Artemis II and Biblical Literacy

Have you seen the Artemis II photos of the Earth from space? The entire mission is a glorious return to space exploration and an assertion of human creativity, ingenuity and intelligence. But instead of celebrating, I’m going to take this opportunity to once again point out the hypocrisies of certain “biblical,” Christians. The high-res images and broadcasts clearly show our planet is a beautiful blue sphere and not a flat disk. The photos give us a perspective that was not possible when the Bible was written. This creates a conflict for some literalists, because despite this scientific confirmation of something that Greek philosophers wrote about as early as the third century BCE, many biblical writers seem to think Earth is flat.

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.

Here we have the biblical writers imagining a flat Earth, otherwise how else can you cover all of creation on a spherical planet with a dome. The Earth was kind of like a room service plate and the dome was the cloche covering it. The dome is sometimes called a firmament, so when you hear that word in an old hymn, I apologize it will now and forever distract you. This dome separates the water above from the waters below. That bring up so many more questions. What exactly is going on with waters above? This made sense in some ancient cosmologies that portrayed a flat Earth covered with a sky dome. This portrayal is impossible with a spherical Earth and again, what water was above the supposed dome?

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.

Job 9:6

he shakes the earth out of its place,
    and its pillars tremble;

Here we have some biblical passages talking about pillars that hold the Earth up. Your room service plate and cloche has to rest on something, perhaps a delivery cart, otherwise it tumbles to the floor. Since the authors of first Samuel understood neither gravity nor our relationship to our solar system, they needed to rest a flat Earth on something. Some people say this isn’t evidence the biblical writers thought Earth was flat and I suppose you could hold a ball on pillars, even though it seems like a fragile set up for all of creation to me. Nevertheless, I don’t see any pillars in the Artemis II images. I think we can correctly surmise that the authors were wrong in thinking that the Earth was a flat structure that needed to be held up with pillars. Let me restate this for emphasis: The Bible is wrong in places. Are these passages poetic? Sure. But it also reveals that the biblical writers had real limitations in their scientific knowledge. No poet writing in this century would describe our solar system this way. We merrily travel around the sun, pillar free.

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.

Isaiah 11:12

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.

Here we have passages discussing the four corners of the earth and holding back four winds, both of which are total nonsense. Pick up a basketball and show me its corners. But if you thought the world was flat with literal sides and edges, this makes sense. Again, it comes from an ancient understanding of cosmology and not any real awareness of reality. Why would you poetically describe four corners to mean the ends of the Earth if you knew the world was round? It’s like describing the fourth side of a triangle. It’s not based on reality but on a description of their experience of the Earth, which seemed flat to them. It’s like a child smelling the smell of wet paint and saying that it smells red because their dad just painted the barn last week. I’m a little more willing to grant that Revelation is using some outdated poetic imagery given it also contains a seven-headed dragon, a woman clothed with the sun, the four horsemen who bring the end of the world and other fun stuff for your child’s nursery mobiles.

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,

Knowing that the Earth is a sphere, how can you possibly see all the kingdoms in the world from a mountain? I can remember spending time in my aunt’s and cousin’s cabin in Running Springs, CA as a kid and when the smog hadn’t flooded in, you could see the ocean toward Catalina. But I couldn’t see Japan. What I could very clearly see was the curvature of the Earth dropping off the horizon line. I’m willing to give more leeway to poetic license on this one as well because the I don’t think this story should be taken literally at all anyway. The poetic point is that Jesus could have claimed all the worldly power for Himself and chose not to. Many of you may disagree, but while there are clearly evil powers in control of our world, I don’t believe in an actual devil who escorted Jesus around the wilderness. I don’t think this story happened at all in a historical sense, which means I think it is coded in symbol. But that’s something for another day.

My point here is not to argue that the Earth is round. I would hope all my readers believe that already. Although maybe someone does need to argue these things because there has been a resurgence of biblical flat earthers thanks to the bizarre social media algorithms that are helping to tear apart humanity. This survey is nearly a decade old, but YouGov found that only 66% of the millennials they surveyed believed in a round earth. And most of the flat earthers considered themselves to be quite religious. Some others also expressed doubts about a round Earth. I love that we feel empowered to express doubts about things like the solar system, the effectiveness of vaccines and the impossibility of undocumented immigrants voting in our elections. Only 29% of evangelicals in the United States have a college degree compared to 44% of Muslims. Please understand, I’m not saying you need a college degree to prove your intelligence; however, there is one conspicuous group of voters who refuse to send their kids to public elementary schools, let alone universities, for fear of liberal indoctrination like studying history and science

Online content creators get clicks for being outrageous but people who lack critical thinking skills assume that their algorithmically driven feeds represent a preponderance of evidence. Still, I feel it is very important to state that I don’t know any major Christian denomination that supports a flat Earth cosmology. So again, my point in writing this is not to argue against “biblical” flat Eartherism but to point out a kind of double standard that exists for many Christians who claim the “biblical” label.

The most common rebuttal from many evangelicals is that these passages are poetic. Some of the more sophisticated evangelicals might argue that the Bible to presents ideas that are phenomenological, meaning that it’s important to present things as they appear rather than how they are. It’s like when Jesus refers to the debauchery of the days of Noah. There was no historical Noah, no historical flood, but Jesus can reference a well-known legend for theological purposes. Even if the story isn’t historical, it is maybe the best way to get the point across. It doesn’t mean Jesus thought it was true, but his hearers would understand the story and that’s what’s important. Although, maybe He did think there was a real Noah and flood, and I’m also fine with Jesus being wrong in some details given he was born into the first century. I applaud this assertion of the incarnational nature of the text, just as Jesus is incarnational and must have certain ideas that come along with being a human in his time. Certainly, biblical writers could not write beyond their own understanding and language. But it’s not difficult to see the significant hermeneutical tension that results from these ideas. Doesn’t that require us to reinterpret the meaning of any text based on new ideas, new culture, new language, and you know, real life?

I’m especially offended by a kind of selective literalism that creeps into many evangelical world views. These same believers who say that the pillars of the Earth are just metaphors will turn around and try to insist on a literal interpretation of texts where biblical marriage cannot include same sex couples, that gender expansive identities are not biblical or that Psalm 139 should somehow literally prove that life begins at conception.

As you know, I don’t think anyone can claim to be entirely biblical, mostly because I don’t think that word even means anything. Christian flat Earthers are right about one thing: this argument is about authority. Who do you believe? Who do you trust? But they are not putting their trust in the Bible because the Bible doesn’t speak clearly or in a single voice on most modern topics. Instead, they are putting their trust in YouTube charlatans in the case of flat Earth arguments and in bigots in the case of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Don’t talk to me about being “biblical,” when Artemis II once again proves the Earth is round and the biblical authors were flat wrong in their cosmology.