6–7, where God separates the waters below from the waters above. In this model, rain is not part of a natural cycle but a controlled release from heavenly storehouses above a flat, enclosed Earth. Such imagery only makes sense within a flat-Earth cosmology, where the sky is a physical structure holding back the upper waters and rain is divinely dispensed from above, not generated by the Earth's own atmosphere.

Hail
Hail is often depicted as a weapon of Yahweh, and it is described as being kept in storehouses to be used according to the divine will:

Job 38:22-23

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?

Examples of how Yahweh uses hail include:

Exodus 9:23 Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire came down on the earth. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt; ...

Given that hail requires freezing temperatures, the fact that fires are accompanying this hail presents a conundrum.

Joshua 10:11 As they fled before Israel, while they were going down the slope of Beth-horon, the Lord threw down huge stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword.

Psalm 18:13-14

The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice,

hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings and routed them.

Once again, thunder is equated with an action of Yahweh, as are hailstones and perhaps meteors? Yet lightning is described separately, even though today we know thunder is the consequence of lightning.

Ezekiel 13:11-13 Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall. There will be a deluge of rain, great hailstones will fall, and a stormy wind will break out. When the wall falls, will it not be said to you, “Where is the whitewash you smeared on it?” Therefore thus says the Lord God: In my wrath I will make a stormy wind break out, and in my anger there shall be a deluge of rain and hailstones in wrath to destroy it.

Revelation 8:7 The first angel blew his trumpet, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were hurled to the earth, and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

Once again, hail is bizarrely paired with fire—and now blood—as if the sky itself were weaponized for some sick cosmic spectacle. The imagery borders on apocalyptic gore for its own sake—a kind of violent fantasy thinly cloaked in divine judgment. Rather than inspiring awe or repentance, it reads more like a disturbing fusion of wrath and destruction—a spiritualized form of hate-porn, where suffering becomes the spectacle. But beneath the surface, it reads like the hate-porn of someone who resents others’ position and wants to see them brought low through divine catastrophe. It’s less a vision of justice than a vindictive wish-fulfillment, where destruction becomes proof of righteousness.

Revelation 16:21 ...and huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, dropped from heaven on people, until they cursed God for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague.

How fearful can a plague be after the Earth has already been burned in the aforementioned verse? However, now we also have 100 lb hailstones, no doubt brought out from Yahweh's storehouses.

In reality, hail is a natural phenomenon, no different from snow or rain, occurring only under specific conditions: it forms when strong updrafts in thunderstorms carry water droplets high into freezing layers of the atmosphere, where they accumulate layers of ice until they grow too heavy and fall to the ground. There is no cosmic storehouse—just physics, wind, and supercooled water. Under these conditions, hail seldom reaches two inches in diameter, and while 20 cm hailstones have been recorded, and under the most ideal conditions, 30 cm hailstones could theoretically be the result of natural processes, none of these will produce a 100 lb hailstone.

The biblical notion of hail being stored—as also seen in Job 38:22—reinforces the flat-Earth cosmology assumed by ancient writers. In this view, the Earth is a flat plane beneath a solid dome (the firmament), within which God keeps storehouses of hail, ready to be released during times of judgment or battle. This concept treats hail not as the product of atmospheric updrafts and freezing temperatures, but as a physical stockpile waiting above the sky to be hurled down on command. The imagery depends on a structured cosmos with upper chambers holding tangible substances—something that makes sense only in a flat-Earth model, not within a modern understanding of meteorology and planetary science.

Snow

Snow is often associated with purity, as fresh snow reflects up to 90% of sunlight (high albedo), making it one of the brightest natural surfaces on Earth. Pure white objects like fresh clouds, bleached materials, or certain synthetic surfaces can approach or exceed snow’s brightness under specific conditions, but "whiteness" is subjective—mixing brightness, reflectivity, and perception:

Psalm 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Isaiah 1:18

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
If your sins are like scarlet,
will they become like snow?
If they are red like crimson,
will they become like wool?

Lamentations 4:7

Her princes were purer than snow,
whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than coral,
their form cut like sapphire.

Matthew 28:3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

Revelation 1:14 His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;

Now, snow forms when moist air rises into the atmosphere, cools, and water vapor condenses directly into ice crystals around tiny particles like dust or pollen. These ice crystals grow and cluster into snowflakes as they pass through clouds rich in supercooled water. When the snowflakes become heavy enough, they fall to the ground, provided temperatures remain cold enough all the way down. Snow is thus the product of atmospheric moisture, cold temperatures, and specific conditions within clouds—a natural process entirely dependent on earth’s weather systems, not a stored material waiting in celestial storehouses, as is suggested here:

Job 38:22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, ...

This imagery from Job 38:22 does not reflect reality because snow and hail are not stored in heavenly chambers waiting to be released; they are natural atmospheric phenomena formed through specific weather conditions. Snow forms when water vapor condenses into ice crystals in cold clouds, and hail develops as supercooled water freezes around particles during strong updrafts in thunderstorms. Both depend on dynamic processes within Earth’s atmosphere, not static storehouses—revealing the verse as a reflection of ancient cosmology, not scientific understanding.

Here is one additional interesting verse suggesting the threat of cold:

Proverbs 31:21 She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson.

Contrasted with Isaiah 1:18, "crimson" here refers to richly dyed, high-quality woolen garments that were both warm and expensive. The verse emphasizes the practical care and foresight of the virtuous woman, showing that her household is well-prepared for winter because they are clothed in durable, warm clothing, not simply thin or symbolic crimson fabric.

The idea of snow being stored—as in Job 38:22, where God asks, "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?"—reflects an ancient flat-Earth cosmology. In this model, the Earth is flat and covered by a solid dome-like sky (firmament) that separates the waters above from the world below. Within or above this dome, storehouses or treasuries were imagined to hold weather elements like snow, rain, hail, and wind. These elements were believed to be released through openings or windows in the firmament at God’s command. This view treats snow not as the result of natural processes like condensation and freezing, but as a stored substance in a structured, mechanical cosmos, consistent with a flat-Earth worldview rather than modern atmospheric science.

Planets and comets

The Tanakh and Christian scriptures are filled with references to the Sun, Moon, and stars, but they never explicitly mention planets or comets, despite both being prominent and observable celestial phenomena. Ancient peoples across cultures—including the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Chinese—not only observed these "wandering stars" (planets) and comets but often built complex astronomical and astrological systems around them. Yet in the Hebrew scriptures, the stars are fixed lights in the firmament, and the “host of heaven” refers generally to celestial bodies without distinguishing between stationary stars and the visibly mobile planets. Even in poetic or prophetic passages, the planets are never named or described as the unique, moving lights that they so clearly are to the naked eye.

A “morning star” is mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, typically referring to Venus, the brightest object in the pre-dawn sky. In Isaiah 14:12, the Hebrew term Helel ben Shachar (“shining one, son of the dawn”) is a poetic image describing the fall of a Babylonian king. The passage compares his downfall to the fading brilliance of Venus—once bright, now fallen. Later Christian tradition, through the Latin translation Lucifer, reinterpreted this as a reference to the devil, though that was not its original meaning.

In the New Testament, the image is reappropriated in a positive light. In Revelation 2:28, the “morning star” is promised to the faithful as a reward, and in Revelation 22:16, Jesus himself declares, “I am the bright morning star.” Here, the imagery symbolizes hope, renewal, and divine authority. Across these references, the “morning star” is used symbolically, not astronomically—reflecting spiritual status or transformation, rather than an interest in the physical nature of Venus as a planet.

The situation is similar with comets, which were also widely observed in the ancient world and frequently interpreted as omens or divine portents. The Bible, however, is completely silent on comets. This is particularly striking, given the dramatic appearance of comets and their long tails that stretch across the sky. They are not mentioned in Genesis, the prophets, Psalms, or anywhere in the New Testament—not even metaphorically. It seems that either the biblical authors were unaware of them, or more likely, they did not see them as theologically or cosmologically relevant within their Earth-centered, firmament-bound worldview.

The only possible exception—and even this is a stretch—is the star of Bethlehem in Matthew 2. This mysterious star guides the Magi across great distances, “goes before them,” and then stops above the house where Jesus is born. This behavior does not match any natural star, planet, or comet—none of which can "hover" over a specific building or change direction to lead travelers. If taken literally, this star is far more mobile and intentional than any known celestial body, much closer to a drone of today. Some modern theories try to interpret it as a conjunction of planets or a comet, but these explanations fail to account for the narrative behavior of the star, which acts more like a supernatural signpost than an actual astronomical object.

Taken together, the absence of any clear reference to planets or comets throughout both the Tanakh and the Christian scriptures suggests that biblical cosmology was largely unconcerned with the specifics of celestial mechanics. The sky was populated with lights for signs and seasons—not moving planets with independent paths, and certainly not with unpredictable comets. The cosmos described in scripture is geocentric, purposeful, and bounded, with no hint of the broader and more complex universe that later science—and earlier astronomy—would come to describe.

Evidence and models

With nothing more than reports that the visible constellations varied depending on what we now recognize as latitude, along with observations of the Earth’s shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse and the disappearance of ships below the horizon as they left port, Aristotle and others deduced that a flat Earth was not a reasonable model. Even with such limited information, they concluded that a spherical Earth was a better model—one that not only aligned with observations but did so with a simplicity and coherence that flat-Earth models could not match. This marked a shift from mythological cosmologies to observation-based reasoning—a remarkable intellectual leap for its time. Later, Eratosthenes used the angle of sunlight down wells to estimate the Earth's circumference. Slowly but surely, further evidence accumulated. While some resistance lingered in folk belief and isolated traditions, the spherical Earth model steadily gained acceptance among educated circles—and yet, even without a known mechanism, the model was almost universally adopted. (After all, divine control over celestial movements was still entirely compatible with a spherical Earth.)

Copernicus and Galileo made the next leap, proposing that the Earth moved around the Sun. It was not until Newton’s theory of gravity that there was a physical justification for a spherical Earth—one that also supported the Earth orbiting the Sun, and the Sun orbiting the center of the Milky Way. Weaknesses—not in Newton’s predictive power at ordinary scales, but in accounting for anomalies like the precession of Mercury’s orbit and the bending of light near massive bodies—eventually led Einstein to propose a non-linear theory of general relativity: a better model of gravity that continues to make accurate predictions and provides a functioning framework. Elsewhere, scholars in other cultures—such as Aryabhata in India or later Islamic astronomers—had also developed models of a spherical Earth and proposed celestial mechanics that went beyond geocentrism. And yet today, perhaps more importantly, it is possible to watch a live stream from the International Space Station, looking down on the Earth itself. Where ancient thinkers had to infer the Earth's shape from geometry and shadow, we now observe it directly. Still, if you read scripture literally and consider it to be inerrant, then you must accept that every biblical author who said anything about the Earth was assuming a flat Earth model—though others may reasonably interpret those texts as reflecting the cosmology of their time, rather than divine revelation of astronomical fact.

Imagine the incredulity one must feel when encountering someone today who believes in a flat Earth. Such an individual must believe that tens of thousands of employees at NASA—and at many other international space agencies—are all secretly collaborating to simulate a spherical Earth. Politicians around the world are either kept in the dark or are actively complicit, benefiting from this grand deception. The Global Positioning System (GPS) appears to rely on a spherical Earth for satellite positioning—and so do Starlink, satellite television, the Moon landings, and the Space Shuttle, at least as they are currently explained. Airline navigation, climate models, weather satellites, and global communications infrastructure all operate on principles that presuppose a rotating, spherical planet. And yet, in all this time, not a single person, scientific organization, or government has come forward with credible evidence to expose it all as a fraud. This would require an unprecedented level of coordination and secrecy—across rival governments, competing corporations, independent researchers, and whistleblowers the world over—all without a single credible leak. One is left to wonder whether such beliefs stem from distrust of authority, a craving for contrarian certainty, or simply a refusal to engage with overwhelming evidence. (But we are reassured: clever anomaly hunters are on the case, ready to identify any inconsistency and pressure the conspirators to quietly “fix” it.) Apparently, the greatest global conspiracy ever mounted is also the most airtight—and for reasons still unclear, it hinges on convincing people that the Earth is round.

Billions must be spent building and launching Space Shuttles—and billions more must go into perfectly simulating what one would expect to see from those shuttles, not to mention from any satellite placed in orbit. If one believes that the Earth is under the control of Satan, then it becomes easy to believe that every scientist, researcher, engineer, technician, and politician is also under Satan’s influence—including those who strongly and publicly profess their Christianity—and that all of this effort exists to prevent humanity from realizing that Yahweh is real, and that humans are the center of a flat, divinely designed universe. The Moon landings, of course, must also be faked—meticulously staged to maintain the illusion of a spherical Earth and a vast, godless cosmos. This belief, of course, massively inflates the ego of the flat Earth believer: they know they are right, and they believe that billions of people are ignorant—deceived by a small elite who worship Satan. The absurdity of such thinking is beyond what most people can comprehend—but ironically, opposition to their belief only reinforces it. For the true believer is not interested in truth, only in belief—and their persecution complex serves only to further inflate their sense of superiority. To accept the evidence would not merely be to change one’s mind; it would be to surrender one’s identity.

Thus, if you are a reasonable person who rejects a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:1–19—which describes a watery Earth created first, then day and night, then land, and only afterward the Sun, Moon, and stars—it is equally reasonable to reject Genesis 1:20–25, on the basis that we now know fish evolved first, followed by land animals, and only much later, birds. Most critically, however, one can reasonably reject the remainder of Genesis 1 on the grounds that we have overwhelming evidence that humans evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. The evidence is either overwhelming—or it represents the greatest and most elaborate fraud in human history.

There are more scientific papers—not all of them necessarily correct, of course—written about evolution or grounded in evolutionary biology than there are Hebrew letters in the book of Genesis. Each of these papers explores some specific aspect of the science of life, and together they form a growing body of knowledge. Slowly but surely, we are pushing further back to understand how life emerged in the first place—based not on myth, but on evidence, experimentation, and critical thought.

However, if you reject evolution, then shouldn’t you be obligated to accept the reality described in Genesis 1:1–19? According to the text, we are on a flat Earth—and the only reason this isn’t stated explicitly is because it was considered obvious at the time. The first nineteen verses are unambiguous, and every other biblical reference supports this model: a watery world split in two, with a dome above holding back the waters, and land raised up from the waters below, resting on pillars. Daylight appears before the Sun, causing the sky to be blue, and only afterward is the Sun placed in the sky to rule the day—a Sun which, according to the story, can be commanded to stop, and allegedly did so for nearly twenty-four hours. This cosmology is echoed throughout the Hebrew Bible—in Job 38, where God describes laying the Earth’s foundations; in Psalms 104, which speaks of the Earth set on pillars; and in Joshua 10, where the Sun stands still in the sky. To reject the science of evolution while clinging to a modernized reinterpretation of Genesis requires picking and choosing—discarding both the original context and the consistency of a literal reading. It becomes less about interpreting the text faithfully and more about preserving a belief, regardless of how thoroughly the evidence contradicts it.

Just as everyone once assumed the Earth was flat until evidence emerged to contradict that model, a similar shift occurred with the work of Charles Darwin—though it was never his intention to “prove” evolution. He happened to be aboard the HMS Beagle when it visited a remote collection of islands about a thousand kilometers off the coast of South America. Many of these islands are separated by distances of around fifty kilometers, making the migration of small birds and animals between islands rare, and migration from the mainland even rarer. The distinct environments on each island imposed different conditions on the species that managed to settle there. Over time, beneficial mutations helped some individuals survive and reproduce, gradually crowding out those without such traits. Of course, many mutations were neutral or harmful, but occasionally a small change would enhance survivability, allowing that trait to be passed down through generations.

Darwin knew nothing of DNA or genetics—he was simply making careful observations, just as Aristotle had done centuries earlier. And just as Aristotle proposed a spherical Earth to explain the evidence available to him, Darwin proposed that natural selection was the mechanism driving the emergence of new species. He didn’t rush to publish his findings; instead, he spent twenty years reflecting on what he had observed in the Galápagos Islands and what he continued to learn afterward. It was only when Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at a similar theory that Darwin was prompted to finally publish On the Origin of Species. Not everything Aristotle proposed was correct—he claimed, for instance, that men have more teeth than women, or that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones—but his model of a spherical Earth has endured. Similarly, while not everything Darwin proposed was perfect, the central theory of evolution by natural selection has been supported, refined, and expanded ever since. Modern genetics, unknown in Darwin’s time, has since confirmed and strengthened the framework he proposed, linking inherited traits to molecular biology and deepening our understanding of how species evolve over time.

Some hypotheses related to evolution have been discarded as new evidence has emerged, while others have been refined and strengthened. The theory has evolved itself—expanded to account for processes Darwin could not have imagined. In addition to natural selection, which remains the primary driver of evolutionary change, other mechanisms such as sexual selection, genetic drift, gene flow, and epigenetics have been identified. Sexual selection, in particular, helps explain traits that seem to confer no obvious survival advantage—such as elaborate plumage, complex mating calls, or even seemingly maladaptive behaviors—so long as they improve reproductive success. Genetic drift accounts for random changes in allele frequencies, especially in small populations, while gene flow explains how migration between populations introduces new variation. Advances in molecular biology and comparative genomics have provided powerful tools for reconstructing evolutionary lineages, and the genetic similarities shared across species point to a shared origin.

There is now compelling evidence that all life on Earth descends from a single common ancestor—most likely a simple, self-replicating cell that existed over 3.5 billion years ago. This organism, sometimes referred to as LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor), was not the first living thing, but rather the only lineage to survive the harsh and chaotic conditions of early Earth. Its descendants gradually diversified, giving rise to the vast tree of life we see today—from bacteria and archaea to fungi, plants, and animals. The traits of this ancestor were passed on, modified, and recombined over billions of years, shaped by selection, environment, and chance. The result is a tapestry of life with profound interconnections—one in which every living species, including ourselves, carries echoes of that ancient beginning.

For the true believer who is certain that humans were specially created, it is far easier to deny common descent and natural selection than it is for a flat-Earther to deny that the Earth is spherical and a tiny speck in a vast universe. After all, the theory of evolution is a relatively recent scientific development, and its mechanisms—especially those in genetics, molecular biology, and deep time—are not as visually immediate or intuitively graspable as satellite images of Earth from space. The evidence for a spherical Earth is direct and easily observed: the curvature of the horizon, time zones, global navigation, and countless images from space. By contrast, the evidence for evolution—though vast, consistent, and independently corroborated—is embedded across multiple disciplines: comparative anatomy, the fossil record, embryology, molecular genetics, radiometric dating, and biogeography. Fully appreciating this body of evidence requires a degree of scientific literacy and a willingness to engage with unfamiliar methods and timescales.

Like flat-Earthers, evolution deniers rely on the same familiar and well-worn tactics:

Repeating, without evidence, that “we were all created”—as though mere assertion confirms the majesty and wisdom of a creator.
Misrepresenting scientific observations, or twisting data to fit a pre-existing narrative.
Constructing flawed or disingenuous experiments and then claiming their results are being hidden or suppressed by the scientific establishment.
Spreading falsehoods and engaging in calculated denialism.
Asserting the existence of global conspiracies involving scientists, educators, and institutions—accusing them of deceit or spiritual blindness.
Declaring the Bible to be inerrant, and using it as a trump card to dismiss any and all contradictory evidence, regardless of its source or strength.
Cherry-picking anomalies or outliers in scientific data to cast doubt on well-established theories, while ignoring the overwhelming body of consistent evidence.
Equating scientific uncertainty with total ignorance, as if any unanswered question invalidates the entire field.
Appealing to "common sense" or personal incredulity—treating individual intuition as a substitute for expertise or evidence.
Demanding impossible standards of proof from science, while holding their own views to none.

In both cases, the belief is not merely mistaken—it is insulated from correction, not by a lack of available evidence, but by a deep emotional and ideological investment in a worldview that resists any challenge to its foundational assumptions. To entertain doubt would not simply mean revising a theory—it would mean unraveling an identity.

If someone who denies common descent and evolution by natural selection is being intellectually honest, I can only see a few possible explanations:

That person believes all the evidence supporting evolution, genetics, geology, and related sciences is entirely fabricated. According to this view, there are global committees of scientists and educators working in secret to craft elaborate falsehoods—harmonized across institutions, cultures, languages, and political systems. At the core of this conspiracy, the storytellers are controlled by Satan—and yet, remarkably, no credible whistleblower has ever emerged with verifiable evidence of such coordinated deception. Not one disgruntled employee, no leaked documents, no internal emails, no plausible defection from the ranks. In this scenario, modern medicines and technologies—allegedly based on evolutionary biology—are actually the product of more basic, hidden research. The entire scientific community maintains the evolutionary façade merely to secure government grants and retain control over knowledge. Meanwhile, honest researchers who stumble upon evidence contradicting evolution are systematically silenced, excluded from peer-reviewed journals, and denied tenure—because the global scientific establishment is conspiring to uphold the lie. One wonders how such an immense, perfectly orchestrated deception could be maintained for over a century without so much as a single credible rupture.
Alternatively, we were all specially created, and the Earth is only 6,000 years old. But Satan, ruler of this world, cleverly planted the mantle with radioactive isotopes, fossils, and varied strata of rock to fabricate the illusion of a 4.5-billion-year-old planet shaped by natural processes. Evolution is not real; it's a cosmic deception. Scientists are thus innocent dupes, misled by data intentionally designed to test their faith or draw them away from the truth. Ironically, in this model, Yahweh is the designer of all organisms—fish, birds, mammals, and humans—but in such a way that their DNA, physiology, and homologous structures strongly resemble what one would expect from common ancestry. Satan, ever the opportunist, simply capitalized on these similarities to fabricate the illusion of descent with modification. It’s a sort of divine shell game: God leaves evolutionary breadcrumbs, and Satan builds an entire theory around them.
And yet, if this is divine design, the design itself is curious. Many features of the human body seem not optimized for function or health, but rather cobbled together from ancestral parts—precisely what one would expect from an evolutionary process constrained by inherited structures. Unless, of course, we are to believe that Yahweh is deliberately preserving the quirks and inefficiencies of deep biological history for aesthetic or symbolic reasons. A few of the more striking examples, all of which are functional enough to persist—but none suggest foresight or optimization, but rather suggest history:
1. A spine adapted for quadrupeds—sturdy when horizontal, but unstable when vertical—leading to widespread back pain in upright humans.
2. Red blood cell antigens (like the Rh factor), which serve no discernible purpose but can cause fatal immune responses during childbirth and transfusion—an oddly convoluted way to manage reproduction.
3. An eye with photoreceptors buried beneath nerves and blood vessels, partially blocking incoming light—while the octopus, unconstrained by our evolutionary path, gets the wiring right.
4. A broken gene for synthesizing vitamin C, shared by humans and other simians, leaving us vulnerable to scurvy—while goats, cats, and most mammals produce it naturally.
5. A vestigial third eyelid (nictitating membrane), useless but still visible in the corner of the eye—a silent witness to a different past.
6. A coccyx, once a tail, now a source of pain when injured.
7. Wisdom teeth, which no longer fit our jaws or diets, but still grow in—and often, painfully out.
8. The vas deferens, which takes a bizarre detour around the ureter—a relic of developmental pathways inherited from fish.
9. The recurrent laryngeal nerve, which loops from the brain down into the chest and back to the throat, tracing the path of fish anatomy, rather than the direct route available to any competent designer.
10. A weak spot in the abdominal wall where the testes descend—resulting in a high incidence of inguinal hernias, especially in males.
11. A shared passageway for food and air, creating a lifelong choking hazard—because evolution had to compromise between swallowing and speech.
12. An appendix—vestigial, unnecessary, and prone to infection—whose occasional immune function hardly justifies its deadly track record.
13. A prostate gland wrapped around the urethra, swelling with age and often leading to painful urination and increased cancer risk.
14. A menstrual cycle that expels, rather than reabsorbs, the uterine lining—wasting blood and nutrients monthly, unlike most other mammals.
15. A dangerously narrow birth canal—an evolutionary compromise between upright walking and larger brains—that makes human childbirth painful and hazardous.
16. Sinuses with drainage points at the top instead of the bottom, trapping fluid and inviting infection.
17. A jaw too small for our full set of teeth—resulting in crowding, impaction, and the frequent need for surgical intervention.
18. Skin highly vulnerable to UV radiation, producing vitamin D at the cost of an increased risk of skin cancer—an odd bargain for a supposedly perfect design.
19. Feet with arches that collapse easily, causing chronic pain—remnants of an awkward transition from climbing to walking.
Finally—and more humorously—some claim that all fossils are the remains of animals that coexisted with humans before the Great Flood, but were rapidly buried and fossilized when the waters rose. This scenario requires a single worldwide flood capable of instant fossilization, precise stratification, and the perfect mimicry of deep geological time. Strangely, this flood not only sorted organisms by habitat and complexity but also managed to preserve transitional fossils in perfect evolutionary order. We find no rabbits in the Cambrian, no whales alongside trilobites, no humans next to dinosaurs—not even by accident. Naturally, no global sedimentary layer exists, no preserved pre-Flood ecosystems have been found, and no independent physical evidence supports such a flood. This model simply repackages earlier assumptions with supernatural varnish, invoking a one-time divine cataclysm to explain away a mountain of data. At its core, it's a story designed to look exactly like the thing it’s trying to deny: an ancient, evolving world, with every layer of rock and strand of DNA pointing backward into deep time.

In all these cases, the underlying approach is the same: reject the scientific method entirely, assume the Earth and life were designed in a deeply misleading way, and fall back on myth, conspiracy, and circular reasoning. The tragedy lies not only in the denial of evidence, but in the willingness to believe that the entire cosmos has been staged as a kind of divine riddle—designed to deceive, confuse, or test belief through illusion. It paints a picture not of a rational creator, but of a cosmic trickster—one who hides the truth beneath countless layers of false consistency, and then punishes those who follow the trail of evidence.

And yet, the evidence continues to mount. New fossils are found, genomes decoded, ecosystems studied, and patterns emerge—confirming again and again the predictions of common ancestry and descent with modification. For an accessible overview, I recommend The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. But my favorite example—precisely because of its elegance and predictive power—comes from the convergence of evolutionary biology, geology, and plate tectonics. Scientists calculated the time period during which fish likely began transitioning to land-dwelling amphibians. From the geological record, they identified what Earth looked like at that time and where warm, shallow, equatorial waters would have existed—ideal for fostering that kind of evolutionary leap. Then, using plate tectonics and paleogeographic reconstruction, they traced where those ancient shallows had drifted over millions of years. The answer? Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. Accounting for sedimentation and erosion, they identified a specific site where exposed rock from the correct period still remained. They went there, dug carefully, and found Tiktaalik—a fossil that beautifully exhibits features of both fish and early amphibians, exactly as predicted.

And of course, as the joke goes, every transitional fossil creates two new gaps. But science doesn’t fear gaps; it seeks to close them, one by one, with evidence and patient inquiry. If you insist that no theory is valid until every gap is filled, then please also be prepared to tell us what shape the Earth really is—and why the light bends at the horizon when ships disappear from view. Because at a certain point, denial stops being about curiosity or doubt and becomes something else entirely: a refusal to see, not for lack of vision, but for fear of what clarity might demand.

Summary

If there are any other verses in scripture related to the relative shape of the Earth or the relative position of the Earth with respect to the universe, please let me know. So far, however, the scriptures:

describe a geocentric model with the Earth being formed even before the Sun,
describe a splitting of water into those below and those above,
continually refers to a dome above, compared with a tent, into which the stars are embedded, and above which are the waters above,
describes the skies as something that can be rolled up as a scroll,
describes stars and planets (the "morning star" Venus) as points of light and treating them as such so as to have them turn off like torches and falling from the sky,
reference circles and not spheres, which better describes a flat Earth and not a spherical Earth,
continually refer to the "ends of the earth," which aligns to the flat Earth model, when other phrases in greater concordance with reality could have been used,
reference "corners of the earth" and "four corners of the earth", both of which better describe a flat Earth than a spherical Earth,
describe four winds with suggestions these winds are kept in storehouses (outside the boundaries of the Earth), and
finally, have Jesus and Satan on top of a mountain from which they could see all the kingdoms on Earth.

Given that Yahweh is all-knowing, one would think that he would not want his followers to look the fools they are. Simultaneously, it would have been so easy to clearly state hundreds of years before the earliest Greek philosophers understood that the Earth was a sphere to explicitly state that the Earth was created a sphere. But Yahweh choose to not do so. The last, which appears in two of the gospels is, however, the clearest evidence that the author thought the Earth is flat. It is unfortunate Yahweh, who so divinely inspired these two authors to be aware of the words Mary and the angel spoke and the dreams appearing to Joseph and the secret words between Pilate and his wife was unable to convince these authors to make such an impossible situation.

Most fundamentalist Christians, however, do accept that the Earth is a sphere and even accept that we are one small dot in an incredible universe, despite all that is said in their scriptures. These same fundamentalists, who ignore Genesis 1:1-19 or reinterpret those verses to somehow support a spherical Earth or consider these verses as being metaphorical, however, accept that the "truth" begins with the very next verse: fish and birds were created first, then animals and only in the end humans, and that Adam was made in the image of Yahweh. If you look at every verse that somehow describes some aspect of the Earth or the heavens, they all point to the model in those first few verses: the waters were split into those below and those above, a dome was created to hold back the waters above, land was created (and it is apparently on pillars), and only later were the Sun, Moon and stars created. These same fundamentalists, however, will reject the overwhelming evidence for common descent and natural selection as the best explanation for the diversity of life today.

Apologetics

Most apologetics on this attempt to emphasize that some of these descriptions are metaphorical; however, what is painfully clear is that no ancient scholar ever suggested that the Earth was a sphere based on what is written in the scriptures, there are many however who do teach that the Earth is flat based on what is written in the scriptures, and not once did an all-knowing, all-powerful Yahweh decide to sufficiently inspire even one author to include even one verse that unambiguously stated that the Earth is a sphere. Additionally, through such reinterpretations, it is possible to claim that the scriptures never explicitly state that the Earth is flat; however, every time there is an opportunity to describe a situation where the Earth is either flat or a sphere, the most reasonable interpretation is that the author understood the Earth to be flat. Never once did any author make any statement that could even reasonably be interpreted as being associated with a spherical Earth. It is interesting that most apologetic narratives ignore the clearest example that the followers of Jesus believed the Earth was flat: it was from a single mountain that Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the Earth.

One apologetic excuse:

First of all, the idea that the Bible promotes a flat-earth doctrine presupposes that people living 2–3 thousand years ago lacked the capacity to determine the true shape of Earth.

This is of course absurd: we are aware that many Greek philosophers understood that the Earth was a sphere, and they stated this clearly and they provided evidence and the consequent reasoning to support this claim. No Judean or Christian scripture contains even one clear statement that the Earth is a sphere, even when it would have been trivial to include such a statement, when the actual statement is in greater concordance with the flat-Earth model.

The biblical texts most often cited in the claim that the Bible teaches a flat Earth are Job 38:5, 12-14, Isaiah 11:12, 40:22, and Revelation 7:1, 20:7.

Perhaps, but the most clear is in the gospels: the fact that from a single mountain, and not even outer space, one could see all the kingdoms on the Earth. Such a mountain may exist on a flat Earth, but it does not exist on the spherical Earth we understand today. For the verses he does mention, his arguments are as follows:

Job 38:5, 12-14. The first refers to measuring the Earth with a stick; this is not even referred to above, as can measure a sphere as well as a flat Earth. The second is equally obscure but then the author attempts to make it claim it supports a spherical Earth: "What is interesting here is that for a spherical Earth the arrival of dawn first shows up at the most distant horizon, end, or edge of the point of view of a human at a fixed point upon Earth’s surface." This is not what this refers to.
Isaiah 11:12. This refers to the corners of the Earth, however, once again, a divinely inspired author could have easily used language that did not require re-interpretation.
Isaiah 40:22. This refers to Yahweh sitting above the "circle of the Earth." The author is correct, sitting anywhere above a sphere and looking down will make the sphere appear to be a circle; however, the apologist completely ignores the balance of the same verse: "It is he...who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in..." In a spherical Earth, the "Heavens" are not spread like a tent. The analogy of a "tent" presupposes a flat Earth.
Revelation 7:1. This not only refers to angels standing at the corners of the Earth, but also refers to them ceasing the winds. In a flat Earth model, the winds may indeed be modeled as coming from outside the circle of the Earth, but as described above, wind is nothing more than air moving from higher pressure regions to lower regions. Angels standing at various points throughout the Earth, even if at the points of a tetrahedral, cannot "stop" the winds.
Revelation 20:7. This refers again to the corners of the Earth.

The apologist then concludes with:

The irony of choosing Job 38:5, 12-14, Isaiah 11:12, 40:22, and Revelation 7:1, 20:7 to sustain the claim that the Bible is a flat-earth book is that these biblical texts better fit a spherical Earth than they do a flat Earth.

They do not. Referring to corners of the Earth does not "better fit" a spherical Earth. A tent stretched out over the Earth does not "better fit" a spherical Earth. The first reference to Job which refers to measuring the Earth does not any better or worse "fit" a spherical Earth. The claim is absurd to the extreme, but this is what the true believer wants to hear.

While it would be an overinterpretation to conclude that these texts explicitly teach that Earth is a sphere, nowhere in the Bible do we find any text saying that Earth is flat.

Absolutely correct: nowhere in the scriptures does it teach that the Earth is a sphere, at yet, the Greeks were able to clearly state that the Earth was a sphere, and provided evidence and reasoning to come up with this conclusion. There are many places in the scriptures where a divinely inspired author could easily have inserted words that clearly indicated a spherical Earth, but we are left with Jesus and Satan looking down from a single mountain and seeing all the kingdoms of Earth.

The Bible remains the only holy book for which we can say that it contains no provable errors or contradictions.

The Christian scriptures contain no contradictions, so did Satan take Jesus first to the Temple and then to the mountain, or first to the mountain and then to the Temple, and if these journeys are associated with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness immediately after his baptism, why does the gospel of John have Jesus immediately after his baptism speak to Andrew and Simon Peter the next day, Philip and Nathanael the day thereafter, travel to Galilee the day after this with his four new disciples, and then go with his family thereafter to Capernaum, with no reference what-so-ever to an intermediate forty days in the wilderness?

Another apologist makes the following statements:

Unfortunately, many Christians have fallen prey to this, misled into believing that the Bible teaches the earth is flat and that, until five centuries ago, the church likewise taught that the earth is flat.

It is interesting that it is Christians who are trusting an interpretation of their scriptures that obligates them to believe the Earth is flat. It is sad that those same Christians are not aware that the objection of the Earth to the heliocentric model was not about the Earth being flat, but rather about the relative significance of Earth and the Sun.

In summary, many apologetics fall into the same categories: this verse is an analogy, or that verse is a colloquialism, or these verses are metaphors, or those verses are common expressions. In some cases, the verses just require interesting interpretations. The issue is, why is it that all the verses above actually do comport with the narrative in Genesis 1 without the need for interpretation, while none of the verses in the scriptures describe reality as we actually understand it today. Some suggest that nomadic Canaanite pastoral herders were just not ready for reality; however, if that is actually the case, is there not something wrong with that reality? Could Yahweh not have started truthfully?

In the beginning, after the universal fires burnt out, there was void, and in this void I created the stars.

And these stars extended beyond the imagination of any of my creations.

And yet, these stars are there, so that one day,

my creation may see things you would not believe:

chariots on fire off the shoulder of Orion,

light glittering in the dark near the gates of poetry,

and yet all those moments will, like yours, be lost in time,

like tears in rain. And for each there will be a time to die.

Then I chose one small star, and around this star I gifted one world life.

That life grew slowly at first, but grew ever more clever, and soon this world was ready for my creation of humans.

A small tribe at first, these people spread north to Egypt and then throughout the world.

What we have, however, is a creation myth borrowed from the Babylonians, and it is one that can only posit a flat Earth at the center of the universe, for the Earth was created first, and and last of all was created humans. A myth with no bearing on reality, and no concordance with the best models and theories that describe the universe we live in.

It's metaphorical

One conservative apologetic I’ve encountered—both humorous and, frankly, rather pathetic—is the claim that the oddities in Genesis 1 are all metaphorical. This individual doesn’t fall into the camp of strict biblical literalism, nor do they openly reject scientific evidence. Instead, this conservative attempt to straddle the two by treating the Tanakh and Christian scriptures as broadly true while selectively redefining inconvenient parts as metaphor, allegory, or symbolism. The goal is clear: preserve the authority and divine truth of scripture, while avoiding direct conflict with scientific consensus.

But this strategy creates a theological loophole: scientific contradictions are smoothed over with metaphor, while cultural prescriptions—including deeply archaic and morally troubling ones—are left untouched. This approach allows such individuals to maintain that ancient social norms that align with conservative values—such as patriarchal hierarchy, harsh legalism, heteronormative sexual ethics, rigid gender roles, tribalism and ethnocentrism, and divinely sanctioned violence—are “God-breathed” and binding, while simultaneously discarding the obsolete cosmology of scripture without reckoning with its implications. In doing so, such conservatives shield themselves from having to question whether the scriptures may also reflect limited human perspectives in its moral and social teachings—not just its view of the physical world.

This is particularly evident in the uncritical acceptance of the Tanakh’s homophobia and the subordinate status it assigns to women. Passages that condemn same-sex relations (such as Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) or prescribe male leadership in the family and religious life are often embraced as timeless moral truths. Some conservative readers may also uphold biblical norms regarding marriage as strictly heterosexual and lifelong, affirm teachings that place men in spiritual authority, or appeal to Genesis 3:16 to justify traditional gender roles. Meanwhile, passages describing a solid dome separating the waters above from those below (Genesis 1:6-8), the earth as immovable (Psalm 104:5), or stars set into the firmament (Genesis 1:14-17) are quickly reinterpreted as poetic or metaphorical.

This selective approach reveals a clear double standard: social and moral teachings that align with modern conservative values are treated as divinely inspired and enduring, while scientifically untenable cosmological claims are dismissed as symbolic. The result is not a consistent interpretive framework but a theology shaped by cultural preference—affirming ancient beliefs where they support modern agendas, and redefining or discarding them where they do not. The consequence is a selective faith that elevates ancient prejudices while excusing ancient ignorance, all under the guise of reverence for scripture. It is not a serious engagement with either science or the text—it is a reflexive attempt to protect conservative beliefs from contradiction, no matter how inconsistent or morally compromised that belief becomes.

To demonstrate, one statement this individual made was:

It was time when most were illiterate, and as I was saying before their whole world was the valley they lived in. So for God to communicate to them it is written as a story in a way that that period could understand. Very metaphorical and allegorical, not literal.

The statement is exceptionally patronizing because it equates illiteracy with ignorance, as though the inability to read somehow implies a lack of intelligence or awareness. This reflects a modern bias that devalues oral cultures, ignoring the fact that many ancient societies had rich oral traditions that preserved core teachings and narratives across generations using structured forms like repetition, rhythm, and ritual—even if the details often evolved over time. To suggest that people in 800-600 BCE could only understand God through overly simplified, metaphorical stories assumes they were intellectually underdeveloped, which is both historically inaccurate and condescending.

A full millennium before 800–600 BCE, humans were constructing monumental works like the Great Pyramids of Egypt (ca. 2600 BCE), developing sophisticated irrigation and agricultural systems in Mesopotamia, building ziggurats such as the one at Ur, and engaging in extensive trade networks throughout the Near East. The southern Levant, far from being isolated, was a vital crossroads linking Egypt, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. It was traversed by trade routes that carried metals like copper and tin (used for bronze), luxury goods like incense and spices, textiles, pottery, cedar wood from Lebanon, and later, even alphabetic writing systems and religious ideas. The authors who wrote down the scriptures were not isolated peasants—they were scribes, priests, and literate elites living in urban centers or temple complexes, individuals well-acquainted with the cultural, religious, and intellectual currents flowing through the region.

By 1000 BCE, empires such as the Hittites and Assyrians had risen and fallen, the Mycenaeans had built walled palace complexes, and the Phoenicians were navigating the Mediterranean and spreading their script. These were not isolated valley dwellers, but people deeply embedded in a web of technological, religious, economic, and intellectual exchange.

To claim their “whole world was the valley they lived in” is to ignore this vast and complex reality. Ancient people were not simplistic beings needing divine ideas “dumbed down” for them; they were deeply reflective, capable of abstraction, and fully engaged with the moral, metaphysical, and existential questions that still challenge us today. One need only look at the Code of Hammurabi—an extensive legal code inscribed nearly a millennium before the Hebrew Bible was written down—which includes detailed civil, criminal, and economic regulations grounded in concepts of justice, hierarchy, and divine authority. Likewise, the Epic of Gilgamesh, dating to the early second millennium BCE, wrestles with themes of friendship, mortality, the human condition, and the limits of divine power. These texts demonstrate that ancient peoples were capable not only of crafting structured legal systems, but also of producing profound literature that explored grief, pride, fate, and the meaning of life. Metaphor and allegory appear not because they couldn’t understand literal meanings, but because those forms are powerful tools for exploring what literal language often fails to capture—a truth that holds just as much for us now as it did then.

For a story to be metaphorical or allegorical, it must operate on more than one level: a literal narrative and a deeper symbolic meaning. This kind of storytelling assumes that the audience is capable of abstract thinking: that a story about a tree might also represent choice, or that a journey through the wilderness might reflect a spiritual trial. Crucially, it also depends on a shared cultural framework where certain symbols—like mountains, water, animals, or kings—carry recognized meanings. Without this mutual understanding between storyteller and audience, the metaphor or allegory wouldn’t be effective.

Ancient cultures, including those in the Near East, were well equipped for this kind of symbolic storytelling. They preserved complex ideas through oral traditions, rituals, and poetic forms. Their myths, epic poems, and religious narratives often used imagery and symbolism to explore morality, mortality, divine justice, and human purpose. Even without widespread literacy, these societies developed interpretive traditions—like midrash in early Judaism or the layered cosmologies of Mesopotamian myth—that supported metaphorical reading and deep reflection.

So when people claim that stories from 800-600 BCE were metaphorical because people couldn’t understand anything else, they miss the point entirely. Metaphor and allegory aren’t tools for the intellectually limited—they are sophisticated devices for expressing profound truths. Ancient people didn’t need things “dumbed down”; they needed them embedded in forms that spoke to their lived experience, communal memory, and symbolic imagination—much as we still do today.

In fact, this tendency to patronize ancient cultures often serves a strategic purpose. By portraying the people of 800-600 BCE as intellectually primitive—confined to their valleys and incapable of abstract reasoning—modern readers can more easily dismiss parts of the biblical text that conflict with science as mere metaphor. The assumption becomes: “They couldn’t have understood anything more accurate, so God used symbolic language they could grasp.” This sets up a convenient interpretive escape hatch.

When confronted with elements like the firmament dividing waters above from below, or the earth resting on pillars, this framework allows the reader to sidestep the contradiction by declaring, “That was never meant literally.” But this is a selective and inconsistent strategy. When a biblical claim appears to align with modern knowledge, it is read as literal and validated; when it clashes with science, it is suddenly metaphorical. The metaphor is not drawn from textual cues, but from the need to defend the text. This doesn’t reflect the ancient mindset — it reflects modern discomfort with admitting that the Bible contains views of the world that are, by today’s standards, simply wrong.

Now, the individual in question began with the claim

I tend to be a believer. But I feel that the Bible and science confirm one another. And I end up in arguments both sides that feels they don’t. I don’t know, at the end of the day I believe there’s much more that we don’t know than we do . The lessons are valuable, regardless.

Thus poorly phrased statement seems to be saying something along the lines of:

“I believe in the Bible—not just culturally, but spiritually. I hold it as sacred and meaningful. But I also respect science. I don’t see them as enemies. To me, the discoveries of science—the age of the earth, evolution, the vastness of the cosmos—don’t contradict belief in God or the value of the Bible. I think truth is unified, and that both scripture and science, in their own ways, point toward deeper truths about existence. I often find myself caught in the middle: criticized by some believers for accepting science, and by some skeptics for holding on to faith. I don’t have all the answers, but I suspect no one does. There’s so much we still don’t understand, and I believe it’s okay to live in that space of tension. What matters to me is that the Bible teaches lessons that still resonate, even if not every word is meant to be taken literally.”

The final statement is the most revealing: the emphasis falls on the lessons—lessons that, more often than not, align with a conservative outlook. This is not surprising coming from someone whose worldview is already compatible with the traditional moral framework of ancient cultures. The appeal to the Bible’s resonance isn’t an embrace of its spiritual depth across time, but rather a confirmation bias—valuing the parts that reinforce existing beliefs while brushing aside contradictions or complexities as metaphor. It reflects not a deep engagement with either scripture or science, but a comfortable resting point: affirming a tradition that flatters one's worldview while shielding it from serious scrutiny.

When people refers to the Tanakh as containing “lessons that are valuable”, they are often using vague and modern language that obscures the actual nature of the text. The Tanakh is not a book of timeless moral teachings or general parables; it is a theologically driven collection of law codes, origin stories, poetry, prophetic warnings, and historical narratives—all interpreted through the lens of Israel’s covenant with Yahweh. Its central moral structure is not based on universal human rights or abstract ethics, but on obedience to divine commandments as a condition of communal blessing and survival.

Rather than offering general “life lessons,” the stories in the Tanakh typically illustrate the consequences of obedience or disobedience to the covenant. They are not told to inspire abstract moral reflection, but to reinforce a specific religious and legal framework: Yahweh commands, Israel either obeys or rebels, and blessings or punishments follow. The ethical judgments within these stories often reflect the social and political norms of ancient tribal societies—patriarchy, purity laws, conquest, and collective punishment—not values that naturally align with modern liberal or pluralistic ethics.

So when someone says they appreciate the “lessons” in the Tanakh, what they often mean—consciously or not—is that they agree with its social laws and how they are applied in the narrative context. They approve of the moral worldview it promotes: one in which authority, hierarchy, and divine justice are central. Framing this as admiration for its moral “lessons” makes the endorsement seem more universal and less ideological than it actually is. It’s not that the Tanakh offers neutral wisdom—it offers a particular moral vision, and approving of that vision is itself a strong cultural and political statement.

However, the real issue here is the claim that

“the Bible and science confirm one another.”

The claim that “the Bible and science confirm one another” may come from a place of good intent—an effort to reconcile personal faith with modern knowledge—but it often rests on a number of fallacies and misunderstandings, particularly about the nature and purpose of both science and the biblical texts.

First, there is a category error involved: science and the Bible are fundamentally different types of discourse. Science is a method for systematically investigating the natural world through observation, experimentation, and falsifiability. The Bible, by contrast, is a collection of ancient writings—myth, law, poetry, genealogy, and historical memory—composed over centuries for theological, political, and social purposes. It was not intended as a scientific account of the world but as a narrative framework for understanding the place of a specific people—primarily the Judahites—in relation to their God and to one another. To say that they “confirm” each other implies they’re answering the same kinds of questions, which they are not.
Second, the idea that the Bible contains “revealed truths” confirmed by science often depends on retrospective interpretation or cherry-picking. Believers may point to vague poetic passages or metaphorical imagery and claim them as precursors to modern discoveries—such as the earth being “hung upon nothing” (Job 26:7) or the “circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22)—but these are ambiguous and often misused. Meanwhile, clear and unambiguous ancient beliefs—such as a solid firmament, a flat earth, or the origins of languages at Babel—are dismissed as figurative or culturally conditioned. This double standard reveals a strong confirmation bias: the impulse to accept what supports one's belief and rationalize or reinterpret what doesn't.
Finally, there is a romanticized view of scripture that ignores its historical and political context. The Hebrew Bible was composed and edited during times of great political upheaval, often by priestly and aristocratic classes trying to establish unity, identity, and authority within the Judean Mountains. Much of it is concerned with social order, ritual purity, land ownership, lineage, and covenant loyalty—in other words, reinforcing structures of power and cultural continuity. To read these texts as containing timeless, universal scientific truths is to flatten them, stripping them of their historical specificity and turning them into something they were never intended to be.

In short, the idea that “the Bible and science confirm one another” is built on a false equivalence, selective interpretation, and a reluctance to acknowledge the ancient, human origins of the text. It’s an understandable attempt to find harmony between two important parts of one's worldview — but ultimately, it misrepresents both science and scripture in the process.

There is an intense desire in many religious communities for the Bible to be true in every detail—historically, morally, and even scientifically — based on the assumption that a text inspired by Yahweh could not contain error or falsehood. This conviction often rests on the idea that divine perfection must extend to every word of Scripture. However, for most of Christian history, the Bible was not interpreted strictly literally in every aspect. Early Church Fathers like Origen and Augustine explicitly warned against reading Scripture in a purely literal way, especially in passages that conflicted with reason or observable reality. They saw parts of the Bible—especially Genesis—as containing symbolic or allegorical meanings meant to teach spiritual truths, not scientific facts. Throughout the medieval period, a “fourfold” method of interpretation (literal, moral, allegorical, anagogical) was common, and a rigid literalism was not the norm.

The shift toward a literalist view of the Bible began in earnest during the Protestant Reformation. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin emphasized sola scriptura—Scripture alone—as the foundation of faith, in reaction to what they saw as corrupt traditions and interpretations within the Catholic Church. This elevated the authority of the biblical text itself, but even then, literalism was selective and often theological, not scientific. The real push for a strictly literal reading, especially of Genesis and other cosmological passages, came later—in the 19th and early 20th centuries—as a response to the rise of modern science, particularly Darwinian evolution, geology, and biblical higher criticism (which examined the Bible as a human literary and historical document). Movements like fundamentalism in the United States were born out of fear that science and secular scholarship were undermining the authority of Scripture—and by extension, religious and moral order.

The idea that the Bible must be literally and scientifically true has since taken deep root, especially in evangelical and conservative Protestant communities. This is partly psychological: if the Bible is seen as the revealed word of God, then to admit it contains errors—scientific, historical, or moral—can feel like the whole structure of faith will collapse. Literalism offers a kind of emotional security: a fixed, unchanging foundation in a rapidly changing world. It also allows for a clear moral and social framework, which can be comforting amidst ambiguity and uncertainty.

But the reality is that large portions of the Bible are not just metaphorical—they are factually incorrect by modern standards. Genesis describes a cosmology with a firm sky dome (the “firmament”), an earth formed before the sun, and the sudden appearance of humans in their current form. The story of Noah involves a global flood unsupported by any geological evidence. The Tower of Babel account contradicts our understanding of how human languages evolved. Recognizing these issues doesn’t require rejecting the Bible, but it does require letting go of the illusion that it is a science textbook or a literal record of historical events. For many, this is not a loss of faith, but a deepening of it—moving from rigid certainty to a more honest, mature engagement with sacred texts. I would recommend the podcast New Testament Review to demonstrate how two committed Christian scholars can nevertheless put the biblical text to task. In each episode, they explore major academic works in New Testament studies with clarity, nuance, and intellectual honesty—not to undermine the text, but to understand its historical, literary, and theological contexts. Their work shows that taking the Bible seriously does not mean taking it literally in every sense, and that faithful engagement often requires critical reflection, not blind acceptance.

The next statement is

The old testament is certainly hard to reconcile. But through it all the lessons are good, the stories still meaningful. And in my own experience and sensing I cannot but help believe there is more, greater things then we can understand. My feeling has alway [sic] been the bible is full of generalities and the science keeps pulling back the veil and filling in the missing pieces as we learn and grow. But not contradicting it.

To summarize the latter half, he seems to be saying:

“I have a deep intuition—based on my own experience and sense of the world—that there’s something greater beyond our understanding. I believe the Bible offers general spiritual truths, and as science progresses, it helps uncover more detail about the world, essentially pulling back the veil. But I don't see science as ever contradicting the Bible—instead, it enriches or fills in what was already broadly true in Scripture.”

This view expresses a sincere desire to harmonize faith and science, but it contains a subtle and problematic logical maneuver: it ends with a no-true-Scotsman fallacy. By stating that science “does not contradict” the Bible, the speaker effectively redefines contradiction out of existence. Any biblical claim that science does contradict is reclassified as metaphor, allegory, or symbolic—while any scientific insight that seems to support a biblical idea is embraced as confirmation of biblical truth. This double standard makes the Bible unfalsifiable: it is always affirmed, never wrong, because contradiction is ruled out by definition.

This approach also suffers from confirmation bias. Scientific findings are selectively used to affirm belief, not challenge it. For example, the Big Bang might be embraced as evidence of a biblical “beginning,” but the theory of evolution is reinterpreted, resisted, or allegorized away to avoid conflicting with the Genesis account. Meanwhile, biblical descriptions that clearly contradict scientific knowledge—like a firm, domed sky, or a global flood—are deemed “symbolic,” not because of internal literary clues, but because science demands they be.

Ultimately, this framework protects belief at the cost of intellectual consistency. It uses science only when it’s convenient and rejects or reframes it when it challenges sacred texts. A more honest approach would allow for the possibility that the Bible reflects the ancient worldview of its time—with all its insights and limitations—and that science, rather than completing the Bible, offers an independent and more accurate understanding of the natural world. Faith, if it is to survive meaningfully, must find a way to engage with truth wherever it emerges—even when that truth contradicts ancient assumptions.

Genesis 1 begins not with the creation of matter from nothing, but with the organization of a chaotic, watery abyss—tehom—by separating the waters into those above and those below, held apart by a structure called the raqia’. This Hebrew word comes from the verb raqa’, meaning to beat or hammer out, typically used to describe metalworking, such as in Exodus 39:3, where gold is beaten into thin plates. The consistent use of raqa’ throughout the Tanakh suggests something solid and firm—a literal dome or canopy hammered into place. This understanding is reinforced by subsequent passages that describe stars being embedded in the raqia’ (Genesis 1:14-17), and by depictions of “windows of heaven” (Genesis 7:11, 8:2) through which rain pours during the flood. In Job 37:18, the skies are described as being “hard as a molten mirror,” further emphasizing the solidity of this celestial barrier.

The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was produced by Jewish scholars in Alexandria during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE. When translating Genesis 1:6, they rendered the Hebrew word raqia’ as στερέωμα—a word that unambiguously means something solid or firm. The Latin Vulgate, translated by Jerome in the late 4th century CE, preserved this understanding by using the word firmamentum, from which the English word firmament is directly derived.

These translation choices matter. They were made by people far closer in time, language, and culture to the original texts than modern interpreters, and they clearly understood raqia’ as something solid—a firm structure separating the waters above from the earth below. This was not a poetic flourish or a symbolic “expanse”; it was a feature of a coherent cosmological model common to the ancient Near East. The Babylonian Enuma Elish, Egyptian creation myths, and other neighboring traditions describe similar domed skies or firm heavens.

Modern translations that replace “firmament” with “expanse” often do so not because of linguistic necessity, but in an effort to soften the conflict between ancient cosmology and modern science. This is a subtle but important form of theological revisionism—a way of retrofitting the text to avoid the uncomfortable fact that the biblical worldview includes elements that are now scientifically indefensible.

Some modern fundamentalists, faced with the impossibility of reconciling this ancient cosmology with modern astronomy, resort to fantastical explanations—for example, that the raqia’ was once a dome of ice encasing the earth, and that its catastrophic melting caused the global flood. This conveniently explains why we no longer see such a structure today. But more commonly, apologists attempt to sidestep the problem by redefining raqia’ as something like “expanse”—a term broad and vague enough to avoid scientific conflict. However, this translation is not rooted in the ancient understanding of the cosmos, but in modern discomfort with the original meaning. It is a retroactive attempt to save the Bible from embarrassment, not an honest reflection of what the authors believed or intended. It is a consequence of a spherical Earth being so completely undeniable that it is impossible to argue honestly against this theory, except, of course, for that fringe group of Flat-Earthers still extant today.

Fortunately, some translations resist this revisionist impulse. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) uses “dome”, which aligns with the ancient Near Eastern conception of the heavens as a solid structure. Even the New International Version (NIV), typically more evangelical-friendly, uses “vault”. These choices reflect a growing scholarly consensus that the biblical authors held a prescientific view of the cosmos—one that mirrors the cosmologies of surrounding cultures, such as the Babylonian firmament in the Enuma Elish. To pretend otherwise is not fidelity to scripture, but a distortion of it. The raqia’ was not metaphorical or poetic language for atmosphere—it was understood as a literal dome, holding back the cosmic waters above, consistent with the ancient three-tiered conception of the universe: the heavens above, the earth as a flat realm in the middle, and the chaotic waters or pillars beneath. The cosmology of Genesis, then, is not just scientifically outdated — it is steeped in a worldview that is radically different from modern spiritual or material conceptions of the universe.

Unfortunately, the concept of the firmament—whether rendered as “dome”, “vault”, or the more nebulous “expanse”—retains just enough abstraction to give modern evangelicals or fundamentalists room to maneuver. Because the raqia’ is not described in exhaustive physical terms, its exact nature can be endlessly reinterpreted. This ambiguity allows apologists to sidestep uncomfortable conclusions: when scientific evidence contradicts the ancient cosmology, they can simply assert that the firmament was “symbolic” or “metaphorical,” even if the surrounding text reads plainly and literally.

What makes this especially slippery is that the symbolism is rarely defined—symbolic of what, exactly? If the dome is metaphorical, then what does it metaphorically represent in the creation narrative? There is seldom an answer, because the move to metaphor is not driven by a literary or theological reading, but by the necessity of defending the Bible from being wrong. It becomes a protective reflex—a vague gesture toward mystery or poetic license—rather than a serious engagement with the text. In doing so, the interpreter avoids the more honest and historically grounded conclusion: that the authors of Genesis simply believed in an ancient Near Eastern cosmology that no longer holds up to modern scrutiny.

Thus, to turn from the ambiguous concept of the firmament to something much more straightforward, we now consider the structure of the creation account in the following passages — namely, the populating of the three realms. On Days 1, 2, and 3, the realms are established: day and night, the waters below and the skies above, and then the land. On Days 4, 5, and 6, these same realms are populated in corresponding order: first, the day and night are filled with the Sun, Moon, and stars; then the skies and seas are filled with birds and fish; and finally, the land is populated with animals, insects, and, ultimately, humankind.

This parallelism strongly suggests a poetic or literary structure, and many scholars have noted this symmetry as evidence of careful theological or narrative design. Another interpretation, supported by early Christian thinkers such as Origen and Augustine, is that the sequence reflects a hierarchy of being — with birds and fish considered lower forms of life than land animals, and humans occupying the highest tier. Regardless of which explanation one prefers, what remains most important—and undeniable—is the explicit order of creation presented in the text. It is not vague or symbolic in this respect. It lays out a clear sequence, and attempts to dismiss or allegorize that sequence when it conflicts with scientific understanding require one to selectively reinterpret the very structure the passage emphasizes.

Let us now test the implications of this interpretive approach by examining a concrete example—the explicit sequence of creation described in Genesis 1. Consider the following passage:

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good... God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

The order is plain: first, the waters are filled with sea creatures and teeming life, and the skies with birds. Only once all the birds and sea creatures are created and already commanded to “be fruitful and multiply” are land animals created—wild animals, livestock, and creeping things. This is not part of a fluid or overlapping continuum of creation; it is a clear demarcation between Day 4 and Day 5, with each category of life brought into existence in distinct phases. This sequence stands in direct contradiction to the well-established scientific understanding of evolutionary history. Scientifically, life began in the sea with microorganisms, followed by marine invertebrates and fish. Next came land-dwelling invertebrates (such as insects), then amphibians and reptiles, and much later, birds—which evolved from theropod dinosaurs. Scientifically, whales must be categorized among these “great creatures of the sea,” yet whales are mammals whose massive size is only possible because they breathe oxygen directly from the atmosphere—a far richer source than oxygen dissolved in water. Whales evolved from land mammals that returned to aquatic life hundreds of millions of years after the first fish, clearly placing them after the appearance of mammals, not before. Domesticated livestock were not “created” in their current forms but were selectively bred from wild ancestors by humans in relatively recent agricultural history.

Genesis, however, presents birds as preceding land animals, places whales in the same category as fish, and suggests livestock appeared in their domestic form from the outset. These are not minor discrepancies. They reflect a fundamentally different cosmology and biological understanding—one that aligns with an ancient, pre-scientific worldview, not with modern evolutionary biology.

So then, if this is clearly incompatible with scientific knowledge, are we to call it metaphorical? And if so, on what grounds? What does it mean to say that birds being created before land animals, or whales alongside fish, is “metaphorical”? What is it a metaphor for?

To illustrate the absurdity of vague metaphorical claims, allow me a brief digression to a humorous scene from Guardians of the Galaxy:

The antagonist (with full dramatic flair): It's time for the Ravagers to rise once again to glory with a new captain: Taserface!

Rocket Racoon (laughing uncontrollably): Um, um, I'm sorry, I'm... Your, your name is, its Taserface?

The antagonist: That's right.

Rocket Racoon: Do you shoot tasers out of your face?

The antagonist (defiantly): It's metaphorical!

Rocket Raccoon: For what?

The antagonist: For... It is a name what strikes fear into the hearts of anyone what hears it.

Rocket Raccoon: Okay, whatever you say.

The point is: if something is metaphorical, it must be a metaphor of something. Simply labeling something “symbolic” or “not literal” doesn’t give it meaning unless that symbolism is grounded in context, intent, and content. Otherwise, it’s just a rhetorical escape hatch—a way to preserve the authority of the text without explaining what it actually means. A metaphor that stands for nothing is no better than a name like “Taserface”: dramatic, perhaps, but ultimately hollow.

To interpret such passages metaphorically is to assert that the narrative was never intended as a literal account, but rather as a symbolic or theological message—using poetic structure and imagery to communicate moral or spiritual truths. This would mean viewing the creation days not as chronological events but as a literary framework designed to express divine order, purpose, and hierarchy.

Yet if metaphor is invoked only after contradiction becomes untenable, and only selectively—when literal readings fail—then metaphor becomes a tool of convenience, not a genuine interpretive principle. To read this passage metaphorically is not wrong in itself, but it requires intellectual honesty: we must acknowledge that what we are reading is a reflection of an ancient worldview, and that the spiritual truth we draw from it is independent of its scientific claims—not disguised within them.

How, exactly, is the sequence in which birds and sea creatures are created before land animals an illustration of any moral or spiritual truth? What is this order meant to teach us? In what way does it offer an emotionally resonant or intellectually satisfying image of divine purpose? If storytelling is being used to communicate transcendent truth, then the form of the story must in some way support that message. Yet here we’re given a sequence of events that is not only scientifically inaccurate, but also lacks any clear symbolic or theological logic. A more accurate order of creation—grounded in observable reality—would surely resonate more intellectually than one that contradicts what we know of the natural world. So what emotional necessity or moral purpose is being served by this error?

After all, one important observation is that while the act of creation is referred to numerous times throughout the Tanakh, the specific order of creation found in Genesis 1 is never reiterated. Nowhere do later biblical authors restate the sequence—birds and fish before land animals, humans created last—as though it holds theological weight or doctrinal importance. This silence is telling. It suggests that the precise order of creation was not viewed by the biblical tradition itself as significant or worth preserving. In fact, the order only became theologically important once it was shown to be scientifically wrong.

Later biblical writers and poets consistently affirm God’s role as Creator, but they do so in broad, thematic terms—emphasizing His power, wisdom, and sovereignty—not by repeating the six-day framework or its specific chronology. There is no effort to restate or preserve the Genesis sequence in legal codes, prophetic writings, wisdom literature, or liturgical texts. This contrasts sharply with other foundational moments, such as the Exodus or the giving of the Ten Commandments, which are regularly reaffirmed and central to Israel’s identity. The fact that the Genesis creation order is never cited again in detail underscores how little theological weight it originally carried—until modern readers, confronted with scientific contradictions, were forced to reinterpret it.

Should we conclude, then, as some early Church Fathers like Augustine or Origen suggested, that the order implies a hierarchy of being—birds and fish below land animals, and land animals below humans, who are placed last and given dominion over all? This would be one way to extract meaning from the sequence, but it raises more questions than it answers. If the order is wrong by every empirical measure, and if no subsequent biblical authors saw fit to emphasize or preserve it, what enduring spiritual or moral truth could be said to depend on that particular arrangement? Rather than revealing divine insight, the sequence appears to reflect human assumptions—about status, power, and control—embedded within an ancient cultural framework. It is not theological depth that preserves the order, but the inertia of tradition, and the reluctance to admit that the text, in this case, was simply mistaken.

Let us take this challenge seriously. If the Tanakh is, as 2 Timothy 3:16 claims, “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” then surely it would have been possible for Yahweh to inspire a narrative that speaks timelessly and truthfully. Consider the following hypothetical revision:

And God said, “Let the waters teem with creatures that breathe water, and let the land produce crawling creatures and wild animals.” So God created the fish and sea life, and then the creeping things, and then the wild beasts. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and the seas.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the birds fill the sky, and let the sea bring forth great beasts that breathe air, and let us form livestock for the care of humankind.” And it was so. And then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image...” And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

This minor reordering of events would not only have reflected evolutionary history with stunning accuracy, but would also have inspired awe at the precision of divine revelation. How could such a convergence between scripture and science not resonate both emotionally and intellectually—inviting the faithful to marvel at the unity between God's Word and God's world?

Instead, we are asked to believe that the existing narrative—with its biologically inaccurate sequence and classification errors (placing whales with fish, bats with birds, yet birds before land animals, livestock created fully formed)—somehow conveys a deeper, richer truth. But what, exactly, is that truth? If metaphor is being invoked, it must stand for something. It must illuminate a moral insight or theological principle that would be diminished if the story were more scientifically accurate. And here lies the burden of proof: one must show why an incorrect order of creation—birds before dinosaurs, livestock appearing without domestication—somehow carries a deeper moral or spiritual message than a simple, accurate one.

Absent that clarification, this defense amounts to special pleading: redefining what counts as truth only when the text is in conflict with evidence, while insisting on literal truth when it aligns. If the Genesis creation account is to be respected as metaphor, then the metaphor must have content—meaning. Otherwise, it is not metaphor at all. It is an empty label, applied selectively to shield the text from criticism rather than to reveal its deeper purpose.

The individual in question stated “My feeling has alway [sic] been the bible is full of generalities and the science keeps pulling back the veil and filling in the missing pieces as we learn and grow. But not contradicting it.” However, the sequence in Genesis is not general or vague—it's very explicit: all creatures made on the fifth day were created and procreating before any creatures made on the sixth day. While one might argue that Genesis leaves the method of creation somewhat vague (thus potentially allowing room for evolutionary interpretation), the chronological order presented is crystal clear and explicitly includes “every winged bird according to its kind”:

Scientifically, birds could not have preceded land animals—such as reptiles or dinosaurs—from which they directly descended. Similarly, bats, as mammals, could not have preceded land mammals. It is also extraordinarily difficult to imagine evolutionary pressures that would directly transition an aquatic species into one capable of flight without intermediate terrestrial stages. Instead, evolutionary evidence clearly demonstrates that both birds and bats evolved from land-dwelling ancestors. Thus, the explicit order in Genesis directly contradicts established scientific understanding, no matter how one attempts to rationalize or reinterpret the biblical narrative.

You might attempt to argue that, since some dinosaurs had already evolved flight prior to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, both birds and fish existed before mammals and humans. You might then suggest that Genesis, by placing birds before mammals and humans, accurately predicted this sequence, with mammals evolving only afterward from ancient mammalian ancestors—small, shrew-like creatures that burrowed underground while dinosaurs dominated the land. Yet such an interpretation stretches credibility too far. It ignores reptiles and overlooks the fact that the authors of the Tanakh also categorized bats as “birds” (Leviticus 11:13-19), even though bats evolved long after mammals had appeared. Thus, according to the logic of Genesis, bats—a mammalian “kind”—would incorrectly appear alongside birds on the fifth day, before mammals existed at all.

Still, it’s important to remember—as Christopher Hitchens aptly put it—that being humanity’s first attempt, it was also our worst. The cosmology in Genesis, with its firm dome, fixed earth, and created order, reflects not divine revelation but an early and earnest effort to describe the universe using the best knowledge available at the time. Likewise, its moral and social teachings—gender roles, purity laws, sexual taboos, and hierarchical authority—were also early attempts to impose structure, preserve identity, and maintain social cohesion in fragile tribal societies. These were not eternal truths handed down unchanged from heaven; they were adaptive responses to the realities of ancient life. Genesis, then, is not a flawless account of how the world works or how humans ought to live, but a record of how ancient people sought meaning, order, and stability in a world they were only beginning to understand.

But the need to preserve literal truth in Genesis has never been just about cosmology. It’s about control. The same interpretive rigidity that insists Genesis must either be scientifically accurate unless metaphorical is used to enforce moral, social, and cultural norms drawn from the same pages. This includes patriarchal hierarchy, heteronormative sexual ethics, rigid gender roles, and a belief in divine order that conveniently aligns with conservative political preferences. To admit that Genesis is wrong about the structure of the universe is to admit that it may also be wrong—or at least culturally bound—on moral questions. And that is a much more dangerous admission for those who rely on the Bible as a foundation for social and political authority.

This is why, for some conservatives, Genesis 1 must be reinterpreted as metaphor—not to challenge biblical authority, but to protect it. The goal is not to open the door to a broader symbolic reading of Scripture, but to quarantine the parts that contradict science while leaving the rest untouched. The cosmology becomes metaphorical, but the morality remains literal. The dome is symbolic, but gender roles are sacred. The order of creation is poetry, but the prohibitions on same-sex relationships or mandates of male headship are divinely binding. This is not a consistent interpretive strategy—it is a tactical maneuver. Metaphor is deployed only where science forces it, never where moral discomfort might invite it. The result is a selective theology in which the Bible is flexible when needed and absolute when convenient.

Ironically, many conservatives who fiercely defend Leviticus 18:22 (a verse condemning male-male sex) seem unbothered by Leviticus 19:28, which forbids tattoos. Yet the two verses are literally side by side. This inconsistency is not accidental—it is the natural outcome of a selective theology that elevates passages aligning with modern cultural biases while dismissing others as irrelevant or symbolic. When a biblical command supports contemporary conservative values, it is treated as morally binding. When it conflicts with cultural norms or scientific evidence, it is rebranded as metaphor, allegory, or “contextual.” The Bible, in this way, ceases to function as a coherent moral guide and becomes a tool for ideological reinforcement.

What this reveals is not a thoughtful or principled hermeneutic, but a cultural reflex disguised as faith. The reinterpretation of Genesis 1 as metaphorical is not a gateway to deeper theological reflection—it is a pressure valve, a way to release the tension created by science without surrendering control over the Bible’s moral authority. It is not about understanding what ancient people believed—it’s about preserving what modern conservatives want to believe. This framework selectively bends the text just enough to avoid outright contradiction, while leaving its social prescriptions untouched and unquestioned.

So let us be clear: Genesis is a remarkable, beautiful, and profoundly human text. It reflects the wonder and fear of early civilizations gazing at the stars and asking where they came from. It captures the desire to find order, meaning, and moral structure in a vast and uncertain world. But it is also flawed, mistaken, and outdated—not just in its science, but in its moral assumptions and social imagination. To pretend otherwise is not to honor the Bible—it is to misunderstand both it and ourselves. To insist that it must be metaphor in one breath and literal in the next, depending only on what is culturally convenient, is to hollow out its meaning.

If faith is to have any credibility in the modern world, it must let the Bible be what it actually is: a record of humanity reaching toward God, not the voice of God unerringly dictating to humanity. It must begin not with denial or deflection, but with intellectual honesty and the humility to acknowledge where our ancestors were right—and where they were wrong.