To be fair, the crystal sphere thing doesn’t appear in any Abrahamic holy books (that I know of); it’s a feature of Aristotelian cosmology that the Church picked up during the period when it was essentially the only scholarly authority running in what used to be called Christendom and therefore needed an opinion on natural philosophy. I believe the bit in Genesis about erecting a firmament in the primordial water does ultimately refer to a traditional belief along similar lines, but it’s pretty ambiguous.
Flat-earth cosmology was known to be false by Aristotle’s time, although some monks in the early Middle Ages seem to have missed the memo—again without explicit Biblical support, though. Science in the Islamic world always used a round-earth model as far as I know, and I don’t remember reading anything in the Koran that contradicts that, although it’s been several years.
To be fair, the crystal sphere thing doesn’t appear in any Abrahamic holy books (that I know of)
Ok, I may have overreached with the “crystal” thing, but there are definitely several passages that refer to a solid dome separating two sections of the world. This dome is typically referred to as the “firmament”, and is referred to in passages outside of Genesis on occasion.
As for the flat Earth, I admit that the claims there are weaker. The Bible manages “four corners of the Earth”, but that could be a metaphor. The Devil also transports Jesus to the top of a tall mountain to show him “all the kingdoms of the Earth”, but that could’ve been an illusion.
To be fair, the crystal sphere thing doesn’t appear in any Abrahamic holy books (that I know of); it’s a feature of Aristotelian cosmology that the Church picked up during the period when it was essentially the only scholarly authority running in what used to be called Christendom and therefore needed an opinion on natural philosophy. I believe the bit in Genesis about erecting a firmament in the primordial water does ultimately refer to a traditional belief along similar lines, but it’s pretty ambiguous.
Flat-earth cosmology was known to be false by Aristotle’s time, although some monks in the early Middle Ages seem to have missed the memo—again without explicit Biblical support, though. Science in the Islamic world always used a round-earth model as far as I know, and I don’t remember reading anything in the Koran that contradicts that, although it’s been several years.
Ok, I may have overreached with the “crystal” thing, but there are definitely several passages that refer to a solid dome separating two sections of the world. This dome is typically referred to as the “firmament”, and is referred to in passages outside of Genesis on occasion.
As for the flat Earth, I admit that the claims there are weaker. The Bible manages “four corners of the Earth”, but that could be a metaphor. The Devil also transports Jesus to the top of a tall mountain to show him “all the kingdoms of the Earth”, but that could’ve been an illusion.