Who First Discovered the World Was Round?

Continuing a Bible study of Job, now Job speaks again:

(Job 26:1) But Job answered and said, (2) "How have you helped him who is without power? How have you saved the arm that has no strength? (3) How have you counseled him who has no wisdom? And how have you plentifully declared the thing as it is? (4) To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit came from you?"

There is a very interesting mixture of opinions about to whom Job is referring in these scriptures. Some theologians believe it is about God and should be said with a little different emphasis like, "How You have helped him who is without power!" That may be because it becomes evident Job talks about God in the following verses. But up to that point, I think he is being sarcastic toward his friends who claim to have the wisdom of God, but offer him nothing. I think the scriptures are to be taken literally and said in the sense, "Just how have you helped anybody?" I believe that must be the case because in verse 4, he asks whose spirit came from them; he would not have been asking that of God. After sarcastically zinging his friends, then Job transitions into a discussion of God:

(5) "Ghosts are in anguish from under the waters, and those inhabiting with them. (6) Hell is naked before Him, and destruction has no covering."

I took a little liberty with my personal transcription of verse 5. KJV says "dead things" instead of "ghosts", but Strong's and Brown-Driver-Briggs dictionaries indicate the original word indeed means more than dead things, but the ghosts of the dead things. Additionally, KJV says the dead things are formed under the waters, but the original word, "chul" most often means more than just formed; it means "to twist, whirl, dance, writhe, fear, tremble, travail, be in anguish, be pained", to name a few. I believe the sense of these two verses is to say that nothing is outside of God's power, not the spirit world of ghosts and not even hell!

(7) "He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth upon nothing. (8) He binds up the waters in His thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it. (9) He holds back the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud upon it. (10) He has compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end."

Job describes the awesome wonders of the all-powerful God. Most astonishing to me when I first discovered it, was that the Bible tells us the world is round in verse 10. In school we were taught that Columbus was the first to discover the world was not flat. Since then, we've gotten more "educated" and have learned that there were those who believed it before then. Do an internet query on "who discovered the world was round" and you'll get a huge variety of answers. I was amazed to see "the best answer" on a Yahoo board which asked the question, added this comment, "The flatness of the Earth was some sort of imposition by religious fanatics of the middle age." While I will agree that "religious" does not always mean "Christian" or "Biblical", I found the statement awfully interesting considering any religious scholar with access to the scriptures would have known that God created a circular world.

Verse 10 reads: "He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end." Newer translations say it this way: "He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness" (NKJV); "He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness" (ESV). I, personally, always refer to the old KJV myself, as I believe its translation to be the most pure (see here), but I used the others as examples here to show that scholars knew the meaning of the original Greek words translated as "compassed" in Job 26:10. Two words were used, "chug" which means "to encircle, encompass, describe a circle, draw round, make a circle", and "al" which means "above, over, upon, or against". Clearly, the meaning is that God drew a circular boundary above the waters of the earth. Anyone with access to the early scriptures could have had a notion that the earth was round. Isn't that a marvelous discovery?!

(11) "The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His reproof. (12) He divides the sea with His power, and by His understanding He crushes the proud."

God is all-powerful; He controls the heavens, the oceans, and people, all things that would have seemed impossible to control by mortal men. Job uses them as examples to show the enormity of God's power.

(13) "By His Spirit He has garnished the heavens; His hand has formed the crooked serpent."

Actually, I believe the truer translation of the second part of verse 13 is as the NKJV suggests, "His hand pierced the fleeing serpent." Once again, I don't think the KJV translators used a strong enough word in "formed" to truly describe what the original word meant. The root of "chalal" is "to bore" which very simply could be "to form", but further definitions of the original word indicate it means more completely to "bore through, pierce, wound, etc." However, I decided to leave the verse as transcribed in KJV for my study, as it really doesn't matter for the context. The all-powerful God has adorned the heavens, and He has created even the most uniquely formed creatures, as well as stopping them in their tracks, no matter how slippery and slithering they may be. Actually, the old Biblical scholars take the "fleeing serpent" to mean a constellation in the sky. That is also a good context here since Job is describing how God adorned the heavens. The sense of this verse is the same no matter how you interpret it.

(14) "Lo, these are parts of His ways; but how little a portion is heard of Him? But the thunder of His power who can understand?"

Job concludes by asking who can really understand the vast magnitude of God's infinite power. His friends claim they know the mind of God, but Job has sought to prove to them that they cannot possibly know the mind of so powerful and infinite an Almighty God.